Exposing Alix

by Scott, Inara

  Fifi let loose a terrific screech that called to mind crows fighting over a crust of bread and slapped the book impatiently.

  Alix laughed. “Okay, Miss Demanding. I’ll finish the book.”

  She continued reading. The little bunny resorted to asking the trees, stars, and west wind for help finding his mother. Each seemed to send the bunny in a different direction, until he finally grew exhausted and lay down by a gray, mossy rock to take a nap.

  Ryker walked down the stairs, a pair of athletic pants riding low on his waist, a matching T-shirt revealing his strong, brown arms. He crossed the room and sat down across from them, opening one of the magazines Fifi had destroyed with a resigned sigh.

  Alix focused on the book, ignoring the rushing sound in her ears and the way her body went on instant alert, just having him near. Every inch of her skin seemed to prickle with awareness. The scent of him, damp and male, filled her head and brought a tingle to her nose. Moist heat rushed between her legs.

  She couldn’t deny the single message each of her senses gave her.

  She needed him to make love to her. To finish what he’d started. It wasn’t what she’d imagined when she made her vow all those years ago. Ryker didn’t care about her, and she knew falling in love with him would be a complete disaster. She could respect him, desire him, even like him. But she must never, ever fall in love with him.

  Yet since that painful night at Gunther’s, she couldn’t stop dreaming about him. Fantasizing about his touch, his tongue, and his body covering hers. Her conversation with Gunther had only made it worse. She couldn’t stop thinking about the past and wondering why she’d turned into the person she was. Why she panicked when Ryker began to make love to her. Gunther’s words had resonated deep in her core. At some point, her commitment to a childhood vow had become something much more dangerous.

  Gunther had said she had mixed up love and sex and was terrified of both. She was starting to think he was right.

  “So the bunny closed his eyes and fell asleep dreaming of his mother.” Alix continued reading, forcing her lips to form words even as her mind raced in a very different direction. She flicked a glance at him through her lashes.

  He still wanted her.

  She had seen it in his eyes and in his body just a few minutes ago. Nothing was stopping them from being together. She stared blankly at the book, her mouth suddenly dry. Fifi opened her mouth to begin another squeal, and Alix took a long sip from a glass of water before continuing.

  “During the night, all the creatures of the forest visited the bunny. The wind wrapped him in a blanket, and the stars watched over him. The trees cast their leaves on him to keep away the dew.”

  Gunther said she needed to take a risk. This would be the biggest risk of all.

  “When the bunny woke up, he found his mother cuddled beside him. ‘Where were you?’ the bunny said sleepily. ‘I couldn’t find you.’

  “‘I’ve been with you the whole time,’ his mother said. ‘You only needed to stop looking outside and feel inside your heart.’ And the bunny went back to sleep, knowing he was safe and would never lose his mother again.”

  “Mama,” Fifi said happily.

  Alix stared at the soft, watercolor drawing of the two bunnies. She cocked her head and examined the page more closely. Then she drew back, her mouth falling open as she realized the true meaning of the book. On one level, the bunny might merely have been lost and then found by his mother. But it could also mean something quite different. When she looked closer, she saw that the bunny mother’s outline was blurred, and her body appeared soft and light.

  The damn bunny’s mother was dead.

  She flipped over the book to look at the cover, which showed the bunny and his mother snuggled side by side by the green rock. They looked peaceful and happy. What kind of rotten trick was that? Just looking at it made her throat feel tight and thick.

  With an enormous grin, Fifi grabbed the book from Alix’s open hand and threw it triumphantly on the floor. “Ry!” She jumped off the couch and held up her arms to him. “Up! Up!”

  Ryker’s gaze drew her eyes to his. He held out his hand impatiently. “Give me that book.” He flipped through the pages, reading quickly.

  “Does that mean, er, what I think it means?” Alix asked.

