The Cornerstone (43 page)

“So you’re serious about staying at your parents’ house?” I said when we stopped in front of a classic bungalow in Coronado Village, complete with a white picket fence, Spanish tiles, and overflowing hibiscus bushes.

“They’re on a freaking safari until the new year,” he said, hauling our luggage to the curb. “If they weren’t too busy petting giraffes for Judy’s blog, they’d tell you that they want us to stay here.”

“Yeah, and you technically live here,” I added.

“I haven’t been in one place for more than a few weeks since…since I was in college, Shannon. There’s no reason for me to move out. I believe you’d classify that as unjustifiable expenditure.”

“Yeah, but…” I gestured to the American flag waving in the light breeze. “It’s your parents’ house. We’re in our mid-thirties. People in their mid-thirties don’t shack up at their parents’ houses.”

“People in their mid-thirties don’t wing limes at each other either,” he muttered. He produced a set of keys from deep inside his backpack, and unlocked the front door.

I ducked under his arm and into the house. “Would you just let it go?”

The sun-washed walls were pale yellow with bright white moldings, and there was no missing the nautical theme. Seashells, sand dollars, starfish, anchors, ship’s wheels…everywhere, but it was homey and wonderful and I loved it. An entire wall in the family room was arranged in a mosaic of photographs starting with Will, Wes, and Lauren as babies and fanning out to their college and military graduations. The white and navy kitchen opened up to a small patio overflowing with squat trees, vines and flowers, and a babbling terra cotta fountain.

I was staring at one of the trees when Will found me. “I don’t get it,” I said, pointing at the fruit.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and dropped his chin to my shoulder. “It’s a fruit salad tree. Lemons, limes, and grapefruit, but don’t get any ideas.”

“That’s amazing,” I said.

Will’s lips traveled up my neck and my eyes drifted shut as I melted into him. “Amazing would be getting you naked right now,” he whispered, “and keeping you naked until it’s dark, and then coming out here and fucking you under the stars.”

“That might also be amazing,” I said. “But I’m still taking a picture of that tree before I leave.”

Will hauled me up, slapped my ass, and marched through the house. “Some people come to California and admire the beaches and ocean. My girl wants to photograph a fucking fruit tree.”

He stopped inside a bedroom painted blue-gray, and sent me flying through the air. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he threw me on the bed; picking me up and tossing me about was as routine to him as putting his jeans on one leg at a time.

“Such a meathead,” I murmured.

Will laughed as he crawled up and tucked me into his side. With my head on his chest, I studied his room. It was simple and neat, and seemed to function more as a guest room than shrine to Will’s formative years.

“I want to take you to the beach. I’ll catch some waves and you’ll decide you can’t live without me and the Pacific Ocean,” he said.

“It’s a package deal? You and the ocean? I can’t have one without the other?”

“You won’t want to.”

I pointed to the ceiling. “Riley would love all these exposed beams.”

Will grabbed my hand and pressed it to his hardening cock. “Yeah, I’ve got an exposed beam for you right here.”

I gave his shaft a squeeze and shifted to straddle his lean hips. “What’s the agenda?”

“First, you’re getting naked,” he said. “Then you’re putting your legs over my shoulders and insulting my moves while I fuck all that stress right out of you. After that? I’ll show you around the island. Get something to eat. Do it all over again.”

My hands traveled over his chest, mapping the hard lines beneath his t-shirt. “I’m not stressed.”

Will shot a doubtful smile at me. “Says the girl who wants the agenda,” he said.

“This is a first for me. Never been in a guy’s childhood bedroom before.” I nudged his ribs. “How many girls did you sneak in?”

“That would be zero,” he said, planting a sweet kiss on my forehead. “My father would’ve had me doing fifty-meter dive drills until I passed out on the beach if he caught me with a girl up here, so…” He dragged his fingers down my belly and popped the buttons at my waist. “It’s a first for me, too.”

“If you didn’t bring girls up here…there was a backseat. I’m guessing a truck.” Will’s hands slid up my thighs, squeezing as they moved higher.

“There was a backseat. In a truck.” His hands traveled down and then up, faster now. “And you? I’m thinking there was a lacrosse player. Maybe tennis.”

I twisted away from him, immediately regretting this topic. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. It came out in an angry wail as I vaulted off the bed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Will watched me, his arm bent under his head. He nodded slowly, and though the twitch in his cheek told me he wanted more, his expression stayed calm and steady. “You don’t have to be tough all the time.”

“I’m not being tough,” I said, dragging my fingers through my hair. I needed a shower. Something to wash off the grime of air travel. “I just don’t want to talk about it. There are certain things I’d rather not discuss.”

“You don’t have to,” Will shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, “but someday, you’re going to tell me who hurt you.”

Intent on stripping off my clothes, I turned my back to him while I stepped out of my jeans. “It’s not like you can do anything about it,” I said under my breath, and before I could yank my shirt over my head, Will’s arms came around my waist.

“Because he’s dead,” he said. “I can’t do anything about it because your father’s dead. Right?”

It all came back to me like echoes bouncing off a cavernous space, and the memories—the worst ones, the ones I’d fought to forget—cackled through my mind, mocking, haunting. The disgusting sounds Angus would make as he invaded me. The names he called me. How he threatened to touch Erin whenever I’d resist. They rolled in like smoke, rising up around me until I was choking. My breath caught in my throat, and I was powerless to respond, tentatively bobbing my head instead.

Will’s forehead dropped to my shoulder as he exhaled. “Every time you mention that bastard, I want to dig him up and kill him again. I hope he died peacefully because believe me when I say that’s not the end he would’ve gotten from me.”

