"You didn't have to do that."
This garnered her a shrug. "Still did. Can you point me to the shower?"
"Upstairs, turn right, it's at the end of the hall. The guest room's the first door to the right of the bathroom."
"Anything I shouldn't touch? Expensive shampoo or something?"
She felt a giggle escape. "The purple bottles are stuff that's made for my curly hair. Everything else you can use. But if you don't rinse out my loofah when you're done, I'll deck you."
Alannah thought she heard a snort of laughter as he climbed the stairs.
Alannah's bathroom was spectacular, and Rex hated it. He hated it because these walls had seen her naked and he hadn't, hated it because the bench would be the perfect height for him to bend Alannah over, so she could watch herself come on his dick in the mirrored cabinets above it. He hated it because he couldn't stop picturing her in porn-appropriate poses, loofah clutched to her chest dripping soap suds down her stomach, bubbles trickling over the lush curve of her glorious ass, legs spread and stroking her clit in the largest bathtub he had ever seen—perhaps even large enough to fit Rex himself. He tried, and failed, not to imagine having her in there with him, imagine that it was him pushing her legs apart and toying with her, their bodies slipping against each other.
Not to mention the fucking showerheads. Not one, but two detachable showerheads that he could not stop visualising Al using to direct water right over her swollen, aching clit until she was shuddering and crying out.
He realised he had one fist wrapped around his hard dick and was lightly pumping and forced himself to let go. This was not his place to come, even if it was hers. Even if the loofah he was currently eyeing off really had traced all the places he wanted to memorise with his tongue. His cock throbbed, swelling ever larger, and he cursed loudly, switching the shower to fully cold. It worked, shrinking his erection to manageable levels, but he already knew being around Alannah would perk him right back up again. Might need to get over not wanting to wank in here if I don't want to walk around with a hard-on all day.
It wasn't like he wasn't used to going without. He could handle a few days of abstaining, to get his head around the situation and find a more stable living arrangement. He was meeting with Simon, the real estate agent, soon—maybe there'd be a place available for him immediately, and he'd be able to move in before being around Alannah every night turned into a countdown clock to him coming in his pants.
Every move she made down in the kitchen seemed designed specifically to get him hard as steel, her sexy swaying walk, even in bare feet, as she moved around the kitchen, her ass in that skirt when she bent to load the dishwasher, tugging on her shirt to get air moving inside it, as though if he wasn't there, she might have torn it off and continued her baking topless. He'd just about swallowed his tongue when she had sent him that sexy-as-fuck look over her shoulder. He wanted to give her a reason to make that same expression while he took her from behind. He was fucking lost over her. She could probably make him hard by drinking from a bottle by this point, just from her lips wrapped around its neck.
The freezing shower having calmed his lust from boiling to a comparatively gentle simmer, Rex wrapped himself in the towel and wiped the mirror free of steam. He could replace his toothbrush and shaving stuff at the supermarket tomorrow, or maybe he'd just let the beard grow—one less thing to think about in the mornings. He found himself wondering if Alannah liked beards and smacked himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand for not managing to keep his mind off her for more than thirty seconds at a time.
He was scooping up his dirty clothes when he realised he didn't have anything else to wear. Maybe he could send Al to his parents' place to nick his duffel bag, though that would obviously send his mother wild with suspicion, and if she hadn't noticed the not-quite interruption, then he wasn't about to give her reason to question his behaviour. Maybe he could wear a towel all night, though that would do nothing to hide his response to Alannah.
He opened the bathroom door on Al's face. She had a hand raised to knock, a pile of clothes in her other arm, and her momentum sent her knuckles directly into Rex's chest.
She jumped back like he'd burned her. "Shit! I'm so sorry. Did I hurt you?"
He ignored the goose bumps that prickled at his skin around the place she'd touched. "You hardly got me."
"I punched you in the boob. Man-boob. Pec thing." Her gaze was fixed on his chest, not his face, those pretty eyes taking the breath out of him more than any hit she could deliver as they took in his naked torso.
