Soak (A Navy SEAL Mormon Taboo Romance) (4 page)

Chapter Five

“I’m not saying it’s
not
against doctrine,” Gwen
Lilly murmured, in between sips of a strawberry milkshake. “But there’s a
distinctive grey area around the ass. Ask anyone.”

“Really, Gwen? You want me to ask
anyone
? Elder
Andrews? My Dad?”

“You’re being literal again.”

“I thought that was what we did for the most part,” Chloe
continued. This got her a laugh.

Gwen and Chloe, best friends since as long as either could
remember, often went to one another for the more dubious kind of “spiritual
guidance.” Gwen was one of the more radical members of their sleepy community,
and a liberal interpreter of the sacred texts. Her father had famously left the
Church when she was young, and shortly afterwards announced himself homosexual.
As a result, Gwen had grown up the subject of plenty of torment: their peers
often referred to her father as a disgrace, especially after he’d gotten
married to his long-time partner, incurring “apostasy.” Though the church
elders also made no small show of their disapproval, Gwen had finally brought
herself around to speaking terms with her old man, who now lived in Olympia
with his sculptor husband, Alton. But Gwen’s mother, Sister Lilly, was not so
generous with her forgiveness.

“You’re telling me that you’d let someone put it in your
butt?”

“‘Put it in my butt?’ You realize you sound like your little
sisters.”

“I’d
never
do that.”

“Never say never, darling.”

They were taking one of their Sunday strolls, in between
church and the large dinners their families tended to host in the evenings.
These brief meetings had originated sweetly enough, as excuses to get
milkshakes and gossip about their classmates—but over the years, Chloe had come
to cherish the time. There were days when Gwen felt like her sanest friend. She
never judged her, for one, no matter how much more experienced she always
seemed to be. And together, they felt free to bat around the questions they had
about their faith. The kinds of questions that no one else in the community
would ever have been able to hear.

Gwen, largely because of her family back-story, wasn’t
permitted in the large Provo temple. Her mother was a devoted servant of the
church, but many people in the community had found their own ways of blaming
Sister Lilly for being entangled with a “sinner.” This kind of thing didn’t fly
with Gwen, who was technically still on extended leave of absence from BYU.
She’d arrived there six years ago (in Chloe’s family car, in fact), but had
never quite completed her Pre-law coursework. She maintained that she didn’t “jive”
with the school’s mission, and had done exactly what Chloe had in lieu of
making a larger life decision: bounced right back to Provo. Picked up the old
habits, and a few more household responsibilities.

“It doesn’t matter anyways,” Chloe’s friend sighed. She
waved her milkshake straw around like it was a cigarette. “
Sister Lilly
wants me to get married ASAP. And when you’ve got a nice LDS husband, anything
goes in the bedroom.”

“Now I
know
that’s not doctrine.”

Gwen shrugged. Her wild red hair was beginning to escape its
already insecure moorings. Chloe thought she looked like a Pre-Raphaelite woman
in a painting. Everything about her best friend she found thrilling, precisely
because she was so different from everyone else in their town.

“Umm. Chloe?”

“What? PS—can I have the last sip of your strawberry thing?”

Wordlessly, Gwen handed the plastic cup over. Chloe tracked
her friend’s slack-jawed gaze, straight to her own front-yard. A spring sun
beat down on the day, and it was mild verging on warm—but there was Ryder
Strong, mowing the lawn shirtless. Like one of those Hollywood types.

“Your father’s not gonna like that,” Gwen purred, though it
was clear from her tone that Elder Johannes couldn’t be further from her mind.
Gwen was notoriously boy-crazy, and had always loved to brag about what she
considered the “creative,” ways she’d found around the
no-sex-till-you’re-married part of doctrine. It was only in her friend’s
company, in fact, that Chloe felt keenly aware of lust. As a prospect, as a
shameless feeling and—alas—as a sin.

“You’re drooling, lady,” Chloe snapped. She tried to keep
her eyes on the frothy contents of the shake, but her glance kept slipping.
Ryder was rounding a corner with the push-mower, and his torso twisted with the
maneuver. Once again, it was uncomfortably easy to be drawn in to the fluid
movements of his body. She sucked at the straw.

