by Nicole Dykes
“I’m not a doctor.”
“I’ll walk you through it.” My eyes plead with her. I don’t want to ask her for help. I don’t want to look so fucking weak, but I can’t take it anymore.
She nods slowly, cautiously approaching me as I take another swig. She holds her hand out for the bottle.
“Fuck no.” I pull it back. “Doctors can’t perform procedures drunk.”
“Give me the fucking bottle if you want my help.” I sigh, giving in and handing it to her. She takes a big swig, and I have to pull the bottle away from her lips.
Her eyes meet mine. “How do I do this?”
I take another swig of the whiskey, letting it burn all the way down and set the bottle on the table. I lay down on the floor on my back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to walk you through this. It’ll be okay, but you have to listen to me.” I smile up at her despite the pain radiating throughout my shoulder and down my side. “We both know that’s not your strong suit.”
“Asshole,” she bites out, but I hear the worry in her voice as she kneels down next to me.
I direct her to my side. “Stand there.” She does. “Hold my wrist with both your hands.” Her trembling hands wrap around my wrist. She looks sick but steels her expression, looking down at me. “Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Now bring my arm away from my body until it’s at about forty-five degrees.”
She does this, and I grit my teeth. “Like that?”
I nod. “Okay, grab my hand and pull it toward you. Don’t jerk, but you’re going to have to pull hard. If you need more leverage, use your foot and push into my side.”
“Coop . . .”
“You have to. It’s okay.” I take a breath and look into her eyes. “Just do it.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Well, that’s gotta be a surprise to you.” I smile, and so does she, shaking her head.
“Shut up.”
I laugh. “Just pull hard. You gotta pop it back in. This is the best way to do it. You’re not going to pull it off.”
She looks pale and fucking distraught but really, really strong at the same time. “Okay.” She shakes her nerves off. “Are you ready?”
I nod once, but I’m lying. We both know it. “Do it.”
She pulls, and I feel the movement, almost fucking there. I grit my teeth, trying not to let my scream escape, but even through my closed mouth, she hears it and backs off, dropping my arm.
“Fuck!” I roll to my side, cupping my arm and trying hard to keep myself under control. “Motherfucker!”
“Cooper.” I turn to look at her, trying not to puke from the pain. The last thing I need is to look like a total pussy in front of her.
“That was good.”
“It went back in?”
I shake my head and try to control my rapid breathing. If I’m not calm, she won’t be either, and I need her help. “No, but almost.”
“What?” She looks horrified.
“Ev.”
“No.” She stands up, shaking her head again and looking down at me. “I’m not doing this. You can’t make me. You’re an asshole, Cooper, but I still don’t want to hurt you. You should have seen your face. You looked like you were going to pass out or puke.”
“That’s how I feel every fucking time I have to get undressed or lift anything. The momentary pain will be worth it, Everly.”
“No.”
“Please?”
She looks down at me, dropping to her knees. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“None of this is fair.” I know she’s not just talking about my shoulder.
“I know that too. I can’t let this whole thing wreck me though. I need your help, so I’ll have use of my shoulder someday.”
“Okay.”
“Can you make me a sling because after it pops back in, I need to keep it stabilized for a while.” She nods and grabs Aria’s bag, making another sling out of a hot pink shirt.
I look at it. “Couldn’t have picked a manlier color?”
“Don’t you know tough guys wear pink?” she says with her confident Everly smile.
“I don’t feel too tough right now.”
“You’re strong, Coop.” She places the sling next to my head and repositions my arm, holding onto my wrist with both hands and putting her foot against my ribs. “One more shot.”
I nod my head. “Do it. You’re strong too.”
She takes a deep breath, and I follow her lead as she uses all her strength and pulls hard, her foot pressing into my side. I let out a yell, but this time she doesn’t hesitate or back off. She tugs, and I feel my shoulder pop back into place. “Ev, you did it.”
She looks down at me, her eyes wide. “Really?”
I nod. “Sling.”
It already feels better even though there’s a dull ache. She grabs the sling and secures it, placing my arm against my stomach, and I sit up slowly.
“Thank you.”
She stays where she is, kneeling next to me and breathing hard as she looks at me with relief. “I didn’t think I could do it.”
“You did.”
I see something flicker in those stormy eyes, and I recognize it. Fire. Right before her lips meet mine with a hunger I wasn’t prepared for, but I don’t fight it. I kiss her back because it’s all I’ve been thinking about since the last time.
Her lips press against mine, and I use my free hand to sweep her hair to the side out of her face. The kiss quickly intensifies, and all at once, she’s on my lap as we sit on the floor, my hand in her hair and hers on my chest.
She bites on my bottom lip, pulling it out and pushes her tongue into my mouth. I suck on her tongue and try to devour her. I don’t want this to ever end, but I don’t want to go slow either.
I tug the wide shoulder of her sweater to the side and kiss along her neck. Seeing her naked earlier was too fucking much. Her fixing me. It was too much. That kiss the other night. Being here alone. Being afraid.
It all comes together in one insanely destructive, explosive moment that neither of us is going to stop.
