He Comes Home

by Sophia Martin

  "Should you be here?" Rex asked tentatively. Ivy's intolerance of interference had grown in parallel with Jared's drive to interfere.

  "They're inducing me the day after tomorrow," Ivy said. "At this point, it seems like it would take a nuclear detonation to shift Bump from his or her comfortable position in my womb." She winced. "Well, comfortable for Bump anyway."

  Jamie laughed, a sound that Rex still struggled to believe he was hearing. "My niece was the same. Induction didn't move things along, so they went with a C-section. If that happens, I can get you a fantastic cream for the scar. Yolanda swore by it."

  "That's both helpful and terrifying," she told Jamie with a grin and promptly dropped her sandwich.

  Rex looked down to see a wet stain spreading on the earth beneath her feet. "Ivy!"

  "Well," she said calmly, "I guess a nuclear detonation wasn't required after all."

  They spread a tarpaulin across the seat of Jamie's ute—Rex's repaired car having been deemed too unreliable to carry Ivy, though he drove behind them all the way to her house—and Rex had the honour of being the first person Jared called after Ivy rang him to explain what was happening. "I can't get a word out of Cameron. What happened?"

  "She started eating a sandwich, and it just happened. Jamie's driving her home to get the go bag."

  "Was it violent? Is she in pain?"

  "Not that I saw. How do you not know this? You've read a thousand pregnancy books."

  "All I know is she'll start having contractions, and then we take her to the hospital. I have three brothers—why could none of you have been a doctor?"

  "Hey, I made you a rocking chair. Would a doctor have done that?"

  Jared screeched into his own driveway barely ten minutes after Jamie, Ivy, and Rex arrived. Their parents were next, Hurricane Andrew storming into the house in paroxysms of joy. "My grandchild," he kept saying. "My grandchild!"

  "No one's grandchild until it gets out of me," Ivy growled, curling up with another contraction.

  The labour somehow took longer than Rex expected, after the great rush to get Ivy to the hospital. Jared popped out to the waiting room with updates so many times that the midwife threatened to ban him from the birthing suite. He reported on everything from foetal heartrate to Ivy's dilation—half the time supplying information Rex didn't understand, and the other half that he didn't want to know.

  When Eric waved the battered pack of cigarettes at him again, Rex recognised it as an offer of escape from the tension of their forced holding pattern in the waiting room. They stepped outside the hospital's main entrance. Given their location, he felt vaguely guilty about the smoking excuse, even though neither of them lit up. There were a surprising number of people in nurses' scrubs out with them.

  "Didn't think this would take so long," Eric said eventually. "In the movies, it always goes fast once they get to the hospital."

  "Something about dilation, I think," Rex said. "I stopped listening to Jared about an hour ago."

  "Nate's here," Eric noted, inclining his head towards their brother's car speeding into the car park.

  Nate hurried up to them moments later, hair wild. "What's going on? I was in a meeting; I had my phone off."

  "We're a few hours in," Rex said. "Ivy's contracting, Jared's freaking out, Mum's serene. She keeps talking about how many times she's done this before."

  "Dad's going to have a heart attack," Eric offered. "Never seen him so excited."

  "He has been trying to get a grandchild out of the two of them for five years," Nate said.

  "If he's going to keel over, we're in the right place for it," Rex noted.

  "Are you smoking again?" Nate asked Eric with marked disapproval.

  "Needed to get out of the waiting room," Eric said. "Ivy's parents are there too. Her sister's in the birthing room. Too much noise, too much waiting."

  "I'll go in. Don't be too long, or Jared will think you've abandoned him." Nate undid his tie and ran another nervous hand through his hair, which was standing on end. "A baby. They made a fucking baby. How are we supposed to deal with another Castlereagh?" He was gone before they could answer.

  "How are we supposed to deal with a kid?" Rex asked. "I don't know anything about babies."

  "Because you're the youngest. Jared knows all about babies."

  "Are we supposed to babysit?" Rex said. "That's something that you do for people with new babies. What if I damage it?"

  "You won't have to babysit," Eric said.

  "Why?"