“Takes one to know one,” Gwen replied, in the whiny tone
they both invoked when they were making fun of Celeste and Marie. “What’s his
deal, anyway? Is he part of the church, or what?”

What was Ryder Strong’s deal? Chloe certainly didn’t feel
equipped to answer. It had been three weeks and change since the strange military
man had crossed her family’s threshold, and she still couldn’t say that she
knew more about him than most of his government ID forms did. Since that first
awkward evening, they’d been avoiding each other. Each time Ryder saw fit to
make some smug, anti-Mormon “joke,” she rolled her eyes—and each time she
opened her mouth, she imagined she could feel him sighing from across the room.
It was a tense game of chess they were playing, made doubly uncomfortable by
the fact that she’d never thought of herself as boring and prudish before.
Though it wasn’t like she had anything to prove to Mr. Secular Shirtless, over
there. Flashing off his muscles and those ugly symbol tattoos.

“He bugs you that much, huh?” Gwen was intuitive as ever,
and Chloe could only nod. She gathered her cardigan tighter around her skinny
frame; more out of revulsion than the cold.

“He’s just very arrogant. And it’s very clear in the house
that he only really respects my brother.”

“He’s rude to your parents?”

“Not rude, exactly. But he’s made his feelings about the
Church pretty obvious. And I know what he must think of me and Mama.”

“Oh, pish posh. Who’s he to judge? Just a big army
meathead.”

Navy SEAL,
Chloe fought the urge to correct. Then her
mind darted to the growing pile of books on the houseguest’s nightstand. Ryder
Strong was a lot of things, but he definitely wasn’t a meathead.

“I’m gonna go say hello,” Gwen said at last, making a
miniature show of batting her eyelashes like Betty Boop. “My mother wants me to
meet men, after all.” They shared a titter at the image of Sister Lilly
sanctioning a marriage between her only daughter and a fallen, tattooed, brawny
hooligan. And before Chloe could think to stop it (but then, why would she stop
it?), Gwen had switched her heart-shaped ass across the street and onto the
lawn.

Chloe watched them. She couldn’t help it. Gwen looked so
natural, with her hair tossed back, her hand on one hip. Even though much of
what the gossip magazines classified as “flirtatious body language,” was
frowned upon in this neck of the woods, Gwen sure knew how to work what the
Good Lord gave her. Even in her Sunday finest, with a Peter Pan collar and
thick stockings, she looked like a girl who knew how to have fun.

And Ryder responded. He ran his forearm over his face, and
Chloe could see that he’d collected sweat while hard at work. His breathing
came hard, too; she could tell from how fast his chest rose and fell. A dark,
strange knot began to form in her belly, or somewhere just below it. She
sighed, and let air flutter through her lips.

Now Gwen was motioning to her. Ryder bent a hand to shade
his eyes against the sun. Chloe’s heart began to pound, and for no reason at
all. He’d been under her roof for weeks and now,
now
she was beginning
to respond to his... physicality? None of her emotions made any sense to her.
So, she didn’t trust them.

And Chloe had had boyfriends before, at BYU. A slim parade
of those upstanding scholars, who had big dreams but precise responsibilities
within their families. A lot of those boys were married now. Two of them had
even asked her for her hand (Jackie Rommel and Hector Elvarez). Each beau had
been kind, respectful of her boundaries, and pleasant with her family and
friends. Yet not one of those men had sent her insides plummeting the way Ryder
was doing now, as he stood panting and heaving in the almost-heat.

“What’re you doing prowling around across the street?” the
man himself asked her, once she was in proper ear-shot. Gwen smiled like a
celebrity presenter, flashing all of her pearly white teeth.

“We’re just taking the long way back from church,” her girlfriend
offered up when no words occurred to Chloe. Just then, the front door opened,
emitting her older brother. Johnny was still shaky with his cane, but he smiled
and took a big step onto the lawn when he saw Gwen. They’d always been close.
At one point, Chloe had thought there might be something more to their
friendship, but Gwen had assured her that this was not the case.

