by Faber, Elise
She knew he was referring to the scents she had steeping and while part of her wanted to be touched by his kindness—and all the other kindnesses he’d shown her over the last days—the rest of her was seriously pissed off.
Maybe unreasonably so, but still fucking furious.
“They’ll be fine,” she snapped. “And I will, too, once you let me down and get the hell out of my house.”
“Good.”
But he didn’t put her down, and he didn’t walk out the front door. Instead, he carried her down the hall into her bedroom, dropped her onto the mattress, then crawled in beside her.
Yeah, not happening.
She started to get up, but Rex caught her waist, pulled her against him, and . . . just held her.
Held her.
His hand didn’t move up or down to cop a feel, he didn’t thrust his crotch against her ass. He didn’t try to kiss her or talk dirty or get her naked. He. Just. Held. Her.
Until she stopped fighting.
Until she slowly relaxed against him.
Until her anger peaked and began decreasing infinitesimally.
Only then did he speak. “I don’t have a warehouse of your products. I called a few friends, suggested they check out your stuff. They decided to order it. They paid for it.” She felt him shrug. “I merely suggested it.”
Tilly shifted in the circle of his arms, rolling to face him, to see his eyes. “You’re not lying.”
He shook his head. “I’m not.”
“You . . . suggested?”
“Yes.” His gaze stayed on hers, but she could read between the lines.
A snort. “I’m guessing you strongly suggested.”
Blue eyes rolled. “I’m a Roosevelt. All of our suggestions are strong.”
“Really?”
He smirked. “Should I add large as well?”
Tilly laughed, but it wasn’t entirely comfortable. She was feeling a bit stupid for having overreacted the way she had, especially when he’d been nothing but nice and fun and had given her the best orgasm of her life. The memory of that mouth on her, his tongue flicking against her clit was enough for her cheeks to heat, her thighs to clench.
His thumb brushed over her skin. “Is this from my bad innuendos?”
“No.” She sucked in a breath then stifled a moan when she got a whiff of his delicious scent.
“Hmm?” He cupped her jaw, bent to nuzzle her throat. “Then what?”
“Your cock,” she blurted. “I was thinking about your mouth on me and how that was fucking incredible and how you’d probably feel even better inside me—”
He froze, pulled back. “Sweetheart, you can’t say things like that.”
Tilly smiled and cupped his cheek with her palm. “I’m sorry.”
“For making my dick hard or for freaking out earlier?”
“Well, definitely not the first.” She smiled when he groaned and flopped to his back. “What?” She climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. “I find that I’m rather fine with making this”—a shift of her hips—“hard.”
“Fine?” His hands came to her waist. “Just fine?”
“Is adequate better? Perhaps satisfying?”
He growled. “Woman, you have to be the most infuriating creature on the planet.”
Stilling, the smile dropping from her lips, she stared down at the beautiful man beneath her. “I really am sorry. I tend not to lose my temper, but when I do, I admit that I go a bit overboard. And this wasn’t even really about you so much as it was about Steven.”
“We’ll circle back to that asshole, Steven part,” he said, leaning up and pressing a hard kiss to her lips. “Because I like your temper, baby. I don’t mind you getting fired up or upset or angry. I just want you to be you. And more than that, I always want you to feel like you can be you with me.” He tugged the end of her ponytail. “Even if you think I won’t like it. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Now, Steven?”
“It’s a small thing, really. No, I don’t mean the way it made me feel,” she said, hurrying to add when Rex’s eyes narrowed and his mouth opened, no doubt to protest her statement. Fair that, since what she was calling a small thing had caused such a big reaction. “Because it did make me feel shitty, but more because I didn’t realize how much it had upset me until everything hit me in the kitchen.”
He touched her cheek. “I want to be following, sweetheart, but I’m a little confused. It seems like a big thing because you had a huge reaction, but you’re telling me it’s not important.”
She plunked her forehead to his chest. “I . . . okay, I guess this is so hard because I thought I was over Steven completely. We were young when we were engaged, and I thought he was my white knight put on the planet to rescue me.” She rolled her eyes. “Stupid, I know. But I think I wanted it to be true for so long that I just . . . let it be that way.” Ripping out her ponytail holder, she sighed. “Is this making any sense at all? I mean, I thought Steven would swoop in and fill all the empty holes in me, and he was really good at taking care of me. I think he even liked it. The saving part made him feel good.”
“But?”
“But at some point, he resented it,” she said. “And I get it. I wasn’t even eighteen yet, he was barely twenty, commuting to school during the week, seeing me on the weekends. I was a wreck and had no clue what to do and—” A sigh. “Eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take how sad I was, how I sometimes forgot to eat or struggled with filling out insurance papers because I didn’t want to put pen to paper and admit she was gone. I was depressed and unable, unwilling, to find help and . . . something gave. He left.” She sucked in a breath. “I went into a tailspin, didn’t get out of bed for a week, didn’t eat, didn’t sleep. I was heartbroken and alone, but one day it was like the fog cleared. I realized that if I was ever going to get out of this town, then I had to figure my own shit out.” A beat. “By myself. Without a man to—”
“So, you think because I fixed your car and got you a phone, because I mentioned—”
“Strongly suggested,” she interrupted with a raised brow.
