Chapter 22Liem
22
Liem
I was a cloud.
A cloud filled with both the buzz of a thousand lightning strikes and a cataclysmic rainfall begging for release, and if Cody ever stopped holding me or took his lips from mine, I was afraid it would lead to utter devastation.
Such a cloud as I was, I’d not reacted at all when his lips brushed mine, but when he pulled back and threatened to remove them, my previously forgotten arms found their way around his neck, and I pulled, taking him for my own.
I knew well the shape of his slightly fuller bottom lip and had drawn the curve of it countless times. But the desire to know its taste struck me, so with heavy anticipation, I bit down on the lip that filled pages of my notebook and sucked.
Cherries, cinnamon sugar, and the salty, electrified atmosphere of an unexpected spring storm.
How would I ever express such a taste on paper? On canvas?
Cody groaned unabashedly, and I inhaled a sharp breath as the sound vibrated through my chest, somehow urging me to push up onto my toes and bring myself even closer to him.
Both of his hands were at the small of my back now, and his fingers flexed as our bodies melded together, every inch of us from thigh to chest touching. He made a strained noise again as he took charge, deepening our kiss and exploring my mouth with his tongue, the sensation so intense that my hands clenched into fists behind his neck.
I rose even higher on my toes as Cody pushed me further into the tree, moving his hands to my waist and pinning me in place with his hips as his kisses shifted from my mouth to the corner of my mouth. Then he painted a trail of masterpieces from my cheek to my ear and down my neck to my shoulder, the slight moisture left on my skin in his wake cooling against the breeze that trickled in through the vines.
My feet were barely touching the ground, just the tips of my boots grazing the sparse grass. My body, my heart—all my pieces were held up by the sheer power of Cody Desmond.
And there was nothing I could do but succumb to the feel of him and hope I would remain his canvas.
By the time the brush of his kisses returned to my ear and his breath warmed me again, we were both panting raggedly, time outside of us meaning nothing. There was only this, what lay within the scant space between us. I ran my hand up the back of his head and then lightly scratched a path back down to his neck, and he shuddered all over, eliciting one from me in turn. Cody drew back, chest heaving, and planted one more kiss to my cheek, his hazel eyes an earthy storm of bronze and jade as they locked with mine.
With a sure grip on my waist, he bit into his bottom lip as his eyes swept over me. When his gaze came back to mine, he held me captive as he lifted me into the air, bent slightly at the knees, and rolled his hips forward.
I saw stars as our perfect alignment sparked ecstasy. His movement was experimental at first, but when my mouth fell open and my head tipped back against the rough bark, Cody gained confidence and applied more pressure on the next slow roll of his hips. The delicious friction of his hardness pressing against mine had my toes curling in my boots, the complete lack of grounding to Earth at odds with the weight of his body against mine.
Desperate to see him, I tipped my head back down and committed his ravaged expression to memory before I took his face in both of my hands and slammed my mouth against his. It was a frenzy, the likes of which I’d never experienced.
Nothing had ever been like this.
“ Liem,” he breathed against my mouth, sounding both pained and awed.
Nothing had ever sounded like that.
Our movements slowed but didn’t stop. We continued to grind against each other, sinking into the pure pleasure of it, a race to nowhere with no finish line in sight. It was confirmation of our existence together.
Not a moment of it was to be missed, and stopping was unthinkable.
The unspoken words and questions rose and hovered between us as the longer we stared at each other, the more we gyrated and gasped and groaned.
A sudden sound of something slamming shut abruptly halted our movements, and then it came again, unmistakably from the door at the top of the ramp as it opened and closed violently.
The effects of those subtle, spine-tingling movements between us remained as we waited, but after several counts of Cody’s quickened heartbeats, no one appeared.
Cody slumped in relief and rested his forehead against mine as he took in a shaky breath. “I think that was our warning.”
I smoothed my hands along his broad shoulders, already mourning how much of him I’d yet to explore. “Most likely.”
He nodded against me slowly before he loosened his grip on my waist and guided me in a slow slide down his body, the sudden change in textures and the solidness of him against me sending a ripple of goose bumps up my spine.
Cody’s gaze moved down to our shoes then. We were standing toe to toe.
The metal clang of the doorknob being jiggled aggressively sounded, and I let out a forced laugh as I pried my hands off Cody’s shoulders. His hands flexed around my waist one last time and then fell away. I took a step to the side to get some distance from such temptation, and his gaze dropped to my obvious hardness.