  "You won't be here, of course."

  Rex gaped at his brother. "What?"

  "You're going after Alannah, aren't you?" Eric said evenly.

  Rex took a few seconds to respond. "I only just got back here, mate. I'm not leaving you all again. Not now."

  Eric fished a battered cigarette out of the packet, lit it, and took a long drag. "Don't be a dick, mate. You're not abandoning us. Everyone knows you're going after your woman."

  "I'm going back inside," Rex said sharply. "I'll let Jared know you're more interested in giving yourself cancer than witnessing the birth of his child."

  Barely fifteen minutes after Eric returned to the waiting room—hands and face clearly having been washed to eliminate the smell of smoke—Jared burst from the birthing suite. "We have a daughter," he said and immediately began to cry. "My wife made us a daughter."

  There were hugs and tears and, a few at a time, the clan was allowed in to see Ivy and meet baby Regina. Rex waited until last to go in, his emotions rioting in his chest. They all thought he was going to leave? When the baby had just been born?

  Jared ushered Rex in and went to sit by his wife.

  "Hey, big sister," Rex said. "I hear you made a Baby Castlereagh."

  "She got your name, kind of," Ivy said, voice exhausted. "And Beth for my mum."

  "I think we'll call her Reggie," Jared said. He had eyes for no one but his wife and child. "Saves the confusion of having two Ginas."

  Baby Regina began to fuss, and Ivy warned Rex, "I'm going to get my boob out now."

  He stared down at his hands. "I'll babysit," he found himself offering. "I mean, you'll have to teach me how to handle a baby. I can just change her nappy and then put her in a cupboard, right?"

  Ivy laid a hand on Rex's arm. "Eric talked to me," she said. "He said that you were thinking of not going after Alannah. You're not abandoning us if you go, Rex."

  "I haven't even been back a year yet," he protested. "How can I leave you all again so quickly?"

  "And you've been miserable for half that time, because your woman's gone," Jared said.

  "Don't be such a caveman," Ivy said. "She's not 'his woman'."

  "She's his woman," Jared said firmly. "And he needs to go get her." To Rex, he added, "You won't be gone that long, mate. Either things go well and she comes back with you, or things go badly and you come back alone. Either way, you're back here in a year."

  "I don't want to miss all Reggie's firsts," Rex protested weakly.

  "We can skype you every other day so she knows your voice and your face," Ivy said. "She won't remember this first year, but you will. You'll regret it if you don't go, little brother."

  Outside the hospital once more, Rex pulled out his phone and dialled the number he knew by heart. "Al," he said. "It's a girl."

  Alannah climbed out of her taxi and hefted her backpack onto her shoulders, mentally comparing its size to the enormous suitcases that other travellers were wheeling into the airport. Was this really all she'd need for six months? What if she'd forgotten something vital?

  "Then I'll buy it," she muttered, mentally shaking herself as she hiked up her big girl pants and shook her hair back from her face. She fastened the pack straps around her waist, strode through the doors to the check-in counter, and froze.

  Surely, she was imagining things. Surely, the person at the desk was just another tall, dark-haired man with shoulders she wanted to dig her nails into and a neck she longed to bite down on and a
butt she could bounce a coin off, who only looked so desperately, heartbreakingly familiar because he just so happened to bear the strongest possible resemblance to someone who could definitely not be here.

  It couldn't be.

  She stood in the middle of the walkway, gaping and disbelieving for long moments. She looked on, frozen, as Rex finished his check-in, gave the clerk a tight smile, and turned away. He seemed to be giving himself some sort of pep talk, fists clenching and unclenching, his hair mussed the way it was when he ran his hands through it repeatedly. His cheekbones seemed more defined—had he lost weight? She examined the breadth of his shoulders, the contours of his biceps. Nope. Still the same brawler body that had mastered hers.

  She knew the moment he caught sight of her, because, all at once, the tightness that had changed his face was gone. His shoulders leaped upward with a huge indrawn breath, his big hands clenched into fists, but he was moving toward her like he couldn't stop the movement of his feet. She realised she was walking to him as well, and then they were in front of each other, and his arms were around her and suddenly his mouth was on hers and she felt like she could finally breathe again, after all these months without touching him. Their packs made them awkward, sent them bumping into each other like butterflies colliding, but nothing had ever felt more natural than the two of them meeting again after so long.

