You Rock My World

by Juliana Stone

  Chapter 13

  Twenty minutes of silence was all it took to get under Travis’s skin. Well, twenty minutes of silence if you didn’t count the heavy breathing (his) the music that was supposed to be relaxing but instead grated on every single nerve he owned, (hers) and the groaning of the bed as he kept moving around trying to find that elusive sweet spot. The one that allowed him a bit of relief and a whole lot more room for the hard package between his legs that was currently crushed against the massage bed.

  Ruby’s hands were now at the small of his back, and he stifled a groan as they crept a bit lower. If she got anywhere near his hips, he just might start humping the table like a damn animal. Maybe he hadn’t thought his plan through. Maybe he was as crazy as Hudson thought he was. Or maybe he was just a glutton for punishment. He held his breath and clamped his teeth together as her hands worked their way back up his body.

  He hadn’t signed up for this torture.

  “My goodness, you’re tense,” she said softly, her voice near his ear.

  No shit, he thought.

  His head was buried in the face pillow, and he grimaced, glad she couldn’t see him. “Yeah,” he managed to say without sounding too much like a candy ass. “The dock really did me in.”

  “Your father’s, you said?” Again, her voice was close, throaty, sexy as hell. Her hands were insistent, and the smell of her was settled in his nostrils. God, she’d always smelled good. He kind of nodded, not trusting himself with words.

  “Remember the first time we had sex?”

  What the… His eyes flew open, and slowly, the floor beneath him materialized. His fingers dug into the face pillow and held on as if it were a life raft and he was drowning. He didn’t answer because he couldn’t.

  “It was in your daddy’s boathouse. The last night of the summer before senior year began. Do you remember?”

  Images flashed before him. Naked limbs. Long blonde hair snaked around his body. Wide blue eyes filled with trust. His hand on her stomach.

  Get. Your. Shit. Together.

  With a hell of a lot of effort, Travis centered himself. He needed to get in the game before Ruby scored the first goal. And damned if she wasn’t well on her way.

  “You were a virgin.”

  Her hands stilled.

  “You were scared.”

  She made a noise, like she’d unlocked something caught in her mind, and he kept going, not fighting the images anymore.

  “It was raining, and we’d just come back from across the lake. Sunday barbecue at Bookers’ cottage. You were wearing that baby blue bikini, the one that was my favorite, underneath a white dress.”

  “I remember that dress,” she whispered. “It belonged to my mother.”

  “I knew I was in trouble the moment we tied up in the boathouse. You pulled that dress over your head and your hair got all tangled up in it. I had to help you. You were shaking. I think I told you we could wait, but you didn’t want to.”

  “No.” Ruby’s hands lay on his skin, but they didn’t move. “I wanted to know if everything I’d heard was true.” She paused. “I wanted to know what it felt like to have you inside me.”

  Travis’s heart was beating so loudly, it was a soundtrack inside his head. His dick was as hard as a rock, and he moved again, painfully aware that he was so close to the edge, he might not make it out of this room intact.

  “What are you doing, Ruby?” he asked, voice rough and barely controlled.

  He couldn’t do this. He hadn’t come to play games. He knew what she was up to. Ruby was trying to divert him from his mission. She was trying to use sex to get him off his game, and it had almost worked. But he hadn’t come here to have sex with her.

  He’d come here to make her see that this thing that still existed between them, it deserved another chance. He deserved another chance.

  Travis pushed himself up and turned over in one smooth movement, catching Ruby by surprise. She took a step back and nearly tumbled onto her ass, but he grabbed her and pulled her to him. She was half on the bed with one of her legs braced on the floor, the other pretty much in his lap. Her hands splayed across his chest, the oil coating her fingers slick and warm. She looked down, and he followed her gaze, a tight smile in place because, hello, his dick was saluting them both as if it were the Fourth of July and he was the most patriotic man on the planet. The blanket she’d used barely covered him, not that it mattered.

  She was breathing heavily but didn’t turn away when he cradled the side of her head and, with a bit of pressure, slowly pulled her gaze back to his. God, she was so beautiful. He noticed her pulse beating at the base of her neck and the thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. Beneath the thin white T-shirt, her nipples pebbled—she was just as worked up as he was. He inhaled deeply, taking in the most basic scents known to man, the kind that couldn’t be replicated. The kind that could drive a guy crazy.

  It was primal. Want. Need. Desire.

  It was all wrapped up in a heady mixture that circled them both like a hungry predator. Watching. Waiting to see who would break first.

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “I didn’t come here for sex. I want you to know that.” He measured his words carefully.

  Her eyes widened, and she licked her bottom lip, but she held his gaze and didn’t look away.

  “I call bullshit, but whatever. I’ll play along. What did you come here for?”

  “You wouldn’t take my phone calls or return my text messages.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She blew out a long breath. “And coming here? Taking Lisa Booker’s spot without my knowledge was the lightbulb going off in your brain? You thought this was the best place to have a conversation?”

  He shrugged. “You didn’t leave me much choice.”

