Soak (A Navy SEAL Mormon Taboo Romance) (5 page)

Chapter Seven

Ryder was awakened at dawn, by the sound of heavy clattering
in the hall. The faintest light was visible behind the shades in his bedroom.

“Get up, soldier!” Johnny called, sounding merry and
energetic. His bud was the source of the noise, Ryder realized, and as soon as
his eyes adjusted to the light he saw that his host was dragging a pair of
hockey skates along the floor.

“What the fu—I mean, what the fudge is going on, J?”

Johnny ambled into the bedroom. Ryder noticed he was getting
more confident with the use of his crutch.

“It’s a Christiansen family skating trip!” his friend
hollered, putting his mouth up close to his sleeping companion. Ryder resisted
the urge to smack John away, remembering only at the last second that sometimes
John spoke louder than he needed to these days. He hadn’t quite adjusted to his
hearing loss.

“Every word in that sentence bums me out.”

Johnny smirked, but proceeded to clatter around the guest
room, taking survey of the room.

“You’ve really made it cozy in here. I bet a Franciscan monk
would feel right at home.”

“Oh, stuff it, Jay.”

“You know you’re free to like, unpack. We’re not gonna have
to abandon camp at a moment’s notice anytime soon.”

Ryder peeled himself out from the starchy sheets, and
stretched his hands over his head. He still hated the moments when Johnny made
allusion to the front. It was like he was trying to make combat sound more
human than it was, or more mundane.

“Someone’s getting a little flabby,” his friend said,
breaking the brief silence. He walked over to the head of the bed and poked at
Ryder’s biceps, which, it had to be admitted, were no longer in prime fighting
form. He had to stop eating all these carbs, or he was going to grow a gut.
Just like his old man.

“You can’t tell me a little exercise wouldn’t make you feel
better.”

“Who says I feel bad?” John cocked his head, so his reddish
blonde hair (overgrown, now) swept against the ear he could no longer hear out
of. The look on his face betrayed insight.
We all feel bad,
he seemed to
say.
We’re always going to feel bad.

In another twenty minutes, the whole sleepy-eyed
Christiansen clan was bundled into their winter garb, even though spring was
begun in earnest. The twins dozed against one another at the dining room table,
their pretty mouths puckered in sleep. Mrs. Christiansen ran around the house
like a dizzy butterfly, collecting mittens and hats as if it was her last
earthly task. Mr. Christiansen alone seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, his
helmet-y hair freshly wet from a shower. “This is something I like to do with
my family, Ry. Just another Christiansen spring tradition,” he said, clapping
him on the back like they were teammates. All Ryder could manage was a weak
smile.

The last down the stairs was Chloe, who looked nearly normal
in a pair of skinny jeans and a v-neck sweater. No one else seemed to notice
this drastic shift in wardrobe, but Ryder couldn’t help himself. There were the
soft curves he’d been dreaming about, bright and on display for the whole world
to see. The half-moons of her hips. The mounds of her tits.

Maybe a skating trip was just what the doctor ordered.

“Ms. Chloe!” Mama Christiansen tutted, in her eldest
daughter’s direction. “Do my eyes deceive me, or are you looking a little
‘wintery’ these days?” Ryder furrowed his brow, just as Chloe wrapped her arms
around her mid-drift, self-consciously.

“We’ve been eating too much bread, is what it is,” Mrs.
Christiansen informed the houseguest. Ryder connected the dots, and buried a
comeback. Yet another thing to add to his host family’s slew of neuroses:
Mother Bear liked to shame her daughters about their totally-normal frames.

Having come from the kind of family that didn’t tend to
monitor things like nutrition and rapid weight loss or gain, Ryder had a hard
time sympathizing with Mrs. Christiansen. Even as she tried to laugh off her
insult. Chloe, he noticed, darted quickly back up the stairs and returned with
a thicker sweater.
And the Mormons are off to the races again,
the SEAL
thought, before he could remember to have mercy.

The rink Elder Johannes drove the family to was located some
miles outside the city. In fact, Ryder noticed a few more conveniently located
“Winter Games,” emporiums on the long drive through dawn. “We’ve been going to
this one since we were kids,” little Celeste offered, when she caught him
pointing to passing signs with a baffled expression. “It kind of has
sentimental value for us. You see, my uncle—”

“Now, Celeste,” Mrs. Christiansen hissed. “Don’t bother
Ryder with our whole family history.” No wiser, Ryder resigned himself to the uncomfortable
bucket seat. Around him, the family dozed.