He licked his lips, then slowly dragged his gaze to me. “I’ll go buy you some time.”
I raised an eyebrow in silent challenge at the resplendent bulge in his track pants.
He huffed but then smiled darkly as he leaned over and kissed my cheek right where the flour had been. “Don’t worry, Ti Bet,” he whispered in my ear. “There are more than twelve steps to that door. I’ve conquered more with less.”
He punctuated his words with a tug on my apron and a kiss to my other cheek before he turned to leave. Some instinct or reflex had me grabbing his hand, though, and I yanked him back to me. His eyebrows rose in surprise, but that expression melted to something heartbreakingly close to awe as I raised his hand and planted the lightest kiss to his knuckles. I held it there, letting my breath fan over his skin for a long moment before I guided his hand back down to his side and reluctantly let it go.
His hand flexed and clenched loosely at his side before he ran his thumb along his index finger as close to the kiss as he could reach. He nodded absentmindedly and took a couple of backward steps before turning completely and leaving the sanctuary of the willow, the sweeping branches swaying in his wake.
I found myself counting the thumps that marked the strides of his long legs as he ascended the ramp, and when those sounds paused, I crept forward and brushed the foliage aside. My breath caught as I found him looking at me from the top of the ramp, his expression impossible to discern at this distance.
But I felt it resonating with my own.
It was wonder.
It was fear.
My heart skipped as the doorknob made a riot of noise again, but before whoever was on the other side could do more—likely our shared best friend or my brother—Cody opened it, and I looked down at my boots before he disappeared inside, not keen to watch him leave.
It took all of my strength to not sink to the ground and simply evaporate.
This was exactly the reason I’d practiced emptying my mind and becoming part of the breeze when life was overwhelming—to cope with such an intense onslaught of emotion. Instead of trying to do either of those things now, I took stock of my body. My fingertips brushed and catalogued my swollen lips, then moved to my cheek, hovering over it instead of making contact for fear of replacing the feel of his touch. I then trailed my tattooed fingers down my braid, finding it as disheveled as the rest of me.
“All right there, little brother?”
Grounding relief filled my limbs at Vinh’s voice, and I dropped my wrecked braid to find him standing just outside of the willow, his hands in his pockets and an amused smirk playing at his lips.
“Good sneaking,” I acknowledged as I exited the cocoon that still smelled of Cody. Of us.
“I can’t say the same for you,” he jibed, but there was no judgment in it, only teasing. I followed Vinh to the cast-iron bench just beyond the ramp and complied without a fuss when he clapped me on the shoulder and guided me to sit.
He tugged lightly on my disheveled braid as his other hand appeared in front of me and he opened it. I met his silent request, pulling the dark-blue elastic—Cody’s hair tie—from the end of my hair and placing it in Vinh’s palm.
“So,” he started casually, “you’re good?”
“You could say that, big bro.”
“Good,” he said simply before tapping my shoulder. “Scoot back.”
And then my grumpy, thoughtful brother started re-braiding my hair.
There was a light tugging on my scalp as he worked, and a few moments later, he broke the silence.
“Do you remember when you tricked Bree into coming to the houseboat for breakfast?”
I hummed. “Yes. Though saying I tricked her is both an under- and oversimplification. And it was a glorious day, don’t you think? Much like this one.”
Another tug preceded a grunt of agreement. “And you remember what you said to me after Bree fell asleep on the deck?”
I closed my eyes and imagined that day, sifting through the memory. Vinh had texted me and invited me to his new lease—the houseboat—for breakfast, and I decided to go by Caffeina to get us coffees, taking a gamble.
That gamble had turned into a jackpot when I encountered Bree at Fortuna, looking so tired and lost, and invited her along.
At the time, my brother—as reserved and not prone to communication as he was—hadn’t explained that he was planning on selling his condo in Gulf Shores, which had made the idea of him starting something with my new friend Bree without the intention of sticking around so anxiety inducing that I’d voiced my concerns to him.
It had been a wonderful exercise in both sibling razzing and candid sharing.
Ah. I saw now.
The breeze caressed my skin, and I took hold of the wheel of this conversation, steering us toward Vinh’s intended destination.
“Cody and Bree share a brain,” I stated.
He tapped my shoulder in confirmation, never one to use words when he didn’t need to.
“A beautiful brain that sometimes isn’t beautiful to its owners,” I added.
