by Susan Bliler
Recker choked on a laugh, one arm circling her waist and clamping her to him to keep her from reaching his outstretched arm that held her phone.
“Recker!” she screeched, and he released her. She scrambled to her feet, and he rolled off the couch, tucking her phone tight into his stomach and guarding it with his big body.
His booming laughter filled the room as he slid out of Alex’s reach before he threw his mouth open in a silent gasp before sucking in a deep breath and bellowing out a deep rolling laugh that shook his frame. Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes and Alex took advantage, diving for him. He caught her just in time, but it didn’t stop her from clambering up his large frame to jerk her phone from his grasp. He let her as he continued laughing uncontrollably at her words.
And damn him and his contagious laugh, because Alex started giggling and then was all out laughing with him as she eyed the picture she’d taken several months ago when she’d been drunk and trying her damndest to look sexy. She came off as totally wasted and totally un-hot.
“Aunt-Aunt Je…Jemima,” Recker wheezed, and Alex laughed even harder, tears leaving the corners of her eyes now.
“Well,” she sucked in a breath and laughed hard, her mortification melting away. “Well, you shouldn’t snoop through people’s pictures.”
His hard laugh was dying down as he righted himself until he was sitting on the floor with his back pressed into the couch as he swiped at his eyes. “You told me to.”
Alex untwined her legs from his and sat up too. She was straddling him now, her hips on top his as she looked down at the photo with Recker pulling the phone lower so he could see it too.
“Forgot I took this,” she sighed, her humor finally fading. “I was trashed. It was one of the rare times I thought I looked good. I spent like an hour doing my hair and make-up that night. I was going to take a really sexy pic, not this hot mess.” She shook the phone. “Was gonna send it to…” Her words died off.
Recker’s humor suddenly fled too. “Send it to who?”
Alex shrugged. “Didn’t have anyone to send it to, that’s why it’s still on my phone. I knew I’d never get the courage, or liquid courage as the case may be, to do it again so I was holding on to it on the off chance there’d be someone who’d appreciate it in the future.”
Silence hung in the room and Alex wasn’t brave enough to look up at him. She knew she sounded pathetic and the picture was even worse. Beneath her, Recker bucked his hips. She made to scramble off, but he caught one thigh with his hand and held her in place as he fished his phone out of his pocket.
“Send it to me,” he commanded.
“Oh, hell no.” She tried to get off him again, but his hand on her thigh gripped her more firmly.
“I’m serious, Alex. Send it to me.”
Her brows screwed into a frown. “I’m serious too. No!”
“Listen, you said you wanted to send this to a guy right? And why? I know why. So that when he looked at this, he’d think of you and how lucky he is that you’re sending pictures like this to him. You wanted him to see you as beautiful and sexy. You wanted him to look at this picture often and think of you. Right?”
She nodded.
“This picture just gave us something better than all that. It was a real genuine moment between friends and honestly,” he squeezed her thigh. “When’s the last time you laughed that hard, Aunt Jemima?”
A grin stole her features as she snorted another laugh.
“Send it to me, Alex, and let me always remember how enjoyable this moment was, just between the two of us.”
Alex peeked up at him, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth as she considered his words. Before she could stop herself, she had her phone up and was attaching the picture to a text and sending it to him.
“No one else sees it,” she growled.
He grinned when his phone pinged. “On my word as a Walker, my eyes only.”
She looked up at him, but he wasn’t looking at his phone. He was looking at her. His laughing eyes slowly faded and he just kept right on staring. She watched as he swallowed hard and when his eyes dipped to her mouth, she felt something molten unfurl lower in her belly.
“I,” he began, eyes still on her lips. “I should probably go.”
Mesmerized by the moment, it took a second for his words to sink in before Alex blinked several times and pulled back, unaware that she’d been slowly leaning into him.
“Yes!” She shoved up off his chest and scrambled to her feet. “I…I gotta get to bed. Early morning.” She tripped over his legs as she stepped over him. His large hand left a hot print where he gripped her ass to steady her. She jerked out of his grasp. “Definitely should go.”
