She peeks over her shoulder and whispers, “Me and you…and others too.”
“That right?”
“Yeah,” she whispers.
“You’re protecting me and others? A martyr, huh? Ruby Mae is a martyr!” I laugh.
Her face crumbles, her hand reaching up to get to her quivering lips. “Don’t call me that again.” She rows away like I’m going to gut her with my bare hands. Rows with every ounce of her being. Rowing and bawling.
What has gotten into her? I’m almost afraid to know.
“Ruby! Christ almighty.” I go after her, catching up in seconds. Then I haul ass to her side. Latching on to her boat, I grip her arm. “Look at me!” I yell.
“Stop it!” she says through clenched teeth. She’s as pissed as a devil getting soused in arctic water. “Stop picking and poking and trying to…” she screams. Then she covers her face with her book and howls.
“To figure you out?” I touch her arm. “Hey?”
“Please stop,” she says, her voice soaked in sorrow.
“Okay, baby, but isn’t that part of why you came home?” I peel the book from her face. I need to see those eyes, need to understand what she’s hiding behind. Or from.
“I just wanted you to love me, or at the very least be my friend,” she admits. “I didn’t think it would be so hard.”
“You didn’t, huh? What’d you think would happen?” I thumb away her tears—so many falling tears. Each one of them expectant with stories. “You left without telling me why, I married, had a kid, and then buried my wife. And, now, you’re back. No answers still.”
“I know,” she whispers. “Lots of time has passed.”
“Been lonely, been brokenhearted, been wondering why… So many things—why?”
When I move strands of her hair from her wet cheeks, she nods.
“Life is hard,” I say. “Love is hard, especially when everything is muddy and has been for a long time. Time does not clear things up, baby. It makes things harder, adds more layers. Complicates.” I cross my arms over my chest, and again, I wait.
What’s it going to take for her to bare her truths? When will she strip the layers away and come clean with me?
“You don’t seem to like me anymore.” Her face scrunches. “Maybe I made a mistake by coming home. I should never have left Paris.”
“I don’t like you.” I grab her boat and yank it toward mine. Then I crawl half onto it, my lips at her ear, my hand steadying her shaking body and I steady myself. “I am in fucking love with you. In love. I always have been. I need you. You fucked us up. You did this to us. Not me.”
“I didn’t fuck anything up.” She sobs as she hugs herself and rocks. “That’s what you don’t get. I got fucked! And, now, I’m getting fucked again. I just never thought you’d be the guy doing that.”
Chapter 18
Ruby
“You see, Ruby, here’s where our communicating is failing us. I want to be fucking you.”
“I don’t believe you. Don’t follow me. Don’t anything me.” With every ounce of strength I have, I row away like a hog-tied duckling.
“No problem. Let’s do things your way. Yet again!” Rebel shouts. “If I recall, when you left last time, you said the same thing: Don’t follow me. So I let you go. Tried to forget you. Tried to move on. So tell me. Why the hell are you in front of me, telling me not to follow you, when I’m the reason you came back? And don’t lie and say you came to move your mother and brother. You fucking came home for me!”
He rows to me. When he reaches my boat, he yanks both oars from my hands with little effort. Then he pushes out of my reach.
“Give those back!” I reach out for them.
He laughs. The motherfucker laughs at me. Then he slaps one oar against the water, dousing me. After he does it again he laughs harder.
“Nope,” he says.
How is this conversation funny to him? I’m out-of-my-mind pissed and he’s laughing, and now, he’s tucking my oars out of sight.
“What is wrong with you? You’re crazy!” I paddle with one hand, trying to reach him. Then I use my book as an oar. Oh, and that goes well. Fucking dandy! I whip the soggy mess at him and scream, “Crazy!”
“Yep. For you. Funny how you don’t want me to follow you and you’re trying to get to me. You gonna follow me? Better start paddling harder.” He rows farther away as he smiles.
This is fun for him?
“Are you going to leave me stranded?” I shout.
“You don’t like that feeling, do you? I know what that feels like. Shitty, isn’t it?”
We glare at each other. Enemy stares fueled with lust.
