I Run to You (37 page)

Her heart raced, blood rushed.

She was crying. And didn’t realize it.

They were as close as they could get. Her
hips reaching. His thrusting. Their breathing tight—desperate to
hang on—both recognizing it was too long coming. Too intense to
last.

She made a helpless sound. He rose up to his
knees. His hands cupped her hips, holding them locked to him.
Somewhere through the pool of tears in her eyes, Brook saw his
face, saw the same sheen in those topaz depths as he thrust into
her hard once, twice, then gathered her up.

Her arms and legs wrapped around him. His
arms, holding her desperately tight. Coy was deep, deep inside her,
swelling, pulsing, releasing—his hand on the back of her head,
mouth buried against her neck.

Time stood still in those moments.

Brook had never felt so close, so connected,
so very much a part of someone in her life.

He lifted her from him, and laid her down,
leaving her a moment to repair himself.

She looked up at the stairs, sensing every
pore on her skin, every inch of skin. More acutely—realizing how
right that felt, being joined with him.

She looked up as he lay beside her.

“Cold?’ he asked.

“No,” she whispered eyeing his face, seeing
the trace of tears.

Coy leaned over her, his knee sliding in to
part her thighs. Hand on her lower stomach.

She savored the slow, erotic kiss he gave
her—moaned faintly as his fingers found her sex. Brook rode to the
thrust of his touch, in and out, arching her neck as he began to
lick and bite sexily there. Her frame was tensing, reaching for
orgasm. He went down her body, his mouth finding the swollen,
sensitive clit. His tongue circling, laving, bringing her to the
peak, — holding her there — until she felt as though the stars had
floated, down and melted through her.

Afterwards, he held her, their bodies
tangled, his power and brawn, surrounding her with heat and
strength.

Brook half raised as she heard a vehicle
approaching.

“It’s Max, going home.” Coy raised on his
elbow.

“He can see down here, can’t he?” She met his
gaze.

“He’ll recognize my truck.” Coy told her
frankly.

Groaning, she lay back, combing her fingers
through her hair and trying to discern—at what point she had
forgotten her half-brother lived on the other side of the dock.

Coy’s hand on her cheek drew her attention to
him.

He leaned over her, watching her face. His
thumb caressed while he murmured, “This wasn’t what I’d planned. It
wasn’t all the time we need…” He shook his head slowly. “I want
you. I want that time, Brook. I need to love you better than
this.”

Brook felt tears sting her eyes. She
restrained them. “This is as deep as it goes for us. You make me
feel too many crazy emotions, Coy. I can’t—”

“Don’t you know what that is? Baby,” he
whispered and kissed her. Raising enough to whisper against her
lips, “Don’t you know what we feel? Brook, sweet woman—”

She sat up and moved away from him. “Don’t
woo me, Coy. Don’t make me feel that again.” The tears tumbled over
her cheeks as she picked up the dress. Her fingers shaking, she
buttoned it.

He dressed too, his eyes on her most of the
time.

Brook left him and headed to the truck.

She sat in the passenger side after putting
on her sandals. She did her weeping before he finished packing the
stuff in the back— and by the time he was in the driver’s seat, she
was staring out the side window. Kicking her ass mentally— for
giving into this bit of temptation.

“Buckle up.”

She did. Not looking at him. Not seeing much
of anything, as he drove her home.

In the drive, Coy cut the engine. The sounds
of their seatbelts releasing seeming loud after the long silence.
Brook slid out, aware he was walking her to the door.

On the porch, she turned.

He leaned against the brace, his head back
against it, and face taut again, lashes lowered as if to hide his
emotions.

“Do you regret it?” he asked her, a hard
thread in his tone revealing his feelings were very close to the
surface.

“No.” She sighed and sat down on the small
bench.

Brook ran her hands through her hair, and
then flexed them on her thighs. She didn’t know what she had been
thinking, but she didn’t regret it.

He fumbled in his shirt pocket, extracted,
and lit a cigarette. Releasing smoke, he rasped, “Even if I
understand your feelings, I don’t like your rules tonight,
Brook.”

