In the absence of an alternative and not wanting to be rude by leaving early, Rex kept drinking. He wasn't sure when his alcohol tolerance had taken a nosedive, but clearly, he could no longer drink like he could last time he was at the Local, although that could have been down to the sheer volume he'd consumed. There were definite perks to moving back to his hometown, he decided in the cab on the way home. He was half-surprised to not hear his stomach sloshing as he let himself into Alannah's house, and the image had him giggling. Giggling seemed foreign—he shouldn't be giggling, should he? He was a grown man. Okay, he told himself, I have had too much to drink. There's a strong possibility I am, in fact, drunk. Now be quiet, make a cup of tea, drink some water, and you'll feel better in the morning.
He tried to keep quiet in the kitchen, but he must have failed. And he couldn't regret the noise, either, because it got him Alannah. Even better, he was seeing unprepared Alannah, stumbling into the kitchen, tying a bow at the waist of a satiny dressing gown when he knew damn well she slept naked, all bleary eyes and swollen lips and sex hair.
Sex hair? How did she get sex hair? And then, sharp as acid and twice as painful, is there someone else here? Did she leave early to be with someone else?
"This is just what my hair looks like after I sleep," Al said, and he realised he must have spoken aloud. "I have curly hair, Rex. You might have noticed, given the amount of time you've spent with your hands wrapped in it recently."
"Sorry," he managed over the vitriol roiling in his gut. "I've only seen you first thing in the morning after I've—after we've—"
"Would it matter?" Alannah asked, squinting up at him adorably in the light. She stifled a yawn; her voice sounded flat, exhausted. "If I had sex hair from someone else?"
For a moment, Rex's mind went blank from shock. Hearing the question drop from her lips felt remarkably similar to an attempted disembowelment. "Jesus, give me a minute," he said, trying to catch his breath. She seemed to think that was a dismissal, but he wasn't finished, halting her before she could exit the kitchen. "Al, wait. I can't think around the idea of you with someone else. Just give me a second, would you? I'm trying to… I'm trying to make tea and I can't when you hit me with something like that."
"You're a bit drunk," Al said, a touch sardonically. "I'm not sure you should be trusted with a kettle."
"Unfortunately, you may be right." He sucked in a deep breath and grabbed at the bench for support. "Doesn't matter whether I've been drinking, though, you can't imagine it would change the fact that I don't want you with someone else." He tried to maintain eye contact when he crossed to the sink, fumbling a glass down from the cupboard, but there was little dignity to be had in chugging multiple glasses of water under the eyes of one's… what was she? His sexual partner? His friend with benefits? His long-term couch surfing host?
"You could have fooled me," she said, and though the acid in her tone made him stand up straight and inhale through the pain, it was the hurt she tried to hide that cut him the deepest. Even in his current state, the look on her face could hardly be misinterpreted, though she tried to coat it in indifference. She was hurt, and it made his chest ache that it was because of him.
"I wasn't aware you cared who I was with tonight," she added at his obvious confusion.
"Of course—" he started but arrested the shout partway through and lowered his voice. "Of course, I did." By the skin of his teeth, he avoided adding, 'You should have been with me.'
"I thought you might be bringing someone home, given the number of admirers you had when I left," Al said, her tense posture and shifting feet belying her casual phrasing.
"How—you know what, I can't believe you'd even ask the question. We sleep in the same bed. Are you kidding me? How can you ask if I'd bring another woman home to our bed?" He folded his arms, leaning on the countertop with only a slight wobble mitigating the effect of the long, cold stare he'd perfected in the military.
"'Our bed' doesn't always mean what we want it to mean," Al said.
"Tell me you're joking." Rex shot upright. "Whoever made you feel—who gave you those ideas about what you like being dirty, he also brought other women into your bed?"
"No, of course not! Nothing like that."
He hadn't registered that he was crossing the room toward her, but the touch of her hands on his chest, stroking him, immediately gentled his outrage. "Good. I'm already none too fond of the mystery asshole. No need to turn it into a homicidal rage, though he's clearly doing his best."
