24. Lyla
Lyla
I don’t hesitate to jump in and help.
The storm is relentless, and it doesn’t care that Beck and I have issues to address, things to hash out. It doesn’t care that Beck kissed me, and that I wanted him to, and that when he pulled away I felt the sting of rejection more acutely than the day I got fired.
It pays no attention to the palpable tension between us, like the crackle of electricity in the air before lightning strikes. A charge is building, opposite forces doing a push and pull until one of us is going to snap.
I won’t let it be me. I refuse to react, to have the outburst Beck is probably anticipating. I want to prove him wrong about me. I want to show him I can control myself and my emotions.
So when he hands me the shovel he’s pulled out of the tack room, I take it from him without a word, pull my hood down over my head, and march out into the night.
He finds another shovel and does the same, working beside me as we dig a trench that will allow the water to run away from the barn instead of towards it.
But the rain is now a torrential downpour, and it doesn’t matter that I was wearing waterproof boots and a rain jacket because the muck is nearly up to my knees and water seeps in through the seams of my coat.
The storm brought with it a cold front, and in the dark with the wind and the rain, a chill runs through me to my marrow.
I keep digging.
I keep digging because the animals need us to keep digging until the water has changed direction. I keep digging because it’s the only thing giving me an outlet for the pent up hurt and anger I’ve felt. The only thing keeping me from lashing out at Beck.
I’m covered head to toe in mud, every inch of me filthy and wet. The wind blows my hair into my mouth and I keep pushing it back, smearing my face with dirt.
When I look up at Beck, he’s in a similar state. His jeans are soaked from his knees down, and mud splatters across his creased forehead. His dark eyes are nearly black, and I think he doesn’t even need a shovel. The intensity in his gaze could bore a hole through the ground.
After what feels like a lifetime, the water level at the door of the barn starts to recede, the two trenches Beck and I have been making in the dirt redirecting it down the hill.
But it’s not enough. We’re getting there, but it’s not enough.
“You don’t need to stay out here!” Beck half shouts at me across the trench in order to be heard over the rushing of the rain, the pounding of it on the metal barn roof. “I can take it from here!”
“We aren’t done yet!” I shout back, and I’m not sure if I mean with this job, or with the conversation we were having earlier.
Either way, Beck stops shovelling and leans his arm on the handle, pausing to look up at me. My hood blows back off my head and I don’t bother fixing it, because Beck’s gaze is pinning me.
“Let’s finish it, then,” Beck says, and somehow I know what he means. The dam has burst, and there’s no holding it in any longer.
“I know you don’t have a lot of respect for me. You think I’m too emotional, too idealistic, too much, just like everyone else. But don’t play games with me. Don’t tell me you want it, that you like me. Don’t kiss me like that and then barely have the decency to speak to me.”
“The last three days I have been doing everything I could to not think about that kiss. I’ve been desperately trying to convince myself I didn’t feel anything,”
“And did you? Not feel anything?” I ask, trying to hide the wobble in my voice.
Here Beck has been trying not to think about me, meanwhile he is the only thing on my mind.
“No… Lyla… It was everything,” Beck shouts, emotion overtaking him and his voice cracking under it. “It was proof this is real. Every time I tried to tell myself anything else it felt wrong, it felt like a lie. And I won’t live a lie anymore.”
“So then why did you pull away? I know I can let myself fly off the handle, and maybe that’s just a Morgan gene, but if that can be passed down in a family then you got the Hollis gene of shit communication.
Like me or hate me, Beck I’d rather you just pick a lane.
Just commit to the part. It’ll be easier for both of us. ”
Somehow, Beck’s night-dark eyes go even darker, and he takes a step toward me. Lightning flashes and makes everything bright, and for a moment I can clearly see his expression. But that second was long enough to see that the blackness in his eyes isn’t anger. It’s pain, sadness, hurt.
“Hate you?” He shouts over a rumble of thunder. “You think I could ever hate you?”
I throw my arms in the air. “What am I supposed to think, Beck? You’ve barely wanted anything to do with me since I got here. Just when I think we’re making progress, you shut down again.”
“Fuck Lyla…” He scrubs a hand through his hair, pushing the wet strands off his forehead.
“I hate a lot of things. I hate the fact that you’re Austin’s little sister and it makes you off-limits.
I hate that I couldn’t stop thinking about you when you left Sage Valley.
I hate that the moment I started to move on, you came back and I fell for you harder and faster than ever.
