Craving Absolution
Page 11

With a swift thrust he buried himself to the hilt, and my face heated and tears blurred my eyes as emotion overwhelmed me. I didn’t know if it was the fact that it was the first time in years I’d felt actual intimacy with another person, how incredibly good it felt to have someone connected to me again, or the fact that it was Cody inside me. Whatever the cause, I felt warm tears roll into the hair at my temples as he began to move.
He’d been braced with one hand above my shoulder, but at the sight of my tears, he leaned down until our torsos were flush with both of his forearms braced beneath my shoulders on the bed, his hands cradling the back of my head as if we were hugging.
He didn’t say a word about my tears but paused, watching my face intently until I gave him a small, trembling smile.
“I’m good,” I rasped huskily.
“You’re beautiful,” he said quietly, dropping his forehead to mine.
Then he began to move again, taking his time to find the things I liked, then using them until I was squirming under him and digging my nails into his back as I came.
Half an hour later I lay in his arms, listening to Cody snore quietly as I drifted off to sleep. I’d stopped running and I didn’t regret it.
Later, I’d blame my mistake on all the fantastic sex endorphins.
Chapter 4
Farrah
I woke up at seven thirty the next morning to Cody’s hand on my ass and my phone playing the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends”—the Joe Cocker version—from somewhere in the mess on my floor. What can I say? I’m a fan, and Callie calls me the most often, so I picked a favorite for her ringtone.
“Noooo.” I groaned, checking the clock before pulling my pillow over my head. We’d finally fallen asleep after round two only a few hours before, and I dreaded dragging my ass out of the cocoon that held the heat of Cody’s body.
“Answer your phone, babe,” he slurred sleepily, clenching the hand on my ass as the phone stopped ringing and then started up again.
“No way in hell,” I mumbled back grouchily. “It’s your sister. You get it.”
I realized my mistake seconds later when the covers were whipped up on Cody’s side of the bed, letting in the cold air I’d been avoiding, before I heard his gruff, “Hello? Yeah, you called Farrah.”
“Shit! Gimme the phone!” I yelped, wrestling out of the blankets. He ignored my waving arms and shaking head until I overestimated the size of the bed while trying frantically to untangle myself. Instead of my hand landing at the edge, it hit nothing but air—propelling me ass over teakettle onto the floor.
“Goddamn it,” I huffed out, watching him round the bed. “Give me my phone!”
“You okay, Ladybug?” he asked with a grin, the phone still pressed to his ear. “I thought you wanted me to answer it.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I growled, imagining the earful that Callie must be giving him on the other end of the line. “Give me the phone and put some fucking pants on!”
“Damn, baby, you always going to be this pissy in the morning?”
I dropped my head against the carpet and screeched in frustration. He knew exactly what he was doing by calling me pet names and insinuating that he’d be seeing me in the mornings. Any chance of keeping things quiet between us had just been shot to hell.
“Yeah, sister . . . Okay . . . I’ll see you tonight, then. Here’s Farrah.” He ended his conversation, reaching down to help me up off the floor as I scowled at him.
“You’re dead to me,” I told him, grabbing the phone out of his hand.
“Get off the phone and come back to bed, Ladybug,” he whispered loud enough for his sister to hear, then wrapped his long fingers around the sides of my head to pull me in for a deep kiss.
I stood there stupidly watching his bare ass cross to the bed and crawl back in, the phone forgotten in my hand for almost a full minute before I snapped back to reality.
“Why the hell are you calling me before the sun is awake?” I asked my best friend, propping the phone between chin and shoulder as I grabbed some underwear and my last clean sundress from the top of my dresser.
“Nice try, asshole. Why is my brother answering your phone?” she asked incredulously.
“He doesn’t understand boundaries?”
“Why is he in our apartment before ‘the sun is awake’?”
“Why are any of us here, Callie?” I asked rhetorically. “Why are any of us here?”
“Why isn’t he staying at Gram’s?”
“He was jealous because he assumed—correctly, I might add—that Will would steal Gram’s attention away from him now that he’s been usurped as the baby of the family?”
“You’re an idiot.” She laughed.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before,” I said teasingly, grabbing a towel and turning on the shower before sitting down on the edge of the tub and dropping my head into my hands. “He came, he saw, he conquered.”
“No!”
“Oh yes. Apparently your baby brother has a thing for me.” I sighed, rubbing between my eyebrows with one finger to smooth the frown crease away.
“This is not news.”
“It was to me,” I grumbled.
“Does this mean—”
I cut her off. “No more about me. What happened yesterday? Did you see Grease? Did he freak out? Fall to his knees and declare his undying love? Or did he go the pussy route and cry?”