"I've had a lot worse, Al. What were you after?"
She glanced up to his face and then down at the clothes as though she'd forgotten they were there, then she thrust the pile toward him. "They might not fit you, but I figured it'd be better than getting back into sweaty stuff. It's just throwaway clothes, a big t-shirt I sleep in, and the shorts were left behind by an ex. Boxers too, but I wasn't sure if there's some kind of toxic masculinity rule against wearing another guy's underwear. Anyway, if you want them, they're there. Otherwise, I guess this commando goes commando?"
He cracked a smile at her joke, but hearing Alannah talk about a former boyfriend caused an unexpected roiling in Rex's stomach. Someone who had been around long enough to leave clothes at her house. The balm was, of course, the way her gaze fixed once more on his chest and fluttered down his torso in the silence after she'd finished speaking.
Was it possible she was having the same response to Rex that he was to her? That she was looking because she was… interested in him? Before Rex left Shepherd's Creek, he'd had more than your typical dose of teenage angst to get out, and he hadn't yet grown into his limbs—he'd been as skinny as a sapling, with a big mouth and an eyebrow ring and next to no hold on his temper; any girl with standards, let alone sensible Alannah Green, wouldn't have looked twice at him. But then, the Alannah of eight years ago wasn't the same woman who was standing before him now with her strawberry lips slightly parted. Could it be she was as attracted to the man Rex had grown into as he was the woman she'd become?
"What are you looking at there, Al?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
One of her hands came up and the tips of her fingers brushed his arm. "I don't mean to be rude. Does this hurt really badly?"
"What? No."
"Rex, you're really sunburnt. I thought you said you'd got the hang of the whole sunscreen thing?"
He suddenly remembered catching sight of his red shoulders when he finished work and detouring via the supermarket for the moisturiser that was now somewhere in the vicinity of the front door of his parents' house. The disappointment hollowed out his stomach—not attraction then, just concern for his wellbeing. For the first time, he was a little frustrated to be cared for.
"Missed a spot," he muttered.
"I'll say." Her cool fingers traced the line where the protection of his shirt had ended. "I'm sure if you asked one of the other guys, they'd help you do the bits you can't reach."
Rex could imagine few things he wanted to do less than ask one of the other men on site to help him sunscreen his fucking shoulders. "Might just wear a t-shirt tomorrow."
"I've got aloe in the cupboard if you want to use that. Left hand side above the sink. It doesn't matter if it gets on that shirt; I only ever wear it to bed anyway."
A knock on the front door interrupted them, and Rex realised how close his near-naked body had been to Alannah's fully clothed form, leaning in until she must have felt like he was looming over her, a nearly naked and sunburn-striped beast taking over her bathroom. She muttered something and went for the door like he might race her to it.
Rex tagged the tube of sunburn cream from the bathroom cupboard, tugging on the shorts—which were too short, and what kind of dickhead had Al been dating who wore shorts this short anyway—and the shirt that smelled just enough like her to have his cock stirring all over again. She wears this to sleep. It was soft from a thousand
washes and the image of Alannah, naked but for this overlarge shirt which his hands could easily bypass, flitted through his mind with every indrawn breath. The fact that she slept in shirts in his size was, for some reason, intoxicating. He wanted to wrap her in his clothes and peel her out of them late at night, find her reading in bed with his shirt tugged back over her soft, sated skin.
He wanted her. Maybe even all of her, more than just the mind-fuck body and her sneaky sense of humour and the moments of pure sass that got him as hard as her round little ass. And if Alannah looked at his chest again the way she had when assessing his sunburn, he wasn't sure there'd be enough cold water in the world to calm his dick down.
Al didn't even check the delivery guy had given her the right change. She could have been robbed blind and she'd be too distracted by the memory of Rex's cut torso to do more than smile and thank him. She turned on the TV while they ate, something she hardly ever did, but nothing else would construct such a blockade against conversation. And if she listened to Rex's sexy growling laugh any more tonight, her heart might give out.
