Craving Absolution (3 page)

“
Hey, sweetheart, looks like you spilled some shit on your pants,” he joked, leaning against the countertop.

“
Yeah, thanks for the flash, Gordon. I spilled nail polish all over the place when you started pounding on my door like the gestapo. You’re buying me some new freaking sweatpants,” I grumbled, opening my bottle. “I’m going to go change. Clean the shit off the coffee table, would you?”

I heard him bitching as I
walked toward my bedroom, and grinned. He could take the blame for not being able to get that shit off Callie’s coffee table. It was his damn fault it had gotten spilled in the first place.

Shit, my room
was a disaster. I’d needed to go to the Laundromat last week, but with Callie waffling about whether she was going to Eugene or not, and trying to rearrange her schedule at the salon so her clients wouldn’t revolt, I hadn’t had time.

Shit.

The only clean pants I had were a huge pair of sweatpants that I wore to bed when I was having a bad night. They didn’t stay up around my waist unless I tightened the drawstring as far as it would go and then rolled them like four times, but since the options were either the sweats or a tiny-ass pair of yoga shorts . . . I stuck with the sweats.

If
only I would have listened to Gram when she told me to stop throwing damp towels in with the rest of my dirty laundry, I might have been able to wear a semi-clean pair that actually fit.

By the time I made it back into the living room
, Cody had polished off most of his beer and was grimacing as he rotated his arm slowly.

“
Does it still bother you?” I asked, startling him as I rounded the couch.

“
Nah, it’s usually not bad. Long ride today, though,” he answered, pulling a prescription bottle out of the pocket of his jeans.

“
You’ve been drinking,” I snapped dumbly as he dropped a pill into his mouth and washed it down with the last of his beer. “You better not be getting back on your bike tonight.”

“
That’s funny, coming from you,” he replied with a short bark of laughter, shaking his head.

I almost took a step back, the hurt flashing through me quickly at his comment, but I hid that small tell.
It always came back to this—always—so I shouldn’t have been surprised. I wouldn’t let him catch me off guard again.

I
turned my head toward the TV, refusing to look at him as I sat down on the far end of the couch. He’d seen me at my worst, and it seemed as if I’d never be able to escape that fact. It was why when I’d noticed him watching me over the past year, I’d ignored it.

Was I attracted to him? Of course I was.
Cody was gorgeous, and he carried himself with a confidence that had become even more apparent as he’d found his place in the Aces. I couldn’t help but be attracted to him; he was the embodiment of everything I’d ever looked for in a man—strong, kind, sexy, smart—but that didn’t mean that I would ever act on it. There was no way I could ever move past the fact that he had kept me alive and in one piece more times than I could remember. It caused an inequality in our relationship that I hated.

The times that I could remember were bad enough
; I wouldn’t even let myself contemplate how bad the times I couldn’t remember were.

“
I shouldn’t have said that,” he said, leaning forward as if to touch my leg before I jerked away. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, Farrah.”

“
It’s fine.” I laughed woodenly, staring with unfocused eyes at the television. “No harm, no foul. Let’s not pretend that I should be making life choices for anyone.”

“
Fuck!” he said under his breath, surprising me enough to whip my head in his direction. “This is not what I planned on happening.”

“
What exactly did you plan?” I asked calmly, my mask firmly in place. “Your sister’s not here, and your grandmother lives right next door. Why the hell are you still in my apartment?”

I watched as he ran his hands over the top of his head in frustration, and was about to climb off the couch to put some space between us when he reach
ed over and dragged me toward him.

“
You know why I’m here, Farrah,” he answered quietly, turning sideways so he could settle me between his thighs with my back resting against his chest. “I gave you space, baby. I gave you thousands of miles of space, because I knew you needed it.”

Cody tightened h
is arms around my torso as I scrambled to get up. He was going to get to me; he knew just what buttons to push, which words to use to get a reaction out of me, and he was going to use them. I could feel it.

“
You weren’t ready,” he said. “I got that. I knew you needed time to get your shit together, to make a life where you could stand on your own two feet. But I’m done waiting, Farrah.”

“
I didn’t ask you to wait!” I shot back, trying for boredom but sounding more panicked than I liked, so I decided to get physical and pushed on his arms. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

S
truggling to climb off his lap, I felt his lips drag softly over my shoulder, and I froze. It had been so long since I’d felt something like that. Drunken fumbling with strangers had happened occasionally when I was in the midst of my partying days, but even if they would have been inclined, I wouldn’t have let them be tender with me. I hadn’t been able to handle own emotions back then, much less someone else’s.

My eyes drifted shut as he nuzzled against my neck
. Had that ever felt this good?

“
Do you know how beautiful you are to me?” he whispered, loosening his arms so he could run his hands up and down my belly. “Even when I was dragging you out of places, drunk out of your mind and pissed at everyone, you were still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I couldn’t get you out of my head, and then in the last year, there was just . . . so much more. You fucking light up, Farrah.”

He
dropped a kiss on my neck and lingered for a moment, inhaling my scent. “Your face was all I could think about when I was in the hospital—how your nose wrinkles when you scowl at me, the way you smile at Callie when she’s being an idiot, that soft look you get when you’re dancing with Will.
Fuck
, Farrah.”

My throat tightened as I listened to him
. His mention of the hospital and the way he was talking to me opened up the floodgates on emotions I usually kept locked tightly away.