“Gwennifer Love Hewitt!” he called, ambling toward their
little party on the grass. “How come you haven’t come by the house?” Gwen made
some snappy reply, but Chloe didn’t hear it. She’d somehow been sucked into the
orbit of the panting stranger.

They stood in awkward silence for a few beats, until it felt
unbearable.

“You want a lemonade or something?” Chloe came up with.
Ryder grinned at this.

“Yeah, a lemonade would be swell.”

She moved to dart across the grass and into the kitchen at
the same moment that Ryder bent over the lawn-mower, and for one mortifying
moment Chloe felt half of her body pressed against Ryder’s sweaty torso. She
could smell him again (less cologne, more cut grass), but this time the smell
didn’t jar her. She realized she’d become adjusted to it, after all his days in
the house.

“I’m sorry,” she grumbled, knowing full well she sounded
angry. Ryder recoiled as if bitten. Their eyes met then disconnected, swimming
somewhere between shame and revulsion—and just like that, the spell was broken.
Chloe couldn’t imagine what she’d been seeing moments before, as she stared at
Ryder like a fallen woman. That arrogant grin, those thick lips, the bulging
biceps...heck, maybe he was a meathead. He certainly wasn’t worth her extra
time.

“I’ll be back,” she said, trying to sound casual. She didn’t
meet her brother’s or Gwen’s gaze as she sidled into the kitchen. But she thought
she could hear them laughing once she’d cleared the foyer.

“What’s all that ruckus going on outside?” It was her
father’s voice that greeted her. He was flipping through a book of Joseph
Smith’s sermons and sipping on his own glass of lemonade, looking fully at
peace. Sometimes, Chloe envied her father. He seemed so perfectly at home in
his kitchen, leading his upright life.

“Gwen is visiting,” Chloe said, reaching for a glass. “And
Johnny came out to say hello. I suppose you saw Ryder.”

“He asked if he could help with anything around the house,”
the older man shrugged. But his face bunched into a rictus. Chloe should have
known better than to mention Gwen; her father didn’t think she was “high
caliber company.”

“Tell them to stop raising Cain in my yard,” he said, after
a few moments. “It’s Sunday.”

Back outside, it was like the whole world had gotten wind of
Ryder Strong. Her younger siblings had seemed to arrive out of the woodworks,
and each had their paltry excuse to watch Ryder mowing the lawn. Even little
Martin brought his homework outside, enticed by all the activity. Gwen had
taken up residence on the porch, where she sat gabbing freely with Johnny.
Chloe tried to keep up with their conversation, but was just as content to
listen to the pair of them matching wits. It was nice to hear Johnny returning
to his former high spirits. He was slowly becoming the bright teenager she
recognized. The friend before the officer.

Celeste and Marie were debating furtively in the shallow
shade of an evergreen. Marie kept making blatant gestures at Ryder’s turned
back.

“It’s almost like a barbecue out here!” Gwen hollered at
some point. “Only, there’s no food.” The crew laughed.

Ryder, Chloe noticed, never returned to her corner of the
porch to retrieve his lemonade. He just kept plowing and plowing like they’d
never had the conversation. The wall had been erected between them again, the
veil drawn, and while she knew it was just as well, she stayed outside until
he’d finished both the front and back yards. She held that lemonade until the
glass got sweaty and the ice melted into slivers, waiting, waiting...for
something. She wasn’t sure what.

Chapter Six

There was a distinct, but unspoken code. It didn’t matter if
you were religious. They weren’t supposed to be hard rules to follow, and it
was understood by most that they existed for a man’s own good. But number four
or five on the short list had to be, “Don’t Sleep With Your Best Friend’s
Sister.” Ryder would have bet the meager contents of his duffel bag that,
especially in a Mormon household, this kind of activity (hell, this kind of
thinking)
was enough to send a freeloader packing.

On his third or fourth night in the house, his imagination
had begun to wander. At first, it adopted the form of Chloe’s stoic figure in
his doorway. Something about the image of her watching over him as he slept
(something, perhaps, about that judgmental stare) helped him avoid nightmares.
He got into the habit of waiting for her dainty steps to cross the landing from
whatever secret reading nook she kept on this side of the house. He’d snap off
the bedside lamp only once he heard her door slide closed. In this way, sleep
would come.