Al kept her palms pressed to his chest as she spoke. "I don't need you to fix my problems."
"Don't I know it, sweetheart." The buzz, having been momentarily waylaid, returned to loosen his tongue. "But if you'd let me, I'd break my back to do it."
"You're drunk," she repeated.
"I wonder, does that make me more or less honest?" Rex found himself asking, trying not to let his gaze fix for too long on the sweet pout of her mouth.
"You tell me," she said, but he knew he was forgiven for whatever made her hold herself away because she kept her hands flat to his chest and started rubbing little circles, apparently subconsciously. He'd been educating himself in every aspect of her body thoroughly enough to know without question when his woman was turned on. Is this just because I said I wouldn't bring another woman back to our bed? What kind of assholes had his girl been with, who made her question so deeply the power she had over him? Who had failed to recognise she was a prize beyond measure?
"You want assurances, Alannah?" He flicked his eyes to hers. "Listen well, and I'll give you some truths." He pulled her closer, tugging her hands up over his shoulders, aligning their bodies. "Keep those fingers locked behind my neck, or I'll stop talking. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
God, she was irresistible when she was all big eyes and disbelief, like he was the Christmas present she couldn't believe she'd been given, such a change from the hurt she'd been trying to hide moments earlier. He dropped a single kiss on her lips, but he pulled away when she tried to deepen the contact.
"One," Rex managed, feeling her body shift against him, and goddamn if he wasn't hard as steel within seconds of her touch. "You're the hottest fucking thing I've ever dreamed of."
Hands still behind his neck, she hid her face against him.
"Two, sassy girl, pay good attention to this one."
She pulled back to meet his eyes. "I'm paying attention. I can multitask."
"As long as I'm with you, you don't ever need to worry that I'm going to bring someone else into it. If we're together, we're together. It's just us, in our bed, doing whatever we want in the places no one else needs to know about. Do you understand?"
"I don't want to be a burden on you. I don't need to have rights over you or anything."
"I do," Rex growled. "I need rights. I need to know you'll come to me, and only me, when you need kissing or holding or fucking. So, you get rights over me too, because that shit goes both ways. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Rex."
"Good girl." He wrapped a hand in her hair again, pulling tight enough that she squirmed and squeezed her thighs together. Not discomfort, then, nor was it entirely arousal, but a combination of the two that had her shifting herself against him as he claimed her mouth. She moaned, trying again to make the kiss deep, and mewled a complaint when he pulled away. The look of her slayed him, her sleepy face and sweet, swollen lips. "Three. Are you coherent enough to hear number three?"
"That should be my line. You're the one who's drunk."
"And you are the one who's leaving a wet patch on my thigh, so I'm not sure who's in a more balanced state of mind." When she tried to draw away, he used his grip on her hair to hold her close. "Don't know why you don't like dripping on me, sassy girl. Don't need you to explain it right now. Just keep in mind that I'd crawl over broken glass to get your cunt on my skin, so it's a fucking gift every time you leave your mark on me."
The quiet moan she didn't even try to stifle did
nothing but intoxicate him further. Was it possible to get drunk on someone else's happiness, to become addicted to bringing them pleasure? Rex ground his thigh against her, trying to work out the exact placement of muscles he should be clenching to get her off just from rubbing against him.
"You want to tell me what number three was?" Al said, breathy and giddy and lust-drunk.
"Answer me this first, since we're being honest. What made you run from me, the first time we did this?" He flicked his eyes downward to where her thighs hugged his.
A shadow passed over Alannah's face, and a wave rippled through her body as though she was going to pull away. "I don't want to talk about that."
"You don't have to," Rex added hurriedly, sternly informing his body that he couldn't just grab Alannah and hold her close every time she tried to put distance between them. "I just want to understand because the look of you was so gutted, Al. I don't ever want to make you look like that again. I don't ever want to make you run from me again. When you're ready, someday, maybe you can teach me how."