Conversation was kept to a minimum by the police drama playing out onscreen, but she felt his gaze on her like he was stroking her skin. Perhaps wondering why she'd gone from eyeing him like a glass of water in the desert to barely being able to look at him. She shifted in her seat, clenching her thighs together as though that could ease the ache. She tried to think whether she'd ever had this viscerally powerful a response to anyone else, but even with Harry, she'd had to think herself into her arousal, psych herself up for intimacy like she was going out on stage. Being with him had been too considered, the way he checked her face for reactions with every move, the quiet respectfulness of their lovemaking. She didn't think she'd ever been this aroused without a battery-operated friend and an hour of scrolling through Tumblr, and all he'd done was look at her. If he ever actually touched her, she might spontaneously combust.
Don't hit on him, don't hit on him, don't hit on him, she ordered herself. She was fresh out of a relationship and he had only just arrived back in town.
They cleaned up dinner with the TV still on, the drama winding up as the cops caught the killer with some kind of poorly explained forensic technique that might have made sense if she hadn't been focused on the throbbing at the apex of her thighs. The fabric of her sleep shirt pulled taut across Rex's shoulders, the ratty shorts that she needed to roll over twice at the waist for gardening exposed far too much of his tree trunk thighs. It left her fingertips tingling with imagined sensation, wondering how it would feel to rake her nails across the slabs of muscle.
She realised she was staring at his thighs and wondered whether it would be inappropriate for her to stick her head in a sink full of cold water.
"Are you all right, Al?"
She'd gone from staring at her houseguest to staring at her sink. Smooth.
"I'm fine."
"I didn't realise you were such a fan of cop shows."
"It's drivel," she said automatically, but then her brain caught up at her mouth. "Uh, big day at work. Just needed the drivel to switch off my brain."
"Is something wrong?"
I want to climb you like a tree. "I'm just, um,"—sexually frustrated—"tired. Let me check that I have actually made up the spare bed, and then I might turn in. Sorry to abandon you for the evening already."
Rex followed her up the stairs, further behind than the last time they'd been in this same position, though that didn't discourage her optimistic vagina from reminiscing. She wondered if he was remembering the same way she was, if his eyes might be fixed on her ass in a skirt with the same intensity as when she wore those shorts. It was a good skirt, fitted and slightly clingy in a business-sexy sort of way; if he was looking closely, he might be able to see the outline of her thong. The idea sent another pulse of blood between her thighs. She was so hypersensitive, she could probably get off just from rubbing herself on a pillow for a minute or two, and the thought of grinding down some pressure on her achy sex almost had her whimpering.
She bit her tongue. Just send him to his room, then you can go make nice to your detachable showerhead a time or twelve. Do not jump the bones of your temporary houseguest. Don't do anything that wouldn't fly with Airbnb.
She wiped her damp palms on her skirt and stopped at his door, checked the bed was made up, and fixed a bland smile on her face as she went to get out of Rex's way. They tried to move the same way once, twice, and her balance tipped and she pitched forward. Rex's hands wrapped around her shoulders. She was braced against his big, muscled body from chest to groin and with a shock so tangible, it might as well have been electric, Alannah registered that he was hard against her stomach.
"Holy shit," she breathed, frozen in place.
"Shit," Rex echoed through gritted teeth, all his muscles standing out like he was fighting every instinct. "Al, don't—"
His thick cock was pressed against her stomach, and she pressed her hands against his chest as though there was any chance she'd have the strength to push him away. Instead, she found herself clinging to him, fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt, pulling them closer together, rubbing over the heat of him, somehow knowing instinctively that if she could just leverage herself properly, it would be enough to stop the throbbing ache between her legs.
"Alannah," Rex growled, the deep timbre reverberating through her chest, and she actually fucking moaned, a desperate gasp that she could no more stifle than she could fly. Her taut nipples were rasping against the lace of her bra and the ridged muscle of him, and his hands tangled in her hair, and he kissed her.
