19. Tee
Tee
“This Kiss” - Faith Hill
B ecause Sundance is the reason I came home.
That name...
It puts me on edge.
Sundance Kid.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The Western.
That’s how my Butch earned the name.
But he isn’t my Butch. I’m not sure he ever was.
“You mean he...”
“It wasn’t exactly his fault. We were in a...” He hesitates. “…tangle.” If grief had a sound, it’s that one word. My throat bobs as he continues, “He crashed into me.”
“Jesus.” A part of me wants to touch his leg where, once, there’d been a cast. The urge to check in with him is all-consuming, but I don’t.
Because that would be weird.
And everything about tonight is precisely that, so I don’t need to add to it.
Earlier, I figured I’d end up in Millie’s bed, yet here I am, on a truck bed with Cody, discussing death, movie scores, and the sperm dispersal of a famous film director.
“It’s been rough,” he agrees, which tells me more happened than he’s willing to talk about tonight. “But what do you think? About Sundance, I mean.”
“D-Do you think he’d help?”
“I think if you get some music together and give me a demo, there’d be no harm in asking.”
Something settles deep in my being. Something that’s forever restless.
He’s so calm. He radiates it. And there’s no false promise there. No hope. Simply fact.
My music will stand for itself. Or it won’t.
He’s only helping me get it into the hands of someone who might appreciate it. Or not.
I know I’m good. I know that part of my issues with my previous conductor, Jacobie, was because the committee always wanted me to have bigger parts and he liked to keep his orchestra musicians believing they were average.
One of the best symphonies in the world and he loved to put everyone down.
Ha.
My hand clutches at Cody’s. “Are you sure you don’t mind calling in that favor?”
When his free fingers drift over the curve of my cheek, my breath freezes in my lungs.
Is he going to kiss me?
But, no.
I sag with disappointment as he taps his pointer finger against my chin instead.
“Wouldn’t have offered if I did.”
My throat feels full. An orange has definitely gotten lodged in it, but the piercing sound of a motorbike rattling down the road is like a siren in the stillness of the night.
Tension fills him at that. “Damn, your mom wasn’t exaggerating about how noisy they are.”
There’s no denying that Pigeon Creek might be full of hustle and bustle during the day, but after 9 PM, when The Coffee Shop closes its doors, it’s a ghost town.
There are still signs of life, and it’s not as silent as out here, but that racket would stir anyone. Even the dead from their graves.
“When that big stampede traveled along the highway, it made me think it was thundering,” I admit dryly. “Still, that they’re coming this way means they’re not going through town, right?”
“Huh. I was slow to pick up on that.”
“Don’t worry. Not even Baby Cowboy has as many IQ points as I do.”
“And we’re back to you being bigheaded.” He laughs. “I’m glad actually. Don’t know if I could cope otherwise.”
Huffing, I shove his arm, but I’m only messing. When he lifts said arm and tucks it around me, I release a sigh.
Contentment shuttles through me as he mutters, “That was too easy.”
I stiffen. “What was?”
“Me talking to the MC this afternoon and them listening tonight?”
Immediately, I relax.
I thought he was talking about me.
I hear him rub his cheek because his beard scuffs over his palm. “Nothing’s ever that easy.”
There’s the voice of experience talking there—and that experience was forged in warfare, not the police academy. Or marshal academy? Whichever.
“They probably don’t want to get on your bad side.”
“Doubtful. I’m not exactly terrifying in my Chief Wiggum outfit.”
A bark of laughter escapes me. “The last thing you look like is Chief Wiggum.”
I hear the grin in his voice. “I was scarier in the sky.”
“You had a fifty-million-dollar piece of metal between you and the ground and it was loaded with bombs—hell, yeah, you were scarier. I, for one, am grateful you’re not walking around with incendiary devices?—”
“You’re no fun,” he teases.
“Tell me something about your Top Gun days.”
His smile fades.
It might be dark out here, but the light from the moon sends rays drifting over his features. I see it fade, sense it turn reminiscent.
I could let him off the hook, but I don’t.
Experience with Butch tells me that soldiers don’t like to share stories, but there had to be some funny anecdotes. I think it’s important for them to remember the good as much as they do the bad.
Even if the bad outweighs the good ten to one.
“I was close with two guys—Jax and Loca. They’re…” His throat bobs but he rolls past what I know he can’t say. They’re gone. “Anyway, Jax was a little fucker. Always getting into trouble. Incapable of staying straight. Honestly, he’s lucky that he made it through training.”
“That’s how bad he was?”