Damn it,
I
knew
it. I knew he’d get to me somehow.

“
You were thinking about me when you were in the hospital?” I asked quietly, my body tensing.

“
Constantly,” he mumbled into my neck.

Before he could grab me,
I was off his lap and standing next to the couch, trying to keep my nose from wrinkling as I glared at him.

“
You’re such an asshole!” I screeched, not caring that I sounded like a freaking lunatic.

“
What the fuck?”

“
Oh yeah,” I said, working up a good rant as I yanked up my sweats and paced in front of him, all of my protective filters deserting me. “You were just consumed with thoughts of me. Because I’m just
so
beautiful. What a load of horseshit!”

“
What’s your problem?” he shouted, climbing to his feet.

“
You didn’t even fucking call me when you were in the hospital!”

“
I sent you a text!”

“
Are you kidding me right now? You sent me one word, Cody! One! Do you remember what you said?” I watched him as he tried to remember, and my irritation ratcheted up even higher. “You sent, ‘Alive.’ That’s it! That’s all I got!”

“
And?”

“
You
cannot
be that stupid.” I growled as his mouth curved up into a grin. “Do you know what that was like for me?”

“
I knew you were with Grams. She was getting all the info you needed,” he answered calmly, pissing me off even more with his logic.

“
That’s not the point!”

“
Well, what the fuck is the point, then? Because it sounds to me like we’re talking in fucking circles!”

“
I was worried!” I screamed back, covering my mouth as soon as the words slipped out. I scrambled backward, my wide eyes meeting his as he stalked me toward the front door.

“
You were worried?” he asked softly, his face softening. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“
Get the fuck out of my house!” I backpedalled, refusing to acknowledge my last words. Shit, I’d practically laid myself open with three freaking words. What the hell was I thinking?

But
I wasn’t thinking, and that was the point.
He
did this to me.

“
Shut up,” he said in a low growl as he advanced on me, reaching me as my back hit the front door. “You were worried about me.”

His mouth was on mine before I could reply.

Oh God.

He bit my bottom lip as I tried to turn my head away, but the gentle way his fingers brushed my cheeks
was what stopped any idea of escape. This was
Cody
, and I had no defenses against him.

Before I could react he kissed me hard, then
licked deep into my mouth as I whimpered and wrapped my hands around the back of his head to pull him closer. As much as I tried to deny it, to pretend like he was just an acquaintance, someone I had to deal with because of how entrenched I was with his family—it wasn’t true. Not at all. I
had
been worried. I’d been scared out of my mind when we found out he’d been shot, unable to function until I’d gotten his text.

For the first time, my nightmares had begun to have a face. I
’d woken up shaking and crying for a month afterward, my boyfriend’s death playing over and over through my dreams, but it hadn’t been Echo dying in those dreams. It had been Cody’s face that startled me awake, leaving me covered in a cold sweat.

And now he was there, safe and wrapped around me in a way I
’d never let myself imagine him. I inhaled against his throat, reveling in the clean scent of his skin as he lifted me against the door, and tried to wrap my legs around his waist.

“
These have to go,” he growled, pushing at the waistband of my sweats when the extra material kept me from getting as close as he wanted. They slipped off my hips and hit the floor just seconds before he successfully pulled my legs completely around his waist. “There you are,” he murmured into my mouth as he used his hips to brace me against the door, then rocked his pelvis against me.

I could have sobbed with relief when his mouth met mine again. I knew my lack of baggy pants took away any chance of camouflaging how skinny I
’d gotten, and for a second, I was terrified that when he saw me he’d be disgusted. He wasn’t grossed out, thank God. If anything, my freshly waxed legs, no matter how slender they were, seemed to have lit a fuse in him that had him groping at them desperately.

I was sucking at his bottom lip, pulling his
T-shirt up his body, when a knock at the door startled us both.

“
You expecting someone?” he asked suspiciously as he set me down gently on my shaky legs.

“
Yeah, maybe we can have a threesome?” I replied in a high-pitched voice, dramatically reaching up to twirl my fingers in my hair like an airhead. Then I dropped my hand and shook my head at him, scowling. “Don’t be a dick.”

The knock sounded again, and
with one last glance he wiped a hand over his face before turning to unlock the door, pushing me cautiously behind him as he opened it.

“
G-Gram,” he stuttered, and I watched the back of his neck darken.

He didn
’t stop his grandmother as she used the palm of her hand to push the door wider, and I grimaced as she caught a look at me in all my whorish, half-naked glory.

“
It’s about time.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t care what you’re doing, but keep your voices down. The whole damn complex can hear you screaming, and if you wake up your nephew, I’ll kill you.”

She stepped
toward Cody and reached around him, running her hand gently down my hair before giving my shoulder a small squeeze. “I’ll see you both in the morning for breakfast,” she stated firmly, catching my eye to let me know she wasn’t going to let me skip out.

We stood there silently as she walked away, and as soon as we heard her apartment door shut
next door, Cody turned toward me and closed the door.

“
I’ll get you some blankets for the couch,” I mumbled in embarrassment, pulling at the bottom of my tank top as if to hide the plain cotton underwear I was wearing. No longer in the heat of the moment, I was rethinking the advisability of sleeping with my best friend’s brother, especially with his grandmother next door. I took a step back, refusing to turn around and let him see my ass with the words
You Bowl Me Over
written across my underwear, complete with little black bowling pins.