“Rex.” It was all a whimper when she sank her fingers into my shoulders, and her touch became just as desperate as mine.
Her kiss just as mad.
Her hands coasted from my shoulders down my arms, hitting my biceps where we were skin on skin. The contact burned in the most blissful kind of way, and I sucked in a shattered breath when she was pushing up under the sleeves of my T-shirt, fingertips tracing across the tattoo etched on my arm.
I groaned.
In pleasure.
In agony.
I didn’t know.
“Rynna,” I grated at her mouth. I cupped that bewitching face in my hands before I glided my palms down her neck and tipped back her head. “I don’t even fucking know you. How is it possible you have this kind of hold on me?”
The words were a jumble of incoherency. I moved my mouth down over her jaw. I was sure I was getting drunk on her breaths, getting lost in the crash of her heart that hammered with the thready beat of mine.
My hands trailed down that body. That body that had taunted me since the moment I’d seen her come barreling out of her grandmother’s door. I traced her shoulders, moving across the hollow of her throat, trailing down her chest.
Maybe I’d known it then. That this girl would wreck me. Because I could feel myself coming apart. Piece by piece.
She sighed a barely audible, “Yes.”
Fuck.
What was I doing?
But my dick was so on board, and all the reasons this was the damned worst idea I’d had in years went galloping into the distance.
I palmed one of those gorgeous tits, her nipple firm beneath the thin fabric of her tank.
She gasped and pushed harder into my touch.
“Shit,” I muttered. Maybe it was that very second that insanity took me over, because I didn’t care that we were outside. That someone might hear us.
Instead, I edged back to look at her where she writhed against the grill of my truck, her chest arching with her need for me, her lips swollen and sweet.
Everything shook around me.
An earthquake.
Trembling and cracking and crumbling.
I yanked down the collar of her tank and exposed her.
She was braless. Her tits just shy of a handful, skin so smooth, nipples a dusky pink and pebbled tight.
“Gorgeous,” I rumbled before I ducked down to lap at the peak, drawing her rosy nipple between my teeth.
She drove her fingers in my hair. Pulling. Begging. “Rex. Oh my God . . . please.”
I growled, my mouth moving upward through the valley of her chest, my nose nudging beneath her chin to grant me access to the snowy skin of her neck.
Her pulse beat an erratic, unsteady thrum.
I latched on to it. Sucking her flesh into my mouth as I slipped my hand down her side, over her hip, and down to her knee. I hooked her leg around my waist, all too quick to press my eager dick to the overwhelming heat that blazed from her pussy.
Barely a hint of her through her sleep pants and underwear, but I nearly came right there.
It’d been so long. So fuckin’ long, and I was losing my grip, sanity just slipping out of my reach.
I kept rocking my cock covered by my jeans against her clit, loving the way she moaned and whimpered my name, the girl struggling to stay quiet so her moans weren’t carried on the wind.
Shit.
It was so sexy, the girl in the spotlight of the breaking day.
I wanted to tear every scrap of clothes from our bodies and sink all the way in.
Disappear in that tight heat of her body.
I bit down on her collarbone as I thrust against her like some teenaged kid who’d never gotten his dick wet.
But that was what it felt like.
Like I was coming up on something great.
Something bigger than I understood.
Every muscle in Rynna went tight, and she sucked a sharp breath into her lungs before she started quaking all around me.
She did her best to stifle a deep moan while she came right there against my truck.
Her knees went weak while I continued to work myself against her hot body, wondering just how far I was going to let this madness go.
It only took the weak cry floating from Frankie’s room for me to find that answer.
For me to come tumbling back down to reality.
To the truth of who I was. To my responsibilities.
I edged back, fighting the dread that spiked like barbs at the base of my throat.
“Shit.” I shook my head, trying to orient myself. To rip myself from her body. I stepped back, my body still raging, barely able to look at her after the shit I’d just pulled.
Rynna reached for me with a trembling hand. “Rex . . .”
How was it possible that I saw understanding flash through her expression?
“I’m so fucking sorry, Rynna. God, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
Rynna resituated her clothing, stepping back out onto the walkway, all lit up in the new day laying siege to the summer sky. For a moment, she just stared back at me. That energy flickered in the air. The softest smile rimmed her mouth. “You don’t have to be.”
Then she turned and crossed the street while I stood there like a fool, staring at the spot she’d just left vacant.
I guessed maybe that was what I’d always been.
A fool.
Shaking myself off, I rushed back up the steps and inside.
“Daddy.” The tiny cry filtered down the hall, and I reined in all the emotions and locked them there where they belonged.
Because just like I’d told Kale, I only needed one girl in my life.
And right then?
My girl needed me.
The doorbell rang. The words to the book I’d been reading Frankie trailed off. Instantly, my breaths turned shallow, my heart skyrocketing with a boom.
God. I really had lost it, my mind and body still reeling from whatever the fuck it was I’d thought I was doing earlier this morning when I’d had Rynna up against my truck.