“Worse.” Smirking, he taps my nose. “Anyway, this particular day, we were in the barracks, and this guy Jax already disliked got in his face about his family. Jax’s past wasn’t the squeakiest. Rumors had spread that he was there unfairly. Some program to straighten out bad kids, but it was bullshit.
“Jax was a brilliant soldier and an even better pilot. They were just jealous as fuck. So, shortly after the pair of them got into it with each other and earned themselves two weeks peeling potatoes together, we learned the douche was terrified of rats. Of course, Jax immediately started trapping rats?—”
“What?! Why?!”
“Listen and I’ll tell you,” he chortles. “So, he’d trap them and then he’d drop cheese and shit around the guy’s locker, under his pillow?—”
“Then let the rats loose?” I gasp. “That’s so devious.”
“That was Jax. Anyway, he did this for weeks. Never in a cycle. Always random days. Sometimes when the guy was off duty, sometimes when he was on, but Loca and me, we were the ones who’d tell the guy if there was a rat near his bed.”
“You were his wingmen,” I crow in delight.
His smile turns wistful. “We were.”
I need that wistfulness to fade, so I sneak my hand into his and squeeze. “What happened?”
“One day, this guy gets out of the shower and there’s a rat right on his pillow. It was perfect timing because Jax was in the air. No way he could blame him. He let loose a scream—” Cody chuckles. “I swear to fuck he turned mezzosoprano.”
“Was Jax disappointed that he didn’t see it?”
“Nah. The damage was already done.”
“What—psychologically?”
His lips curve. “Nope. The guy earned his call name.”
“No way! His call name was Rat ?” At his nod, I shriek with laughter. “That’s diabolical!”
“That’s Jax for you. You’d have gotten along well.”
“I think so too.” Still cackling, I turn to him. “Thank you for telling me that.”
He shrugs. “It’s…fine.”
My cackles wane, so do our words.
I look into his eyes. He stares straight back at me.
When the silence continues, when he doesn’t make a move, when his breath brushes my lips and mine brushes his, I arc against him, needing to bridge the gap between us, desperate to touch this man who, on the outside, is all alpha, but on the inside is broken with grief and loss.
A part of me expects him to jerk away as if he’s been stung when our mouths collide, but he doesn’t.
The faintest click at the back of his throat, one that sounds like relief and want and need, has me shoving my body tighter against him.
The urges that rocket through me aren’t alien, but they almost are.
They’re a thousand times stronger than what I usually feel when I’m in this situation.
My brain never shuts off, my mind switching to what I need to do tomorrow as I force myself to concentrate because orgasms are great for stress relief and I’m usually always stressed about something.
But as he kisses me, taking over, soft grunts drifting from him as he devours me, tongue thrusting into the soft cavern of my mouth, enticing mine to play, overwhelming me…
Silence.
That’s what I feel—free from anything other than music.
No thoughts.
Just him.
Him .
His song.
Oh god. It’s heaven. Just him. And me. And the feelings between us. And there are feelings. So many. They ricochet between us.
How haven’t we kissed yet?
I draw my arms around his neck, holding him closer still because climbing into him wouldn’t be near enough. As I wriggle closer, I nearly knee him in the balls, but it works because his legs part and my knee settles in the gap there. When I gently press it against his dick, I can feel his erection and I shudder in response.
I rest my core right on his thigh and rock.
I don’t care that it’s fast.
That I have all the desperation of a kid hitting first base for the first time in their life, the urgency doesn’t fade from me.
I can feel it.
Sense it.
SNIFF it.
I know it’s there.
It.
Waiting in the wings.
It’s there.
So fucking close.
I chase it with every ounce of my being, my body recognizing that this man will do what no other ever has.
My fear?
He’ll pull away, but when his hand shifts to my ass, it registers that stopping me from reaching the land of O is the last thing on his mind.
The act of pinning him down so I can ride his thigh means the skirt of my dress rides up too. When his fingers find my ass, I release a keening cry. But that’s nothing to when they dip in and circle my slit through my panties.
At that moment, I realize I was a fool.
What the fuck was I thinking wearing panties?
Why the fuck did I wear this dress?
Urgency overwhelms me.
Thoughts return.
Stress with it.
As he’s fucking my mouth, I can feel my panic overtake everything until he relinquishes his hold on my tongue. “You want me to make you feel good, baby girl?”
Inside, I freeze.
I freeze.
Because I have to.
If I don’t, everything will spill out.
My organs, blood, all in the rush to declare YES.
Baby girl?
PLEASE.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Please, yes, yes,” I cry when his fingers trickle beneath my panties.
Oh god.
The first time he rubs my clit, I feel like the fuse on a firework that’s been lit.
