“I am more than the asshole you think I am. I am more than brooding and arrogant. I’m sorry I’m not the man you hoped I would be, but I’m not the man you think I am either. I am a businessman, a craftsman. A man, Lena.”
“Okay.” With my appetite returned, at least for today, I dug into the baked potato complete with broccoli and cheese. I could eat healthy for the baby, but I would enjoy it with a little bit of cheese.
“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
It was all I would allow myself to say. My inner teenage girl wanted to believe every word he said, but the woman I was now knew better. Knew how easy it had been for Rex to discard me and my dreams. Like I was nothing. So, no matter how much I still wanted him, that didn’t matter. It couldn’t. “Yes.”
“Unbelievable. I came here, thinking we could talk like adults.”
I dropped my fork and glared at him. “Oh you showed up after two days of radio silence and expected me to be overjoyed that you now think you’re not an asshole. Excuse me, I’ll make sure I get it right next time.”
He laughed bitterly. “Don’t hold your breath sweetheart, I won’t be doing this shit again.”
I should have listened to my gut instinct and kept quiet. “Oh no, how will I ever live without another half-hearted…whatever that was.” I stood, more than eager to get out of the one place that was supposed to be just for me. “Don’t be here when I get back.”
“Dammit, Lena, stop!”
I stopped, damn him. But his voice was so damn deep and commanding, it was hard to disobey when your knees were pressed together to keep you standing upright. Being turned on and pissed off at the same time was a new sensation for me, but I kind of liked it. “What? What is this all about?”
“I’m trying to explain and all you have to say is ‘okay’,” he said, mocking my voice in the process.
“So? You want me to be happy that you now realize you can’t treat people any kind of way and have them still want to be around you? Okay.” I stood tall and made my eyes shine the way my smile beamed. “Oh, Rex! I’m so happy to hear you say that. Be still my beating heart!”
“Why am I even bothering with you?”
I shrugged, still completely stunned. “I have no clue, Rex.”
“Are you serious?” He raked both hands through his hair and let out a long, shaky breath. “You really don’t know?”
“I have some idea, Rex. You’re trying to make nice for the baby and I appreciate it, but I think as long as we can be polite, we’ll do all right.” That and the fact that I’d be living somewhere else and he would still be up on that damn mountain.
“No, dammit. That’s not good enough and this isn’t about the baby.” His long legs ate up the distance between us and he cupped my face, his rough thumbs scraping across my jaws. “It’s about you and it’s about me.”
I shook my head, but no words came out. There was no Rex and Lena, at least not outside of my diary.
“Yes, Lena. Shh,” his thumb prevented me from saying a word. “Listen.”
I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, producing a low whistle as it passed his fingers. And nodded.
“I didn’t plan on you, Lena. How could I? We barely know each other, you were a child the last time I saw you and we were sort of related. Shit, and we might be again. But none of that matters because I want you. I can’t stop thinking about you and what we could have.”
We couldn’t have anything. “No. I don’t believe you, Rex. We had great sex together, really great even from my limited experience, but that’s all it was. Half the time I don’t even think you like me. And even if you do, what does it matter? I’m leaving Cody and you’ll never leave that mountain.” I turned to go to the bathroom just as the oven timer app sounded on my phone. “Shit. I have to go.” And I breezed out the door without saying another word. Without one look back.
Because Rex was saying all the words I wanted to hear. Even now, I wanted to hear them and to believe them even more, but I couldn’t let myself believe what I knew to be a lie. This was all about the baby zapping all of my energy as it grew inside of me.
Not me.
Rex didn’t want me, not really. But he would take me if it was the only way to get the baby.
Rex
Lena wanted proof. She didn’t believe my words or my intentions and I didn’t blamer her, especially after the runner I did after the most amazing sex of my life. I could give her proof, all the proof she needed. I was self-employed and independently wealthy which meant I could make a lot of time in my schedule to prove to her that I was serious. I wanted the baby, but I wanted Lena too. Once I’d figured that out, I knew I would do whatever it took.