“Alex.”
She didn’t stop, didn’t turn. Completely ignoring him, she threw a two finger wave over her shoulder and made for the back of her apartment. “Night, Recker Rhodes.”
“Alex!”
She heard him move, but couldn’t face him right now. She hurried through her bedroom door and slammed it behind her in her haste. Her feet worked double time to get her as far from Recker as fast as she could. In her ensuite bathroom, she closed the door and locked it before pressing her back against the wood.
She replayed the entire exchange and muttered a curse at herself for texting him the picture of herself. What had she been thinking? Hell, he didn’t even want it because he thought it was sexy. Nope, it gave him a good laugh! She clenched her hands into fists and tried to ignore how degrading it was. Worse, she’d been practically begging him to kiss her as she’d pressed herself into him and again he’d shot her down.
Why wouldn’t he? Christ, just look at him!
He was more than smoking hot. He was perfect and a Walker, which practically made him a God and here she was, a former waitress with an excess twenty pounds, frizzy hair, and chipped nail polish, throwing her measly self at him.
Yuck! She slid down the door until she was seated on her butt in her bathroom all the while scrolling through her phone searching for a way she knew didn’t exist to recall the photo she’d texted.
***
Recker stood with his forehead pressed against Alex’s bedroom door. His hand was in a death grip on the doorknob. It was taking every ounce of his control to not go barging into Alex’s room and fling her on the bed to finish what they’d nearly started in the living room.
Letting out a long shuddering breath, he looked over his shoulder and down the hall to where his phone sat on the armrest of the sofa. That fast, his erection was back.
Seeing Alex with glazed eyes in that skimpy red lace that he’d secretly envisioned her in on the second day he’d known her, had nearly been his undoing. By some miracle, by some grace of the Gods, he’d actually been able to talk her into sending the picture to him.
Holy fuck! He was so going back to his place and jacking off to that photo.
Leaving the door, he rushed to the sofa, grabbed his phone, and dropped onto the couch as he entered his code and pulled up his messages.
There she was!
His jaw tightened, his abdomen flexed, his dick pressed harder into the seam of his pants, and his balls drew up tight.
She’d called herself a hot mess, but he had no idea what in the hell she was even looking at because the Alex staring back at him from his phone, on her knees with her legs slightly spread, one hand lifted behind her head as just enough flesh was exposed to him… She stole his fucking breath.
His eyes devoured the image a few moments longer before settling on her mouth. Her lips were swollen from what had to be too much drink. They looked so damn pouty that he couldn’t help but imagine them wrapped around his dick and sucking hard while she stared up at him.
Jesus, fucking Christ. He lowered the phone and had to concentrate on breathing just to keep from coming in is jeans.
The memory of Alex’s laugh came back and had him chuckling. Fuck, he loved her laugh. It was throaty and then high-pitched and so damn pur
e that it left his chest aching with the need to hear it again.
Lifting his phone, he looked at her picture again. “Siren,” he ground out as he breezed his thumb over her image before pinching his fingers on the glass and then spreading them out to zoom in on her face.
“What are you doing to me?”
He sighed when he thought of how she’d rushed out of the room. He’d scented her rejection and hurt, but he didn’t know how to help it. He was supposed to be watching her not falling for her. He lowered his phone, his head slowly lifting.
Is that what this is?
He mulled it over a second before he realized, Hell yes! He was falling for his charge and didn’t that just beat all because there was still no decision handed down on whether or not she’d even be allowed to stay at StoneCrow. For all he knew, she could be dismissed and banned from ever setting foot here again and then what? He wasn’t afflicted; she wasn’t his Angel, which meant he had no right trying to attach himself to her.
Still, he couldn’t deny the ache in his chest when he stared down the hall at her bedroom but made his way to the front door. Inside, his animals were clawing at him to turn his ass around and charge that bedroom. They wanted to devour every fucking inch of Alex. Honestly, he did too. It’s why he hurried from her suite as fast as he could.