I shivered, and he folded me into him until all I could feel was hard muscle and heat. In Will’s arms, I was safe—I believed that above anything else—but a shimmer of doubt lingered along the edges. This wasn’t information I disclosed freely. My brothers didn’t know, and after all this time, there was no reason to tell them.

The one time I’d shared my history with a man I was dating, he buckled under the weight of it. He tried to look past it, but it was the only thing he could see, and he couldn’t comprehend my desire for intimacy, especially the harder, rougher sort I favored. I was supposed to be damaged and I was supposed to find sex revolting, traumatic, and painful, and that was the only narrative he could abide. Everything else was evidence of my
issues
.

Will wasn’t handing me the victim treatment, and I adored him even more for it. He held me, and not because I couldn’t stand on my own, but because he wanted me to know that I didn’t have to. He was mine to lean on, and right now, I knew that leaning didn’t make me any less strong.

“Before he died,” I started, “I told him that I forgave him. That he was a sick, sad man but he didn’t take me down with him. He took a lot of things from me, but didn’t break me.”

“No, peanut, he didn’t,” Will said. “Not even close.”

*

I’d forgotten the
crisp pleasure of escaping with Will, and escaping to his town was even better than our previous destinations. Our nights were spent drinking and laughing in the backyard or tangled around each other in bed, and our days belonged to his favorite beaches, hiking trails, and taco shops.

We ventured to his preferred surfing spot—the southern end of Black’s Beach—though he didn’t mention anything about the breakneck cliff trail we had to descend to reach the shore until we were there. I didn’t need new reasons to crave Will’s body, but watching him emerge from the sea, surfboard tucked under his arm and water running through the deep cuts of his chest and abs, gave me a few more.

We argued about the existence of ghosts after he converted me to the splendor known as the Thanksgiving buffet at the Hotel Del Coronado. We joked about making this an annual trip, and each laugh we shared turned the words into small promises. Next year was starting to sound possible. Even likely.

An entire day drifted away while we wandered through the gardens at Balboa Park. It was sunny and balmy, and I was free to drag him into a shady grove and kiss him like I was a lust-hungry teenager.

“You can’t wear that,” he grumbled from the hallway while I straightened my hair in the bathroom. We were leaving soon to meet some of his friends at a bar near the base.

Gesturing to my skinny jeans and loose v-neck sweater, I said, “Be quiet. This is perfectly adorable.”

“Yes, peanut,
you
are really fucking adorable.” Will took the flat iron from my hand and set it aside, then slipped his hand down the front of the sweater. His thumb passed over my nipple, circling it until it peaked for him. “But if one of the guys gets an eyeful of tit, there will be a volume of bloodshed tonight.”

“That’s why you have balls. Just give them a twist whenever you think you’re going to do anything homicidal,” I said as I nudged him away.

“I’ll remember that,” he said. He dropped to the lip of the tub, his forearms braced on his thighs. I was a little obsessed with those forearms. Thighs, too. “Although, it is worth stating that I prefer when you give them a tug.”

Will observed while I passed one section of hair after another through the straightener, and his gaze left my skin tingling. It was intimate, him watching me, almost overwhelmingly so. Less than an hour ago, I was flat against the shower tiles while he pounded into me. Now, I was fully dressed and making careful work of singeing my hair while our eyes met in the mirror, and I couldn’t look away.

There was no urgent passion pumping between us, no timer ticking away the seconds until separation and distance robbed us of kisses, glances, skin-to-skin. This was different. It was everyday affection, and as it surrounded me, I knew it was sweeter and more satisfying than scheduled sex could ever be.

I wanted to tell him this, and show him that I was finished pushing him away, to explain that I was experiencing
other feelings
, but I wasn’t the girl who lived for dramatic monologues or sentimental gestures. And there was no sense tweaking the rules of engagement, either. We shoveled a lot of shit at each other, and maybe it meant I was a new and improved brand of demented, I didn’t want that to change.

“I like that shirt,” I said, tilting my head toward Will. “I mean…I like it on
you
.”

He looked down at the light blue Oxford, and smirked. “Was that your attempt at a compliment? That was rough.”

“Yeah. I’m a lot like whiskey,” I said. “Few can handle me, and even fewer can get it up afterward.”

Will pushed off the tub and stood behind me, and I couldn’t read his expression as his fingertips slipped through my hair. His hands tracked down my back to my waist, and when I expected him to lob an antagonistic barb in my direction, he dropped to his knees.

“You are the finest whiskey,” he breathed. “Only the barrel proof.”

My jeans and panties were skimming over my thighs before I could turn the straightener off, and Will’s palm settled between my shoulder blades, bending me over the countertop. His lips mapped my backside, his short beard was hot, ticklish torture on my skin, and it only intensified when he widened my stance and ducked between my legs.

He traced my folds, licking just enough to leave me moaning and clawing for more. Rising up on my tiptoes, I arched back as his hand anchored me in place and his tongue speared inside me. His groan rumbled through me before I heard it, and that dark sound sent all the electricity in my body straight to my clit.

“Oh, fuck,” he growled. He tugged me between his teeth, sucking and nipping, and I was rushing to the verge. Slack-jawed, cross-eyed, and teetering on shaking legs, that glowing ball of orgasm was throbbing low in my belly and ready to burst open. “Fuck, fuck,
fuck
. I can taste myself, inside you, and… I fucking love that.”

Glancing down my torso, I could see Will’s bent legs. His impossibly thick erection was trapped against his thigh, under his clothes. “Take it out. Stroke yourself,” I said, “but don’t stop licking me.”

“Like I could,” he said.

His belt rattled as he whipped it open. He dragged his cock free, giving himself a slow caress down his length, twisting at the crown, and then jerking back to the base. With a strangled grunt that vibrated across every inch of my pussy, his hand flew back and forth over his cock in the purest definition of
beating off
I’d ever imagined.