KOA
I LIE PERFECTLY STILL AND watch her sleep. Her hair’s fanned out over her pillow, the bed sheet, and my arm. Her lips are slightly parted, and her lashes flutter imperceptibly as she dreams.
About what? I don’t know.
About me? I can only hope.
And since when did I start using words like ‘flutter’?
The house is dark and quiet, the only light coming from the bathroom where I forgot to turn it off after everything went down the way it did last night.
At first, there was panic and confusion as we realised our mistake. And then it hit me that I didn’t actually care.
I’d made love to her without using a condom. I’d come inside her without protection, and when I took a moment to process this, everything that I thought I knew about what I wanted from my life changed.
I don’t care that this is new and unplanned. It’s here, and it’s happening. I have feelings for this woman that I’m not yet ready to deal with. In my gut, I know I want her to stay, to be a permanent fixture in my life. But my head is protesting, trying to force me to listen to the logical, practical Koa like I always do.
Well, fuck that.
I want to introduce her to my kids and take her to meet my mom and Bill. For the first time in years, I want to make music and write songs. And, most shocking of all, I can picture a future that doesn’t include me being alone.
I just need to convince Gracie that this is the God’s honest truth and I’m not just saying it to make her feel better about our slip up last night.
I don’t care if she’s pregnant. I don’t care if there’s a miracle happening inside her, that cells might be dividing, our baby being made.
I’ve been responsible and done the right thing my entire life, and this might not be the best of times to act irresponsibly, but I don’t fucking care. I want to plan a future with a woman that I’ve only known a little over a week and don’t give a fuck about anyone else’s views or opinions on the matter.
This past week has made me realise just how lonely I’ve been since my divorce. Bourbon has been my only friend and not a very good one. That shit needs to end.
Gracie’s arrival has brought me back to life. She’s cute, funny, hot-headed, and stubborn. But she’s also blunt, honest, and possibly the most interesting person I’ve ever met.
I was just going through life, trying to do right by my kids and be the best dad I could be. Not thinking too much beyond that. Then she arrived. Gracie, with her funky hair, inked skin, cockney accent, and sexy little outfits, literally crashed into my life, head, and heart.
Almost since the night I met her, all I’ve thought is, Shit, I’m so fucked. I’ve tried to dismiss it. Tried to make out like it wasn’t there. That I haven’t been thinking and feeling the things that I have, but it’s been like a tune or a song that I just can’t get out of my head, and I can’t ignore it any longer.
Gracie’s phone vibrates on my nightstand, and I pick it up. If it’s that fucker of an ex of hers, I’m gonna answer and tell him to quit calling. He had his chance.
“You snooze, you lose motherfucker,” I say quietly while looking at the screen.
It’s Kod, so I answer the call.
“Oi. Oi, fanny flaps,” a raspy female voice thunders into my ear. Gracie stirs next to me.
“How’s life in bumfuck nowhere with the cock-sucking cowboy?”
Cock-sucking cowboy? And what in the ever-loving fuck is a fanny flap?
“Morning, Gracie’s phone.” My voice is hoarse from sleep, and I sound even raspier than the person calling as I answer.
“Oh shit.”
“No, this is Koa.”
“Ha, he has a sense of humour.”
“I’m doing my best, considering it’s only a little after five in the morning.”
“Well, it’s good to know you can do that, Cowboy, coz that’s just what my girl Gracie needs. Someone that can make her laugh.”
“Oh, I make her laugh, don’t you go worrying your pretty little head about that, darlin’.”
Yeah, I lay on the accent, suddenly sounding Southern.
“Oh, fuck me, no wonder she’s not answering her phone when she’s got you to listen to all day. That accent is banging, dude. Say something else, please?”
“Who’s that?”
Gracie croaks from beside me.
“Kod,” I mouth. Gracie frowns.
“Such as?” I ask into the phone.
“Well, you can start by telling me what your intentions are towards my mate. You’ve got her all in a tizzy, and I don’t wanna be coming over there to kick your denim-clad arse if you’re just gonna behave like a fuck boy.”
“Believe me, I have no clue what a tizzy or a fuck boy is, but I have no intention to behave like one if it’s something that’s gonna upset your mate,” I say the last two words in my best English accent.
“Oh God.” Gracie groans as she attempts to sit up and cover her face at the same time. “Gimme the phone.” She tries to pull it from my hand, but I twist my body away from her so she can’t reach.
