Chapter 38Cody
38
Cody
My confessions weren’t over. There was still one more that I wanted to unload before the day came to a close.
And when I perceived the slightest discomfort from Liem—whether it was real or imagined, I would never know—I decided our wandering was over, grabbed his hand, and took a slow pace back to the bungalow.
I had to get back to Bay Springs tomorrow for an important, vaguely secret meeting, but that was the last thing on my mind now as I clamored into the hot tub and perched on the captain’s chair, eager for the best vantage point to watch a lithe and very naked Liem step in after me.
His movements were as graceful and fluid as they always were, so maybe I had my answer.
“I need to tell you something,” I started, so incredibly smoothly.
His smile was relaxed as he draped his loose braid over the edge of the tub and settled back. “Tell me.”
Dunking my head backward into the hot water, I wet my hair and brushed it back with my hand, surprised at how fast it was growing back out.
“I broke into Bree’s grandmother’s house.”
He rose from his relaxed position like a phantom, his braid splashing into the water as he regarded me. “Oh?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. After I got back. It was a, um….” I splashed my hand across the surface of the water. “A whole thing.”
Liem seemed to be processing, so I reached over and turned the jets up and left him to it, the noise thickening the space. After a few moments, he glided over to me and straddled my lap, emptying my brain of all thought as the jets pulsed around us.
“Why?” he asked mildly, his dark gaze lit by the lights underneath the water and the patio lights strung around us.
I draped my arms across the edge of the tub behind me, opening myself to him in every way. “It felt like a good idea at the time.”
“Why?” he repeated.
“I was angry.”
He nodded in encouragement. “Why?”
“For so many reasons, but I don’t think I have it in me to dig deeper into it tonight,” I replied honestly. “But I wanted you to know because my dad’s garage is full of singed, burnt, and otherwise messed-up picture frames from the house, and I need your expertise to restore them for Bree.”
Liem stared at me, his eyes wide for a long moment, and then he attacked.
It was neither gentle nor graceful.
His arms flung around my neck and his mouth crashed to mine as he ground himself on my lap all at once, and I was so stunned that I didn’t even move my arms from the back of the tub. I just took it. I took everything Liem was giving me, meeting the strokes of his tongue and the motions of his hips.
“You are magnificent,” he moaned between swipes of his tongue.
My head fell back as he moved his lips from my mouth to my jaw, then down to my throat. He sucked on my hammering pulse, and my hips jackknifed as I pressed into him and let out a pained sound.
“ Fuck, ” I cursed to the night sky. He sucked again. “If this is how you respond,” I panted out as he moved his sucks, licks, and kisses all around my throat, “I may throw out my plans and just take up a life of crime.”
He smiled against my skin and then licked a path to my ear, kissing me just below it.
Things moved quickly then as Liem, with one last kiss to my lips, eased off my lap and reached past me, his face coming back into view a second later with the lube in one hand from the bedroom and a towel in the other.
I raised my eyebrows at him, not having noticed the former earlier. “Presumptuous little minx.”
“Optimistic,” he corrected, his sweet voice huskier than I’d ever heard it as he carefully laid the towel on the edge of the hot tub.
He smoothed his tattooed hand over it, looked over his shoulder at me with a smile, and then folded his body over the side of the tub, presenting his perfect ass to me in offering.
I groaned to the sky again. “I am going to die.”
Liem smile turned wicked. “Then please take me with you.”
What an offer.
I fell onto him, grabbing the lube and putting it somewhere safe just before I gripped his cheeks, spread them, and visited heaven again.
I licked, sucked, and explored until Liem’s distress became apparent, and then I slicked my fingers, adding them to our pleasure.
With our legs mostly submerged but our upper bodies out, the contrast between hot, rushing water below and cooler air above was intoxicating.
He was intoxicating, with his feverish skin and responsive body. His demands and praises.
“I need you,” he moaned.
“I’ve got you,” I promised in return, sliding into his opening slowly, carefully.
The jets shut off then, their timer running out, and the sudden quiet of the moment urged me to keep my movements slow.
Keeping my hands at Liem’s waist, I slid out of him slowly and back in even slower, my gaze fixed on the spot where our bodies met.
Where we connected.
The damp ends of Liem’s hair were plastered to his bicep, and his mouth was parted in pleasure. I braced my foot on the small lip built into the hot tub and folded myself against his back, wrapping my arms around his upper body and pulling him to me, needing him closer. He gasped against the change in angle and bore down on me. I had to grit my teeth to not explode on the spot, then rewarded myself with a taste of his lips when I succeeded.
“Gorgeous, perfect,” I whispered against his lips. “So good for me.”
My thrusts were shallower in this position but no less intense. We found a rhythm there, standing in the hot tub under the moonlight.
When the static along my spine became urgent electricity, I wrapped my fist around his perfect dick and stroked, needing to feel him come with me again. He reached back and grabbed my neck, taking my mouth in a sloppy kiss. Our pace increased then as we barreled toward release together, my hips rolling forward as Liem’s pushed back on me. After only a few more strokes, he clenched around me so intensely, it was nearly painful, and that electricity became liquid fire as I came inside him. His body shuddered, goose bumps rippling across his shoulders as I filled him, and then with one more stroke, he followed.
After I caught my breath, I glanced over him and noted that the thoughtful little minx had come on the towel instead of in or on the hot tub.
I dropped my forehead to his shoulder then, my limbs still shaking with aftershocks.
It was several long moments before I could find any words, and they were not poetry.
“Holy shit, LL. We need to hydrate.”
His body shook with laughter under me, and somehow, that was the moment that I felt my life slot into place.
Once we had enough blood restored to our limbs and brains to function, I helped Liem out of the hot tub and wrapped him in a towel, taking great pleasure in drying him off. In caring for him.