He smirked. “Because I suggested to a friend that she try out your products and maybe roll them out to a few boutique hotels, that I’m going to get resentful of you?”
“I’m—” She started to deny it, but then realized, yes, that was exactly what she was afraid of.
He’d find out about the bills and pay them off.
Her car would break down, and he’d buy her a new one.
Her roof would collapse, and then she’d come home to find it fixed.
He’d swoop in and do the saving, and what could she possibly give in return to him?
Nothing.
Because she had nothing, couldn’t compete with the Roosevelt wealth or power. She was just a twenty-six-year-old girl trying to figure shit out, had spent the last eight years trying to sort out her shit so she could move on to bigger and better things, and he wouldn’t see any of that if he just swept into her life, snapped his fingers, and made everything perfect.
And so, she told him that.
“Rex, you’re you. Your family is powerful. You’re rich, and I know you can fix things in my life that are nearly impossible for me to even dream about mending easily.”
“But you don’t want that.” He seemed genuinely confused, poor thing.
“No,” she murmured with a smile. “I don’t want a partner who needs to save me all the time.”
He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “But isn’t that what real relationships are all about? You save each other.”
“Each other, I think, are the keys words there. Because Rex, what can I possibly hope to do for you? I can’t compete with the money or the influence.” Her gaze drifted to the floor, to the spot that had rotted away. She’d repaired it with plywood, thrown a rug over the top, and no one was the wiser.
Except her.
She was the wiser and just like the floo
r, she was just a patchwork of mismatched pieces, cobbled together to make some semblance of a whole.
How could she possibly be an equal partner with anyone if she could barely keep her head above water?
“Come here.”
Her gaze jumped back to his. “What?”
“Come here,” he murmured, tugging her back to his chest and covering them both with a blanket. “Let me tell you a story, darling.”
“Darling?” She snorted. “And a story?” She clapped her hands together. “Oh my God! Really?”
Fingers on her cheek. “There’s my sarcastic girl.”
“And you like sarcasm?”
“I like you. So fucking much, sweetheart.” His fingers tightened on her arm, not painful, but strong with intention, exactly like the words that followed. “I spent so much of my life in a fog, flitting from one thing to the next, trying to feel something after my mom died. You see?” he said, when her eyes filled with tears. “Instead of doing something important, like trying to build a life for myself, after my mother died, I just shut down. I lived to numb every feeling, pushed everyone away. And . . . I hurt so many people who mattered.”
“You were hurting.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But I was also an asshole. I know I lost my mom and that my dad retreated into himself for way too long, especially considering that he had Justin and myself to raise, but I chose the wrong path.”
“You were young and—”
“No more excuses for me, sweetheart.” He smiled at her, a gentle, fragile thing. “They’re all true, but what’s also true is that I walked, drove like a crazy fucker in one of my ridiculous sports cars down that path for way too long.” She laughed, and he wiped the corner of her eye, where a tear had gathered. “Then, I met Kelly.”
He paused and the smile she was wearing slipped away.
Because he’d said—
Kelly.
And not her.
Oh God, was he still hung up on her?
“No,” he said gently. “It’s not her I want. What I was trying to say is I met her, saw her with my brother, and I realized how different things could be. They took a tragedy and tough situation and turned it into something unbreakable.”
Tilly’s heart settled.
“Then Bella thought I was my brother in Italy and the way she looked at me with such hope—no, not hope, exactly, but conviction. Like she knew that Justin would do the right thing. That without one iota of doubt, he’d help her . . . and then I saw the way it faded when she realized I was me.” He rolled his eyes at himself. “My ego was bruised, but more than that, I saw in that moment I had the opportunity to change.”
“And you did.”
He scoffed. “I’m at least trying.”
“Well, coming from a stranger you helped on the side of the road, I can vouch for that change.”
He brushed a kiss on her forehead. “That wasn’t selfless in the least. I saw a beautiful angel through the window and had to stop.”
“Have X-ray vision, do you?” she teased. “Being able to see into a car in the dead of night.” She ran her hands over his chest, stopped at the space above his heart. “You stopped because this is good inside.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“And the universe rewarded you with me.” She chuckled. “A mess of a project with more baggage than the belly of a plane.”
“Baggage, I’m happy to help carry, sweetheart.”
Her lips curved. “Only if you’ll let me carry yours, too.”
“Deal, Angel,” he said, his eyes dancing. “Deal.”
A sigh before she hugged him tight. “I let you get away with the first Angel, but I can’t let that second one slide.”
He laughed, cuddling her closer when she yawned. “Sleep now. We can negotiate tomorrow.”
Burrowing into his arms, she soaked in his scent. “You always smell too good.”
“So, turn me into a candle then.”
