She gasped when I suddenly had her by the outside of both thighs, spreading her wide. I licked her up and down. Her clit. Her ass. Everywhere in between.
Hands fisted in my hair, and I couldn’t help but smile. She was guiding me to her clit. “Please. I can’t . . . I need you.”
I lapped and sucked as she continued to whisper incoherent words.
Her own kind of praise.
The girl nothing but the tease of perfection that I held in the grasp of my hands.
I pulsed my fingers into her, letting my other hand wander along the crease of her ass, the girl releasing all these shocked sounds of pleasure into the air.
Feeding that gravity.
Making it feel like it just might be impossible for either of us to walk away. She came with a cry. With her fingers curling in my hair. With her heart manic and her breaths harsh.
And mine. Mine ached and wished this chance were one I should actually take.
She slumped forward.
Shaking.
Boneless.
Standing, I slid an arm under her legs and the other under her back, and carried her back upstairs to her room.
The whole way, I prayed I wasn’t making the biggest fucking mistake I’d ever made.
23
Rynna
Shooting upright, I clutched the sheet to my bare chest and struggled to pull in a breath. A deep sense of dread echoed from my bedroom walls. This unsettled feeling that something was off. I squinted through the play of shadows outside my window where daylight slowly breached the sky.
It took me all of two seconds to realize what was amiss.
I was alone.
After what had happened between Rex and I last night, I’d hoped to wake up in the safety of his arms, praying he’d found some of that same security in mine, too. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt so helpless than when I’d woken to find him flailing and jerking in my bed, lost to some kind of torment I couldn’t understand.
I’d wanted to.
To understand it.
To understand him.
I hungered for him to embrace the feelings that grew between us.
Steadily.
Greedily.
I’d seen it last night, emerging through the storm in his eyes, scaling those fortress walls he built around himself and tumbling free to the other side.
He kept allowing me deeper and deeper, below those layers that fought to remain concealed. Just the same as I allowed him into mine, giving him bits of the horror that had sent me running.
Sliding from my bed, I stood. My attention caught on the small piece of folded paper that had dropped to the floor. It must have been tangled in the sheet. For a moment, I blinked at it, both terrified and eager to read what it might say, before I reached down and tentatively picked it up.
Slowly, I unfolded it, my eyes quick to scan the choppy scratch of handwriting dented on the page.
You are more beautiful than the sun breaking the day. Believe me. This morning, I had the privilege of watching them both, and I didn’t want to stop. Little Thief, what am I going to do with you?
My heavy heart gave, fluttering and flapping, so insanely light. I pressed the letter over the manic thrum, not even attempting to hold back the grin that took hold of my face.
Rynna - Sixteen Years Old
“What are you doing?” Worried confusion streaked through my mind when I entered the back office to clock out. Pepper’s Pies was getting ready to close. The day had been busy, and I was tired and hungry. I’d spent the last six hours rushing around the dining room, taking care of customers, along with Janel and her mother, while Gramma had been in the back with the cook baking.
The aroma of chicken pot pie still wafted through the diner, the flaky crust and seasoned vegetables and savory chicken teasing my nose with the thought of finally sitting down to eat.
But it was the sight in front of me the clenched my chest.
Janel was lingering at the far wall where we hung our personal items, tucking a stack of cash held together by a money wrapper into her apron pocket. Shock had widened her eyes when she whipped around to face me where I stood in the doorway.
She wouldn’t.
Janel’s surprise shifted into a smirk. “Don’t be jealous I got great tips today and you made next to nothing. If you didn’t spend so much time eating the pies, you might actually make some money around here.”
Her jibes sank into me like darts, making me bow back, hit with physical pain. “I had more tables than you,” I said, forcing off the hurt, because that was just Janel’s way. I had learned to live with it. It was the only way I could remain friends with her, if that’s what I even wanted to call it.
Janel swept a long lock of blonde hair over her shoulder. “Well, tips have more to do with how you look and make a customer feel than putting their stupid food in front of them so they can stuff their faces. But I know you can’t relate to that.”
Anger slithered beneath my skin. I stilled when I heard my grandmother grumbling from out front. “What on earth . . . till is short a full hundred dollars.”
My mouth dropped open again, my head slowly shaking when I looked back at Janel. Guilt flashed through her pale blue eyes, and she rushed across the tiny room and grabbed my arm by both hands. “Rynna, please don’t say nothin’. My momma has been real short this month. Don’t think we’re gonna make rent. I’m so sorry. I just . . . I’m so ashamed. I didn’t want you to know.”
My head shook again, torn, my voice dropping to match Janel’s. “Why didn’t you just tell Gramma? You know she’d understand. Front you the money.”
“You know Momma’s pride,” she begged.
I swallowed around the jagged rock that cut up the base of my throat. This felt all wrong. So wrong.
I hesitated, and Janel squeezed my arm. “Please.”
I barely nodded and shifted to call down the hall, “Oh, Gramma, I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you. I needed it for new gym shoes.”
Gramma rounded the corner. “Corinne Paisley, you need to remember these things. Here I was, getting all worked up over nothing.”