  "What are you doing here?" Al gasped when they finally separated.

  "I'm going to get on a plane."

  "My plane?"

  "Yes." He was staring at her like he couldn't bear to look away even for an instant, jaw strained tight.

  "How did you—"

  "Know which one?" Half his smile twitched upward in a nervous smile. "Don't blame Kayla. I bribed her quite heavily."

  "It didn't take much, did it?"

  "She came to me, actually." He huffed out a half-laugh and cupped her face in his hands. "I promised I wouldn't ask you to stay. I won't. I won't ask you to change your plans. All I'm asking is that you let me be a part of them."

  It couldn't be possible. "You're coming with me?" Al breathed.

  "If you'll let me."

  She had to remind herself to close her gaping mouth. "I don't know where I'm going. I haven't even booked a flight back. I'm practicing the whole spontaneity thing."

  "I didn't exactly make an itinerary, either."

  "We'll be gone for months." She noted how quickly I had become we. "You came back to be with your family."

  "There is no one who wants my mopey ass gone more than them, Alannah. I've been a mess. I've been doing nothing but waiting for you, just hoping you'd find your way back to me." He wrapped his hands over where her own gripped the front of his shirt. "They understand. I came back because I wanted my home. But I told you, sassy girl. That's you."

  "What if we can't get along?" she protested. "We might be terrible travelling partners."

  "Then we spend some time apart. We already know we live well together. Travelling like this, we can take breaks from each other whenever we need."

  Something aligned in her head, and she couldn't control the words that tumbled from her mouth. "We can't do it unless you want this to be permanent," Al blurted. "You can't take it back because you changed your mind about being with me. If you come with me, it's because you want this to be…" she struggled for a word that encompassed everything she wanted with him, "… real."

  "I never wanted anything permanent in my life, until you," Rex said, and it sounded like a vow. "I've just been waiting for you to catch up to wanting it with me."

  "Of course, I want it with you." The words were almost a sob.

  Rex kissed her again, stamping his lips over hers like a seal of approval, licking into the sweetness of her mouth. "Is that a yes? Are you telling me yes?"

  "This should feel dangerous," Al breathed. "It doesn't feel like a risk, Rex. How can something feel crazy and safe all at the same time?"

  "Because it is. You can be as wild as you need, but I'll keep you safe. You can walk the tightrope, as long as you let me catch you."

  Needing to see the spark back in his eyes, she used her grip on his shirt to pull her body tight against his. "And if I don't want to be caught?"

  Half a smile quirked his mouth. "I'll wait until you're just off the ground."

  "Then it's yes," she said. "I'm telling you yes. Let's go on an adventure."

  Epilogue

  Al could sense Rex waiting for her behind the door of the hotel room before she even slid the key card into the lock. After two weeks apart, their proximity felt like a string connected somewhere below her navel directly to him, and it was pulled taut. He was rising from a chair when she opened the door and had her in his arms before it was even closed, heedless of the fact that he wore nothing but underwear.

  She pressed a kiss to his bare chest. "Let me at least take off the pack."

  "Not a chance. I haven't had you in my arms for a fortnight. I'm not letting you go for a week."

  She disengaged from him anyway, ignoring his disgruntled look, and dropped her backpack to the floor. Rex pulled her in and took her mouth in a kiss that sent her blood throbbing. She'd missed it so much, the press of his lips, the sweep of his tongue, the way his hands tangled in her curls. Eventually, they separated, breathing hard.

  "How was Singapore?" Rex asked.

  "Good museums. How was Dubai?"

  "Commercial. Two weeks apart was much harder than one."

  "Agreed. I missed you." Al pushed up on her toes to kiss him again, and then he was pulling her backward, and she was following, pressing insistent hands against his chest until his legs met the bed and he fell back, pulling her on top of him.

  "Christ, I missed you so much."

