by Sotia Lazu
He turned them so her back was against the wall. She didn’t seem to mind the dirty bricks scraping her white skirt, as she clung to him and he clung to her. Rain poured into his mouth, making their kiss more urgent. He fought for breath but never drew back from her lips for more than fractions of a second.
She clawed at his jacket, while he roamed his hands down her back, trying to raise her top. Unzip her skirt. Feel more of her. They both moved frantically, but the wet clothes resisted. Lexi was the first to give up trying to work her zipper. She raised her skirt with one hand and used the other and her thighs to climb up his body. She locked her wrists at the back of his neck, steadied her shoulders against the wall behind her, and lifted her hips.
Ric sneaked his hand between their bodies. He had to fumble with his belt and buttons for a second, before his cock was free. Making sure to peel the soaked jeans down, so he wouldn’t hurt her, he grabbed her hips and lowered her to him slowly, until he was as deeply buried inside her as possible.
Only then did he break the kiss, to look deep into her eyes.
“You feel so good, Lexi. So right.” He began moving inside her, and now it was their gazes that were locked in as intense and soul-searching a union as their lips had been.
She didn’t answer, just moved her body to his rhythm, the pelting rain around them failing to hurry their coupling.
“Right. You’re so right. Made for me.”
*
His voice was gruff and no more than a whisper, yet it carried to her with all the force of thunder, despite the whoosh of the rain. His words travelled through her body, making her quiver, reaching her womb at the same time they made her heart constrict.
With fear.
She squished that fear until it was small enough to hide behind the lust and the need and the sense of completion that threatened to take her over and turn her into nothing more than flesh.
No mind. No rules. No boundaries.
For the first time in her life, for the briefest of moments, Lexi let go. The waves she feared would drown her if she dared lower her walls rushed and filled the space inside that had been hollow since Andrew’s betrayal. She floated on top of the waves, toward Ric. Toward his voice that demanded more from her.
“Tell me who’s making love to you, Lexi. Who your body responds to. Tell me, love.”
“You.” She panted for breath, rain and desire stealing her voice. “You, Ric.”
*
He closed his eyes, to relish her words, and leaned in for another kiss. This one lasted an eternity, melding them both into one and driving them even further—deeper—inside one another, until they found their release in unison.
They stayed there, getting showered by the rain long after he started softening inside her. Their lips were still locked, but they weren’t kissing as much as drawing breath from each other.
Ric couldn’t hold back any longer. “Go out with me, Lexi. On a real date.”
She averted her face, but made no more effort to pull away. “No.”
He almost didn’t hear her answer. He wished he hadn’t. “You’re constantly on my mind. Your scent. Your taste. How your breath hitches when I enter you. How you flutter around me when you come. I can’t stop thinking about you, Lexi. Be with me.”
“No.” She lowered her legs, letting him slip out, and fought to lower her skirt. Cover herself. Do anything but meet his gaze.
He didn’t give her an inch. Didn’t move back, to facilitate what he knew was a retreat from him and what they could have. “We can be good together. Give me a chance to show you.”
She pushed him. When she looked up, her eyes were bloodshot. “This can’t happen. I can’t have this. I don’t do this.” She tried to sidestep him.
Her voice broke into a sob, and he wanted nothing more than to hold her. He ached to wrap his arms around her and never let go.
He reached out to her, and when she fought off his hand, he blocked her way by planting his fist against the wall. His throat felt raw, and his eyes burned. “Why? What’s so fucking wrong with going out with someone you have fun with? Who you have great sex with? Who wants you so fucking much?”
Her lips moved, as she wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. He couldn’t be sure but she might have said, “I’m sorry, Richard.” He didn’t care. What mattered was that she was gone.
He clenched his jaw and turned his face to the attacking skies, hoping the heavy droplets cooled his pain and fury into something more manageable. He remained there, hunched, while the cold engulfed his body. He’d touched heaven, only to be ripped out from it. If he hadn’t promised Pedelty to never give into self-destruction again, he’d go drown the pain in alcohol until the numbness once more became a permanent part of him.
“Now is the time for a bloody sign,” he hollered at the clouds above. “Should I give up?” He was tucking himself in, aware of the pitiful sight he made, muddy and wet and disheveled, when something vibrated in his pocket.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lexi didn’t doubt Ric’s intentions. She simply didn’t believe what he wanted existed. That she could have it. Fairy tale romances were made for movies and television shows and romance writers who needed something to hold on to. Not real life. Ric knew her breath and scent now, but if he woke up next to her enough mornings, he’d start looking for something new. Fresh. More exciting. Men weren’t built for monogamy, and she knew better than to think she could change them.
But Edmund…
No. He was the exception. Lexi remembered how destroyed her mother had been after Lexi’s dad left them. She herself had felt so little, so insignificant, when she discovered Andrew’s infidelity. It was like her insides had been torn, her heart ripped out of her at the casual manner he’d dealt with her hurt. A wound still gaped where her hopes and dreams used to be.
She would never let another man close enough to hurt her.