“It slipped my mind. I’m really sorry,” I promised, glancing over my shoulder at Janel who’d turned away and was changing her shirt.
“Just glad it’s accounted for. Why don’t you get yourself some dinner, and I’ll sit down with you in a minute.”
“That sounds great.”
“How about you, Janel? You and your momma want to sit with us?”
Janel grabbed her purse from the hook. “Have plans, Mrs. Dayne. But thank you.”
Janel blew by both of us, and I headed out to the kitchen to grab a plate, hating the way regret had gathered in the pit of my stomach. The way everything felt wrong. Off. Like I was an accomplice of something I didn’t want partner to.
Filling a plate with dinner, I wound out front, stopping at the soda machine to grab a Coke. Laughter rang out behind me, and I swiveled to peek at one of the few tables still occupied in the diner.
It was filled by four boys.
Boys who were getting close to being men.
Aaron was at the window, his brown hair buzzed, so handsome that achy spot inside me flared.
I startled when I heard the giggle behind me. Janel was shaking her head as if she felt sorry for me. “Oh, Rynna, don’t do that to yourself. You know he’s so far out of your league. That crush you’ve had for all these years just makes you look pathetic.”
Discomfort climbed my throat, a sticky hurt that slicked my skin. I wanted to tell her to shut her stupid mouth. That I was so tired of her mind games. Of her manipulating every situation.
It wasn’t the first time I’d covered for Janel.
Not by far.
But I didn’t say anything. I just dropped my head and walked to the other side of the diner and sat down in the booth I always shared with my grandmother.
24
Rex
“Daddy!” Frankie came barreling out my mom’s d
oor, brown hair a disaster and flying all around her. The kid was sporting that smile that melted me into a puddle of goo. Nothing but sticky sap right at her feet.
She had on a tank top and shorts. Since it was Frankie Leigh, she wasn’t about to stop there. She was also wearing an old pair of suspenders, which she’d gotten God knows where, and sky-high heels she’d pilfered from my mom’s closet that were ten sizes too big.
And surprise, surprise, that damned hot pink tutu.
Couldn’t help but grin.
Guess I really was a sucker for all that Frankie flare.
“There’s my girl.” The second she reached me, I swooped her into my arms and tossed her into the air. Exactly the way I knew she liked. My heart gave an extra boom at the sound of her laughter that rang through the morning. That sound alone had to be my single greatest joy.
I caught her, hugging her to my chest, pushing my nose into her hair, breathing in my little girl.
“I missed you,” I whispered into the mess of hair on her head. I held her to me a little closer, and Frankie wrapped those tiny arms around my neck, the force of her smile touching me even when I couldn’t see her face.
“I misses you, too, Daddy! But mes and Grammy had so much fun. She lets me do my very own skupture, right, Grammy?” She wiggled out of my tight hold, shifting in my arms to look back at my mom, who was standing at her usual place in the threshold and grinning back at us.
“A sculpture?” I clarified as I carried Frankie up the sidewalk.
“Uh-huh.”
“And what did you sculpt?” I asked.
Those brown eyes widened like I was clueless. “A puppy, silly. I told you I wants a puppy so, so bad. Oh, Daddy, can I? Can I have a puppy? I’ll be the best puppy mommy ever!”
A pang hit me hard.
Cutting me deep.
I fought against it, the memories threatening just at the cusp of my consciousness. Since Rynna had come into my life, it felt like everything was right there, trembling beneath my nose, begging to be exposed.
The thought of Missy still killed me, finding my girl dead at the side of the road on the same damned day my wife had left me. I’d had that dog since before I’d lost Sydney, and she’d been my solace, a reason to live when I hadn’t wanted to go on.
But life was brutal that way.
Threatening to take everything in one fell swoop.
If what happened with Sydney hadn’t been enough to make me ridiculously overprotective of Frankie, desperate to keep her safe, the cruelty of that day had solidified it.
I shoved the thoughts down and softened my voice. “Still don’t think that’s the best idea right now, Frankie.”
“When’s a good time?”
“Now we’re sculpting?” I asked when I got within a couple feet of my mom, praying it’d distract Frankie from demanding an answer to that question.
“We dabble in all the art forms, don’t we, Sweet Pea Frankie Leigh? Call us multitalented. Just like your daddy.” Mom ruffled her fingers through my daughter’s hair. There was so much affection in her gaze when she looked at us both, I couldn’t help the surge of love that went crashing through my senses. It was like something inside me had been unlocked, and every sort of emotion I’d tried to keep repressed billowed out without my permission.
The love.
The longing.
The fear.
The regret.
Rynna’s face glided through my consciousness, her touch a faint whisper across my skin, breathing all that beauty and life.
Stirrings of hope shook through me like tremors of warning. Like quivers that staked deeper, demanding more. The ground shifted between the two extremes. Tossing me back and forth with no idea which was going to send me stumbling straight into a free fall.
Guilt throbbed, urging me to take heed of that distorted sense of loyalty. Thing was, I was having a harder and harder time remembering just what I was supposed to be loyal to.