  She pursed her lips, then opened her mouth. But then slammed it shut again without saying a word. The silence grew heavy and hot. It infiltrated his pores, and he shifted, still hard as a rock and more uncomfortable than he’d been in his entire life. This right here was his moment, and he needed to get it right.

  “I miss you,” he said after a while. “I miss everything about you.”

  “Travis. I miss my fifth-grade teacher, but that doesn’t mean I want to have a relationship with her.”

  “I hope not. Mr. Rebuk might have a problem with that.” He smiled, but she didn’t return it, and then he decided to be completely honest. “Look, I still have feelings for you, and I’m pretty sure you do too.”

  “You still have feelings,” she sputtered as she pulled away. Travis let her go, watching closely as she inched along the bed until there was some space between them. “When exactly did you figure that out? Two weeks ago when you realized that I’d moved on and had a life and was finally happy again? Did you see Chance and bang your damn chest like Tarzan and think you could walk back into my life and claim me like I’m some kind of animal?”

  “Chance was an idiot. No way could he handle you.”

  “That’s so not the point, Travis.” Her eyes flashed. “But you’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” She smiled then, but it was the kind of smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “For your information, he handled me just fine. Better than you, in fact.”

  Something dark and dangerous sparked inside him. His nostrils flared. His chest expanded. Truth be told, Tarzan was all wrong—at least he was evolved. Travis felt like a fucking Neanderthal. He wanted to grab hold of Ruby and make her forget she’d ever laid eyes on Chance McDougal.

  “Ruby,” he managed to get out before she shut him down.

  “No. You don’t get to talk right now.”

  Anger infused her skin. It filled her body and radiated heat. He saw it clear as day, and the Ruby he’d known, the one who used to drive him mad, was back. She was primed and ready to go, and nothing was going to stop whatever the hell was brewing inside her.

  She slid from the bed and paced the small room, hands fisted at her side, head bowed. She pa
used in front of the door, and for a second, her hand rested on the handle. But then she pulled away and turned to him.

  “I was happy, Travis. At least, as happy as I’m ever going to get. You might not like hearing that, but I was. You have no idea what it took to get to that place. A place where I didn’t need you to make me happy. A place where I didn’t think of you every day. Wonder about you. A place where I didn’t hate you.” Her voice shook. “Because I hated you.” She fixed him with a pointed look. “God, I hated you.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “I hated you as much as I loved you. And that was a lot.”

  She made no effort to hide her pain, and her words crushed Travis. He wanted to grab her up and hold her and make it all go away. All that pain. Pain that he’d caused.

  She wrapped her arms around her body, and when she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Those last few weeks before Nathan was born were so hard. You were on the road with the Red Wings, and I’d never felt so alone. I kept telling myself everything was going to be okay. That once the baby came, you’d forget about everything except us.” She was silent for a few moments and met his gaze unflinchingly.

  “You’re right, you know. I stopped taking my pills. I wanted to get pregnant. I wanted to have a piece of you, a little human who was part of both of us, because I think even then I knew you were falling away from me. Falling away from us. And I was too young and too naïve to know that you didn’t have to be my whole world. But back then? You were everything. I couldn’t leave Crystal Lake because Dad was so sick and Ryder was mess. And you were in Chicago and on the road. You stopped coming home when you could and…”

  Her voice caught, and it took everything in Travis to stay on the damn massage bed. He ached to hold her, but he knew if touched her right now, she would run. She might take a swipe at him. Maybe break his nose. But she’d run, and it would be over.

  “Nathan was my miracle. My hope. He was this perfect little boy that I grew inside me, and he was everything.” Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she made no move to wipe them away. “He had thick dark hair and blue eyes. He had ten perfect little toes and ten perfect little fingers. I kissed each and every one of them even as the doctors were telling me something was wrong. Even then.” Her voice faded a bit, but only for a moment, and Travis got the feeling she was back there, in that hospital room, alone. With no one to lean on.

  “How could a child that looked so perfect be damaged? How could he not survive? I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait for you to meet him. For you to hold him and listen to him breathe. Because you would fall in love with him, and we would be a family. He was that perfect.” She pounded her chest. “To me, he was that perfect. To me, he was exactly the way he was supposed to be.

  “But it wasn’t true. He wasn’t perfect. He was broken. His heart…” She blew out a long breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and shaky. “When he died, something inside me broke, and I don’t think it will ever be fixed. Sometimes I don’t think I want it to, because it’s the only link I have to Nathan. Our shared pain.”

  She swiped at her eyes. “I could have fallen completely apart. I could have withered and died, and then there would be no more pain. But I’m not wired that way. I couldn’t let the darkness win. I learned to live with it.”

  Throat tight, Travis could only nod. She’d always been a fighter.

  “I decided to remove the things from my life that hurt the most. The things I couldn’t control. The things that made me want to curl up and hide.” She pinned him with a look that made him go cold. “You were number one on that list, Travis. But unlike me, you didn’t fight to save the marriage. You were relieved that it was over, and you didn’t try to hide it. You could go on with your life and live your dream without us dragging you down. You signed those papers, gave me a lot of money, and that was it. Done.”