But her mom had allowed herself a second chance…
No chances. Lexi knew better. There was nothing to hold on to but herself. And even herself could betray her, once she gave someone more than her body. Lexi did that before and lived to tell the tale, but she’d been younger then. Naive. She couldn’t do it again. Wouldn’t. She was only up for casual encounters and could give nothing more. Take nothing more.
She needed nothing more.
Besides, who could love her?
One of her heels broke off on the way to her car, so she limped for the last couple of blocks, driven forward by adrenaline and the fear Ric would catch up with her and force her to own up to feelings she’d long denied herself.
A different kind of fear and worry started eating at her once she was safely inside her car.
Ric should be there too by now. Where was he? What if something happened to him?
She pulled out her cell and called him. No answer. She typed a text.
Where are you? Your car is still here. Please tell me you’re ok. I’m worried. I’m sorry. It’s me.
Something was missing.
I can’t be what you want.
She hit Send and waited.
Ric didn’t reply, call, or show up for the hour or so Lexi waited in her car.
The cold water that had cleansed her soul when she’d run with him in the rain now made her clothes cling to her, numbing her skin. The pain deep inside—the gut-wrenching ache stifling her, squeezing her heart, and keeping her lungs from expanding with her panted breaths—got stronger by the minute.
What if something happened? What if…?
Nothing happened. He was pissed off and ignoring her calls and texts.
She could go look for him, but she’d miss him if he came for his car from a different route.
Lexi was torn between driving back to where she’d left him, to make sure he was all right; staying there and waiting for him; or going home and washing the rain, the mud, and his memory off her sore and tired body.
Going after him or waiting would show she cared. It’d give
him the wrong picture.
Or maybe the right one.
She disregarded that last thought. She didn’t care for him, except in a humanitarian way. He was a fellow human being. Her coworker. Her lover.
Not her lover any more.
The idea of not being touched by him again hurt. But there was no reason for that. They could touch. People touched. Touching was all the two of them could have.
He gut clenched. They could no longer have that either. After today, nothing would be the same. They’d reached a crossroads, and she’d taken the wrong turn. Lexi threw back her head. He was a guy, and no guy turned down casual sex. She had been engaged to the living proof.
She lowered the visor and studied her image in the tiny mirror. Her eyes were red rimmed and smudged with mascara. “No guy could say no to this,” she told her raccoon-like reflection. She let out a sob. Ric had liked this. He’d wanted this. He’d wanted her, and she’d screwed it all up.
She composed herself. Ric was fine. Sulky but fine. Tomorrow she’d screw the sulk out of him, and all would be right as rain.
Why did people say that? Rain wasn’t always right. Sometimes it soaked you through to the bone and made you feel cold and dazed and empty, and there was nothing to be done about it unless you found shelter and something—someone—to warm you up.
Had she lost that?
She never had it.
Shaking her head to drive away the thought sent water spraying the windshield and mirror. Stray strands of hair got in her eyes. Good. She could blame them for the tears that ran down her face during the drive home.
She was out of excuses when the tears didn’t stop flowing after she’d taken a hot shower and snuggled into bed.
She woke up with puffy eyes and a newfound determination to make things work.
Her way.
He was just a guy, after all.
****
When Ric saw the missed calls and text, he thought maybe they were his sign that he shouldn’t give up. But that would make him—how had Lexi phrased it?—a little fatalistic, for a techno-geek.
He threw his cell against the wall with all the force he could muster, and had a moment of savage joy at the crunching noise it made, before bits and pieces flew all over the place. He was a fool for love and always had been, but he wouldn’t be Lexi’s fool. If she was worried, she could come find him and apologize for treating both him and herself so harshly.
She wouldn’t. She’d already be on her way home.
For a handful of moments, they’d been at the same place. He’d felt her open up, and he couldn’t forgive her for allowing her past and her issues and her bloody fears get in the way of what they could have. All that kept her from seeing how great they were together was her stupid stubbornness.
He should get home.
Instead, he headed to Willy’s Dreams on foot. If he didn’t get something to soothe the pain and blur the memory of Lexi walking away, he’d lose himself in mourning what might have been.
The bartender frowned when Ric sat at the bar, and Ric couldn’t blame him. The man had been wary of him when Ric showed up looking half-decent. He ought to be downright scared now that Ric looked like a madman—drenched, messy, and scowling.
“Guess things didn’t work out, huh?” The bartender poured him a glass of Jack before Ric could ask for one.
“Nope.” Ric downed the drink in one large gulp. “If anything, they’re more fucked up than ever.”
“Give up.” He refilled the glass.
“Pardon?” Ric stopped watching the amber liquid level rise, to glare at the man.
“Give up. She doesn’t want you—you give up. That’s how it goes.”
“She bloody well does want me.” Ric shot upright, toppling over the stool he sat on.
The bartender took to wiping glasses clean behind the bar. “Then maybe she’s scared, and you should give up either way. Can’t make people see what they don’t want to.” He shrugged. “And you might wanna watch it. You sound like a stalker.”
Fuck. He did. Still… He leaned over the bar and grabbed the guy by his T-shirt that had seen better days. “Listen here, shorty.”