It was the kind of kiss that sent her blood pounding, that brought another moan tumbling from her tongue to his as his erection swelled against her. He kissed her like he was starving, like he hadn't been kissed in a decade, like their TV dinner had been the most exquisite foreplay that he was only now allowed to act upon, and the restraint had used up so much of his energy that the permission to act turned him savage. He fisted a handful of her curls to tilt her head for the best access to her mouth, licking deep and growling when she sucked on his tongue.
"Alannah." Rex said her name like a curse. "If you do that, I'm going to strip you down and fuck you right on this floor. Do not fucking tempt me with that tongue."
"Should I tempt you with something else?" she managed, and the look that burned across his face was fierce and primal and delicious. It made him look like an animal, unfettered, unchained; the idea of having this much raw power between her thighs, above her, beneath her, behind her, had her pushing her swollen sex against his thigh. Part of her wondered whether she should be afraid, having him here, barely bound by civility, this man she hardly knew any more. But the combination of familiarity and strangeness only added more fuel to the fire coursing through her blood.
Rex used his grip on her hair to tug her closer, no gentleness in his touch; this was a man used to getting what he wanted, especially from a woman who took him into her body. She spread her legs to accept his muscled thigh between them. The pressure was perfect and yet deeply unsatisfying, her skirt pulled tight across her spreading thighs preventing him from pushing against where she needed him, a tease at the very front of her sex not nearly enough when she needed so much more. She needed his hands on her, needed him to ruck up her skirt and work her over the cock she could feel in just not quite the right place. She whimpered into his open mouth again, and his grip on her tightened, rolling her against the muscles of his thigh, which rippled when he flexed them. She'd never given any thought to the musculature of a man's leg, beyond appreciating the inherent attractiveness of strength; she'd definitely never considered the practicalities of the curvature for pushing between a woman's legs, the perfect shape of the bulge of muscle that rolled against her as he clenched, that had her tilting her hips to try to get the pressure against her clit where she needed it.
"Don't you fucking dare," he breathed, answering the question she'd almost forgotten she asked. The han
d tangled in her curls tightened, dragging her head back to meet his eyes. "You'd tempt a goddamn saint, Alannah. Don't try my patience any further."
"Or what?" she breathed, eyes fixed on his mouth.
"Or I might not say no, sassy girl. I might take you up on the offer you're making under these clothes, and you wouldn't walk right for a week." His other hand gave her ass a squeeze then an experimental slap through the fabric, and she felt herself arch against his hold on her hair, a bowstring pulled taut.
"Fucking hell," Rex growled, dipping his head to lick and bite the exposed skin of her neck. His hold on her hair slackened experimentally, as though she might want to move away from the incredible sensation of his lips and teeth. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung, arching into the pressure of his hand on her ass. "Could've gone my whole life without finding out that you like getting this perfect ass spanked—that's a fucking tragedy. You need more?"
"Please," Al whispered, shoving the memory of another night like this one, of those other hands on her skin, of his doubt and disgust when she shoved down her fear and asked him for the dirty things that made her touch herself in the dark. Harry had embraced the part of her kink that could be fulfilled with three spanks and a rough fuck, the part that was unproblematic within the scope of his own moral compass. It was only when she exposed a desire for more that Harry had looked at her like there was something wrong with her.
Alannah shoved the memory down, focused on the man before her, of the heat of him on her skin. Harry had no place in what she felt with Rex—with any man now—but her voice still quavered when she spoke. "Please. Yes, more."
Another rough manhandling of her backside that culminated in a slap. Al felt the sting through the fabric of her clothes, revelled in the pain of it, but it was the rough grip and squeeze, the deeper thudding of the blow, that seemed to have a direct line to her pussy. "Yes, like that. So good." She pushed herself against his thigh once more, arching so her skirt ceded another inch or two and she could just barely spread her thighs, still painfully far from where she needed him.
He Comes Home Page 5