  Ryker lingered on the last page. Remarkably enough, when he looked up, she thought she could see something in his eyes—some sheen of moisture, just for a minute, before he shook his head and frowned. “That is a horrible book,” he said distinctly.

  Alix let out a long, uneven breath. “I heartily agree.”

  #

  “Thanks again,” Maria said, giving Alix a one-armed hug as she headed toward her car. Fifi snuggled, asleep, on Maria’s neck and shoulder.

  “I enjoyed it,” Alix replied, heart already racing with anticipation as Ryker loomed behind her. Once Fifi left, she’d be alone with Ryker.

  The prospect was as terrifying as it was exciting.

  The evening had flown past in a haze of painful, guilty pleasure brought on by the inescapably intimate act of caring for a child with Ryker. There had been no repeat of the moment that afternoon when Ryker almost kissed her. In fact, Ryker had seemed slightly distracted, drifting off occasionally into a silent reverie, broken only by Fifi’s boisterous demands for attention.

  Alix attributed it to their earlier unexpected visit from Rosalia. Knowing Maria could walk through the door at any moment had certainly quelled some of Alix’s ardor. She hoped the same was true for Ryker, and it wasn’t that he’d managed to convince himself he wasn’t attracted to her after all.

  “I owe you twice,” Maria called to Ryker. “Once for picking her up and once for sparing me a lecture from Rosalia.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing,” he said. “Alix picked her up, and I’d do anything to spare you Rosalia’s wrath. You know that.”

  “Maybe someday I’ll have the chance to repay the favor. I am a heck of a babysitter, you know,” Maria said with a wink.

  Alix didn’t turn to see his expression but could imagine the horror on Ryker’s face at the thought of having a child of his own.

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath,” he said, the barest hint of irony in his voice. “And by the way, that book needs to go.”

  “Which book?” Maria asked.

  “The one with the bunnies,” Ryker said with disgust.

  “Oh.” Maria nodded and then laughed sheepishly. “It’s really for me, not her. It makes me feel better.” Maria shot a look back and forth between Ryker and Alix. “So, next week is dinner at Rosa’s. I’ll see you both there?”

  “I’m going back to Oregon at the end of the week,” Alix said.

  “Shoot.” Maria sounded genuinely disappointed. “We’ll miss you.”

  Alix couldn’t remember a time she’d been missed at a family dinner. Even if it wasn’t a bit true, the suggestion was a nice one. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

  Ryker cleared his throat. “I suppose you’re wanting to get Fifi home, then.”

  Maria stuck out her tongue at him. “If you say so.”

  “I do. She didn’t fall asleep until eight. She’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”

  Ryker, Alix had found, knew a great deal about his niece. He knew she had to be in bed by seven, or she would get overtired and cranky. He knew she liked apples and cheese, and he had plenty of both on hand. He knew how to give her a bath and how to pat her back until she fell asleep. He even changed her diaper without drama or protest. It was unnerving, actually, to watch a man who argued so strenuously against the existence of love prove just how deeply he could care about another human being.

  Maria rolled her eyes. “All right, Rosalia,” she said.

  Ryker’s face scrunched into a dramatic mask of pain. “Now that’s uncalled for.”

  Maria grinned. “Nah. You deserved it, Mother Hen.”

  Ryker held up his hands. “Wow. So much aggression from someone who owes me bi
g-time.”

  “I thought I didn’t owe you anything,” Maria said.

  “I take it back,” Ryker said, glancing at Alix. “Now go.”

  “Ah.” Maria gave Ryker a genuine smile. “Well, I guess I can take a hint. And Daisy, I do hope you’ll come visit the next time you’re in town.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” Alix said, a warm feeling stealing over her at Maria’s obvious sincerity.

  It had been a long time since she’d made a friend.

  Maria started out the door, and Ryker began to push it shut behind her. Before he’d gotten it completely closed, Maria stuck her head back in.

  “Any chance you’re coming tomorrow?”

  Ryker tensed and shook his head. “No. You knew that.”