  Al spread her legs to straddle his hips. "I can feel that."

  "Careful," Rex warned. "I've got two weeks of needing to fuck you stored up here. I'm this close to exploding."

  "I'll fix that for you, shall I?" She shuffled backward to insinuate herself between his thick thighs.

  She could see his gentlemanly instincts warring with his need for her, and in the end, the need won. Surely, she thought, she'd shown him by now that she loved giving him head almost as much as he enjoyed receiving it. He lifted his hips as she tugged his boxers down and circled his hardness with both hands. The moment she started moving them, every muscle in his abdomen seemed to seize and ripple.

  "Two weeks, I've been without you, sassy girl. Two weeks without this mouth. Never so long again."

  In response, she licked a line up the underside of his shaft and flicked her tongue over his head. "I've been aching for you for days," she said, before taking him deep into her mouth.

  She loved the way he groaned as his hips arched upward to thrust himself deeper. It always felt like the first time, pleasuring him like this, as thrilling as if she'd never had him in her mouth before. He didn't back off when he hit the back of her throat, and she pressed herself deeper, knowing she could get him all the way in if she just found the right angle, and—there it was. And the noise he made might be enough to satisfy her for life, halfway between a grunt and a roar, like he was conquering and being conquered all at once, like he couldn't get enough of feeling too much. She pressed her thighs together and allowed her throat to convulse around his length, pulling back until she could look him in the eye, then she slowly slid deep again.

  "Fuck, baby—if you look at me while you're doing that, I'm going to fill that pretty mouth already. It's been too long—I'm ready to go off."

  Al worked her hand and mouth in unison, revelling in the growl that came from deep in his chest.

  "I'm going to be jacking off to this image for the rest of my damn life. My gorgeous girl on her knees with my cock in her mouth, eyes watering from taking me deep. I want to fuck your throat, Al. I want to punish this mouth for making me want it so bad."

  She hummed around him in approval, and his hips jerked forward in a rough thrust, a growl grinding loose from his chest.
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  "That's how it's gonna be?"

  She smiled around the head of him, flicking her tongue against the sensitive spot at the base of his head. Something primitive thrilled in her blood at the way his gaze was fixed exclusively on her. She'd challenged her mountain of a man, and he never backed down.

  "Then you'd better hold on tight, sassy girl. I've been waiting too damn long for this mouth, and I'm about to fucking own it."

  She gripped his massive thighs so hard, her nails dug in. As if the pain woke the beast inside him, Rex's hands wrapped in her hair, pushing her down as she worked her tongue along the underside of his shaft. The near-painful tug on her scalp made Alannah want to push her thighs together to stop the throbbing at their juncture, but she was kneeling too low to do so, and somehow that made it even hotter, that she was sucking him off without concern for her own orgasm, disregarding her own need for pleasure to satisfy his. The dirty words that rumbled from his lips set her blood pounding, and Al wondered if it was possible to come from lack of stimulation. Rex thrust into her throat, working her mouth fast and hard, and she could feel the muscles of his thighs start to shake in her grip.

  "I'm getting real fucking close to filling your mouth, Alannah." The words sounded like pure sin, each one echoed by a throb in her clit. "Suck me hard and taste what you did to me. Good girl, good fucking girl—ah, shit, fuck, Al." And then he was coming, still gripping her hair. When his hold finally loosened, she leaned back, met his eyes, and oh-so-slowly swallowed.

  Rex's head fell backward like his neck had turned to jelly, and after a moment, he tugged her upward to hold her to his chest again. "I didn't even let you get your clothes off," he noted.

  "I don't mind. I need a shower anyway."

  "If that's not an invitation to join you, I'm going to be very unimpressed."

  She pulled back to meet his eyes. "Would it ever not be an invitation to join me?"

  A broad grin stretched over Rex's face. "Only if you've developed a sudden dislike of detachable showerheads."

  Much later, Al rested on the rumpled sheets of the hotel bed, tracing patterns on Rex's chest. The humid night was turning cool as the sun began to set. The view through the open doors to the balcony showed the pink-streaked sky, reflected in the lagoon below.