She moans my name when I suck on her neck and nibble on her bare shoulder. She lifts the sweater off and tosses it behind her. I pull back enough to look down at her full, heaving tits with pretty pink nipples, licking my way to them. I pull one of her nipples into my mouth, and her fingers slide into my hair, her nails digging in when I suck hard and then use my teeth to tease the hardened buds. “Fuck, Cooper.”
She leans her head back as I move to her other breast, doing the same thing. “Tell me what you want.”
I don’t want her to regret this later. I need to know. She lays down, pulling out of my grasp, but then I realize it’s just to remove her leggings and panties before repositioning herself on my lap and looking into my eyes. “I want you to fuck me. I want you to erase the pain.”
Together, we free my cock from my pants, pushing my jeans and briefs down. “I’m not really a gentle lover.” I don’t want to think about Liam and that he more than likely made love to her. I’m not like that.
She nips at my jaw—pulling me out of my thoughts that nearly ruin it—and then my bottom lip. “Good. Neither am I. I want it to hurt a little. Maybe that will make the pain inside me stop.”
I nod, understanding completely. I move so my back is against the couch and kiss her again, my hand finding her nipple and twisting it. I revel in her moans as she slides her wet pussy over my cock but not letting me enter her. “Fuck, you’re wet.”
She kisses my lips, then presses her forehead to mine as she looks down. “You’re hard.”
I twist her nipple again. “Very.”
She gnaws on her own bottom lip, and I feel her growing wetter. She looks down at my dick now, panting as she stares. “You’re big.”
“You sound scared.” I almost laugh. “You can handle it.”
She smiles and grips my cock in her hand, stroking it slowly. My
head lolls back as she touches me. “I can, and I will.”
She positions my aching cock at her entrance. But when I move to thrust into her, she pulls back, leaning forward and nipping on my bottom lip. “Tease.”
She laughs, which is fucking sexy as she looks down, letting the head of my cock slip inside her, stretching her and making us both groan with need. I thrust up, taking a little more, and one of her hands goes to the back of my hair, gripping tight.
I like the way it hurts when she pulls tighter and I enter her further, my cock taking her. Claiming what I’ve wanted for so long. Soon, I’m all the way inside her, and she moves her hips back and forth. Her tight wet pussy squeezes me tightly, making me feel so good I can barely form words.
“Fuck, Ev.”
“Oh God, you feel so good inside me,” she moans into my mouth as she kisses me and grips my hair, her nails digging into my scalp. We move together in a frenzy, both looking for a release and escape from the hell we’ve found ourselves in.
“I’m going to come soon,” I tell her, slipping a hand between us and finding her swollen clit, stroking it. “Not without you though.”
“I’m close,” she gasps as she rides me. It’s not sweet or elegant. There’s no strategic rhythm. The strokes are hurried and desperate as we search for ecstasy, and it’s never been this good. Never.
I feel her pussy squeezing my cock as her head falls back and her hips keep moving, taking my cock deeper with each movement. Then she’s coming, and I’m coming inside her, our bodies moving together.
When we finish, she’s still holding onto my hair and we’re both a panting mess as her eyes meet mine. We’re both still.
Please don’t cry.
Her eyes search mine. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“Wow.”
Okay, that’s not crying. Good.
“Yeah.”
My cock is still inside her and starting to soften. But we just stare at each other, unmoving.
Did that really just happen?
I don’t know what came over me. I know I initiated this, and I wish I could say I regret it, but that would be a lie.
I don’t.
I enjoyed every second of it.
I hold his face in my hands as I sit on his lap, looking into his eyes and feeling the mixture of our arousal between my thighs. “So, that happened.”
And it felt so damn good. I mean, I’ve enjoyed sex before but that . . . it was on a whole new level. The thought makes me feel so damn guilty, I’m nearly crippled by it.
He chuckles, his laugh happy and sad all at once, but he doesn’t look away from me. “Yeah. It did.” His eyes flicker with worry as he searches mine. “Are you okay?”
I shrug. “I mean . . . You are kind of big.”
He snorts and shakes his head, even though I’m still holding his face. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” I swallow, hating his handsome face and the fact that I can’t look away because he’s so beautiful. He’s always been beautiful. And tempting. No matter how we look at it, what we just did is a betrayal. “I’m okay.”
He nods. “Thank you for fixing my shoulder.”
I smile, not really wanting to move away from him but knowing I should. “No problem. I guess we should get dressed.”
He nods, looking down between us. “Is it okay that we didn’t . . .” He hesitates which is odd for Cooper. He usually says exactly what he’s thinking. Always annoyingly confident.
“Didn’t what?”
“Use something?”
I nod, clearing my throat. “I told you I have an implant.” And I didn’t want to stop. The truth is, I knew if either of us stopped for even a moment, we wouldn’t have gone through with it.
And I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
“Okay.”
“I’m clean,” I say, searching his eyes.
“Me too.”
I nod, somehow knowing he wouldn’t put me in danger even in the heat of the moment. I try to joke to break the tension, “Besides, I wasn’t going to use condoms you brought for my sister.”