But for Chloe, who had smuggled a paperback into the car.
While she rode in the very back of Elder Johannes’ clunky old SUV, Ryder could
see her flipping pages in the reflective lens of the rearview mirror. He was
struck by how rarely she looked up. Here was a woman utterly engrossed in a
story. He glanced through his own ratty iPhone, idled through his paltry
Facebook feed, and thought:
I envy her that patience. That ability to stay
present, to be engrossed.
He’d never been able to conjure that kind of
focus unless he absolutely had to.

“We’re here!” Elder Johannes finally cawed. The
Christiansens piled out of their clown car, and shook sleep off their sweaters.
Little Martin pumped a fist in the air, and John laughed and ruffled his
younger brother’s hair. Ryder felt a smile inch up the corners of his typically
downturned mouth. Odd as the Christiansens could be, they were seductive in the
way only happy families could be. He thought of his Tolstoy.

“It’s my Uncle David,” a voice said in his ear. It was
Chloe, returned to the province of people. In the chapped, wintery air with the
early morning sun above her, he thought she looked like a pioneer woman:
determined and gritty. She returned his smile, and for a moment they were back
in the kitchen. She was singing an old song as he watched her chop tomatoes.

“He died a few years ago, of a brain aneurysm. He was
really, really close to my father. This was the rink where he liked to skate.”

Ryder glanced over at the monolith before them. It looked
like a place where Olympic pros went to practice.

“He was pretty serious about it,” Chloe murmured, intuiting
his stare. How was she able to do that so well? It was not a little maddening.
“Anyways. It’s like our one ‘cool thing’ that we do. So please try not to crap
on it.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Ryder wheeled on the eldest
Christiansen girl. But he saw that the smile had remained on her lips. Her
full, pink, pioneer-woman lips.

“Chloe,” Ryder began, unsure where the words in his mouth
were headed. She batted her lashes, squinting against the glare off an old,
grey snowdrift. Cocked her head to the side like the parakeet his mother had
loved so well. Ryder bit his lip.

“I’m sorry,” he heard himself blurt. The words seemed to
surprise both of them. The SEAL plowed on. “About...your uncle. My mother died
when I was young, too. Of a similar...thing.”

Chloe’s eyebrows knit together, and for a second Ry was
worried that he’d wandered back into the minefield where all their other social
interactions seemed to take place. But then, apropos nothing, the eldest Mormon
girl in this Mormon family peeled her pale hand out of the lumpy sleeve of her
sweater. She was reaching for his own callused palm.

When their fingers connected, Ryder conceded. Chloe’s actual
skin, the actual warmth of the blood running through her veins—even in such a
minimal dose, this contact was somehow more thrilling than all of his sneaky,
dreamed liaisons. She shifted the slightest bit closer to him, so Ry caught a
whiff of her overzealous watermelon perfume.

If they were different people (or perhaps just in a
different city), Ryder would be able to follow the script from here.
She’s
into you, man,
his body would sense. He would aggravate the hand-holding,
draw her warm little body closer into his until there was no space between
them. He would reach for her petite chin, and tilt her pretty mouth upward.
Once or twice on leave, he’d “followed the script,” with a local girl. Drawn
her in, had her, then spat her out. But Chloe wasn’t like that. Whatever they
were moulting into, it would take all of his focus.

“Yo lovebirds! Speed up!” John hollered. He was the last of
the Christiansens to trickle past the entrance of the skating complex. And
though Ry knew he was joking—that the thought of corrupted best friend and
pious sister getting together was the farthest thing from John’s mind—Ry felt
the window close, all the same. Chloe must have been on his wavelength, for she
cleared her throat and yanked her hand away as if she’d just been caught
stealing. Her pale face flushed a pleasing red, but Ry only got a glimpse of
her. She sailed past his ass like a ship.

He gazed, a little bemused, at his hand where she’d touched
him. It was the dumbest thing, but somehow Ry felt...blessed.

