by Alexa Riley
Rex’s gruff voice sends pleasure shivering down my back. “I was wondering what will happen after we leave here.” I glance up at him. “You know, when you’re done hunting.”
He scoffs. “Only hunting I’ve been doing is under your skirt.”
My face heats, along with other parts of me. God, I love the way he talks. It’s crude and honest and I never want him to be any other way. “After the trip, then. When we have to go back to real life.”
We’re almost to the entrance, but Rex pulls me to a stop. He looks around for a second, before leading me around the shaded side of the building. With a hard knuckle, he tips up my chin. “You’re coming with me, Clara. Going to set you up in my place, make you real comfortable and happy. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.” He grunts, face moving into a frown. “Can’t even think about letting you go. Idea of it scares me. I need my girl.”
“I need you, too,” I whisper, shaken by the euphoria that fills me. “I’ve needed you forever.”
“I’m here now.” He looks right to left, over his shoulder, then takes my breasts in his large hands, massaging them with a groan. Something about the action bothers me, but I’m too distracted to dwell. “Can’t keep my fucking hands off you.”
“You don’t have to.” My head tips back, my breath shuddering out. “Kiss me?”
“Yeah. Hell yeah.” Rex crowds me into the wall, leading with his hips, that jutting part of him. “Listen up. You’re going to suck and fuck this thing later.” He gives a rough thrust, grinding himself against my belly. “I’m going to film myself sinking in between your legs. All that slapping and squelching. Going to film my come dripping out of your bare pussy, so I can jerk to it on the boat.”
“Yes.” My panties are already soaked in my anticipation. But with a hard swallow, I shake my head. “You’re not going away yet, though, are you?”
“No, little girl,” he says soothingly, bringing his mouth to mine, chafing my chin and cheeks with his beard. “Not until the fall. We got damn near a year before crabbing season. Until then, I’ll only work during the day.”
I try to look brave. “Okay.”
He makes a comforting sound, turning the edges of my worry fuzzy with a long kiss, his tongue rubbing against mine. Over and over and over. “Come on,” he rasps, taking my hand. “Let’s go get you some glasses.”
Just like before, I’m hovering in mid-air as Rex leads me through the glass door into the crowded optometrist. I forgot how different Rex and I are—physically. But every customer in the place regards us with interest and it’s hard to ignore. He’s older and much bigger. Rugged where I’m fragile. If Rex’s irritated expression is any indication, he doesn’t like the attention. And I get another bothersome twitch in my chest, just like the one I had outside when he checked for witnesses before touching me. But I tell myself to stop borrowing trouble. I’m holding Rex’s hand in public and he’s keeping me and life could not be better.
Rex made an appointment earlier over the phone, so after giving my name to the receptionist, we’re directed to a seating area. Only one seat is available and it’s natural as breathing for Rex to sit down and pat his knee. I perch on the hard surface of it, sighing over the flex under my butt. His hand comes to rest on my thigh and I turn into his chest. Fluid movements neither one of seem able to help. Only a few breaths later, his attention lands on my mouth and I shiver, my nipples tightening.
When they call my name, I stand up to find all eyes on us. And they’re not just interested anymore. No, they seem kind of…wary. Disapproving.
A curl of Rex’s upper lip makes them all turn away, go back to their own business. But I walk into the examination room feeling uneasy. Not because I give a rat’s behind what other people think…but because I don’t think Rex is cool with it. At all. He’s stoic as the woman examines my eyes, his big arms crossed. What is he thinking about?
“Have you heard of anisometropia?” asks the doctor, interrupting my worry. “You have different refractive power in each eye, Mrs. Bates.”
I ignore the fact that she referred to me as Mrs. “Is that…bad?”
“Well, it can cause poor depth perception.” Her gaze travels down to my bruised knees. “Cause trips and falls…”
“That’s me,” I breathe, reaching out to hold Rex’s hand. He takes it, bringing my palm to his mouth as the doctor watches. “Can you fix it?”