I’d resisted for years.
And it was the girl next door who’d become irresistible.
Guilt welled in the deepest parts of me. In those sacred places I’d just desecrated.
I shifted where I was propped up on the headboard of Frankie’s bed with the book lifted out in front of us. My daughter was sprawled halfway across my chest, her head twisted to the side so she could see the pictures.
I’d basically been there all day, alternating between reading her stories, checking her temperature, and watching her sleep.
“Who’s that?” she whispered. Those brown eyes lit with a flash of excitement, promising me whatever sickness she’d been suffering from had finally begun to run its course.
“Not sure. You expecting a party or something?” I teased, tapping my index finger against her button nose, trying to pretend like the mere idea of Rynna standing on the other side of the door didn’t have me in knots.
She scrunched that nose with the cutest grin. “People aren’t suppose to gets a party just for feelin’ better, silly.”
“No?” I feigned ignorance.
“No way! Only prize people gets for feelin’ better is having to go backs to work.”
Laughter shot from my mouth in the same second affection stabbed me in the chest, so deep I thought it might cut me in two. But that was the thing about loving Frankie Leigh.
I loved her so much it physically hurt.
I ruffled a playful hand through her hair. “Sounds to me like you’ve been spending too much time with your grammy.”
Shock had her mouth dropping open. “There’s no such thing as too much Grammy times, Daddy. Don’t you knows that?”
I laughed again, almost deciding to ignore the door, but then Frankie hopped off the bed. She wrapped both her tiny hands around one of my wrists, yanking with all her might. Of course, the only nudge she gave was the one that shot through my he
art. “Come on, Daddy. There’s someone ats the door. We gots to see who it is.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, relenting, hating the way my nerves buzzed through my body when I did. The way those defenses wanted to go up.
All the while, I was wishing there was a way I could throw rescue ropes over the side.
That I could climb out of the bullshit mess I’d made of my life and jump into one where taking a girl like Rynna Dayne would be okay.
With Frankie’s hand wrapped around my index finger, I stumbled along behind her. The kid was far too chipper as she bee-lined for the door. Maybe I had overreacted.
She popped up on her toes to peer out the side window and out on to the porch. She huffed when she dropped back onto her heels. “I finks we were too late. Nobody’s there.” I set a hand on her shoulder, guiding her behind me, that kick of protectiveness always at the ready to take hold. I twisted the lock so I could open the door and peer outside.
She was right.
No one was there.
But someone had been.
To my right, someone had left a tray on the short wooden table between the two rocking chairs. I’d made them what seemed a million years ago, back when I’d been nothing but a fool. We’d just been moving into this place, and I’d been thinking maybe I’d finally outrun that shadow.
The scar that forever eclipsed the true joy of my life.
I should’ve known better.
A large lidded bowl rested on the tray, and a tented card was propped to the side of it.
Squealing, Frankie flew out from behind me. “Oh, look it, Daddy. It gots my name on it. It is a present for me.”
My gaze darted across the street. The old house sat silent and unmoving, just the branches of the big trees that fronted her yard waving their welcome.
Emotion slammed me. Unstoppable. Too much. Overwhelming.
Pushing out a sigh, I forced myself to walk all the way out.
My senses were punched again when I reached down and grabbed the handles of the tray. Only this time, it was the amazing aroma that lifted from the bowl, striking me like comfort and warmth.
Comfort and warmth that was intended for my daughter.
Thoughtful in a way I couldn’t allow the woman to be.
My sweet girl trotted along beside me while I carried the offering inside and set in on the small dining table.
“What’s it, Daddy?”
She peered up at me with that trusting grin, her fingers threaded together where she leaned against her elbows on the table to get a better look. She looked like she was already issuing up a prayer for the food she’d been given.
“Careful,” I warned, lifting the lid.
It was a chicken pot pie. The kind Corinne Dayne had been famous for.
Homemade.
Handmade.
The aroma of it so overpowering, my mouth watered.
My damned hand was shaking when I reached down and snatched the note. Frankie’s name was written across the front in the prettiest handwriting I’d ever seen.
I lifted the flap to find what was written inside.
Dear Frankie Leigh,
Remember when I told you I had some of the recipes to my grandma’s pies? I have a special secret just for you—I have the recipe for the pot pie she used to make me whenever I felt sick, too. It was always my favorite, and sometimes, I didn’t even mind getting sick, because I knew she would make it and soon everything would be better. I remember being a little girl, just like you, eating this same pie at our kitchen table right across the street. With every bite I took, I knew that my grandma had to love me more than the whole wide world.
Last night, I wished with all of me that I could have taken your sickness away. But maybe there’s a chance this pie might make you feel better the way it always did me. I sure hope so.
All my love,
Rynna
Damn her.
Damn her straight to hell for teasing me this way.
Damn her for weaseling her way in and making herself a place in a spot where she knew she would never stay.