So, I did.
I showed up at her cabin every morning with breakfast, healthy with enough grease to pull her out of her early morning grouchiness. It usually worked. A smile would begin to spread as she finished, and she would offer up a word of gratitude before rushing off to get breakfast started for whatever group of adrenaline junkies my brother had booked for the day. Or the week. Day after day, we ate breakfast together—sort of—and I went back up the mountain while she worked, sending lunch from the diner so she wouldn’t have to cook. She pretended not to like it, but every time I came over her expression went all soft and her breath became husky as she offered up words of thanks.
Every night over dinner, we talked. We got to know each other and I was happy to see the walls she’d put up were slowly coming down. She laughed easily and talked freely about her time in culinary school, the friends she made and the places she’d visited while she was away from Wyoming. I was honored to learn these details, especially when they were given so freely. She wasn’t quite as sheltered as I believed, and that made me feel like a bigger asshole.
Something I was doing my best to remedy. “I guess that means you approve?”
She looked at me, green eyes sparkling with amazement. Then she snorted and it was fucking adorable. “You’re kidding, right? This is completely insane. Totally outrageous, especially for a guy who sleeps in flannel.”
“I sleep naked, thank you very much.” She blushed adorably and pressed forward.
“You are out of your mind, but I love it. And I’m impressed.” She gave me another of those appreciative onceovers and licked her lips in a move that went straight to my dick. “Is this your normal first date thing? Charter a baby jet to take a girl to Bozeman?”
I knew I couldn’t let it get to me. I earned her opinion of me which is why I was working hard to show her it was wrong. “Quick lays don’t warrant all this, do they?”
She shrugged, her brow crinkled adorably in confusion. “How would I know? The little bit of dating I did, took place in tiny apartments and everyone was an aspiring chef so the food was always good, we just kind of improvised the rest. The company wasn’t as good though,” she said, smiling across the table at me as we browsed big leather bound menus.
I blinked and smiled until she blushed, because sick bastard that I was, it gave me a chub every fucking time. “Was that a compliment, Lena?”
“Nope,” she said, making sure to pop the ‘p’. “It’s a fact. I figured you must spend your time not using your stoic charm to bed women, cutting down trees and reading dead Russian philosophers, but you watch TV and listen to music. Color me surprised.”
“I think the color pink would be perfect. We’d have to find a shade that matched those pretty pink nipples. A cross between a raspberry and a peach, I think.” I kept a friendly smile on my face when she sucked in air and bit down on her bottom lip.
“Rex,” she said around a strangled moan, but whatever else she had to say was cut off when a bouncy young waitress came to take our orders. Face red as a beet, Lena placed her order and then me.
“And can you bring a Manhattan, thanks.” When the waitress bounced away she shot me a glare that was more heat than anger. “You, Rex McGregor, are a bad boy.”
It was my turn to choke, and adjust the
snake trying to break out of my pants. “You bring it out of me, sweetheart.”
She laughed, a deep and husky laughed filled with humor. “I highly doubt that.”
“It’s true. You’re so…sexy but also innocent. The first time you sucked me off, it was hot and clumsy and passionate. Knowing that it was turning you on, made me want to pump into your mouth hard and deep.”
She let out another little gasp and licked her lips and my jeans grew tighter at the racing pulse at the base of her neck. “As I recall, you did. And I did like it. A lot.”
“I know.”
She grinned and took a sip of water before licking that one stray droplet from that extra plump, red bottom lip. “Tell me about what you’re working on.”
I blinked, at first confused because she hardly asked about work and it had me wondering if she was ashamed that I worked with my hands. “I’m making a royal table and chairs for some movie filming in Canada this summer. You know starting with the king and queen in the center and then fanning out according to rank and shit?”
She grinned. “And shit, especially.” A laugh bubbled up out of her and she shook her head. “Seriously though, that sounds pretty damn cool. Do you have an agent or something?”