Vinh tied off my braid and came to stand in front of me, offering me a hand and a sympathetic look along with two words of wisdom. “Small steps.”
I accepted it all immediately, my gaze flitting from the burn scars on one of his forearms to the tattoo on the other as he pulled me to my feet.
“Was moving to the Coast such a small step?” I mused, smiling up at him.
He raised his shoulder in a show of nonchalance, but his eyes were knowing. “Presence, little brother.”
“You decisive Scorpio.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and guided me to the ramp. “Isn’t your sign meant to be the opposite? I’ve never thought you quite fit that.”
I considered it on the way up the ramp, and when we reached the top, I answered.
“It’s probably why I can’t commit to one artistic medium, but no. That particular Libra quality doesn’t apply here. It never has.”
I fell easily into the memory of the kiss, of Cody’s hazel eyes, of the first time I heard his voice, saw him for the man he was.
The obvious and subtle ways he hid his heart from the world.
“No,” I mused, mostly to myself. “There never was a decision.”
Vinh grasped the doorknob but didn’t turn it, instead looking over his shoulder at me and raising a brow. “There’s always a decision, Liem. But there’s no one I have more faith in than you to make the right ones, especially where it matters.”
We shared a silent heartbeat of a look, just long enough to understand the sincerity of his words but not so long that they overtook me.
Then he opened the door, and we stepped back into madness.
“For Lent this year, I will be giving up masterminding specialty biscuits,” Dad announced to the room at large with a tired but pleased smile on his face.
Mom paused her second wipe down of the ordering counter and narrowed her eyes on him. “I will hold you to that, Monroe. If you ever do that to us again, I will be moving in with your sister and leaving you here to fend for yourself.”
Dad gasped theatrically, somehow finding a second or third wind of energy instead of deflating partially or entirely as the rest of us had. “Carebear! You would never. Those old coots can’t love you like I do.”
If Mom were the kind of a person to roll her eyes, she would have. Instead, she threw the wet cloth at him, leaving a damp impression on Dad’s Ari’s T-shirt, and swung through the saloon doors to the kitchen without a backward glance.
Bree was leaning back against Vinh in front of the counter, shaking with silent laughter, and when Dad saw it, his smile turned smug. He was impossible when Bree was around, almost always trying to make her laugh, which was good for them both.
Ari was wandering around the dining room, looking at the photos from her years running this place that still hung in pride of place in the dining room.
“Do you miss it, Ari?” Vinh inquired softly.
She turned toward my brother as she answered, “In a way, Bub. But not really. I’m just glad that you all have taken such good care of it.” She glanced around at all of us, and I noticed Cody had his back to the room and was quietly stacking chairs on top of the tables.
Aunt Ari followed my line of sight and frowned but didn’t hesitate. Bless her penchant for disregarding boundaries, because she walked right up to Cody, put her arm around his shoulders, and guided him back to our loose semicircle, whispering something in his ear that made him flush along the way.
I would put the Open sign back on and serve biscuits for seven more hours to know what she’d said, but sudden inspiration hit me instead. I walked across the room with purpose and pushed open one of the swinging doors. “Mom! Oh—sorry,” I said, backtracking as I realized I was inches from her face. “Could you come out here?”
She gave me an unimpressed look but nodded and reentered the dining room. I clasped my hands together and met everyone’s gazes one by one, my words briefly leaving me when I made it to Cody. He was twisting his bracelets and smiling so softly, it was nearly imperceptible, his cheeks still flushed.
Bree’s loud laugh drew my gaze to her. She clapped a hand over her mouth, and I fake glared at her as Vinh cleared his throat loudly. “You were saying, Liem?”
I frowned, retracing my mental steps. “Oh! I want to take a picture.” Silence followed my proclamation, and I frowned as everyone just stood there. “To mark the occasion!” I added with slightly less enthusiasm, but they just kept staring, so I pulled out my phone and waved it in the air. “Of us! The team!”
Cody stepped forward and reached for my phone. “I’ve got you, Ti Bet.”
I almost gave it to him before I understood his intention, and I snatched it back, holding it above my head as if he weren’t several inches taller than me. “ No. A photo of everyone.”
Bree ambled up beside Cody and poked him in the ribs. “Don’t try to get out of this. Plus, you can put it in your box,” she added with a wink that was actually just a blink and then angled her head toward me slightly. “Or boxes,” she emphasized, poking Cody again.