But on that third or fourth night, he’d turned off the lamp
and seen Chloe’s imagined silhouette hanging over his bed and wanted something
more than a guardian. So his damn imagination had undressed her, right there in
the doorway. He’d gently removed first her boxy sweater, then her thin chemise,
and finally the mysterious undergarment he assumed all Mormons wore below their
panties. Designs for this mysterious garment varied in his head. Some days, a
silken sheet separated his body from hers, cool and satiny to the touch. On
more adventurous nights, it was a red teddy.

Once she was naked before him, that blonde hair swimming in
rowdy waves around her pretty face, Ryder gave himself permission to explore.
Some nights, he worshipped at the altar of Chloe’s tits, which were always
round and perfectly symmetrical. Other nights, they made long, exquisite love
on the little camp bed, her cooing in his ear: “Ryder, Ryder, Ryder.” Her pussy
was so wet in his dreams.

The only thing was, he could never quite master her
expressions. A saintly architect was responsible for those rolling eyes and
raising eyebrows, he was sure. For in real life, once the sun came up, Chloe
still withheld her smile like if she accidentally showed happiness she’d be
publicly flogged. This wasn’t the case with her brothers, her sisters or her
parents—the seriousness was specific to Chloe. He got to wondering if she’d
always been like this, or if some strange pain kept her awake in the evenings,
just like him. Then he got to wondering if she sent herself to sleep imagining
him, the way he imagined her. And lo—the vicious, sinful cycle spun out of
control.

Not that she didn’t still drive him batshit crazy, during
the daylight hours. For one thing, the twins had returned to BYU for most of
the weekdays, only popping home to do a load of laundry or cadge a family
dinner. Johnny spent two mornings a week with a physical therapist, and two
other mornings a week in the company of several church elders, who Ryder
imagined were providing their own funky brand of psychotherapy. This left long
swathes of time in which he haunted the house like a ghoul, reading novels and
trying not to think about the near future—while Chloe, apparently, did the
same.

They’d managed to share one genuine moment, in three weeks—as
in, a single moment that wasn’t an argument or an extended dream sequence.
She’d been boiling water for pasta, humming something to herself in the
kitchen. He’d assumed it was a hymn, but then lingered, watching Chloe chop
onions. Watching Chloe chop tomatoes. Once again, he noted her fine hands. She
moved with such care, such specificity.

Finally, he’d sac’d up and asked her. “What are you
singing?”

“Way to scare me, soldier!”

“Eye for an eye.”

“Makes the whole world blind. Hammurabi.” Ryder’d grinned.
He’d always liked a girl who was quick on her feet.

“My mother used to sing that song when I was small,” he’d
continued.

Her face had softened at the mention of his mother, and
Ryder’s own cheeks had burned bright. It wasn’t an accident that he’d refused
to talk about his family with the Christiansens. He was just so positive they
wouldn’t understand his unusual upbringing.

“
Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries
,” Chloe had finally
answered, smiling. And there, in the kitchen, he’d seen the Grail. Her full and
uncomplicated smile, easy and beautiful as a bell ringing. He couldn’t even
remember the last time a woman had smiled at him like that—nurses not included.
But her glance contained no pity. Merely joy.

“Well, your voice is nice,” he’d responded, a little more
gruffly than he meant. She’d swiveled back to her cooking, and the evening had
carried on like any other in Provo. She made a few stodgy remarks and he tried
to make jokes of them. They’d gone to bed, as usual, without saying goodnight.
But when it came time to shut the light, Ryder’s whole body had seemed to go
erect on realizing that he now had a face to match his imagination’s creation.
Gripping himself beneath the thin covers, he’d pumped to completion with that
smile hovering above him in the dark.
Life is just a bowl of cherries,
indeed.

But it was impossible, in real life. Of course. Obviously.

Ryder tossed and turned on the little camp bed, attempting
for once to restrict his wanton mind. A big tough-guy like him, made small by a
little Mormon girl. You almost wanted to laugh.