“I do. A tiny woman with a foot-high bouffant but she keeps me flush.” Normally I didn’t talk so openly about my wealth but I needed her to know I could more than take care of her and a baby.
“That is so cool! How do you even find such a person?”
I told her all about the wood carvings I used to sale at fairs and conventions all over the country and she listened, completely captivated by the story of how I went from a surly fucker with a knack for woodworking to a wealthy and highly sought after carver. The waitress had come and gone and sizzling plates sat before us. We were oblivious. “Some guy bought this ceiling fan I made as a gag, hoping to sucker a gamer into paying a lot for it.”
“A ceiling fan? You’re kidding!”
I almost wished I was just because of her outrage. “A ceiling fan with scimitar blades.” Her eyes went wide, pulling a laugh from me. “Exactly. He asked for another for his buddy who happened to be Myra’s son. She called me up and told me anybody who could sell that for the price I did probably didn’t need an agent. But you’re getting one anyway and your hands are going to make us both rich. She was right.”
“Wow. It is so cool that you could find something you clearly love and make a boatload of money in the process. Very good, Mr. McGregor.”
“Mmmm,” she moaned around the steak, eyes closed and conjuring up another set of circumstances. “So good.”
The sounds Lena made when she ate should be illegal. The sounds she made combined with her own good cooking was enough to keep me hard and ready to slide into her at a moment’s notice. “Damn I love the sounds you make when you eat.”
She froze and those big green eyes landed on me. “What?” Her fingers were shiny from the butter she dipped the lobster tail in. And the steak.
“I think I’ll ask for some of that butter to go. It is my personal mission to see if I can make you moan the same way when I lick it off you.”
Her pulse raced and she took a deep breath to slow it down. Then an uncontrollable shiver zipped through her. “Dammit.”
“It’s okay, Lena. I feel it too.”
She went back to her food and I knew I’d fucked it all up. Again. Moving too fast, but what she didn’t realize was that I wouldn’t give up. “You’re not what I thought you were, that’s for sure.”
I smiled but I didn’t make a big deal out of it, knowing it cost her to say that if the blush staining her cheeks was any indication. “I’m glad to hear that. Dessert?”
“To go?”
My mind already raced with the possibilities. “Definitely. I’ll be right back,” I told her and went in search of our waitress to place the order and pay the bill.
“You’re up to something,” she said when I returned.
“Just ordering dessert.” I laughed at the suspicious look she shot me, helping her into her jacket just as the waitress returned with our to go bag.
“Here you folks are and here is your receipt sir. Have a great evenin’!”
We walked out of the restaurant and into the night air, hand in hand, doing the two block walk on foot since the air was cool but not unbearable. “This is nice.”
“It is,” she agreed, offering up a affectionate smile that gave me hope. “Thank you, Rex.”
“My pleasure, Lena.” In almost no time, we were back at the hotel and going up the overdone elevator that made me feel like I was in a tomb. “This elevator is creepy isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Rex. All this gold is tacky but it makes me think of raunchy sex parties from the seventies. Too many couples and not enough beds.” She laughed at the look on my face as the elevator opened. “Okay maybe not all that, but very seventies. Upscale seventies.”
She reached for my hand as we walked the hall to our room, shocking the hell out of me, but I went with it. “Is this where I get my goodnight kiss?”
“I was hoping to kiss you someplace else, but this works too.” I couldn’t take it another minute and took her sassy mouth in a hot kiss that burned me up, that…ended way too fucking soon. I looked down at Lena, who suddenly looked a little gray as she smacked a hand over her mouth and darted inside the room.
So much for a night of romance.
When she emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, she was freshly showered and wrapped in a robe. “Sorry about that, it wasn’t you. The baby hates coffee, much to my own chagrin.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, Lena. I had no clue.” And I should have because I should have asked how she was feeling. Morning sickness happened to all women, didn’t it? “What can I do?”