Chapter 21
Two days later, and Alex sat at a small two-seater table in Recker’s tiny kitchenette. While he had a cabin behind the main estate house, he’d been temporarily assigned a suite on the same floor as Alex. She’d been told it was because he was responsible for her while she was at StoneCrow and he needed to be close.
He’d invited her to dinner, and it’d been hard to pretend like nothing had happened the last time they’d seen each other. Worse, when he pulled his phone out of his pocket and set it on the table beside his plate, it was a reminder that he was waltzing around with a half naked picture of her that she’d sent him.
She glanced at the phone again. Idiot!
Tearing her eyes from his phone, she shoved the last of her food around her plate with her fork as unease unfurled in her belly. Dinner had been nice. Recker had made them grilled chicken with rice and vegetables. He was a good cook, and she appreciated how he always went out of his way to prepare something special whenever he cooked for her. But, pleasant meal settled in her belly, it now felt like leaden weight as Recker sat across from her and waited.
“Give me something, Alex. Anything,” he implored.
Honestly, she didn’t know why she was holding out so hard… No, that was a lie. She knew exactly why. She didn’t want Recker knowing the truth and thinking less of her for it.
What does it matter? It’s not like he’s interested in you. She glanced up at him hoping that wasn’t true. They’d spent a considerable amount of time together, and a person would have to be blind or stupid to not see the bond forming between the two of them.
Trust him.
“My…my mom was awesome,” she finally began tentatively. Glancing up at Recker, she saw him watching her intently.
“There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for the people she loved,” she continued. “She was a great cook, a great seamstress.” She nodded slowly as her eyes took on a far off look. “She was just a phenomenal human being.” Alex’s expression grew dark. “Then she met a man. My real dad left a long time ago for another woman, another family, and mom never got over it. When ol’ fuck face came around wooing her and saying all the right things, she fell hard. I was happy for her…for a minute. Then the asshole started needing money. Because she loved him, she gave it, but then things started getting weird. She never drank, wouldn’t think of touching drugs, but all of a sudden she and douche bag are going out all the time. They're hitting up the nightlife and going to casinos. He was introducing her to all these things that she’d never had any interest in, and I think at first she feigned it for his sake. She wanted to make him happy, so she was willing to give his life a try. I knew who she was though and that life wasn’t her. I knew she was a strong woman.” Alex paused and blew out a long breath, clasping her hands in her lap and staring up at the ceiling she continued around the emotion that was threatening to clog her throat.
“Apparently she wasn’t strong enough because when he introduced her to drugs, she didn’t say no.” She snorted and shook her head. “Fucking drugs,” she mumbled to herself. When she looked up at Recker, she knew her eyes were haunted.
“There is no hell worse than watching drugs turn the person you love most in this world into someone you don’t even fucking recognize. Day by day she disappeared. I couldn’t help but wonder if I were better, if I were more, would she fight harder? So, I left school and came home. I’d hoped if she saw me making an effort to be there for her that she’d do the same for me.”
“You said she got sick.”
A corner of her mouth lifted. “Sounds better than saying she overdosed and slipped into a coma that she never came out of.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. I spent three years watching my mother disappear as a demon took her place. By the end, I felt like I didn’t even know her and I…” Tears flooded her eyes, and she quickly looked away.
“Say it,” Recker commanded as if he knew the mere words could exorcise Alex’s own demons.
“I was relieved in the end.” Alex let her eyes drift closed as her tears breached and an old familiar shame washed over her. “I was glad she was gone because I finally knew she was safe in heaven. No more beatings, no more abuse, no more drugs. It was just…no more.” She sniffed and swiped at her cheeks. “And I’m horrified to admit that part of that relief was for myself. I was so tired of picking up her pieces every time he’d break her. Just when I thought I had her all put back together, she would go racing back and smash herself on his so-called love. It was this never-ending cycle of devastation. I feel like she didn’t even care that I was enduring this hell with her. In the end, there were no remnants of the strong, beautiful mother I’d known. She was weak and pathetic and selfish, and I despise that woman who died in my mother’s body because it wasn’t her. Something dark had infiltrated her and evicted my mother’s soul long before her body ever gave out.”