But Lyla Morgan, I could never hate you.
You light me on fire, and I fucking burn for you.
I’ve burned for you since the day I met you. ”
My chest swells, tears stinging my eyes, but when I blink, I can’t tell if I’m blinking away tears or rain. Beck’s admission sucks all the air out of my lungs.
All these years?
I stand here dumbfounded, my mouth opening and closing a few times, before only a squeak manages to escape my throat. Beck’s mouth slides into a smile, and he shakes his head, looking down at the soggy ground.
“I’ve never seen you this speechless, Trouble.”
He looks up at me, and my gaze locks on his. His hair is wet and sticking to his forehead–I can’t imagine mine looks any different–and it’s dark, but I see him now. The vulnerability in his features, the way he’s cracked his chest open to show me his heart.
Everything makes a little bit more sense now.
The distance he’s put between us, him pushing me away, keeping me at arm’s length.
It has never been because of me. It’s been because of Austin.
And the nickname? I have to wonder if the only reason he’s ever called me Trouble is because that’s what I am to him.
A risk. A threat to one of the most important relationships he has.
But I don’t want to think about what’s at stake. All I want is to feel Beck’s lips on mine again, damn the consequences.
“I’m waiting for you to kiss me,” I say, and before I’ve finished the sentence, Beck has closed the space between us, his hands grip the sides of my face, and he crashes into me.
Our mouths tangle together, and after the last few days of not having him, it feels like relief. My body melts into his, and his hands find my waist, pulling me into him.
Despite the rain and the cold and the wind, Beck is solid warmth. He’s a strong, immovable presence and somehow in the last few weeks, I’ve started seeking him out when I need to feel grounded. With the storm still howling around us, the space between us feels calm, like we’re in the eye of it.
My hands find his face, the firm line of his jaw, the stubble he keeps neatly groomed.
Beck kisses me softly, tenderly, showing me a side of him I think he keeps reserved only for me.
The gentle, kind man beneath a steely surface.
The teenager who came to pick me up–literally, and figuratively–with no questions asked.
The boy who sat next to me while I cried over a scraped knee.
Little glimpses. That’s all he gave me. In hindsight, they all make perfect sense. They all add up to this man who has spent years of his life waiting for me.
Now he’s finally giving me more. Beck is giving me everything I never knew I needed. I pull back out of our kiss, and he leans his forehead against mine.
“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak, Beck,” I whisper into the space between us.
Beck chuckles, low and rumbling. The sound travels through my chest, down my core, and I squeeze my thighs together at the pressure building between them. Beck is giving me more of him, but I want it all.
“That’s the longest you’ve ever stopped talking long enough for me to get more than two words in,” he teases before capturing me in another kiss. Even though we’re in the middle of a crisis, everything between us finally feels right.
We manage to keep our hands and mouths off each other for long enough to finish digging out the trench, and place sandbags at both ends of the barn for good measure. But we find each other again the second I unlock the front door to the guest house, and shut it behind us.
Beck pushes me up against the door, one hand on my hip firmly pressing me in place, the other cupping the back of my neck, fingers tangled in my wet hair.
Our kisses turn desperate and needy, a clash of lips and teeth and tongues, our breathing ragged and wild. His stubble scratches at me deliciously, and I hiss at the contrast in sensations–coarse, rough moustache and warm, soft mouth.
My hands fumble with the zipper of his rain coat and I peel it off of him, letting it land in a pile on the floor.
Beck removes mine as well, the rain having soaked through to my clothes beneath it.
My old flannel button down clings to me, my nipples pebbled and visible through the thin, wet fabric.
Beck runs his hands from my waist, up my ribs, and finds my breast. I let out a whimper when the pad of his thumb connects with my nipple, rubbing back and forth across it.
His mouth meets mine again, and he presses his hips into me. I can feel his cock straining against his jeans. Pressure throbs between my legs, and I’m suddenly desperate for him. But I’m still wet from the rain and now I’m struggling not to shiver.
“We should get cleaned up first. I’m filthy,” I murmur against his lips, and his mouth twitches up into a smile.
“Yes ma’am,” he says, and then he scoops his hands down around the curve of my ass and lifts my feet off the ground. He throws me over one shoulder, and starts toward the bedroom ensuite.
“Beck!” I shriek, as he carries me into the bathroom.
He sets me down on the floor and when I peer up at him, he’s still wearing a cheeky smile.
“What? You didn’t think I was going to let you get cleaned up by yourself?”