Mom’s head tilted as she studied my face. Saw the second she came to a conclusion, because her brow lifted in a slow, knowing arch. “You have a good time last night?”
I tried to form a quick lie, but it wouldn’t come fast enough. Not before my mom latched on to something in my expression that sent her mouth curling into satisfaction.
“Ahh, I see,” she said. “Looks like you had a really good time last night.”
How the woman still had the power to send a rush of embarrassment flooding my face, I didn’t know. But there I stood like a twelve-year-old kid who was trying to come up with an excuse for his mom finding his dirty magazine stash under his bed.
“Ma,” I said with a huff of a breath as I set my daughter on her feet. The kid wobbled in those ridiculous shoes.
Shit. I felt guilty for even holding her when I was suddenly belted with a thousand memories from last night.
Rynna.
Fucking Rynna.
Little Thief.
Guessed the woman conquering my body wasn’t all that unexpected. But it was the way she’d taken hostage of my mind that was close to sending me into a tailspin. The way she’d stolen a place for herself inside me. A place I didn’t think it was possible for her to keep.
For years, I’d never been tempted. Had never given in, because I knew what I was living for. The reason for every beat of my heart. My gaze dipped to that reason. To the tiny thing that swayed clumsily in her tutu and those heels, her hands over her head as she attempted a spin she wasn’t even close to being capable of pulling off.
My perfect Tiny Dancer.
“Go get your stuff, Sweet Pea.” My voice was quieted, muted to the point where the only sound was my devotion flooding the room.
“’kay.” Frankie scooted across the room, heels catching on the carpet, the little thing disappearing at the head of the hallway.
I jerked with the soft hand that suddenly landed on my forearm. “Hey,” Mom said. Her voice was the same gentle command as the one she’d raised me with. All the innuendo she’d been teasing me with had vanished. “What’s going on with you, Rex?”
Looking at my boots, I roughed a palm over my mouth, like it might have the power to seal in all the things I was itching to confess. “Nothin’,” I said.
“Don’t nothin’ me. You think I don’t know you? My boy? My son? My kid, who’s worn that same expression since he was seventeen? You think I don’t know when you’re terrified? And that’s something that just about never leaves those eyes, Rex. But today? It’s different, and I know you know it, just as well as I do.”
I forced myself to meet her knowing gaze.
“When are you going to realize you deserve to be happy?” she prodded.
My head shook. “I’m trying, Ma. But I’m terrified of doing something stupid. Making a wrong choice, the way I always do. Of doing something that jeopardizes Frankie.”
“And you finding happiness again threatens that? That just sounds foolish to me. The way I look at it? The happier you are, the happier she’s gonna be.”
Guilt flamed all around me, worry closing my throat. “You think she’s unhappy?”
Her brow creased into the few lines that showed her age. “God, no. Not at all. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that child adores you. Thinks you walk on water. Thinks you can do no wrong. But there’s gonna come a day when she’s old enough to see the shadows in your eyes. The ones that are chased away just by looking at her. She’s your life, Rex. We all know that. Finding happiness again won’t mean that you love her any less.”
She moved to stand closer to me. She set her hand over my heart. “This? It’s missing something. It’s been for a long, long time. Long before that bitch ever up and left you two. Maybe it’s time you find it. You can’t move forward without moving on.”
Emotion ran my throat. Stinging and burning. I attempted to swallow it down, but the words were scratchy when I released them. “But what if being with her is wrong? What if I fuck up again and chase her away? What if Fran
kie falls for her?”
What if I do?
Couldn’t even bring myself to state the last because I already knew I was well on my way.
Glee flashed in Mom’s eyes, her grin victorious. “So you’re saying there is a girl?”
“Ma.” Affectionate frustration. She knew exactly how to goad me.
She softened again, her smile going gentle, understanding brimming in the warmth of her eyes. “There are no certainties in this life, Rex. We fail, we win, and we straight up lose. You know that first hand. But what you haven’t accepted is that the only security we have is how we use the moments we’re given. We waste them or embrace them. We cherish them or we let fear taint them. And yeah, some chances are higher risk. Of course they are, and I’m not saying to run out and be reckless. You don’t have to rush in or make any big decisions. You can protect your daughter while you test the waters. But you aren’t ever gonna know unless you try. You just have to decide if this girl’s worth giving her that chance.”
Chances.
I almost smirked. Almost wanted to tell her she sounded just like Rynna.
Rynna.
Fucking beautiful Rynna.
“I don’t even know where to start,” I admitted through a sigh. “Been keeping people at arm’s length for so long, don’t have the first clue about how to get back in the dating game.”
But there was something about me and Rynna that felt like we’d already surpassed all of that. Our connection went deeper than testing the waters. Bigger than dating or seeing how it went.
Something strong blazed between us. A connection that shackled us together.
Unavoidable.
Irresistible.
Truth was that last night I’d felt closer to her than I’d felt to anyone in so damned long, and I wasn’t talking Frankie or my mom or the guys.
Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection Page 50