A smile ghosted her lips, and she closed her eyes tight. “I dream of her now. My mom, the real one.” She lifted a hand and brushed it over her ear. “We’re sitting on a blanket in a beautiful field, and the sun is so bright that I can barely see, and it’s warm. You know the kind of warm that gives you goosebumps, like when you ease your cold body into a hot bath? I close my eyes and lift my face to the sun, and it’s all dappled on my eyelids because it’s filtering down through towering cottonwoods.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “And she brushes my hair,” her voice hitched. “And sings to me like she did when I was a kid, and all is right in the world. At that moment, in that dream, I know…” Alex choked on a sob. “I know that somewhere my mom still exists and she is at peace. I know she still loves me.”
She lowered her head into her hands and let her shoulders shake with her sobs. “God I’m such a shitty person. I wished for her to stop torturing my soul. I wanted something to happen.”
She didn’t even realize Recker had moved until her hand fisted in his shirt as he cradled her and whispered at her ear as he rocked her, “It’s alright, Alexandra. Everything is going to be alright. I’m so sorry I asked. I didn’t mean to dredge up old hurts. I just… They had to know and because you’re mine, I…”
Alex looked up with tear soaked eyes. “Wh-what?”
Recker swallowed hard. “My prospect. I meant because you’re assigned to me.”
Alex shook her head, “No. You said they had to know. They who?”
“I put it off for as long as I could, but part of my getting to know if you’re a fit here is getting to know your past. I needed all the details. They—my superiors—needed all the details. I’m sorry, but they had to know.”
And that hurt. It’d been different
when she thought he was asking because he wanted to know, but no. They needed the information. She felt manipulated.
Chaffed, Alex eyed the table. “Is-is that what this was? Plying me with food?” Her face instantly reddened in anger. “Feed the poor starving waif, and she’ll give you just about anything?”
Recker had the good sense to grimace. “It wasn’t like that.”
“It wasn’t necessary.” She used both hands to wipe at her cheeks, “And please don’t do it again.” She pushed out of his arms and stepped back from the table. “If there’s something you want from me in the future,” she lifted narrowed eyes to his. “Just ask.”
“Alex, I…”
“Yeah I know,” she ground out. “I misunderstood. You doing all this,” she waved at the table. “I thought we were friends. I thought you were asking about my life because you cared. It’s my fault for forgetting I’m just an assignment to you.” She turned her head away, “But it’s your fault too for pretending to be my friend. I have to go.” She turned and stormed from the kitchen and snagged her jacket on the way. “Thanks for feeding me...again.”
“Alex!” Recker followed her. He reached for her elbow, and as if she’d sensed it, Alex spun and just managed to avoid his grasp.
“Don’t,” she commanded, angry eyes pinning him in place. “I get it,” she bit out. “I won’t misread you again.” Her eyes narrowed, “Don’t mislead me again.” Then she was gone, the door slamming hard behind her.
Recker stared at the door for long minutes after she’d left. “Fffffuck!” He plowed a hand through his hair, and because nothing else seemed more appropriate right now, he cursed again but much louder. “Fuuuuuuuck!”
***
There was a knock on the door and hope soared that Alex had forgotten something. Recker jerked the door open and James stood on the other side head turned facing down the hall. “What in the hell did you do?”
Recker growled. “Fucked things up!”
When James looked at him, his eyes were sparking with sudden interest. He shoved his way past Recker and took a seat at the table, dropping into Alex’s empty chair. “Lay it on me, bro.” He took up Alex’s fork and started shoveling her leftover dinner into his mouth, speaking around a mouthful of food. “I’m great at relationship advice.”