She pressed her face against him and exhaled deeply, still keeping her hands linked behind his neck. "Yeah, Rex. Someday. For now, though, can it be enough for you that I ran back?"
Rex wasn't sure his body was obeying his instructions to move, to comfort, to hold her until he was sinking down to sit on the floor, his back to the cupboards, with her wilting body held tight against his chest. "Ready for your third truth, sassy girl?"
She hummed an assent against his sternum. "Sure, why not?"
"None of that now. All in or all out."
Al huffed out an exasperated breath. "In. I'm all in."
Rex pushed his face into her hair and breathed in the smell of her. "You're in deep with me," he said. "I don't know what's happening between us, and for now, I won't push. I tried to tell myself I could handle something like this, no strings attached, until I saw you hurting from not knowing you have a claim on me. For now, I won't ask for a label. But you should know, someday soon, I'm going to need one."
Her cheeks went bright pink, and Rex wondered if he'd ever seen anything cuter. "Are you always like this when you're drunk?" she asked.
He wanted to push, to avoid her obvious attempt at changing the subject, but the way she pressed her hand to his cheek, holding it there as he kissed her palm, was too sweet to lose. "What did I say about keeping your hands where they were?"
She twisted in his arms, peering up from under her lashes. "Maybe I'm finished talking for the night."
"I won't take you when I'm not a hundred percent in control of myself, sassy girl. I won't risk your trust like that."
"And that makes you smile?"
"There's plenty I can do without fucking you, Alannah." Rex lifted her to her feet as he stood and guided her toward the staircase with a hand on her back. "I damn near lost my mind the first time I watched you climb these stairs. Lose the robe, and do it again."
"And then?"
"Do as you're told, Alannah. Sway those hips for me while you climb, and when you get to the top, I might start showing you the things I can do without fucking you."
Chapter 8
Sometime in the quiet hours before dawn, when they'd worn themselves out and were intermittently dozing, Rex climbed out of bed. Al was aware of his movement, of the loss of his warmth under her cheek, but she didn't fully regain consciousness until he returned. He paused, standing over the bed, and she emerged from her blanket enough to blink sleepily at him.
"Are you awake?" he murmured.
I am now. "A bit," she mumbled. "Why are you up?"
"Can't sleep. I've been thinking about… your ex. The douchebag ex."
Al sat up and scrubbed her hands over her eyes. "That'll do it; now I'm awake."
"How serious was it?"
"Why does that matter?" she asked.
"If it was a one-time thing, I can be less angry. I'm trying to make myself chill out, and if you didn't stay in a long-term relationship with someone who made you embarrassed to ask for what you want, that'll be a damn sight easier."
"It's not for you to be angry about. It ended. Isn't that enough?"
"Not when you look at me every time we do anything beyond vanilla like I've given you the best surprise you've ever had."
"That's a bad thing?" she asked.
"It is when it's because someone else was cruel. I didn't earn that look you give me. I need," he floundered, ran one hand through his hair. "I need it to be because of me, okay? I need to know it's because of what I'm giving you, not what he didn't."
Al's brain, severely caffeine deficient, felt like a car spinning its wheels in mud. "When I'm with you, I can't pretend I don't feel like it's a feast after I've been starving. But the things you do to me… they're just us. He's not there."
He rested on the edge of the bed, rubbing at his face in his hands. "So how serious was it, baby?"
For some reason, she was hesitant to mention the engagement, trying to push down the memory of the ring Harry refused to take back. It hurt too much to recall the look of betrayal on his face when she was looking at Rex, whose own expression was unreadable as she withheld the information. If nothing else, knowing that the worry was hurting the man before her, keeping him up at night, was enough to have her yielding. "It was fairly serious."
"What does that mean, Al?"