Fuck me for wanting it.
“Read it to me! Oh, read it to me, Daddy! Wha’s it say?”
“It’s from Rynna next door,” I told her, trying to keep the thick emotion from clotting my voice. “She said her grandma used to make her this same pot pie when she wasn’t feeling well. She thought it might help you feel better, too, so she made you some.”
Those big brown eyes went wide with hope, and her voice dropped like it might be a secret. “Do you think it mights be as good as cherry pie?”
My attention darted to the sweet pie still sitting on the countertop. The pie I’d dipped my finger into the second I’d gotten a chance this afternoon. Because shit. That little taste of her outside this morning had not been close to being enough.
“How about we test it out? You get some of this food into your belly, and I’ll heat you up a small piece of cherry pie. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds like you’re the best daddy in the whole wide world . . . just like Rynna’s grammy.”
If only that were the truth.
13
Rynna
I stepped out of my grandmother’s diner and was smacked in the face by the Alabama heat. A sticky sheen of sweat slicked my skin, and my arm still burned from the exertion of scrubbing on at least thirty years of built-up lard and oils splattered on every surface in the old kitchen. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to work on what little could be salvaged inside. It at least gave me something to keep my hands busy while I waited for my appointment with the bank so I could officially put in my application for a loan.
It was painful waiting. Not knowing. Wondering if I was going to have what it took to bring this dusty diner back to life. If anyone would believe in me. If they’d give me a chance to make this old dream a reality.
After today, I was bone tired. But there was an eager hum that whirred through my blood. A satisfaction that had been lacking in all the years I’d been away. While in San Francisco, I’d attempted to convince myself a life outside of Gingham Lakes was what I wanted.
Some part of me had always known it’d been a lie.
I could almost hear my grandmother whispering in my ear, “Do what makes you happy, child. In my experience, joy is a choice. Life is rough. Don’t expect it not to be. But if we aren’t laughin’, we’re crying. Choose to laugh. Choose what brings you joy. And when you choose your path, it might not always be the easiest one, but it’ll always be the right one.”
I lifted my face to the blue sky, squeezed my eyes closed, and silently murmured, “I chose this path, Gramma. Even if it’s not the easiest one, I know it’s where my joy is waiting for me.”
My eyes opened, my gaze landing on the construction site across the street. It was deserted, work done for the day, but that didn’t stop my mind from wandering to Rex.
After I’d left his house yesterday morning, I’d gone home and crawled straight into bed. With being awake at the emergency room for most of the night, I’d anticipated I’d immediately fall asleep, but I’d tossed.
Exhausted but wired.
Drained but restored.
As if I’d been left spinning somewhere in limbo.
Lost in a blissful kind of purgatory where I’d stumbled upon a man with the skill to bring me to orgasm with a few mind-rending strokes of his body. But there had been so much pained remorse in his expression afterward that it’d sent me crashing to the ground.
No question, he’d needed to run to Frankie. It was exactly what he should do. His child should always be his first priority.
But what hurt was it was clear his regret went so much deeper than the simple fact we’d let ourselves lose control where we’d been hidden by his massive truck. Deeper than the fact he needed to pull away to return to her.
And with Rex?
I felt out of control.
Spinning from a thread and barely hanging on.
He knocked the ground out
from under my feet.
Shaking myself out of it, I pushed from the door and locked up before stepping out onto the sidewalk.
The scene in front of me made me wonder how I’d ever left this place. The old buildings built up on each side, massive shade trees grown up through the planters and shading the store fronts that still boasted some of the old shops my grandmother had gone to when she’d been my age.
You’d think the restoration in progress would have stolen from the charm.
It didn’t.
It only amplified.
The renovated buildings bore crisp new awnings and eaves, and the new brick structures climbed up between them to give the exact cohesive feel Lillith had been so proud of the day I’d first met her.
One day soon, Pepper’s Pies would be a part of this rebirth.
I inhaled a satisfied breath and started for my SUV, glancing down to fiddle with my key ring to grab the right one.
Then I smacked right into a firm body.
“Oh goodness, I’m sorry, excuse me,” I mumbled through my surprise.
Hands came out to steady me by the shoulders.
“Whoa, slow down.” The man chuckled, and my attention shot up. My eyes grew round, and my mouth went dry, my heart bottoming out in my stomach.
He smiled at me.
Confused by my reaction.
His head angled to the side, tone filled with an easy chuckle. “Tiny thing like you should slow down before you fall and mess up that pretty face.”
I took a staggering step backward. Still unable to say anything. Still unable to respond.
I couldn’t breathe, my heart locked in the center of my chest.
A rush of dizziness swept through my head, my balance lost.
He didn’t even recognize me.
The bastard didn’t even recognize me.
I pressed a hand over my mouth, trying to keep back the cry that clamored up my throat, just standing there, staring at him.
Unable to move.
Paralyzed.
Frozen by shock.
Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection Page 42