“Yes. Glasses, corrective lenses. We just need to give your eyes the same refractive power.” The doctor stands and picks up a device that looks like spectacles on steroids, twisting two small, black wheels. She walks back over and holds it in front of my eyes. “Look through here. This is how the world will appear through glasses.”
I take the device in my own hands and immediately turn to Rex, seeing him even more clearly than usual. Oh. Oh wow. When he sees what I’m doing, he coughs and glances away, then back at me. As if waiting for a verdict. “You’re even more handsome now.” I whisper the truth, my loins tightening and wetting the material of my panties. “I love the gray in your beard.”
He shifts in his boots, giving another cough. Trying to be casual, but I can see the relief and pleasure he’s trying to hide. “Good thing, cause I ain’t dyeing it.”
The doctor chuckles and takes back the device. “You’ll need to wear glasses or lenses at all times. Surgery is the only way to repair your eyes for good. Without them, you’re still at risk for falls.”
“Give her both,” Rex says, taking a credit card out of his wallet and handing it to the doctor. “Whatever keeps her from getting hurt.”
“Perfect. The glasses will be a short wait, but we can get your contact lenses ready to go now.” The doctor sends a smile over her shoulder as she walks toward the exam room door. “Let’s go look at some frames while my colleague gets your lenses from the stock room.”
“Great.” I slide off the chair into Rex’s waiting arms. “I never would have known. Not without you.”
He frames my jaw in one hand, lowering his head for a slow kiss. “Going to take care of you so damn good.”
“Going to take care of you, too.” I go up on my toes, gasping when his hands slide down and grip my bottom. “So good.”
The doctor sticks her head back in through the door, clearing her throat. “I’m, uh…ready for you up front, Mrs. Bates.”
“Oh. Okay.” Blushing to the roots of my hair, I unplaster myself from Rex’s body and we hold hands, walking out of the examination room together. The doctor is whispering to one of her associates when we approach, but stops talking when we arrive at the glass case. She has already laid out several pairs of glasses in a felt-lined box, square frames, more circular, different colors. But I know before trying on any of them, I want the pink frames. They’re perfect.
Rex laughs when I pick them up and I elbow him. Putting them on confirms what I already know. I’ve found my glasses.
I face Rex and cock my hip, catching my breath over the affection he’s showing me. “What do you think, Daddy?” It just slips out. Rex’s easy demeanor stiffens, his smile collapsing. And everyone in the store seems to hear, turning to look at us like bugs under a microscope. “I-I mean—”
“Daddy?” I cringe at the outrage in the doctor’s voice. “I thought she was your wife, sir. You’ve been…I saw you—”
“Forget the glasses. Just charge me for the goddamn contact lenses,” Rex snaps. “Hand them over so we can get out of here.”
“Gladly,” sneers the doctor, sailing toward the back of the store.
The silence that falls is deafening. All I can hear is my pulse pounding in my head. Not to mention, the crash and burn of my earlier optimism. “Please…” I murmur, moving closer to the safety of Rex.
But he steps back, thrusting his car keys in my hand. “Go wait in the truck.”
A piece of my heart chips off. “No.”
His jaw is poised to shatter. “Clara.”
It’s a standoff between us, but thankfully the doctor re
turns, holding out a plastic bag for me to take. Rex signs the receipt and gets his credit card back, allowing us to leave the store, which remains at a total standstill. Before we even climb into the truck, I know I was naïve to think we could work. This will never work. Rex might not treat me like I’m the weird girl in private, but in public he’s the same as everyone else. Making me feel odd. Different. He wants us to pretend we’re something else for other people’s sake—but after coming so close to what I’ve always needed, doing that will only hurt. I need Rex to be one hundred percent on board with our unique relationship…or…or what?
Rex starts the truck with a vicious twist of his fist and peels out of the parking lot. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“It was an accident,” I say, before squaring my shoulders. “But I’m not sorry.”