“Good, fuck boy is never something to aspire to be. And like seriously, mate, you need to work on that accent, it’s shit.” There’s a pause, but before I can get another word in, Gracie climbs naked from our bed and heads towards the bathroom.
“I’m off to drown myself. Give me a shout when you two have finished dissecting my life,” she calls as I watch her ass sway.
“So, tell me, what’s the go? She went over there to get her head on straight. Instead, she’s landed in your lap, become an instant fan of Sam Hunt, and has started decorating bedrooms. You do realise that we have a business here that will go to shit if you don’t return her to us?”
Sam Hunt? Motherfucker. I make a mental note to never introduce her to him.
“Will it?” My chest tightening at the prospect of having Gracie return to England.
“The business? Probably not. We have the kind of set up that means she doesn’t have to be hands-on. Why? You thinking of keeping her?”
“I think I am,” I tell her honestly.
Silence.
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“Well, fuck me, didn’t see that one coming. Is she there?”
“Bathroom.”
“Okay, well, if you mean what you say, and I bloody hope for the sake of your nut sack that you do, then please tell her. Tell her, show her. Do everything in your power to make her feel it. Go overboard on the grand gestures, nothing expensive, or extravagant, that’s not what Gracie’s about—”
“Figured that one out for myself,” I interrupt her.
“Good, that’s good. But, like I was saying, make her feel like she’s the one. Reggie’s a nice enough bloke, but I just don’t think there was ever that whole wow thing between the two of them. Everything was just amicable and convenient. They slipped into it because it was comfortable. It shouldn’t be like that, Koa. Nobody should just settle.”
“You’re right, they shouldn’t.”
“Can I leave that with you then? To woo her right out of those ridiculously expensive La Perla knickers she insists on wearing? Because it looks like my plans for the day have changed. I need to talk to my girl and then go and buy a hat for your wedding.”
“You two done?” Gracie is walking towards me wearing a plain black T-shirt of mine that was hanging on a hook in the bathroom. It’s the sexiest damn T-shirt I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Is it okay if she calls back? I have some wooing to do.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely, Cowboy. Woo away. Yeee-haaaaw.” I wince at her ear-splitting shriek and end the call.
Gracie is standing beside me at the edge of the bed, expecting her phone back. Without a word, I throw it down onto the mattress and pull her into my lap, kiss her softly on the mouth, and then bury my face into her neck.
She smells of mint and me.
“You brushed your teeth, did you use my toothbrush? I think I left it in here yesterday and took yours to the other bathroom by mistake.”
We need to stop with this separate room shit. She’s mine, we’re together, and I want her in my bed.
“Nah, the bog brush. Tasted much better.”
She gives me a toothy grin. “Do I have any brown bits in my teeth?”
“What the fucks a bog brush?”
“What you clean the toilet with.” She smiles at me sweetly.
“Wait—you—I don’t have a toilet brush.” I shake my head at her warped sense of humour and dig my fingers into her ribs as punishment. Her whole body bucks, and we both almost flip off the bed.
I pin her down with my body as she tries to wriggle out from under me. I’m hard in an instant as her legs lock around my hips and her torso rolls from side to side. I hold both her hands in one of mine above her head and tickle her mercilessly.
She shrieks and laughs but then shouts, “Stop, Koa, stop. You’re hurting my wrist.”
I release her, feeling panicked and within a split second, she has my hair gripped in one hand and my beard in the other. She pulls on both, in opposite directions.
“Owwww.” I groan. “That fucking hurts.”
“Oh my God. You sound like a girl.” She giggles, making my dick even harder.
I dig my chin into her breastbone in an attempt to get her to free my beard, which her fingers are still laced through.
“You wanna fight dirty, little-bit? I’ll give you dirty.”
My mouth finds her nipple, and I suck it into my mouth through my T-shirt that she’s wearing and grind my hips into the heat between her legs. Apart from the T-shirt between us, we’re both naked, and it doesn’t take much for my dick to seek out her wet slit.
Both her hands are now on my hair. Her nails raking my scalp where it’s shorter at the back, the other gripping and tugging at the front where it’s longer.
I’m not sure if she’s pulling me closer or pushing me away. I don’t think she even knows what she wants.
“Koa.” She groans as I bury myself inside her. “Stop. We need to stop this and talk.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yeah, we do. Once is a mistake, but twice is just being stupid.”
I move my face from her chest and push myself up on my arms so that I can look down at her.
“You think this is stupid?”