  “But I thought maybe this year—it’s the tenth and—”

  “No.”

  Maria sighed. “Okay. I should know better.”

  “Yes, you should.”

  She disappeared then, and Ryker closed and locked the door behind her. He stared at it a moment before turning to Alix, his eyes dark and drawn.

  “I need a drink.”

  Thoughts of seduction melted away as Alix took in Ryker’s haunted visage. He looked the way he had the night they’d had dinner at Rosalia’s, only sadder.

  “Take a seat, and I’ll make you the best martini you’ve ever had,” Alix said.

  Ryker nodded, then sat down on the couch and gazed blindly into space. Unsure what she should do, Alix focused on the task he’d given her, finding a gleaming silver shaker, whiskey tumbler, and deep martini glass in the spacious cabinet. A small fridge behind the counter yielded club soda and a bottle of olives. She poured the club soda into the tumbler and sipped it as she continued.

  “Gin or vodka?”

  “Gin.”

  She studied the labels until she found a bottle and then poured a healthy measure into the tumbler and added the barest hint of vermouth. Delicately, she shook the liquid several times, poked two olives onto a toothpick, and filled the glass.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked carefully.

  Ryker’s expression did not change. “My mother died ten years ago. They go to the cemetery every year on the anniversary of her death.”

  “And you don’t go?”

  “No.”

  She walked over and handed him the glass. He grabbed it without meeting her eyes and took a deep drink.

  “You got another one like that?”

  “Sure.”

  He drank steadily for the next few minutes. When the first drink was done, Alix poured him a second and sat down.

  “How did she die?” she asked, hoping to distract him, even if only for a few minutes, from his determined path toward oblivion.

  “Breast cancer. Double mastectomy and chemo didn’t make bit of difference.”

  “Were you with her?”

  “At the end?” He chewed on an olive. “No. Emilio was there, and the girls. I tried to visit when they weren’t around. That got hard at the end, so I stopped coming. I didn’t want her to watch us fight. I had given her enough trouble when she was alive. I didn’t want to bother her while she was dying.”

  Alix’s chest grew tight. “Did you…did you ever get to say good-bye?”

  “Last time I left. We didn’t know when it would be, but we knew it was coming.” Ryker gulped down the second drink and handed her the glass. “Another,” he grunted.

  She walked slowly toward the bar. “Why don’t you go to the cemetery?”

  “It’s their grave, not mine. They pick the flowers. They picked the stone. It says Descanse En Paz. I had to ask someone what that means.”

  Alix winced. “Were you close to her? I mean, when you were older?”

  “Where do you think Rosalia got her idea for the family dinners? Mama loved having us all around her. Even when we fought like crazy, she said it was worth it.”

  Alix fixed a third drink with about half as much gin. She handed him the glass. He held it for a minute, swirling the liquid until it created a tiny whirlpool. He looked up at her. “I guess you think I’m a monster for not holding her hand as she died.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You did that for her. It must have been very hard to stay away.”

  “At the funeral, Emilio told me I broke her heart. She died with a broken heart because I wasn’t there.”

  A lump formed in her throat. She sat down next to him on the couch and put her hand on his knee. “His wife had just died. He didn’t mean it.”

  “Right.” He turned his body toward her. “You should go.”

  “And leave you to drink yourself into oblivion?”

  “I do it every year. It’s my tradition. They have their tradition, and I have mine.”

  “I don’t think so.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the mouth. Then she pulled back and studied him. “I think I’m going to stay.”

  “I don’t want to talk. I just want to get drunk.”

  She touched his face. “You want to forget. I know. I’ve had days I would give anything to forget.”

  “No. You don’t know.” He clenched a fist, staring down at his hands. “You don’t know what it’s like to regret something this much. To wonder what it would have meant if you had done it differently. For both of you.”