I scooped him up then, cradling him to my chest as I carried him inside like a bride, and set him on the kitchen counter.
We ate cookies and hydrated our wrung-out bodies between bouts of easy conversation, laughing and talking deep into the night.
Eventually we showered again, actually no-nonsense this time, then collapsed in bed, exhausted and elated. We fell into a deep sleep quickly, our bodies intertwined, our fingers interlaced.
Our souls warm and content.
Before dawn of the next morning, we said a mournful goodbye to the bungalow.
Liem stood in the driveway, dressed in the clothes he’d shown up in yesterday and looking as beautiful as ever in the slouchy, soft shirt and pants as he watched me hoist his Vespa into the bed of my truck.
“Heavens,” he murmured as he pressed the tops of his hands against his rosy cheeks.
My inflated pride would never recover from this.
“I lift now,” I deadpanned after I shut the tailgate.
Liem approached me and gripped my newly bulging bicep. “Hmm, yes. I feel it.” His eyes darted up to me, dark and full of mischief as he leaned forward and licked a quick stripe up my arm, maintaining eye contact with me as he straightened and licked his lips before saying sweetly, “I can taste it too.”
Stunned, all I could do was snort a laugh and then pull my little beast in for a tight hug. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed just as hard, then surprised me by stepping onto the tops of my feet, putting him at the perfect height to burrow right under my chin.
I indulged in the feeling of him for a long time before I carefully walked us—with Liem’s feet still on top of mine—to the passenger door. I opened it and guided him to the seat, missing his heat as soon as he was gone. Once he was situated, I picked up the box from the ground and handed it to him. Liem eyed it curiously before resting it delicately on his lap.
We had a two-hour drive back to Bay Springs ahead of us. Plenty of time for questions, if he wanted to ask them.
But first, we were dropping by the condo for his things and so he could check on Aunt Ari one more time and make sure her migraines hadn’t returned.
I kissed him quickly on the mouth and then shut him in before going to the driver’s side, Once I was buckled, I turned to Liem, my gaze dancing over the shadows on his face made by the cabin light above the dash.
His dark eyes flicked to mine, probably sensing my gaze. “What time is this mysterious meeting of yours?”
“Ten o’clock downtown. I promise to tell you all about it when it’s done, but I don’t want to get your hopes up if it doesn’t go as expected.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “So delightfully mysterious, Cody. Like this.” He touched the tip of his finger to the silver circle on the box. “There’s a lock.”
“There is,” I agreed, then gestured to my keys in the ignition before turning them and turning the truck on. “The key is here.”
Liem smiled at the key chain he’d made me, seeming pleased as he asked, “When can I open it?”
“Whenever you want. It’s yours. Or, it kind of is. It’s mine too.”
“Mysterious,” he repeated.
“I meant for you to open it last night, but you were too insatiable. We ran out of time,” I said dryly.
He smiled, full of amusement. “Yes, I was. And am.”
I turned on the truck’s headlights and pulled onto the street, chuckling. “Tell me which way to go?”
He gave me directions, and I shifted gears, physically and metaphorically, and wished I could hold his hand instead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him set the box at his feet, apparently deciding to wait.
Solving one of my problems, I grabbed his hand and set it on the stick shift, then gripped his hand above it. The smile on his face every time we shifted together was well worth it.
The streets of Gulf Shores were quiet this early in the morning, and we made our way easily to Vinh’s former condo, mostly keeping between Second and Third gear as we navigated the small roads.
But then we saw lights. Flashing red and blues that had me slowing the truck. Lights that had Liem’s hand slipping from under mine as we approached a tall condo building.
“This is it?” I asked quietly, hoping he would say no.
But he didn’t say anything at all, his eyes fixed on the two police cars, ambulance, and fire truck that were parked in front of the building, blocking the road. I pulled over onto the grassy area by the street a few hundred yards away.
“Liem?”
When he still didn’t answer, I moved my gaze from the lights to him. He held his phone in front of him, frozen as a statue, and then I registered the buzzing and looked at the screen. Vinh was calling him.
I glanced at the console. 6:12 a.m. No good phone calls were made at 6:12 a.m.
The call rang out, and then, a moment later, my phone started to buzz. Inexplicable sweat broke out across my brow as I looked at it.
Vinh.
I answered after only a moment’s hesitation, my voice thankfully steady. “Hello?”
There was a short pause before Vinh spoke. “Cody. Please tell me where you are.”
It was impossible to read his tone, so I didn’t even try. “In Gulf Shores. Liem is here with me.”
“Where?” he repeated.
I glanced at the man beside me, his face paling before my eyes. I reached for his hand and squeezed it tightly, which seemed to bring him back to himself.
“Is it Dad?” he asked.
Or maybe not. It wasn’t a logical assumption, and that worried me.
“Sorry, never mind,” he muttered, and when he met my gaze, his eyes were almost imploring. As if I could make whatever happen not be so.
“We’re parked near your old condo,” I told Vinh hesitantly, “but there are some first responders blocking the entrance. Not sure what’s going on.”
Another beat of silence. “Cody.” Then Vinh sighed brokenly. “Listen to me.”
And I did, even though I didn’t fucking want to.
I listened to Vinh, and I fucking withered the longer he spoke.
Not for myself, but for Liem. For Vinh. For all of them.
I said nothing as he spoke, offered no words, and when he was done, I dropped my phone on the seat, not even sure I’d ended the call.
My hand still gripped Liem’s, and I squeezed it tightly as I turned to him, the world having already shifted without our knowing.
“Baby,” I started hesitantly, not sure how I was meant to say what needed to be said, but I did.
I sat in my truck and broke the love of my life’s heart, just as the coroner’s truck drove past us.