She pushes my hair back from my eyes and then rests her hand on the side of my face. Her fingers gently stroke my cheek and along the edge of my beard.
“Having unprotected sex is beyond stupid. What are we even doing?”
I rest my forehead down on hers.
“I have no clue, Gracie, but it feels damn good, and it feels right.”
“We’re grown-ups, Koa. Why are we taking a risk like this when we know full well what the consequences could end up being?”
“Fuck the consequences.”
I bite along her jaw.
“Fuck the consequences? Are you fucking mental? So, I get knocked up, and then what? I just go back to England to raise a baby on my own while you carry on living life large up here on your fucking mountain and playing happy families with the two kids you’ve already got with two other women?”
“You make me sound like an irresponsible man whore.”
“Well, that’s how you’re fucking behaving.”
I move back so that I can look down at her face again.
“I’m not a man whore. I’ve never cheated or slept around, and my other women are in the past. All that concerns me now is you and me.”
“You and me and the baby you keep trying to put inside me.”
I bite along the other side of her jaw and then lick her neck.
“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“Erm, let me think. Yes, I have a problem with that.”
“Why?”
I roll my hips and push deeper inside her.
“Koa, will you stop that. Get your dick out of me and behave for five fucking minutes.”
“Nope.”
“Nope? Nope? What the fuck do you mean, nope! Have you lost the fucking plot?”
“I’ve lost nothing. In fact, by my way of thinking, I gained a whole lot when I landed on you in my drive. I’ve done the right thing my entire life—”
I move my mouth to the small hollow at the base of her throat, and despite all of her protests, she tilts her head back and allows me access.
“Gave up my football career to do the right thing by one woman. Stepped away from my music to do the right thing by my daughter. This time, I’m gonna do what’s right for me.”
“And what’s that?”
“Everything I can to convince you that I want you here with me, for keeps.”
“What about what’s right for me?”
“I’m making that choice for you. You’re my woman now, and you best get used to that idea.”
“You are absolutely, one hundred percent, stark-raving fucking mad. I’m not your woman, Koa. I’m nobody’s woman! Well, maybe the MAC counter owns my arse and possibly Michael Kors, and I’m definitely my eyebrow girl’s bitch, but besides them, I’m my own person.”
I can’t pretend that I don’t hate that she’s not just conceding defeat and admitting her feelings. It fucking hurts when she says she’s not my woman. But at the same time, the way she’s fighting me on this is a definite turn on.
“Who’s Michael Kors? You mentioned him the other day. And who the fuck is MAC Counter? I thought your ex was called Reggie?”
She closes her eyes for a long moment.
“Open your eyes and look at me, Essex, or don’t if you wanna be a child. I’m still gonna be here either way.”
“What about when you’re not?” She looks up at me then, her eyes shining like she’s about to cry. “Being spontaneous and living for the moment is great in films, songs, and romance novels, but what if this all blows up in our faces?”
“Then let’s not allow that to happen.”
“How do we stop it?”
“By continuing on the way we are.”
“Continuing on? We haven’t even got started yet. We’re only just beginning to learn about each other.”
“Then let’s just carry on with that. In fact, let’s never stop learning about each other. Every relationship has to start somewhere, Gracie, ours just started a little different from most.”
“Yeah, we skipped the first three years.”
I shrug. “I don’t care. I honestly do not give a fuck about the rules and how things are supposed to be. I’ve lived by the rules, and my life still went to shit. This time, I’m breaking them and going after what I want.”
“And you’re sure that’s me?” Her voice trembles, and when I nod, she starts to cry.
“I’m scared, Koa. I’m afraid to take a chance, and I’m scared it might all go Pete Tong.”
“I’m not even gonna ask who Pete is, Gracie, but we are, at some stage, gonna have a discussion about all the guys you seem to have in your life.”
Tears travel from the corners of her eyes and back down towards her hairline, others remain caught on her lashes.
“I don’t have guys in my life, Koa. MAC and MK are Gods, God is a DJ and so is Pete, and then there’s you.”
“And what am I?”
She rolls her lips and traps them between her teeth as she stares at me for a long moment. I wait, hoping my ears don’t explode from the force of my heartbeat as it pounds inside my head.
“You’re the person that has the potential to rock my whole fucking world.”
“Consider it rocked, Essex.”
I crash my mouth down on hers. I’m sick of talking. It’s time to take her loud friend’s advice and show her exactly what she means to me.