by Lori Ryan
Cora didn’t answer, but her focus was fully on Julia now.
“You guys have been together about a month now, right?”
One month and six days. Cora had been counting. She nodded.
“You’ve been making out but haven’t had sex.”
Cora raised her brows. “You know the answer to that.”
They’d talked about it.
Julia made an exasperated face. “Listen, chickie, if he was planning to leave, he’d either leave or he’d screw you and then leave.”
Cora took a slow breath. She knew Julia was right. Still, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t leave someday. That this wouldn’t someday end.
Julia started the mind reading thing again. “And yes, he might leave someday. Maybe you guys will find out that this isn’t the right thing for you down the road, but you can’t live life that way. You can’t live life wondering if things are going to end. If you do that, you miss the good stuff. You miss the now.”
Julia leveled Cora with a look. “You know I’m right, right?”
Cora laughed. “You’re right.”
And she was. They moved on to makeup, and Cora focused on letting herself enjoy the now. Julia was right. She wouldn’t let her mother’s actions govern her life. She wouldn’t let her mom and her failures take over. She’d gone after what she wanted with Justin. She wanted it to work out, and she’d do all she could to make sure it did work out. She would work for her future with him, but she wouldn’t let herself fall into the trap of worrying about what ifs anymore. She would enjoy the now.
26
Justin opened the door for Cora, letting her slip past him into the house.
“That restaurant was worth the drive.” She kicked her heels off her feet and left them laying by the door.
She felt his arms come around her after he shut the door. Cora sank back into him, tilting her head as his mouth traveled over the skin of her neck. She moaned and lifted her arms to run her hands through his hair.
It was surreal, being here with him. She couldn’t believe it was really happening. She’d made an appointment that morning with the therapist she’d seen years before. She’d realized lately that maybe she did have a few leftover issues from her childhood. She’d be damned if she was going to let any of her hang-ups get in the way of this working out.
He ran his hands down her arms and his fingers caught her hand and pulled her behind him to the couch. When he sat, he settled her across his lap, bringing his mouth to hers again.
His eyes seemed darker somehow, as he broke the kiss and looked at her. When he spoke, his voice had the low timbre of heat and need.
“I’m so damned glad I stopped being a dumbass.”
Cora couldn’t help it. She tipped her head back and laughed. “I’m pretty happy about that, too.”
Then he was kissing her again and her thoughts turned to mush as pure feeling and sensation took over. Every part of her seemed to tingle and vibrate with pleasure.
When his hands slid down her back, her hands slid up his torso to his chest. It wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
She tugged at his shirt, on fire with the need to feel him without clothes or barriers between them.
When he pulled his shirt over his head, Cora sat back and absorbed the sight of him. He was incredible. Tanned skin with a smattering of blond hair on his chest. Muscles tight with what she hoped was sexual tension and not stress of some other kind.
She ran a finger down his chest to his abs, letting it trail over all the dips and valleys of the cut muscles.
He hissed a response when she dawdled at the hem of his pants. “You’re killing me, Cora.”
She looked up, meeting his eyes. “I want you.”
With a groan, he wrapped her tight in his arms, pulling her body to meet his, capturing her mouth again.
“Please,” she whispered. No, whimpered. She was a pleading mess now.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
Justin stood, lifting her with him and walking back toward the bedrooms. She’d never seen more than the living room and kitchen of his house, but when he entered a bedroom, she knew at once that it was his.
Dark burgundy and navy bed linens stood out against pale gray walls. There were black and white photos on the walls. Later, she would look at them and see that they were taken in all the places he’d traveled around the world. Some showed famous monuments, but most showed things you wouldn’t find in a commercial print. The doorway of a church or the slanted crumpling roof of an old cottage.
Anticipation swirled deep in her belly. There was, without a doubt, toe curling happening.
Justin laid her on the bed, coming down over her. His hands and mouth worked in tandem as he stripped her bare. She wriggled, wanting to cover herself from him, but when she looked in his eyes, she saw nothing but a very distinctive male pride.
He stood, holding her gaze as he unbuttoned his pants, and she realized, she was all but drooling. Her mouth watered at the sight of him shucking his pants and boxers.
Warm flesh met hers when he crawled over her. “I want you to know, Cora, there was never a time when I didn’t want this, want you. From the minute I saw you, I wanted you.”
She was helpless to answer. She couldn’t have formed words in that moment for anything.
His mouth moved from one breast to the other, kissing and licking between his words.
“But, this, Cora. I never could have imagined this.”
She ran her nails lightly up his back, lifting her hips to urge him closer to her.
He broke away from her and she felt his absence keenly. But then he shifted to the nightstand and opened a drawer, and she processed what he was doing. A condom.
It was a good thing one of them was thinking right now.
He lay on his back to roll the condom on, and she couldn’t resist. She nipped his shoulder with her teeth, then soothed the spot with her tongue.
