Easy Little Lick (Copperline #3) (26 page)

Then, a small hand reached out and turned it. Ilsa slipped an arm around my waist and guided me into my room, towards my bed.

For a minute, everything in me swelled. Her soft touch and sweet, warm scent. Heaven in my arms.

God, I loved her.

But I shouldn’t. She was married.

“No, you shouldn’t be in here,” I mumbled in a garbled voice.

“I know,” she whispered back, sounding broken and frail.

I straightened, stumbling away from her as I pulled my shirt over my head. I focused on the desire to go to sleep. I tried to block out everything around me. My shirt started pissing me off, though. It got hung up on my head, and I yanked on it a little harder, weaving as it came loose. I threw it to the floor, using my frustration to stiffen my spine as I tried so fucking hard to ignore her.

She stood across the room from me, and even in my schnockered state, I could feel her sorrow. Her worry. Her lonely heartsickness.

I jerked on the fly of my jeans, ripping open the buttons, and she turned away with belated modesty. I veered towards my bed, clumsy in my intoxication, as I tried to get off my jeans, only to realize I still had my work boots on.

Fuck.

Ilsa stepped forward and eased me back on the messy pile of blankets thrown haphazardly on the bed.

“Don’t…” My voice sounded distant, hanging on to the last shred of consciousness. “You’re married.”

She didn’t respond, just knelt before me and undid the laces of my work boots, pulling them off before she rose. She tugged down my jeans and pulled them from my legs, leaving me in my boxer briefs.

“Scoot up,” she said with a nudge towards the head of the bed. I flopped and fell until my head had reached the pillow. Reaching down, she started to pull up the blankets, covering my body.

Just before she turned away, I noted the tears trailing down her cheeks. I grabbed her arm, pulling her towards me.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you to be with me.”

She swallowed hard and turned her face away, but I tightened my grasp and rolled, taking her with me and holding her still with the weight of my body.

My fingertips trailed along her jaw as I stared down at her in a drunken haze. “I should have stayed away,” I ground out. “I never should have slept with you.”

She was fighting back tears, losing the battle, and a small, choked sob broke free.

“I've never known anyone like you,” I continued, “never wanted anyone so much… but I never should have touched you.”

I brushed my lips against hers.

“I should have been like Justin. I should have just stuck with the bar sluts. Fucked ‘em and left ‘em… and left you alone.” My lips trailed down her tear-streaked cheeks to her neck, biting little kisses along the tender skin. “I should have just had lots of empty, meaningless sex. Anything would be better than the way this feels now.”

She wasn’t even trying to hold back any longer, crying beneath me as my hands slipped down her body to the hem of the long T-shirt she wore to bed. With a groan, I lifted the fabric, shoving it up as I found my way back to her lips where I kissed her deeply, with all my pent up emotion pouring from my soul. I wanted to purge it from my system, to release this hopelessness that felt so awful.

But the minute I kissed her, the desperation for her alone took over. The promise of being one with her, of losing myself in her touch and her scent. Better than any whiskey, it numbed the pain that ripped through my chest.

I stripped the clothes from her body and made her moan for me. I overwhelmed her with my presence until she was panting with desire, until that need had her responding through her tears.

“I hate this,” I moaned as I slipped inside her. “I hate that I want you so much.” Through the haze of lust and alcohol, I saw more tears fall from her eyes. I saw the lonely shame color her cheeks.

I took her gently with slow strokes that made her sob. Deep into her body, twisting at her soul. Wanting her to ache and burn like I did.

I knowingly fucked another man’s wife, feeling like an asshole for going against everything I’d ever thought about marriage.

And she let me. Not even once did she try to pull away, to stop me. She held me, whispered how sorry she was, while she lifted her hips to meet my thrusts.

After I came inside her, after I touched pure beauty, the self-reproach came rushing back.

“Why did I have to fall in love with you?” I whispered into her neck. “God, I wish I’d never met you.”

If I had been just a little less intoxicated, I could have guarded my words a little better. I could have clarified that it was my guilt and regret for ignoring the red flags she’d thrown up all along. If I hadn’t met her, neither one of us would be hurting right now.

But as it was, as bombed and shattered as I was, I didn’t. I used her flood of hot, agonized tears as a substitute for my own. Tears that chilled my skin when she pulled away, shaking with quiet sobs.

I stared at her lifelessly as she reached for her night shirt and slipped it on over her naked body.

“I’m so sorry, Cody,” she whispered, and stumbled from my bed to the door.

My heart felt rotten inside. Purulent. Festering with remorse and guilt and shame.

I should have gone after her. I knew she was hurting. I knew what I’d just done and said had hurt her even more. I should have followed her and told her… something…
anything
.

But I didn’t.

I lay there all alone in my bed with the scent of her all around me and I passed out cold.