The steering wheel groans under his hands. “You should be.”
“Why? Because we offended some strangers?” A shout builds in my throat and I don’t try to calm myself down. “I don’t care.”
“I care,” he bites out. “I care about everyone in the goddamn store staring at you like some kind of freak.”
My vision blurs with tears. “That’s how you were looking at me.”
Rex does a double take. “The hell I was, girl. I just wanted to get you out of there before one of them men said something and I fractured their skull.”
“Are you going to do that every time? Because this will probably happen again. Even before I called you…” The title sticks in my throat and that alone makes me sad. “They were already staring. From the second we walked inside. Are you planning to keep me locked inside forever?”
It’s obvious he considers it for a few beats—until I screech in my throat. “Not going to keep you locked inside,” he says, finally. “We just need a few ground rules.”
“Like what?”
“Like when we’re in public, we don’t touch. Don’t kiss or hold hands. We’re uncle and niece. And that’s it.”
Another section of my heart loosens and drops. “But it’s a lie.”
“No, it ain’t, Clara.” He bashes his fist on the dashboard. “You and me are wrong. That shit back there? It was your proof. First damn time we go out in public and we might as well be wearing a sign. I’m putting my cock somewhere it don’t belong and they could smell it on us.”
“Wrong?” I whisper, dazed. “But holding hands was one of my favorite parts.”
He slides me a troubled look. “That’s…too bad.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Can’t do it no more.”
We’re silent for the rest of the ride back to the rental cabin. Every half mile, I sense Rex watching me and can tell he wants to say more. There’s nothing left to say, though. I don’t feel safe with him now. Oh, I know he would never let anyone hurt me. But my mental safety…the safety of my heart…I put those things in his keeping and he let me down. It’s as if I parachuted out of a plane this morning and soared, soared so high, only to have my harness cut. The parachute is floating above me out of reach now while I plummet to earth.
Finally, we reach the cabin and he parks alongside the trucks belonging to Rudy and Hank. We sit in silence for a moment after he puts the vehicle in park. “Clara…”
Hope wells in my chest. “Yes?”
Seconds tick by. “Nothing.” He takes a cigar from the sun visor, shoving open the driver’s side and getting out. “See you inside,” he mutters, walking away in a cloud of smoke.
I wait until he’s been inside a full minute before grabbing my messenger bag purse, throwing it over my shoulder and climbing out. But I don’t follow Rex into the cabin. I take the broken pieces of my heart and jog toward my rental bike.
Chapter Twelve
Rex
I can’t believe I hurt her. Who could hurt such a sweet girl?
Holding hands was one of my favorite parts.
A roar leaves my throat and I stub out the cigar, resuming my pacing on the back porch of the cabin. Holding her hand and leading her into that stupid eye doctor was one of my favorite parts, too. Standing guard while she was examined, handing over my credit card afterward. All of it. Every second. I’m her Daddy and I make everything better for her. It’s a privilege.
You blacken everything.
Maybe it’s true. Even though she makes me feel the opposite. No matter how I dice it, though, the way those motherfuckers were looking at my girl sideways was all because she was with me.
I rear back and throw a punch at the rail, disconnecting it from the deck floor, leaving it teetering on the edge. Growing up, when my parents took me out in public, everyone looked at me the same way they were looking at Clara today. Like a single decision made before I was born was somehow my fault. Men and women alike in that eye doctor gave Clara the same treatment. I didn’t bother to notice how they regarded me. Only her. She’s all I care about. And I can’t be responsible for people treating her bad. She deserves the fucking best of everything.
So I asked her to pretend. To keep our real relationship a secret in public. At the time, it seemed as though the only possibility, if we’re going to stay together. And we are staying together, because I can’t breathe without her. Even now, she’s on the other side of the cabin and I’m not happy. I want her looking up at me with trust in her eyes, every minute of the day. Need Clara. Need.