He growled and shot her a warning look, but she just laughed. She felt completely free with him. She thought she’d be nervous, but maybe it was the fact they’d been friends for years. Maybe it was that she knew him and trusted him. Maybe it was that she knew there was no way what they were about to do could let her down. What they were about to do would be nothing short of magical.
He eased into her slowly, a fierce look of concentration on his face. She pressed her hips up again, not wanting him to go slowly. She wanted all of him. Now.
“God,” he breathed, then buried his head in her neck and held perfectly still.
She ran her hands over his back, just reveling in the feel of him inside her. She wanted to tell him how this felt. Wanted to let him know how perfect this was for her.
She couldn’t find the words. With another moan, she began to circle her hips. It wasn’t even a conscious decision to move. Her body needed it, demanded it.
“Christ, Cora,” he swore but he pulled out of her before plunging back in, deep long strokes that drew her panting to a frenzy.
They didn’t last long. Her orgasm was crashing over her, through her, in waves and he joined her, plunging deeper, harder.
They lay in a tangled heap, trying to catch their breath. She was doing more than that. She was trying to catch her breath, her heart, her everything.
When their breathing had returned to normal, Justin slid from the bed and went to the bathroom. She assumed he was taking care of the condom.
She closed her eyes, a smile still playing across her lips. She’d be smiling for a long time to come, she thought.
The mattress shifted and she opened her eyes to see Justin grinning at her. She liked seeing him smile so much. It was a good change.
He pulled open the bed stand drawer again and pulled out the small pad she’d used to write his bucket list.
Cora watched as he took a pen and wrote something then crossed it out.
He handed it to her.
He’d written, make love to Cora on the pad, then
crossed it off.
27
Cora pulled up to Ethan’s house. It was hard not to think about the last time she’d come here, when it was Mr. Knight’s house. Hard not to picture that moment when she’d found Mr. Knight on the floor.
She swallowed down the sadness and got out of the car. She would be meeting Justin for dinner in an hour but she wanted to see if Ethan was doing okay. She hadn’t talked to him since the funeral.
Ethan’s truck was out front. She hesitated when she saw another truck parked beside his. She could come back later, but she thought maybe it would be weird to pull in the driveway, then pull back out without at least saying hello.
She had made it to the front porch before she heard the yelling. Ethan and another man were fighting.
“I’m getting the hell out of here!” Ethan sounded mad, but there was a thread of fear under the anger. Cora didn’t know which of those things scared her more. He didn’t sound at all like the man she’d dated only weeks before.
Another man was saying something about having to take care of it—whatever it was—but Cora didn’t stick around to listen.
She didn’t know what they were fighting about, but she knew it wasn’t something she wanted to be involved with.
Cora turned and walked back down the steps quietly. Something told her to be as quiet as she could. That she didn’t want to be caught here. Call it instinct, or maybe something as simple as gut self-preservation. She wanted out of there, now.
Ethan’s panicked response followed her down the stairs. “We can’t fix this. People are dead. My dad is dead, Derrick!”
She bolted for the car. She was halfway there she heard a shout. She didn’t process much after that. There was the sound of the front door, boots on the steps, then a powerful arm around her waist.
It lifted her off the ground.
“No!” Cora cried out. A hand crushed her mouth. Something told her this wasn’t Ethan. The feeling wasn’t right. This person was bigger, stronger.
Meaner, a voice in her head offered.
She tried to lower her center of gravity, to spread her weight out and stabilize herself so she could fight back. She was slow. The things Justin had made her practice didn’t come to her readily. Her brain and her body both seemed to be slogging through tar to make any movements.
She balled her hand into a fist and braced her thumb against her other fingers, making it as strong and rigid as she could. She plunged her fist, the nail of her thumb facing back, aiming for where her attacker’s face should be.
A loud howl sounded and his grip slipped, but he didn’t let go completely.
Then she heard Ethan yelling. There were muffled movements. A loud crack. Something about the sound was sickening, and as the arms and weight of the person who’d grabbed her fell away from her, she realized what it must be. She realized Ethan had hit the other man.
Cora turned and saw Derrick Ayers lying on the ground at her feet. His head was bleeding and Ethan was holding a heavy shovel.
He came to her, hands on her arms. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you, Cora?”
Cora stammered, stunned at what had just happened. “N-no. I, I’m okay, I think.”
Ethan looked back to Derrick’s crumpled form, then to her. “We have to go.”
He took her arm and led her to his truck. Cora stumbled, running to keep up with him. Yes, she thought. They needed to get to a safe spot where they could call for help.
He opened the truck and helped her in before running around to the driver’s side.
Cora slumped in the seat next to him as he pulled down the long drive of his father’s house. Her hands were shaking, but she was okay. They would get to safety and call for help.
28
Ethan turned right, heading away from town. Cora turned in her seat to look back up the driveway. She saw no movement. No truck following them. She didn’t think Derrick had tried to get up yet.