He looks surprised, and I realize how unfunny that is. That he really did bring condoms on this very trip to use with her. And she brought some to use with him. And if the wreck never happened, that’s exactly what they’d be doing right now.
I drop my hands from his face. So many emotions stir inside me, and the one that’s winning out is jealousy. How sick is that? My hands tremble, and I feel like I might be sick to my stomach.
He uses his hand to tip my chin up to look into his eyes. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk about that. We agreed.”
I feel the familiar irritated feeling I usually feel with Cooper, and it almost feels good. “Because we’re so fucked up.”
He looks irritated now too. Good. This is what we should feel for each other. “Our circumstances are fucked.”
“Right.” I grab my sweater and tug it on over my head, still on his lap, and I know I’m being ridiculous. I’m pouting like a child, but I don’t know what’s going on with me. I can’t even admit to myself the things I’m feeling because they’re too awful. “Our circumstances.”
“Ev.”
“No.” I climb off him, grabbing my pants and trying to ignore the wetness between my legs as I tug them on. He remains seated and tugs up his pants. “You’re right. We shouldn’t talk about it.”
He stands up, being careful with his shoulder and then towers over me. “You’re pissed.”
“I’m not. I just think we should probably use the light. Grab more food and firewood.”
His eyes darken as he looks at me. “You’re avoiding.”
“What’s there to avoid, Coop? We fucked. Big deal. We’re both adults.” I fold my arms over my chest and try to appear stronger than I feel. “Single adults.”
“But we’re not.” I know my eyes widen when he says that, but he doesn’t force me to talk anymore. He brushes past me to grab a shirt. “Can you help me?”
I nod and walk over to him. I carefully remove the sling and help him put on a long-sleeved button-down shirt before repositioning the sling.
“Thanks. That’s a real pain in the ass.”
“Does it feel any better?”
He nods with a small smile because neither of us are really thinking about his arm right now. We’re thinking about what happened moments ago. “Yeah. It does. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He doesn’t bother with a coat, and we head out to the barn, going through the motions. We gather firewood and then go to the cellar to bring up more food before making a quick lunch.
All the while my mind is on the facts.
We had sex, and he’s right . . . We aren’t truly single.
Everything is fucked.
And I mean everything. Yeah, I wanted her. And it felt incredible. I don’t really regret it. Except now, she won’t look at me. We’re sitting here with candles and two of the lamps lit, watching the fire as we eat our canned food for dinner, and she refuses to talk to me.
We haven’t talked much today. She can’t look at me, and I know she regrets it. I should have just kept my fucking hands to myself.
I was jarred when she mentioned the condoms. It brought reality back. That I was thinking about sleeping with Aria on this trip. If we hadn’t been in the wreck, more than likely that’s what would have happened.
And I would’ve heard her in the next room with my best friend. Like so many nights before.
The feeling sends a powerful feeling through my gut, squeezing it tight with guilt. She’s my best friend’s girlfriend.
That’s what I meant when I said we aren’t really single. And she knows it too.
If the wreck hadn’t happened, we’d still be in relationships with other people.
“Were you thinking about her?”
I turn to look at Everly, who seems to be having whiskey for dinner
. “Eat.”
“I had a pickle.”
“Eat. More.” I take the whiskey from her. “Drink. Less.”
Her pretty eyes roll, and I’m able to see her clearly with the fire flickering throughout the room. I take a drink of the whiskey, knowing Everly well and that she’s ready for a fight. “Just tell me.”
I sigh heavily and take another swig of whiskey. “What?”
“Were you thinking about her when you were fucking me? Was it a grief thing? A way to be with her?”
Her eyes are fixed firmly on me as she folds her knees under herself on the couch. “No.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. She was my sister. We were similar. There’s no denying that.”
Okay, she wants to fight, we can fight. Maybe a good old-fashioned argument with Ev will make me feel less numb. “You two were nothing alike, and you fucking know it.” I move closer to her and watch her eyes darken. “She was light, and you’re darkness.”
“Fuck you,” she spits.
“It’s true, Ev. She was blond. Your hair is black. Her eyes were bright blue.” She looks down, away from my gaze, and I move even closer to her, grasping her jaw and lifting her face so I can look into those stormy eyes. “Yours are different colors but always a dark, cloudy shade.”
“Fuck you, Coop.”
“They’re beautiful.” I swallow hard, looking into her watery eyes as they widen in shock.
“What?”
“Your eyes are beautiful.” I release her and then feel her silky hair between my fingers. “Your hair. Everything about you is beautiful. I like the dark.”
I watch her throat as she swallows, my words affecting her. “We had the same nose.”
“I know.” My lips press to hers softly. “I wasn’t thinking about her.” And it makes me even more of a bastard because it’s true. Aria never even crossed my mind when I was kissing Everly. When I was inside her. Not once.
Her lips part as she deepens the kiss, her fingers sliding through my short hair and gripping tight, pulling me into her. She tastes like whiskey and pickles, and Ev. Something I can’t fight.
Something I’ve tried so goddamn long to fight.
“So, when you kiss me, you don’t . . .?” She’s panting through our kiss. I hear the uncertainty in her voice as it shakes, but she doesn’t pull away from me.