I jerk against him, a pitiful, helpless groan drifting from me.
“Oh god?—”
“No,” he denies, his nose rubbing mine. “Cody. Say my name like a good girl, Christy.”
The desire, the need, the frustration, the expectation—they squeeze tears out of me.
“Cody, please, please, give it to me.”
“Give what?”
“Y-Your dick.”
“Nuh-huh. I don’t put out on the first date.”
Inside, I’m squealing— first date?
Then, I realize what I said and I sag against him. Disappointment doesn’t hold me for long, though, because he gets back to touching my clit.
And I don’t know how he does it, but holy fuck, it’s better than when I do it.
But then, I don’t do it goddamn right.
All my adult life, I thought I was broken, but?—
“You’re so fucking wet, Christy.” Christy. Not Tee. God, that’s hot. “You feel that? So fucking slick. For me. I know it is. You thinking of what I’m doing to you, baby? You thinking of my dick sliding in deep?”
“Touch me!”
“I am.”
“P-Panties?—”
“There we are. I can hear it.”
His nose rubs mine before he plunders my mouth again. My nails dig into his wrist with one hand, and the other I use to shove aside my underwear.
When bare skin touches bare skin, I’m sure I’m going to die. Then, I realize death was premature. His thumb brushes my clit as two fingers slide down to my slit and he thrusts them in.
I let loose a sharp mewl, keening and sobbing—the still quiet of the night amplifying my sounds, making them louder and clearer. My own noises take the place of half notes and whole notes, turning me on even more. Ratcheting up the need, intensifying the urgency as I approach a crescendo that has nothing to do with quarter notes and eighth notes —it’s the most beautiful music I’ve ever made.
When he hooks the digits forward, rubbing against a place I’ve only read about in books, I gasp into his mouth then break the connection to sing, “Please. Cody. Please. I’ve never... Ever. Never. Please. Never felt. I need. You. Please, please, please.”
I can feel his body’s response to my litany, but he whispers, “That’s exactly what I want to hear whenever I’m about to make you come.”
Whenever?
As I’m shrieking at the possibility of this happening, of him actually saying it out loud, I unravel.
That soft, squidgy part of my pussy performs a crescendo ending and the detonation is complete.
It starts at my toes.
I didn’t think it would, even if the romance novels said it did. I wasn’t a believer.
But, fuck, if I’m not going to come to Cody’s church every goddamn Sunday.
The agonizing ecstasy shoots up my calves to the backs of my knees—the tingles make me feel as if I’ll never walk again.
The hairs at the backs of my thighs stand to attention before the sensation shuttles toward my core. That’s when it arcs out like a rainbow and I’m the pot of gold. It hits every single erogenous zone in my possession until I’m gasping for air, blinded, unable to hear, making the earlier silence all the noisier. My skin’s on fire, electricity shattering my nervous system.
It’s pleasure, but it’s pain.
It’s too good, but it’s so bad.
It’s heaven, but it’s hell.
A study in contrasts.
A study in Cody.
And all through it, he doesn’t let up. His fingers keep on rubbing that part of me and his thumb continues stroking my clit.
But it’s the:
“Oh, fuck, yeah, Christy. Give it to me. I want it fucking all.”
And the:
“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come. God, next time, I want to watch your eyes as you explode for me.”
Next time?!
While I’m feeling like I scored a winning goal in the Stanley Cup final, he’s rasping:
“I’m not going to stop until you’re so fucking addicted to this pleasure that you never let me go.”
Never let him go?
I’m an octopus. Watch me go Squidward on him as if I have access to superglue.
“You’re going to lock your eyes on mine so I can see you fall and fall and fall. I’m going to make you pussy drunk and then cock drunk, and you’re never going to want to?—”
The only thing that could make this exquisite agony better?
His release.
Those insane words he spoke work the same wild magic on him as they do me.
When I feel him jerk against me, his deep groan settling in my core for a final matinee as he pinches my uber-sensitive clit, I shatter. AGAIN!
This time, I scream. It’s Wagner-esque. An aria?—
Hell, no. It’s a full opera.
This is nothing like my earlier release and so much better.
Yet worse.
Because I’m empty.
He’s not inside me.
I want his cum.
Oh, jeez. Every ounce of cream-pie porn I’ve ever watched filters through my mind, making me think of him doing that to me.
Then, fuck, getting down on his knees and cleaning me up.
Or, better, him sticking his fingers in to plug him inside me.
Brain, body, being all entwined, I release a second scream, short and sharp this time, before I implode into as many pieces as the stars in the night sky above me.