"I don't know," she said, hearing the exasperation in her tone. "It was fairly serious; we were together a long time. It's a recent breakup. Can we have this conversation after coffee? Maybe sometime next year?" She tried to tell herself the hoarse quality of her voice was due to sleep and a fair amount of recent orgasmic screaming, but it felt like her throat had been rubbed raw by the overflow of emotion rising from her chest. She rubbed her eyes again. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm not hurting anyone. I didn't ask for these feelings he puts in my chest.
But so soon after his words about needing labels, the way her heart had leaped at his growl of, 'You're in deep with me', it felt like she was committing a betrayal. Betraying Rex by talking about Harry in this bed, where she'd laid awake so many nights after more beige and tried to convince herself she wasn't settling, by not telling Rex the whole truth about her engagement. Betraying Harry in smaller, everyday ways, each time doing something with Rex was better than doing it with her former fiancée. Betraying herself, by sitting in her discontent for so long and letting Harry believe she was happy as the sensible girl he thought her to be, by feeling more for Rex than she'd meant to allow herself. It's just sex. I have no right to these feelings, to this possessiveness. It's just sex. Another tiny betrayal, having those thoughts now, with the man himself right in front of her.
"How recent?" Rex asked.
"Are you asking me if I cheated on him with you?" Al snapped. "If I broke up with him for you? If I saw you roll into town and thought, 'Great, I should end this dedicated long-term relationship just in case my childhood friend wants to bang'?"
"That's not what I—"
"We were over before you came home. You had nothing to do with it."
His shoulders sagged forward. From relief at her answer or frustration with the way she delivered it? Had he really been worried that he had broken up her relationship?
"Who is he?" he asked again a moment later.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Why?"
"Because it was painful, you jackass." She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and tightened the reins around her temper. "Haven't you ever had a bad breakup? I don't think it's unusual that I don't want to talk about it."
"I don't think I've ever had… a breakup," Rex said slowly. "I joined up when I was eighteen. Haven't had much down time since then. God, is that sad or what?" He seemed to deflate slightly, and his hand came up as if to stroke her hair, hesitating in the air for a long moment before he wound a finger around one of her curls, tugging gently. "I'm sorry, sassy girl. That was pretty selfish of me. We don't have to talk about it."
Alanna
h said nothing, just slid back down in the bed. After a moment, she pushed back the covers to invite him in beside her. With the weight of the truths she wasn't saying heavy in her stomach, it took her a long time to get back to sleep.
By the time Rex woke, head aching just enough to be irritating but not enough for him to dig for painkillers, Alannah's side of the bed was already empty. He felt unsettled after their discussion the night before, after the way she had given him her back to curl around rather than sleeping with her head on his shoulder as she had every other night they'd shared the bed.
Is this just how relationships work? he wondered. You have a fight and then work through your shit separately and eventually come back with your own conclusions and discuss them over the dinner table? It sounded more like an ongoing series of board meetings than anything approximating the way he and Alannah had interacted so far, even if you took out their explosive sexual connection and the possessive statements he seemed incapable of stifling. That ongoing negotiation-style relationship felt more like a hostage situation than a lifestyle he wanted for himself.
And the worst part was he didn't have a clue. He'd come to the uncomfortable conclusion the night before that he'd never really dated anyone, beyond having a couple of women he'd met on duty, with whom he had enjoyed the occasional night when they were in the same city. He hadn't had the time or the inclination to seek out anything more emotionally connected. Rex Castlereagh, party of one. Beyond the essentials, he hadn't ever found himself wanting to put down roots with anyone, to make a claim over anyone but himself.
But somehow, since making the decision to leave the army—or maybe even since driving back into Shepherd's Creek—he'd discovered a new appreciation for the idea. Home 'for now' had turned into 'for the foreseeable' and now felt eerily like 'forever'. He'd missed this place, these people, this woman. Was it so crazy that he'd never wanted to cuddle after sex until he had seen Alannah fighting the voice in her head that called out dirty and he'd had to draw her back in? That he'd never even thought of anyone sleeping on his shoulder before she did, and now the spot felt empty when she wasn't there?
He Comes Home Page 12