“It’s Willy.”
“Whatever. You have no idea what it’s like, so maybe you shouldn’t be voicing opinions.”
Willy got a surprisingly strong grip on Ric’s wrist. “I know more than you do, buddy,” he said. His voice boomed, as if inside Ric’s head. Had the alcohol gotten to him already? “Give up on half-measures. They ain’t for you. You’re an all-or-nothing man. If she wants you, she’ll come back. If not, good riddance to her. Now put that stool right and walk out, while your arm is still attached.”
Ric wanted to refuse. Pick up a fight. Funnel his resentment over Lexi’s rejection into trashing the place. Instead, he did exactly what he was told, the minute Willy let go of him. His legs led him to the exit, as if he were in a trance.
He half ran to where he’d left his car, sure his heart had stopped beating. The talk with Willy had been his sign. He’d give up trying to get Lexi. No half-measures. If she wanted him, she knew where to find him.
****
Lexi acted absorbed by her work while at the same time keeping an eye on the door.
When Ric showed up lacking visible wounds, she all but sighed with relief. Then she noticed his hair—or lack thereof. He’d cut his honey-colored locks when he first appeared to her as Rex, but his hair was now shorn so close to the head, she could see his skin. He hadn’t been attacked or involved in a freak accident. For all she knew, he’d been at the barber the whole hour she waited in her car.
Why did he cut his hair so short? Nobody else seemed shocked at the makeover, just like they had no reaction when he dyed it black. Maybe his makeover wasn’t as surprising as she thought, or maybe she was the only one who paid him this much attention.
He glanced her way, and Lexi managed a shaky smile, but the coldness in his eyes froze her all the way to her heart. He regarded her with the same look of scornful disinterest he did everyone else in the company but Edmund.
She bit back the cheerful greeting she’d been practicing all the way to the office and returned her focus to her monitor.
Her eyes stung. Had to be because she’d looked at the screen for too long.
God, she’d screwed up.
She had to do something.
There was nothing she could do.
There was always something.
Sex.
Yup. That would fix everything, but not just yet. She opened Exotic Beast and went back to reading. The vampire laid out his heart, hoping not to be rejected by the woman he loved. How could the shifter say no to him? Was she made of stone?
Lexi spent the hours until the meeting reading and sneaking glances at Ric. She tried to catch his eye, but he never once looked at her direction. Not even when she elbowed a heap of manuals and guidelines to the floor by accident. She might not exist, as far as he was concerned. The upside of that was she got to examine how the new look suited him, and the verdict was that he looked hotter and more dangerous, his features striking.
When it was time for the meeting, she was equal parts relieved and nervous. He’d have to talk to her there, but would he still be on her side?
Of course he would be. He wasn’t petty, and this was work.
She wondered since when she thought of Ric as anything more than a jerk. The answer was simple. Since the previous afternoon. He was nothing like she’d imagined. The small voice she usually ignored told her he was so much more—worth-a-chance more—but she silenced it with more denial, the sort book-Xandra would be proud of.
Lexi gathered everything she needed and walked to the meeting room, where the others waited. Ric still had the key, so he stepped forward to open the door. As soon as the room came into view, he grabbed Lexi’s pack of notes, rushed inside, and slammed them on the conference table. He took the seat right in front of the pile and folded his arms over his chest. So much for gallantry.
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Lexi followed, planted herself on the seat to Ric’s left without a word, and pulled the stack of papers in front of her. She gasped. The lacquered black surface under the papers was marred by a large stain.
Edmund, who sat on Ric’s other side, noticed the mark. “You’d think people would know to use coasters by now,” he said. He took out his handkerchief and scrubbed the spot.
Ric blanched and at the same time seemed to try to fit his entire fist into his mouth. When Lexi’s stepdad brought the hanky to his nose, to examine what had been spilled on the table, Ric guffawed, and Lexi understood why.
Edmund was rubbing at the dried-up wet spot from the night before.
Ew.
Lexi choked, reached out, and grabbed the hankie. “Shouldn’t we be getting started?”
Edmund opened his mouth as if to protest, but nodded and waved for her to proceed.
Things went smoothly, considering Lexi was focused on Ric while trying to sell her creative ideas to people set in their ways for years. She kept track of the times Ric agreed with her and the times he looked at her while doing so. Sadly, by the time the meeting was over, the score was seventeen to one.
“I think that covers everything,” Ric said in his most professional and least Rex-like accent, once everyone’s agreement had been established. “I will email all of you the results and pass around hard copies, so you can go through them with your people.”
“Good thinking, Richard. What say you all we reconvene in about a month’s time to see how things worked out? In the meantime, try to get feedback from your departments. Alexandra, can you stay and help Ric?”
“How exactly would she do that, Ed?” Ric raised an eyebrow, the rest of his face a mask of boredom.
Lexi smiled. “I’m sure I’ll find a way. After all, you did so much for me these days. Have to return the favor.” She hoped he’d catch on and leer at her or something.
“Whatever floats your boat,” he said drily.