  “I lost a baby,” she whispered, the word slipping from her like a fragile breeze. She took his hands between her palms and forced him to look her in the eye. “I felt him flow from my body. I had been having cramps for days, but I was too scared to tell anyone. Maybe it could never have been prevented. But maybe it could. So don’t tell me I don’t know. I know.”

  For an exquisite moment, they looked at each other, sharing the pain and regret they had lived with for so long. Then he leaned forward and molded his lips to hers. They collapsed into each other, Alix licking and sucking, imagining in some sheltered part of her mind that she could heal him—and herself—with their kiss.

  Finally, he broke the contact, exhaling sharply and closing his eyes. “Alix, please. Don’t do this to me right now. You can see I’m in no state to argue.”

  She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed each of his fingers. Amazingly, her nerves had disappeared. There was no longer any question in her mind as to what she should do. Because no matter how stupid—no matter how ill-advised and no matter the consequences—one thing suddenly became painfully clear. She had to stay with him. She had to comfort him in the only way she knew how. She no longer had a choice.

  Because she loved him.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The realization humbled her. Her defenses hadn’t been nearly as effective as she had thought. She had done the one thing she had vowed not to do: fallen in love with a man who would never love her back. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and she couldn’t imagine there had been a time she hadn’t known the truth.

  She loved him with every beat of the pulse that shot through her body. Loved him with a fierce, angry passion that wouldn’t allow him to be alone with his grief. Loved him for his scars, his pain, and the child behind his eyes.

  She loved him, and she could heal him—not completely, not entirely, but a little. And it was enough. Enough to make it worthwhile.

  She stood up, gently leading him toward the stairs. He followed, the sadness radiating from him in waves.

  When they reached his room, he was seized with a sudden burst of energy. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. Hard. Their teeth bumped together; his mouth ground into hers. He punished her with his grief and then pulled away and rested his forehead against hers.

  “You should go,” he said hoarsely.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. She pulled her shirt over her head and bared her breasts. She took one of his large, strong hands and placed it on her chest. “I’m staying with you.”

  He traced the outline of her areola and gently rolled her nipple between his fingers. She exhaled sharply and arched toward hi
m. He bent over and kissed her breast, took the nipple in his mouth, and sucked gently.

  “Yes,” she sighed. It was right. Her body knew him as if they had been lovers all her life. Heat shot through her, from stomach to toes to fingers, until her entire body tingled with the force of it.

  She tugged on his shirt, and he stepped away long enough to pull it over his head. His hands closed around her waist. He held her tightly, staring at her face as if memorizing its contours.

  “I can’t give you what you want,” he said. “You have to know that.”

  Alix slipped off the rest of her clothes. When she stood naked before him, she walked to the bed and lay down. “I’m not leaving,” she repeated.

  She knew he didn’t love her, but it made no difference. She could no more withhold her love than she could change the tides. It pulled her toward him, steady and unyielding.

  He growled something deep in his throat and continued to stare. “This isn’t a fairy tale,” he said. “I won’t wake up in the morning and clothe myself in a suit of armor.”

  She held up her arms. “You’re the furthest thing from a knight that I’ve seen, Ryker Valentine. Now come make love to me.”

  He swallowed and, without taking his eyes from her body, removed the rest of his clothes and covered her from legs to chest. They were still for a moment, hearts beating fast, bodies warming each other, his weight balanced on his arms. He lowered his mouth to her neck and trailed kisses down to the hollow at the base of her throat.

  She tangled her fingers in his hair, luxuriating in the feeling of the soft, black locks. His mouth moved across her neck to her ear and nibbled on the lobe. She arched her back, and her nipples brushed his chest like hot embers.

  He rose up on his knees and let his kisses fall on her shoulders and trail across her breastbone. She stirred restlessly beneath him, her hands dancing over the rippling muscles of his back.

  “More,” she breathed. “I want more.”

  He took her wrists and pushed them above her head. With one hand, he held her captive and dropped his lips to her breast. He sucked gently, then more firmly when she moved beneath him. A low moan escaped her lips.