  “It wasn’t that cut and dry.” Not to his recollection, anyway. “You’re making me out to be a coldhearted bastard.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  He was silent, not wanting to touch all the shit in their past. But would there be a better time? Wasn’t this what he’d come here for?

  “You’re wrong. I was a scared kid who was in deep, and I didn’t have the tools to dig myself out. It was easier for me to let it ride. To convince myself that I was better off on my own. That I wouldn’t be any good for you. And you know what? You made that easy. You didn’t tell me you were in the hospital, Ruby. I had no clue you’d gone into early labor. No clue that you’d had Nathan.” Pain hit him in the gut, and it clogged his throat so badly, he had to take a moment. “I would have been there for you. I know you don’t believe it’s true, but I know I would have been there.”

  “I don’t believe that. You hadn’t been home in weeks.”

  Travis drew in a ragged breath and ran his hand through the hair at his nape. “I didn’t know anything until you called and told me the baby died.” He looked her straight in the eye. “You didn’t give me the chance to do the right thing. You took that away from me, and for a long time, I lived with that anger. I resented the hell out of you. And yeah, I backed away. It was how I dealt with it all. When you served those divorce papers, I thought the easiest way to make the pain stop was to sign them.”

  She scrubbed at her eyes again. “There’s no point going over all this, Travis. Our connection is gone. It’s severed. And it can’t be fixed.”

  “It can.”

  She stared at him in silence, shoulders hunched forward, eyes filled with tears and pain and…regret?

  This was not going the way he wanted it to. But then what had he expected? For Ruby to fall into his arms and forget the past?

  “Let me prove it to you.”

  He got up from the massage bed, uncaring that he was fully nude, and crossed the room in three steps. She didn’t move, but then she didn’t really have anywhere to go. The door was at her back.

  Travis stood in front of her, his heart aching, his body trembling with emotion. He reached for, breath held, sure that she was going to turn from him. When she didn’t, that small sliver of hope burst into flame, and he sank his hands into the hair on either side of her head.

  “Sex won’t solve anything, Travis.” Her words sounded small.

  “This isn’t about sex,” he said, watching her closely. “That would be too easy. You know it. I know it. We both still want each other. There’s no getting around that.” He leaned forward, his warm breath caressing the side of her neck. He felt her tremble, and his body answered with a shudder.

  He paused, and when he couldn’t stand it anymore, when he felt like was going to break apart, he pressed his mouth to that spot just below her ear. The one where her pulse pounded crazily. Where her skin was silky soft. Where her scent was killer.

  “Let me prove to you that there’s still a chance to…”

  “To what?” She made a sound of disgust. “What is it you see happening? What are we doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “But there’s something here. Can’t we at least see what it is?”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Why?” he answered roughly, pulling her closer. “Because this is me fighting, Ruby.”

  “Fighting for what? You’ve already lost, Travis. We’ve already lost.”

  “I’m not giving up.”

  She offered a small, sad smile. “You should. What you’re feeling is guilt. And maybe I had a hand in that. But it’s time to put this all behind us. We’re no good for each other anymore. Maybe we never were.”

  Long seconds ticked by. Seconds when Travis felt his world tilt crazily. Seconds where his body tightened and his mind raced. This was it. The game was in overtime, and the clock was about to run out.

  “Can we at least be friends?”

  She turned her head. “I don’t know.” Ruby extricated herself from his grip and pushed him away. Truthfully? She could have pushed him onto his ass with one finger. She
grabbed her water bottle from the table and left the room without another word.

  He wanted to follow her and make her see that he was right. But he knew she needed some space, and he couldn’t screw this up. He would give her space. All the space she needed.

  For now.

  Chapter 14

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Ruby had just dropped off her brother and was about to back out of his driveway. Leave it to Ryder to let her get through the entire morning without asking the question he’d been dying to ask.

  They’d spent an hour or so looking at cars, and he’d settled on a used Civic. It was a newer model than the one currently in the garage, with low mileage and a price that made it a no-brainer. They’d been lucky enough to have the credit people push his application through, and with Ruby cosigning, he would be able to pick up his new wheels in a few days. All in all, the exercise had taken less than two hours.

  “Nothing is going on.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  Wary, she watched her brother closely. “What did you hear exactly?”

  Ryder leaned into her car, his eyes too penetrating, his mind too savvy. “I heard Blackwell showed at the spa last night, and you guys were locked in a room for almost an hour.”

  She yanked her head back and glared up at her brother. “Where in hell did you hear that?”

  “You know what Crystal Lake is like. It’s a well-oiled machine, and gossip is the fuel that makes the motor run.” He stood up and shrugged. “I went for coffee first thing this morning. Mrs. Avery was in getting her triple cream and sugar with a bit of coffee on the side. She couldn’t wait to tell me. And Ed Helms. And Joanne McBride.”

  Ruby gripped the steering wheel. She was cranky, tired, and more confused than she could ever remember feeling. And that was saying something. She couldn’t do this with Ryder right now.