Chapter Eight

It figured that he couldn’t skate. A 230lb man made of
muscle, capable of firing AK-47s, boarding helicopters in mid-flight,
parachuting behind enemy lines—such a bad-ass didn’t need to know how to do a
double axle. Chloe got a little kick out of watching Ryder struggle with the
laces of his in-lines, but when he caught her giggling she turned away. She
didn’t know what, exactly, had happened in the parking lot—but her feelings
informed her that it wasn’t something the Church condoned.

Chloe remembered her mother reading bed-time stories, when
she, Celeste and Marie were just little girls. Whenever the heroes or heroines
in their largely secular storybooks ran afoul of “good behavior,” Mrs.
Christiansen had made a habit of setting the book down on the mattress. “Pop
quiz,” she’d tell her daughters. “If we ever feel like doing what this bad boy
[or girl] has done, what do we do?”

She remembered, too, how delicious it had felt to make her
mother smile when the right answer was uttered. And it was always, always the
same: “Pray, pray, pray it away!”

Despite Gwen’s not-so-subtle cajoling, and the many pieces
of secular media and literature which she consumed, Chloe still found that
binary of right and wrong (or bad behavior and good behavior...) hard to shake.
So it wasn’t a God, per se, or even the Church, that made her feel awful for
doing things like thinking sinful thoughts about Ryder Strong. The shame came
from a place deep within.

Maybe this whole Ryder—
thing
—had sprouted on the
lemonade day. Or maybe it had sprouted when she first saw his bare chest in the
hall. She shook her blonde head, tried to hold on to that childhood mantra—but
this time, the urge to sin wasn’t leaving. She had been doing an excellent job
of quelching her feelings, until this morning in the parking lot.
Why God?
she
asked rhetorically.
What’s so different about today?

Rather than guiding her little siblings around the rink as
she usually would, Chloe began to whip back and forth on the ice like a speed-skater.
She wanted to feel the air against her face, burning her skin. She wanted the
particular burst of adrenaline that was the only way she’d found to banish
unwanted thoughts (or a better cure than “Pray it away!” in any case). She
wanted the corners of the rink to rear up at her, to be moments away from
danger. She felt so much
want
in her chest.

“CHLOE! WATCH OUT!”

She dug a heel into the ice, but it was too late. She turned
her neck but wasn’t in time to notice Ryder, the newbie skater, who in typical
machismo fashion had shot out across the ice in front of her without first
learning how to brake. The sounds of their bodies colliding rang and echoed in
her ears, interrupted only by the thump of her head on a harsh, cold surface.

“Shit!” she shrieked, unfortunately loud enough for her
mother to hear. Mrs. Christiansen waddled over on her pearly white skates and
wagged a finger in her injured daughter’s face.

“I swear to God, Chloe. I didn’t mean to—”

“Why weren’t you looking?!” The pain bloomed then, in her
right wrist. She struggled to a sitting position. Chloe had taken plenty of
spills with grace, but had managed never to break or twist anything while
skating. Perhaps her luck had run out.

“Let me see that, baby,” her mother tutted. From the other
sides of the rink, the Christiansens began to flock to the scene of the
accident. Ryder, Chloe saw, was also rising slowly. He flexed his left leg to
and fro, gingerly.

“You had surgery on that knee?” Chloe asked. Ry nodded, and
grimaced.

“Let’s get you kids back to the lobby,” her father said,
assuming command of the moment.

Great.
Now, she’d be quarantined with the very person
she needed to avoid most. So much for outracing shame.

“My bad,” Ryder murmured, as the whole family moved in
concert to help the injured skaters towards the exit. Chloe could see his
breath in the air. Celeste faltered under one of her sister’s arms, and for a
second, Chloe and Ry’s bodies sagged against one another, forming an ungainly V
shape. Though they wore several layers apiece to shield themselves from the
cold, for a moment she thought she imagined she could feel Ryder’s blood racing
in his veins. Perhaps he felt shame, too.

“It could have happened to anyone,” she heard herself say,
generously. They were guided onto a plastic bench and told to “take it easy.”
Sweet little Martin offered to fetch them hot chocolates, and after a moment’s
“debate” between her parents (“should we take them to the hospital?” “Surely
it’s not that serious”), they were abandoned, with half-hearted, piteous
smiles. It was too important a trip for the family to give up on. Even John was
on the ice, using a special-made walker with blades where wheels might be. He
moved slow on his new prosthetic leg, but he looked jubilant enough in the
blinding white of the rink.