“He’s not following us. We should be safe to call the police from here,” she said.
Ethan shot her a look but didn’t stop.
Cora waited a beat, turning again to look back at the house. Why was Ethan moving away from town? Shouldn’t they be headed toward people, not away from them?
“Ethan, stop.” Her voice still held the tone of someone who didn’t understand what was going on. Someone who expected him to listen.
It was dawning on her, though, that he wasn’t going to listen. He wasn’t planning to call the police and explain what had happened. He wasn’t planning to tell them that he’d had to hit Derrick because he was hurting Cora. It was the truth, but there was something else Ethan would have to admit to if he did. And he wasn’t planning to tell anyone the truth.
Cora didn’t want to know what it was. She just wanted to get out of the truck.
“Stop the truck, Ethan. Let me out.”
His hands tightened on the wheel. “We just have to figure this out. We need to figure out some kind of story.”
“There doesn’t need to be a story,” she said, in a measured calm tone. “You had to hit Derrick. He was hurting me. That’s all we need to tell them. No one’s going to blame you for that.”
Ethan blew out a harsh breath and shoved a hand through his hair. His hand was shaking and he didn’t look her way. His eyes stayed locked on the road ahead of them. It was an empty road now. Around his house, there might have been the chance of another person coming down the road, but now they’d gotten to the point where the cars would be few and far between.
“I just need to think, Cora. I’m going to figure this out.”
Cora thought back to all she knew about being in a situation like this. It wasn’t just what Justin had told her over the last few days. Her sister, Ashley, had been kidnapped once. That had been an eye-opening experience for all of them. Cora had read as much as she could after that about what to do if she was ever kidnapped.
She didn’t consider this a kidnapping, really. Ethan likely hadn’t stopped to think about what he was doing. What she needed to figure out, was how to get through to him. How to get him to realize what he was doing. If she could get him to stop and think, surely he wouldn’t hurt her. He would let her go.
Should she yell at him and tell him to stop the car right now and let her out? He’d shown some protectiveness back there when he’d saved her from Derrick. But would that streak continue if he felt like she was turning on him?
Justin’s voice came through to her. “Humanize yourself. Always make sure an abductor sees you as a person. If they do anything to make you think they’re not seeing you that way anymore—if they stop feeding you, or cover your face up, or won’t look at you—you fight like hell. Until then, stay calm and humanize yourself as much as possible until you see an opening to get help or get away.”
Cora turned toward Ethan in the seat. “Thank you for stopping him. I was really scared when he grabbed me.” No need to lie there. It was the truth and the shakiness in her voice as she relived that moment was genuine.
Her purse and her phone were in her car, but she had her keys in the pocket of her sweatshirt. Thanks to Justin, the keychain had a canister of pepper spray on it.
“We just need to figure this out,” he said again. He seemed locked on that idea.
“Tell me what we need to figure out, Ethan.”
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. This was never supposed to be this way. I haven’t gambled since I got out of this fucking town ten years ago. I did what I had to do to settle the debt before I left. It wasn’t supposed to come back on us like this.”
Cora froze, listening as Ethan talked.
He turned to her. “I just need to find a way to fix this.”
“Fix what, Ethan?” She could spray him with the pepper spray but then he might crash the car. The stuff was strong and he was going fifty-five or sixty. An accident at this speed could kill them or at the very least, do a lot of damage.
He looked over at her again and then shook his head.
“Derrick and I both owed people a lot of money. It wouldn’t have worked if we didn’t both plan it together. It only worked because I worked for the transport company and he worked for the company that was hired to dispose of the chemicals. With both of us on either end, we could change the paperwork to make sure the numbers matched up. I delivered some of the drums Caufield’s sent and we buried the rest on my family’s land. Derrick’s sister worked in the billing department at the disposal company. She billed the amount Caufield’s expected to pay, then only transmitted enough to cover what we said they sent. We kept the extra money.”
Cora realized what he was saying. He and Derrick had buried those chemical drums the kids had discovered. They were the reason Mr. Knight and the kids had gotten sick.
She spoke quietly and calmly. “Derrick, just pull over and let me out. I’ll walk back.”
He didn’t seem to hear. “Cora, you know me. You know I would never have done any of this on purpose. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Her other option was to jump from the car. But they were going too fast.
She could try to spray him with the pepper spray and grab the wheel, but she couldn’t work the pedals. If she sprayed him, he could as easily hit the gas as he could the brake.
Maybe she could get him to pull over so they could talk.
“Ethan,” she said, putting her hand on his arm very gently. Just the smallest touch to see if she could get through to him. “Pull the truck over so we can figure this out, Ethan. We need to stop and think before we go further. It’s not a good idea to just run blindly.”
He glanced her way, then nodded. He pulled the truck over to the side of the road and shifted into neutral.
Cora reached for the door. She was getting out of the truck before it started moving again.
She heard Ethan yell as she bolted.
“Cora, wait!”