He cut his eyes at her in warning, but she just smiled innocently. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.
Bree looked toward Vinh. “Wanna rig us a little stand so we can all gather behind the counter?”
He nodded and started finagling chairs and tables while I glanced at Dad, once again caught off guard by Bree’s quick thoughtfulness.
There was no way Dad wanted to put his prosthetic on and stand right now. He was doing a good show of seeming in high spirits, but he’d been here since 5:00 a.m. He had to be bone-tired.
A few moments later, Vinh had his phone positioned on a makeshift stand that was high enough and far back enough to capture us all in a photo, and we all shuffled behind the counter as he set a timer. “Ten seconds,” he announced before joining Bree’s side.
Dad sat on the stool with Mom beside him, Ari was next to her, and then it was me, Cody, Bree, and Vinh.
If Uncle Gil had been here, it would’ve been truly perfect, but Ari had mentioned earlier that he was spending the day at the Locc, and I was dying to know what he’d been up to and planned to call him later to find out.
Goose bumps raced up my neck, and my hair stood on end so subtly and suddenly that it took me a moment to realize that it was because Cody’s fingers were flirting with mine. My gaze shot from Vinh’s phone to our hands just as he wrapped his pinky finger around mine and whispered around a smile, “Three seconds, Ti Bet. Better look up.”
I did look up.
After the photo was taken, I had to drop the tether to Cody when Ari pulled me into a hug. “Have you decided if you’re coming back with me on Friday, sweetie?”
Cody looked at us curiously, and I glanced between them before answering, “I’ll let you know.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “Sounds good.”
I turned back to Cody, but he was somehow already across the room, helping Bree put the rest of the chairs back on the tables.
We all were swept away into closing procedures then, which was an interesting and unique experience. On a typical day at Ari’s, whoever had been here earliest would have already gone, leaving closing to the rest. But with the holiday and the camaraderie we’d all developed today, it seemed no one was willing to not see the entire day through.
Vinh and I helped Dad into the car, and Ari followed them to their rental to enjoy the evening together after they all had a nap. Before they left, each of them made a point to offer a hug or word of thanks to Cody, and I was so grateful for it.
The cloud of dust their cars left behind was illuminated by the sun that was finally starting to shine through the clouds, and the four of us stood together in the lot, the dregs of our energy finally waning.
“What’s the opposite of biscuits?” Bree asked dramatically.
Cody shared a look with her before he smirked and answered, “A big-ass bowl of noodles, Cher.”
My stomach grumbled loudly at the idea even as I mildly recoiled at the thought of eating after hours of cooking, smelling, and delivering so much food.
They all turned at the noise, and Bree frowned in sympathy at the mild revulsion that must’ve shown on my face. “Yeah, we need a breather before we can actually enjoy that, I think.”
Vinh pulled her to his side. “How about we all go shower and rest for a bit, then regroup for dinner?” His eyes slid to each of us, the invitation clear.
I met Cody’s eyes again, and the implication of an idea ran between us, but then our gazes fell from each other. An unusual feeling that was almost like shyness fell over me.
Bree said a quick goodbye to Cody and then threw her arm around me. I brought my hand up in a quick, dumb wave to him. He seemed amused by it as he walked backward to his truck and waved back before nonchalantly brushing his knuckle across his own cheekbone.
Heavens.
As many times as I had heard him call Bree a witch, I should’ve realized that it meant that he was one, too, as they were twin souls.
Bree guided me to the open car door and let out an amused sound, which I responded to with a smile that even I didn’t know the meaning behind.
“Come on, Liem. You’ll see him again soon,” she said in an overly soothing voice.
“I haven’t a clue what you mean, Princess,” I replied airily as I climbed into the backseat.
Bree held the door open and gave me an expectant look. “Then you also know nothing about why my best friend was wearing my boyfriend’s pants all day, after he pulled you into the cottage soaking wet just this morning?”
I turned my head away, channeling Cody’s sass, but it didn’t hold for more than three seconds before I looked back at her, only to find her smirking just as my phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Ya gonna get that?”
I narrowed my eyes at her as I pulled out my phone and opened the new message from Bree.
It was the picture Vinh had just taken inside Ari’s with everyone smiling at the camera.
Except for me.
I was gazing up at Cody with stars in my eyes.
“Witches,” I whispered.
Bless Princess and her good heart because she simply patted me on the leg and closed the door, leaving it be.