Once the hubbub had died down and their respective pains had
become manageable, Chloe tried to avoid looking at Ryder. If only she hadn’t
left her book in the car, then they wouldn’t have to speak. The danger could be
kept at bay. But alas:

“Listen,” Ryder blurted. I’m sorry again.”

“It’s totally fine.”

“I shouldn’t have been so gung-ho.”

“Seriously, no worries.”

“You’re the king of street hockey in New York, you figure: I
can ice skate. Same principles.”

“Not exactly.”

To her pleasure, this remark made Ryder belly-laugh for some
reason. He sank an inch or two toward her on the narrow bench, so she could
sense the faintest edge of his body heat. Chloe felt a ripple move through her
own frame, from her shins to the backs of her ears. She felt violently hot, and
then violently cool.

“You ever play hockey, ballerina? Or you more of
a...ballerina?”

“Why do you call me that?” She could no longer help it; some
part of her disobedient body rotated her knees, so she faced her nightmare on
the bench. His sea-grey eyes were merry. Light.

“I don’t know. I guess you look like a ballerina to me. My
idea of a ballerina.”

“And what does that include?”

“I don’t know.” Now it was Ryder’s turn to ripple. It was
cold in the rink, sure, but it had to be more than coincidence that his cheeks
went tomato-red at the same moment hers did. He glanced at the floor.

She glanced at the floor. Silence reigned for another few
moments, and Chloe’s heart began to pound. She was aware of how much she wanted
to be talking to him. More, she conceded, than she wanted to be locked away in
some tower where no tempting boy could test her faith.

“You’re very graceful,” he said, in a quiet voice she’d
never heard him use before. “You move a little like a swan. But at the same
time, I get the idea that you used to have an awkward phase.”

“Gee, thanks!”

“No, I mean like—” Ryder blew air through his lips, shrugged
his masculine shoulders. “It seems like you don’t realize certain things. About
the way you look.”

Was this a heart attack? It sort of felt like how elders in
her community had described heart attacks. Chloe began blinking rapidly. Her
breath was arriving in rapid, shallow bursts. She tried to conceal this fact
from Ryder, who was suddenly a few inches closer to her on the bench. She
smelled his smell.

“And how do I look, exactly?” Chloe managed to respond. The
words seemed to come from some unknown place within. Gwen had spent years
trying to teach her best friend the mechanics of “flirting,” and Chloe had
spent as much time insisting she was an un-teachable pupil. And yet—this voice
she spoke in now, it knew something the rest of her didn’t. It was deep and coy
and prepared for the answer she both dreaded and craved.

Ryder threw his head back as if he were about to belly
laugh. For one sick second, Chloe feared that the bubble would burst. “I’m
totally joking,” he was about to say. Or make some stupid jab at Mormonism,
again.
Heart attack, heart attack, heart attack...

But the laugh didn’t come. Instead, Ryder leaned a little further
into her personal space—and to the delight of the new voice, Chloe did not move
away. He half-whispered his next words into her ear.

“Look. I’m tired of this game,” he said, in his gravelly
way. “Chloe Christiansen, if you don’t know, now you know: once you realize how
hot you are, you will be a force to be reckoned with.”

A decent and pious part of her wanted to rear back, wanted
to slap this offending, low-speaking devil. But it was a small part. The mass
of Chloe had been consumed by the confident voice. For no sooner had Ryder’s
words slid into her ear than the ripple returned in full force. Only this time,
it began in her ear, and darted straight to her most secret space, where it
radiated warmth. Chloe was suddenly afraid to shift on the bench, knowing that
if she did she’d be forced to admit to herself that her panties were soaking
wet.

“Kids!” Ryder and Chloe sprang apart. Mrs. Christiansen was
thankfully too giddy from skating to make any comment on the proximity of her
young charges. Still, Chloe felt the shame rain back down.

“How are our bruised bodies feeling?” her mother squealed.
They both answered “Fine!” in suspicious unison. Ryder, seeing John’s approach,
teetered to his feet and made his way back to the ice.

A door had closed, but not in time. Chloe had already seen
what was inside the room.