Page 140 of Missed Sunrise
His texture, his passion, his lips as they formed my name.
“Liem,”he pleaded as I moved my hand along his length. “Just like that.”
The angle wasn’t perfect, but it alsowasin its intimacy and connection. Each mutual glide brought us closer together until our foreheads touched as we worked each other.
I grasped the back of Cody’s neck and stroked my thumb down his taut muscles, finding his detonation button. He bucked wildly, and then his pace faltered for a second before he upped it with ferocity.
Those tingling nerves inside of me took a breath before they screamed in pleasure, and I found release. Goose bumps rippled across my back and chest as Cody shouted what I felt, his release joining mine and coating the space between us.
Heedless of the mess, Cody rolled on top of me and, with one hand braced on the middle of my chest and the other cupping my face, kissed me.
The kiss was even more ferocious than the ones we’d shared before, but it was somehow more tender too. His thumb stroked my cheekbone as his tongue found its way into my mouth, exploring and insistent, our spent bodies still finding pleasure in proximity.
I wasn’t sure how long the kissing went on, but it wasn’t until Cody’s stomach grumbled loudly that we finally broke apart long enough to pause, to think.
He rolled us back onto our sides and then flopped backward onto the bed, making me bounce. Then he threw his arm over his eyes and exhaled quite dramatically. “You really had your way with me, LL. I’m never going to recover from this.”
I propped my head on my arm and traced a finger along his ribs, smiling as his golden skin puckered. “Do recall that I came here for a date. You were the one who said, and I quote, ‘I can’t do this.’ I was perfectly happy to just enjoy your company.”
He slid his arm over his head and plopped it on the pillow, opening one eye at me as he asked, “And did you?”
I walked my fingers across his abs, which didn’t even have the energy to constrict as they normally would have. “Immensely.”
He closed his eyes, a pleased smile slowly growing on his face.
Pleasure suited him, as did pride.
His body did one of those little convulsions, like when you just remembered something utterly divine or decidedly horrible, before he abruptly sat up and stood from the bed. He regarded me for a long moment, his eyes taking in every inch of me before he scooped me up and carried me to the bathroom.
“No nonsense, Ti Bet,” he warned. “We’re going to clean up, and then I’ll do as I promised.”
“Yeah?” I asked, awed as Cody adjusted the large shower one-handed and then guided us under it.
“Yeah, Liem. Prepare to be wooed.”
“These biscuits are not wooing quality,”Cody said mournfully after a shower filled with nonsense.
He tipped the bowl of dough toward me, and I frowned at the sad, dried crust that had formed on top. “Monny’s nightmare biscuits,” I confirmed with a solemn nod.
“At least I took the cookies out of the oven before you rocked up here and fried my brain,” he said lightly, gesturing to the pan of cookies on top of the stove.
I’d tried to ask him about that before, until Cody’s magnificently dirty mouth had driven it entirely from my mind.
I took the bowl from his hands and set it on the counter, then nuzzled into his bare chest.
We’d changed into minimal clothing after the shower, both of us still running a bit hot after our pre-date activities.
“Thank you for what you did for Dad.” I turned my head and rested the side of my face against his shoulder. “You made what could have been a desperately bad situation entirely good. He called me the day after and wasn’t even upset about the scolding Mom gave him after you left.”
I’d already told him this over the phone during one of our many calls since I’d been in Gulf Shores, but in typical Cody fashion, he’d brushed it off as nothing.
It was the opposite of nothing, the way he’d supported my family when I hadn’t been there. When Vinh hadn’t been there.
It was that same deep caring that’d first drawn me to him, when he’d fretted for Bree—a stranger to me then, but everything to him, then and now—and had sealed his place in my heart, which had been waiting there for if we’d ever get our chance.
So, no, it was not nothing. It was everything. He was everything. And everything had changed but, at its core, was the same.
My shoulders shook as I started to laugh, and Cody looked down at me curiously.