Exhaustion swept over her, the emotions of the evening and the late hour catching up with her, but she laughed at his joke, though that laugh transmuted into another yawn.
“Sleep now,” he murmured. “We can argue more in the morning.”
Nineteen
Rex
“Are you sure you can’t come?” he asked a few days later, standing near the hostess stand of Henry’s Diner, box filled with Bella’s delicious baked goods in one hand and Tilly’s ass in the other.
Speaking of that, he shifted his hand upward. It was late, so the diner crowd was decidedly older, but they were garnering a fair amount of attention, and he didn’t want to scar the odd child that was in the restaurant. Especially when he’d been trying to just give his girl a simple kiss goodbye, and as things were wont to do with Tilly, they’d heated up and almost gotten out of hand.
Pun intended.
He snorted inwardly and placed his hand determinedly on the small of her back.
Reddened lips tipping up at the corners, Tilly brushed one more kiss across his cheek. “Trying to be good, Roosevelt?”
“Attempting to, yes.”
She rose on tiptoe, whispered in his ear. “I like you a little bad.”
He groaned softly and turned to glare at her. “You’re not helping.”
“Have a little problem?” She smirked.
“I resent the term little,” he muttered, releasing her and stepping back, strategically placing the box of baked goods in front of his groin.
“And, yes,” she said, regret rather than teasing in her words. “I’m sorry, I can’t join you for dinner, but with Sally calling out, I don’t want to leave Henry shorthanded.”
“I understand. Call me when you’re off?”
She nodded, and he turned to go.
“Rex?”
He paused, slanting a look over his shoulder and lifting a brow.
“You know that this”—she pointed between them—“will reach Kel and Justin before you do?”
Considering that Esther, the head gossip in town, had her phone out and was recording them, Rex very much knew that. He blew a kiss at Tilly, chuckling when Esther cackled something about great material for Snapchat. “Meh.”
“Really?” she asked. “You’re that cavalier about this? About everyone talking about what’s going on with us?”
He spun to face her, stole one more kiss. “Cavalier?” he said, breaking away once they were both breathing hard. “Not in the least. You’re mine, and I’m counting on the gossip train to inform everyone of that fact, sweetheart.” He started for the door. “Because I don’t share well.”
“Rex!”
He turned his head and met her stare.
“Just for the record,” she said, eyes hot. “I don’t share well either.”
He was smiling the entire drive to Kelly and Justin’s.
Yeah, he’d most definitely met his match.
His brother had been slanting him looks across the dinner table the entire evening.
Kelly had cooked—or rather, she’d heated up a dish that her sister, Melissa, had left earlier that afternoon as a thanks for riding lessons—and they were all chowing down. If not for the looks, Rex would have been relaxed—the kids were eating happily, no plates had hit the floor, and no arguments had broken out.
But Justin kept staring at him, not saying anything, acting completely normal with the rest of the table, and yet with him . . .
Weird.
Rex sighed. Because not weird, exactly. He could sense the impending conversation and had been a fucking moron for not recognizing that it would be coming. Justin was worried about Tilly.
And Rex couldn’t stop himself from thinking that his brother was right to worry.
Fuck.
They’d all just about finished when there was a knock at the door. He remembered a time when he would have heard the tires on the gravel, signifying any car’s approach, like at Tilly’s house, but here at the ranch, three kids and three adults chatting and laughing and talking over each
other—okay, that was mostly the kids—and the only signal of a visitor was the doorbell.
“I’ll get it,” Kel said, jumping up. “Melissa is probably trying to make sure she gets her dish back.” She bent to kiss the top of Jax’s head.
“You’re just trying to get out of dishes,” Justin teased.
“Cook doesn’t clean,” she sing-sang as she left the room.
Since Rex was done, he picked up his plate and stood, then gathered some of the carnage from the table and carried it all over to the sink. He’d just started the water when Justin came over.
“What are you doing to that poor girl, bro?”
Rex froze, the ice down his spine colder than the water on his hands. “I like her, Jus,” he said, not willing to admit to his brother that he loved Tilly. That was for her ears only, at least the first time he said it.
After that, he could write it in the sky or buy a billboard, but the first time should be special.
Roses—no, sunflowers. Romantic words. Candles—
The thought made him smile.
Justin’s sigh didn’t.
“She’s not for you,” Justin said. “You know that. She’s . . . fragile, and you’ll destroy her.”
“Tilly’s the strongest person I know.”
That sigh again, followed by a tone he knew too well. Disappointment. “Rex.”
“What? You think I’m going to break her? Destroy her? You think I’m that much of an asshole?” His brother’s hesitation in answering had Rex’s gut sinking. “You do. You think I’m the same prick who took advantage of Kelly.”
“You don’t think of anyone but yourself,” Justin said. “That’s not your way, bro, and now Tilly is caught in the crosshairs.”
“But I’m not the same.”
“Who are you trying to convince?” It was a reasonable question considering his past, considering the weak ass declaration Rex had just given.
He tried again.
“I’m not that man,” he said. “Not anymore. I’ve changed.”