She leaned forward on a groan, elbows on her
knees, and hands over her face. “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t—”

He tossed the cigarette and came to his
haunches, in front of her. Coy dragged her hands down, putting her
arms around his neck. He slid her forward enough to get his around
her spine.

His lips went across her brow as he whispered
tightly, “Tell me what to do now. Please.” He took his mouth to her
ear and moaned, “God, yes. I want to make love to you, be in you
until I can empty even half of this want that gnaws at my guts. But
I’m lost. So lost, right now.”

Brook shivered and held onto him. She felt
the dampness on his face even as her own tears were sluggishly
falling.

One hand in his hair, fingers stoking, she
managed, “Coy, You hurt me. You devastated me. It was more than a
crush; young love whatever the hell people brush it off as. You
changed—everything about who I was.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I know that.” She sniffed in the tears and
rubbed her forehead against his temple. “I know. I feel too much
with you. I feel the pain in us both.”

His arms tightened. He arose, lifting her too
and turning so that he held her on his thighs, in his arms. Her
head tucked under his chin, an arm around her shoulder, the other
hand rubbing her hip, he rasped, “Love scares you when it’s that
strong. You feel that, walking on the edge of a blade, thing. All
hollow in the gut and doubting everything…”

“Yes.”

“After I accepted you were gone. I had so
much going on…The mess with Karla, until she had Levi. By then, I
was in college, and knew I was being scouted. Then he came—and I
had to build a future for him. Karla was constantly popping up, in
the worst way. Just keeping us worried sick she’d do something
crazy.”

“I know. It must have been terrible.”

“It was. But in those years, before my knee
went out—”

“Your knee. Oh God, I—” She tried to get
up.

“It’s fine. Stay put.” He snuggled her
against him. “I was saying, weaved in, and out of those years were
times I looked back and was amazed at my own stupidity. I couldn’t
even understand myself.

I fell for you that day I saw you in the
hallway. I had known you before. Seen you. Nevertheless, I fell
hard and fast. I didn’t think you would give me the time of day.
You know a Diamond Back girl and a Copper Creek boy… a Coburn. When
you did, I did not take it for granted. Everything I liked about
you was different from any girl or woman—I’d been with.”

Brook did not want to think of those days,
her own feelings. She tried not to.

“Every day, once we were going steady, I
would feel amazed, excited. You made me think, feel, different. I
can’t explain it. I would have waited on you to be ready to make
love…but when you asked me, I would nearly fall apart thinking
about it. How, where, wanting to be perfect.”

“Let’s not talk about—”

His hand cupped her face. He leaned back,
making her meet his gaze. Coy murmured, “I don’t know how to
explain, even to myself why I did that. There was no lust there
before. I swear to you. I didn’t even see anyone else. I sensed she
was a flirt and tease, I knew she felt like a third wheel. But I
didn’t want her.”

“I can’t talk about this…” Brook tried to
push his hand away.

“Just believe me. Hear me, please.” Coy held
firm.

“Years after, I’d pace at night. My mind
would drift before a game. In some restaurant. A hotel. Walking
down a city street. It would always drift—to everything before— and
all the feelings and things, we shared. I would get so angry, so
frustrated, that I could not take back those few moments. I would
feel crazy to pick up the phone, call you, and tell you it wasn’t a
lie. It wasn’t just some high school crush.”

Brook closed her eyes.

Coy lowered his hand back to her hip. “I’m
more than sorry, baby. I can never undo it, but I was sorry then.
More, every day since. I’m so sorry.” His voice was deep, breaking.
“I’m sorry, baby.”

She opened her eyes but looked somewhere
besides his face.

“I forgive you. I may even understand you,
back then, to some extent. I cannot go back to feeling the way I
did. I cannot say I will give my emotions to someone I know is
capable of hurting me. I don’t trust you with them. I can’t—”

She pushed at his hand and got up, going over
to the side and looking outward. “I never should have done
this—tonight. I shouldn’t have. It’s not a good thing for—either of
us.”

