Kori
They keep me at the clinic for two days, which gives me exactly forty-eight hours to sit in a hospital bed and think about the fact that a man I met less than a week ago drove a snowmobile through a blizzard to save my life.
Being the wonderful man that he is, he sat at my bedside the entire time refusing to leave, refusing to sleep, refusing to do anything except watch me like I might disappear if he blinked.
I've never had anyone look at me like that. Not once, not in ten years of managing this disease alone, convinced that needing help made me some lesser version of independent.
Randall never once made me feel like less.
By the time the roads clear enough for the drive back up to the cabin, I've made a decision I'm fairly sure is insane, the kind of decision people write into movies because nobody would actually do it in real life.
But when the moment actually comes to say it, standing in the clinic parking lot with my duffel bag over one shoulder and Randall standing there in the same coat he wore the night he saved my life, every single word I rehearsed in my head disappears completely.
We stand there in silence long enough that it starts to feel unbearable, both of us clearly waiting for the other one to say something.
"Kori."
"Randall."
"You should get going. Before the weather turns again."
"Right. Yeah." I hitch my bag higher on my shoulder, take one step toward the car, and I stop in my tracks.
"This is stupid," I say, mostly to myself.
"What's stupid?"
"Me. Standing here. About to get in a car and go back to LA.
Like the last week didn't happen, like you didn't drive a snowmobile through a blizzard to save my life, like I'm not currently the most in love with someone I've ever been in my entire life, days after meeting him, which is insane, I know it's insane. "
Randall goes very still.
"What did you just say?"
"I said it's insane."
"Before that."
"That I'm in love with you." My voice cracks a little on it, but I don't take it back, don't soften it, just let it sit there in the cold parking lot air between us exactly as terrifying and true as it actually is.
"I know we've known each other for just a few days.
I know that's not how this is supposed to work.
But you risked your own life on a piece of machinery that hadn't run in years because you refused to let me handle this alone.
Nobody's ever done that for me. Nobody's ever made me feel like needing help wasn't the same thing as being weak. "
"Kori."
"I'm not done."
"Okay."
"I have a life in LA. I have an agent and a screenplay and an apartment and none of that matters even a little bit right now, because standing here trying to say goodbye to you feels like the single dumbest thing, I've ever tried to make myself do, and I don't want to do it. I don't want to leave.”
He crosses the parking lot in long strides, and before I can finish whatever ridiculous sentence I was about to start next, his hands are on either side of my face and his mouth is on mine. He kisses me like the whole conversation was just a very long unnecessary detour on the way to this.
"I love you too," he says against my mouth, rough and certain. "Didn't figure I'd ever say that to anybody after I became a recluse but then you broke into my house."
"I had a key."
He kisses me again, longer this time, and when he finally pulls back there's something almost boyish in his face, some of the permanent grump finally cracking into real, unguarded happiness.
"Don't go back to LA," he says. “I'm not letting you drive off this mountain and just hoping you come back."
"That's not very romantic phrasing, you know."
"I'm working with what I've got."
"I love what you've got." I pull him back down for another kiss, snowflakes starting to drift down again around us, softer this time, nothing like the storm that nearly took everything from both of us. "I'm not going anywhere, Randall.”
"Good," he says. "Because I already told Betty she can stop meddling. Figured I'd handle the rest myself."
"How'd that go over?"
"About as well as you'd expect."
I laugh, and he pulls me in against his chest, and for the first time since I landed in Colorado with the wrong amount of insulin and absolutely no plan, everything feels exactly, impossibly right.
We end up back at the cabin, the drive back less terrifying and more magical than it has any right to be. Shimmering snowflakes drift down in lazy spirals that paint the landscape in pearlescent white.
The second the door closes he has me against it, mouth hard on mine, one hand fisting in my hair while the other works the zipper of my borrowed coat open.
“Tell me if you want to stop,” he says against my jaw, voice rough. “Any point. I mean it.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
“Kori.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
He backs me toward the bedroom and both of us strip winter layers as we go. My back hits the mattress. He braces over me on one forearm with his dark eyes locked on mine.
“You’re staring,” I breathe.
“I almost lost you.” His voice drops. “You’re not going anywhere now.”
He kisses down my throat and then lower. My shirt disappears and his follows. The sight of him bare above me hits hard. Broad shoulders. Hard stomach. The thick line of his cock already straining against his jeans. He shoves them down and his cock springs free, heavy and flushed.
“Fuck,” he mutters as he stares down at me. “Look at you.”
He strips my leggings and underwear in one pull. The cold air hits me, making me shiver, but Randall doesn’t give me time to feel self-conscious. He spreads my thighs wide and puts his mouth directly on my clit.
He licks a long stripe up my center and then sucks hard on my clit while two thick fingers push inside. I cry out. My hips try to lift but he pins them down with one heavy forearm.
“Already so wet,” he growls against me. “This pretty cunt’s been aching for me.”
He curls his fingers and works his tongue faster. I come hard, shaking, fingers twisted in the sheets while his name spills out of me.
He doesn’t stop. He crawls up my body and settles between my legs, and for a second neither of us moves.
His dark eyes drag over me as he really looks at me, the way he looked at me in the bathroom two mornings ago, except this time I'm not pale and shaking.
I'm flushed and alive and right here, and I watch something in his face relax, like he's still worrying over me.
"I'm okay," I tell him, because I can see the fear in his expression. "I'm right here."
"I know." His voice comes out rough. "Just looking."
The blunt head of his cock drags through the mess he just made of me and I reach for him, done with looking, done with waiting.
“Now,” I demand.
He catches my wrists and pins them above my head with one hand, unhurried.
“You don’t get to rush this.,” he says as he pushes in slow and steady watching my face the whole way, like he can’t look away. "Not tonight."
I understand it then. This isn't him drawing it out to tease me. He's making himself feel every inch of it because two nights ago he wasn't sure he'd get to.
The stretch is perfect, thick enough that I moan and he groans like it hurts.
“Your cunt was made for my cock,” he says against my mouth. “Feel how fucking tight you are around me.”
He starts thrusting. Deep. Controlled. Each stroke drags against the exact spot that makes my toes curl. I wrap my legs around his waist and he goes harder, the sound of skin on skin filling the quiet cabin.
“Love you,” he says, voice wrecked. “This pussy is mine now. Nobody else gets to feel you like this.”
“Yours,” I gasp. “All yours.”
He shifts the angle and the new pressure has me clenching around him. His free hand slides between us. His thumb finds my clit as he draws tight little circles around the nub.
“Come on my cock,” he orders. “I want to feel this tight little cunt milking me when you come. Show me how much you want it.”
The words tip me over. I shatter while my walls clamp down around him in hard pulses. He follows with a low, broken sound and buries himself to the hilt as he comes. Hot. Thick. Pulse after pulse fills me while he keeps rocking through it like he cannot stand the thought of pulling out.
We stay locked together after. My cheek rests against his chest and his hand strokes slow paths down my back.
"So," he says finally, voice rough and sleepy. "Guess you're stuck with me now."
I laugh against his chest, more content than I've been in years.
"Guess I am."