She moved to the bed and curled up in the middle. “First you can stop beating yourself up about it, I didn’t even realize you had coffee. I was having a good time and didn’t even thinking about it.”
She was incredible and too damn good for me. But she was mine. “Anything else?”
A soft smile curved her lush mouth. “Fizzy water and a hug?”
Damn but she got to me. “Anything for you, babe.” I meant it too, I realized as I took a cold water from the minibar and poured it into a glass tumbler for her. “Here you go.” She took the glass and curled up beside me, practically in my lap, moaning her contentment before she eventually fell asleep. She slept soundly, so soft and trusting and so beautiful my chest ached with the thought of losing her.
I don’t know how long I sat with her curled up on me, but eventually I fell asleep and we woke up in a tangle of overheated limbs.
And I had something I hadn’t had in a long time where a woman was concerned.
Hope.
Lena
Rex was officially a man of mystery. I couldn’t seem to get a handle on him or his intentions anymore. If someone had asked me, a year ago, to conjure up a perfect boyfriend, Rex would have won hands down. He was nothing but attentive and sweet, romantic and considerate. He was absolute perfection, well we would be perfect if he meant all the romance. But he didn’t and that’s what had me so confused. The way he acted, like the perfect boyfriend, made it easy to lean into the lie, to smile with my whole heart whenever I saw his handsome face smiling back at me, without a care about whether the smile was genuine or not. It was easy to accept the warmth and safety of his embrace as my due, as his woman.
Even though I knew none of that was true.
But no days like today, when was bone tired and he greeted me after a long day at work in nothing but a pair of jeans and a gingham apron, it was hard to give a damn that none of it was real. “I smell stew,” I said instead of anything else that would make me sound smart and pretty and sophisticated.
“You do. Bread too. You look tired,” he frowned and I frowned back, then he beamed one of those damn heart stopping smiles. “Beautiful as always, of course, but tired. Go take off your clothes
and get ready to eat.”
And just like that I suddenly wasn’t feeling all that tired. “That sounds dirty. I like it. Let’s go with it,” I told him and licked my lips as his blue gaze tracked my tongue.
In three steps he was in front of me, cupping my jaws like I was some precious treasure and his mouth sent me to heaven and back, kissing my mouth, nibbling my bottom lip and my shoulder. The tops of my breasts. We were both naked in seconds, frantic and hungry for one another. There we stood, chests heaving, in the small space between the living room and the kitchen before we attacked again, coming together in a frenzied kiss filled with a wild tangle of hands and arms, moving and touching everywhere. Unable to get enough. Close enough, deep enough. Just enough.
He pulled back again, staring at me for a long hot moment and his hands went to my breasts, brushing his thumbs across the oversensitive nipples that hardened under his touch. Rex dipped low and wrapped his mouth around one nipple, sucking hard and soothing it with a soft lick. “Fuck, Rex. Yes,” I moaned as his mouth went back and forth, bringing me to the absolute edge of pleasure without letting me go over. I clawed at him, eager and greedy for him, but Rex took his time, exploring my breasts before—thankfully—moving lower.
His hand slid down my belly first and his eyes flashed recognition the moment he felt the new swell. He looked up at me, eyes filled with wonder and glee. He pressed a kiss to my belly, so tender and soft that it shot straight to my heart and dusted the place off so Rex could take over. I knew I was in trouble but when his tongue slid between my thighs and parted my swollen, sensitive lips, I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t want to think, I wanted to feel, to act, to participate in this chaotic coming together that felt hotter than anything ever had in my short life. My hips moved against his mouth, somehow knowing exactly how to get the most pleasure out of every stroke. One hand fisted in his hair as I moved harder against him, chasing my pleasure right beside him and out of nowhere my orgasm washed over me, and his name was a shout on my lips. “Fuck me, we’ll have to do that again real soon.”
Stranded: A Mountain Man Romance Page 9