Brook leaned her temple against the post. She
felt his hand touch her lower back as he came to lean on the other
side, standing on the top step.

He sighed. “Maybe saying all the things
unsaid— things we felt then and all these years between—needs to
come out. We’re adults and we’ve had time to know what kind of
defining moment that was for us.”

“Maybe.”

His fingers brushed over her back before he
dropped his hand, and went a few steps down.

Turning, so he could look at her face, Coy
said, “Tonight was more than I was afraid to hope for. And not
enough time to release half the emotions we still feel, any time
we’re around each other.”

He looked around then back at her, saying
softly, “I can’t pierce your resistance, Brook. I can’t fight the
truth of your not trusting me, because I know it’s justified and
based on experience.

We were young; I was more kid than man, no
matter what my experience. I made a mistake that hurt you, hurt me,
and shattered something…beautiful and pure. Something real. I have
been paying for it, in more ways than I can explain. Seven
years…for a mistake I made when I was too young and stupid.

I would suffer it all again. But I would wish
for you not to. You know what is still so intense, so beautiful,
and real. That feeling. That moment we were holding onto each other
and I was so deep inside of you. You may not trust me. But on some
level, you still love me.”

Brook watched him walk to the truck.

She was sick of crying, and yet she was doing
it again, even when she let herself in the house.

She bathed—sitting past the water getting
chilled with her forehead on her knees—crying. Afterwards, she
padded out in her P.J’s and sat holding the pup.

She cried on and off, until she climbed into
bed.

It was a bad night...

~*~

Sunday morning, Brook woke up with the
reality of the night before too clear in her mind. Getting coffee,
dressing in jeans and a T-shirt, and her sneakers, she carried the
mug and put the pup on a leash for a walk in the wooded lot next to
hers.

She sat on a log and let him explore.
Sipping, flushing with memory, shaking her head, wishing she could
blame it on the beer. Yep—she had done what she swore she would
never do. She knew exactly the part of herself that always imagined
them making love. The part that wanted him—even when she hated him.
Hated him, because he had deprived her of expressing her passion
for him.

He made her crazy.

He made her burn to her bones.

Everything about him last night was sexy,
hot, and erotic.

God—but why—How, could she feel so much for
the one man who taught her how not to trust? Even if she forgave
him.

She did forgive him. Because holding onto
something from high school, for 7 years, was not healthy.

She’d had other issues, with her Dad, too
many things going on in her life, and Coy, tough as he appeared, as
manly, had to have some issues too— because his Mom just wrote him
off. He and Jude had not been tight. So they’d put many of their
own wants, dreams, expectations, into a very young and intense
relationship.

Still, she did not know how to just let go of
the fear— and it was fear. She did not want to hurt that bad
again.

Last night, did not “cure” anything. It only
showed her, and likely Coy, that she couldn’t really let go of him
either.

Like him, as he described seeing her, falling
for her, it had been the same way for her then. Something drew
them, bound them. She had enough life and age now to know it didn’t
happen like that for every young couple….

Brook was in such a muse, she didn’t realize
the pup was barking and growling.

By the time she stood, the image coming at
her was a blur.

The first painful blow caught her on the jaw,
causing her to stagger, and drop the cup. The second, across her
ribs—robbed her of wind, and took her to her knees.

She was too stunned to react. Too late—to
deflect the one that knocked her unconscious from behind.

Chapter 17

Coy was at Mitch and Madeline’s with the rest
of the Coburns. They had gathered there after church. He was
filling his plate, standing close to Madeline, when she answered
the phone on the bar.

He heard her gasp, “What! Karla, slow down.
What are saying? I can’t understand you.”

Since everyone was laughing and talking Coy
growled loudly, “Shut the hell up.”

Everyone in the room fell quite, heads
whipping toward him. Coy was staring at Madeline, who had a hand to
her chest, her face stark and colorless

She shouted loudly, “Where is she? What have
you done? My. God…What do you mean, Karla?”