My boots scuff to a stop on the wooden, leaf-covered planks. There was no trust in how she looked at me when I left the truck, was there? No. No, because she handed me these desires and I embraced them with her. Then I made her feel…wrong. Jesus, did I actually use that word?
This relationship we started in the living room last night, then made solid on the lake’s shore this morning, is something Clara needs twenty-four seven. Knew it when she was practically skipping alongside me in the parking lot, looking up at me with hearts in her eyes. I’ve already limited her, though. Us. I’m not giving her what she needs. What we both need.
I hurt her, instead. I hurt her real bad.
“Clara!” I bellow, walking into the cabin. “Where you at, girl?”
Silence.
Wait. Not total silence. I hear some shuffling near the front entrance and I head in that direction. But when I open the door and expect to find Clara pouting, Hank and Rudy are there, returned from a trek in the woods.
“You seen Clara?”
“No, sir.”
Rudy shakes his head. “She’s not with you?”
She’s supposed to be. Hoping to find Clara in our room, I turn—but something is off about the front yard. Takes me a minute to realize what it is. The bike Clara has been using was leaned up against the tree when we left this morning, but it’s gone now. And there’s a skinny track in the dirt. Fresh. Heading toward the main road.
“She wouldn’t.”
Hank sniffs. “Wouldn’t what?”
Panic cuts into my chest like a buzz saw and I run for the passenger side, finding her bag of contact lenses still sitting on the seat. Bells peal in my head. “She…” I stagger away from the truck, hearing the optometrist’s words in my head. But you’ll need to wear glasses or lenses at all times. Surgery is the only way to repair your eyes for good. Without them, you’re still at risk for falls. “She’s on her bike and she can’t see right. Christ, she’s going to…”
Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Just move.
But as I run for the driver’s side, every worst-case scenario under the sun flashes in front of my eyes. And I never told her I love her.
Chapter Thirteen
Clara
In the blink of an eye.
It was always just a phrase to me before now.
I’m going faster than I should down the mountain. Only another few minutes and I’ll be at the rental hut. I think. Everything is blurrier than usual, thanks to the tears. This is how I’ve been living my life—a little blurry—only I didn’t realize it until the optometrist clicked those slides into place so I could see the letters on the wall.
&nbs
p; There’s a minor scrape on my leg where I grazed a tree about a quarter mile back. But I’m not stopping to bandage it now. I just want to get away. Away from the possibilities that aren’t possibilities anymore. It hurts too much.
Everything hurts too much. My head aches, my chest burns.
The farther I get from Rex, the more I start to wonder if I’m doing the right thing, though. Rex is probably flipping tables, Real Housewives style. And while I enjoy him punishing me after a tantrum, this is nothing like those times. For one, I’m leaving him, not trying to get sex. Two, I’ve been built for our unique kind of relationship, but maybe Rex needs more time before he’s comfortable being unapologetically…us.
I…did blacken everything in their world.
Rex’s words drift back to me from this morning at the lake and my feet slow their peddling. It couldn’t have been easy for Rex to bring me into a room full of people and have them stare so rudely at me. Treat me like some kind of freak. No, he would have felt terrible. He would have taken all the blame, too, even though I’ve been pursuing him. Even though I came here with the intention of seducing him. Lied to him since the very beginning about who I am, just so he’d touch me.
He tried to stay away because he’s my step-uncle. He didn’t want to blacken me and my reputation. But we went there. Went there and took it a step further, becoming something even more controversial. Something we’ve barely begun to explore. And it all happened before Rex even got over my status as his step-niece. At the first sign of people disapproving, he saw me being ostracized right in front of his eyes. I shouldn’t have left. I should have assured him of one true fact—a fact that will always hold true. Being an outsider doesn’t bother me. It’s who I am.
All I’ve ever wanted was to feel safe. He gives me that in spades. He’s also helped me see the clear picture of where my fantasies have always been guiding me. But I expected too much too soon. I owe him time to get used to being on the fringe with me. It’s where I live. It’s where I’m comfortable.