I woke up feeling dead inside.

Everything I thought I’d known the day before had disappeared before my eyes. Things I’d thought about Ilsa. Things I’d thought about myself. I felt sick as the words I’d said to her last night came back to me. Her quiet crying seemed to reverberate through my head and echo through the still morning around me.

I had to help her.

I climbed out of bed and tugged on my jeans. My head was pounding so I stopped in the bathroom to grab some Tylenol. Coming out, I was face to face with the closed door of the spare bedroom.

I figured she was in there sleeping. As quiet as it was, Max had to be asleep at the very least. I almost knocked on the door anyway. I needed to apologize, to let her know that I was going to help her somehow. Yet, I didn’t. She needed the rest after all the shit that had gone down last night.

Instead, I went downstairs and started a pot of coffee. While it was brewing, I gave Denny a call.

“Cody?” he answered. “Is everything okay? What happened last night?”

“Are you and Felicity busy today?” I asked. “Ilsa is in some trouble, and it might be something that Felicity can help her with.”

“Sure, we can pop over,” he replied, no questions or judgments. Denny was seriously one of the best guys around. “Just give Fliss a bit of time to get ready.”

“She’s married,” I began. Denny and Felicity both looked utterly shocked. “I didn’t know it until yesterday.”

“Jaysus,” Denny breathed.

“Her husband is a prick, used to beat on her, so she wanted out. He didn’t like that idea. She tried to go about it the right way, the legal way by getting some kind of protection order, but her case was thrown out.”

“That can happen, unfortunately,” Felicity commented. “It happens all too often.”

“They said there was lack of evidence,” I continued, “but her husband is a lawyer with connections.”

“So she took Max and ran?” Felicity asked.

I nodded, wincing at the remnants of the hangover that swirled around in my head. “Exactly.”

“We will get something filed here,” she nodded. “I don’t care who he is back where he’s from, but she’s the one with connections here. We won’t let him touch her.”

“Thank you,” I said with a grim smile.

“I take it she’s here,” Denny asked.

“Yeah, she’s up in your old room.”

“Why don’t you go get her,” Felicity said as she pulled her phone from her purse, “and we’ll get the details worked out. I’ll make a few phone calls while you’re doing that, starting with my dad.”

I climbed the stairs up to the bedrooms on the second floor, feeling slightly more optimistic after talking to Felicity. Hopefully, Ilsa would feel some promise, too.

“Ilsa?” I quietly called as I knocked on the door.

There was no answer. I turned the knob and peeked in, not wanting to disturb Max if he was asleep, but my stomach fell when I looked into the room.

They weren’t there.

Not so much as a sign of them. The diaper bag, Ilsa’s purse…
gone
.

Fuck
.

I ripped back down the stairs into the great room. “She’s gone.” Running out the kitchen door, I realized her car was gone, too. “Fucking hell,” I breathed.

As if I hadn’t already felt guilty enough about last night, the things I said to her echoed around in my head. Things I never would have said if I hadn’t been angry and hurt and totally bombed like I was. Things I had wallowed in, listening all night to Drew and Justin and their own fucked up views on women.

“Why did she leave? It doesn’t make any sense,” Felicity murmured.

I looked over at her feeling like a complete fucker, and by her expression, my guilt was written all over my face.

“What did you do?” she asked warily.

“I got pretty blitzed last night after she told me,” I groaned. “Wallowing in self-pity. I said some shit… did some shit.”

“Where would she have gone?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Anywhere.”

Felicity dialed her cell phone. “Dad, you know that girl I just called you about? Well, she’s gone. She took off.” She paused for a minute. “Yeah, I am… very worried. Her husband has been creeping around, and I’m not sure what he’ll do if he gets a hold of her. Can you do something?” Another pause. “We don’t know what he’s driving, but… well, could you put out word to keep an eye out for her?” She looked over at Denny and I. “I know, but she’s not safe out there. Okay, just a sec.” Felicity lowered the phone and handed it over to me. “He wants to know what she’s driving, how long she’s been gone, stuff like that,” she said.

I took a deep breath and took the phone. “She’s got a dark blue Impala,” I told him, “about four years old.”

“When did you see her last?” he asked. All business. No nonsense.

“Pretty late last night,” I answered.

“Did she say anything at all to indicate where she might be going?”

“I thought she was staying here, but… well, then I was kind of… an idiot.”

There was a quiet moment on the other end. “What do you mean by that?” the Sheriff asked.

“Well, I, um… I was upset and a little drunk.”

“Why were you upset, Cody?”

I looked over at Felicity and Denny who were watching me closely. “Because I love her… and she didn’t tell me. She didn’t trust me.”

Felicity’s face went soft. She kind of made an ‘
awe
’ face and leaned into Denny who put his arm around her.