“Seriously, you should go to the ER and get your head examined.”
“Nah. I know how crazy I am for you. Certifiable. I’d be willing to dump my sexy girlfriend who can fuck me while doing the splits. Now, that is one crazy man. I’ll bet you can’t fuck like that, can you, Ruby?”
“No, I can’t fuck while doing the splits, asshole. Now, give me the oars or I will come after them.” My boat wobbles as I stand, which causes me to almost fall into the water. Panicked, I slump onto the seat and shoot Rebel a death glare.
“How do you fuck, baby?” Rebel spreads his legs and rubs his groin. “You like it slow and deep…a nice grind?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, got it. You like it hard. Rag doll Ruby.” He waggles his brow then licks his top lip. “Rag doll style is fine by me, baby.”
“Rag doll Ruby.”
I push that night out of my head. They no longer have the privilege of damaging me. Get out of my head, you bullies. I am not your victim. I squeeze my eyes shut and growl to drive them away.
“Shut up, Rebel.”
“That got you, didn’t it? You like being rag-dolled? Good to know.” He clucks his tongue.
The force of evil takes over inside me. His words blur as I fly at him, prepared to sink his boat with my one-hundred-twenty-five-pound frame. My cast arm crashes against his face. Then I plunge headfirst into the freezing lake.
With one hand gripping the edge of his boat, I come up gasping for air. Blood trickles down Rebel’s face, a will-need-stitches gash slicing his eyebrow.
“I’m not sure how to read you right now.” He shakes his head, his brow creased. “Did that turn you on or piss you off?”
I clench my jaw, angry words sticking in my throat then firing at him. “Pissed me off.”
“Got it.” He presses his fingertips to the gash on his forehead, glances at the blood coating them, then licks it.
As pissed as I am, I still find it sexy. Everything about him is sexy.
“I like it both ways,” I say while dangling on the side of his boat like a Christmas ornament hung on the tip of the weakest branch. “Just…don’t ever use that rag doll phrase again or I swear I will take you out. And I will win.”
Rebel reaches over the side of the boat and hauls me up in a swift motion. Talk about breathless.
“Goddammit, Ruby.” He places me on his lap in a straddle. His gaze roams every inch of my face, his tongue and teeth working his bottom lip in a mind-bending proposition.
Breaths shake out of me and my heart races while my nerves unravel. Rebel Field owns every fiber of my soul. I was born to love him, and though fate worked her fierce magic to kill our union, she lost.
His hands grip my waist, pressing into my skin like a hot knife on butter.
“Rebel, what are you doing?”
“Trying to get my girl back. Trying to get back to her.”
Oh, Rebel. He nips my top lip, a tiny tug. I moan and wilt. Slow and steady, his fingers travel up my body and onto my face.
“I want to kiss you,” he says. “Want to kiss you for hours. Every inch of you. I want to burn the feel of my lips onto your body.”
His words thread tentacles around and through my heart.
“Rebel Field, I never stopped loving you.”
“Ruby, you can’t say that and n
ot give me more. I want to kiss you now, but I need more, baby.” He peppers kisses across my cheeks. Wet, wild kisses, each one easing another stitch into my soul.
“It’s all I have. I gave you every ounce of me in those words. And I mean them with all my heart. Don’t let anything else matter. Please trust me. It’s all I’m asking for. Your trust. If I give you more, it’ll ruin us.”
Rebel presses his forehead to mine. His hot, sweet breath is an invitation tickling my lips. I wait for his kiss to land. Closing my eyes, I part my lips and inch closer.
“It’s not enough, baby.” He presses his fingers to my pout. “Not enough.”
“Then I’m not enough. If my all isn’t enough…nothing else will be. I can’t give more than all of me.”
“You’re better than this. Dig deeper.” Rebel threads his fingers through my hair and drags my head back, exposing my throat. He licks a line from my collarbone up to my ear, where he bites my lobe hard.
I squeal, but I love his ferocity.
“Give me more. Find it. I don’t care how. I don’t care what it does to you. Find it in your heart to give me more. Tell me what I need to know. Tell me why you ended us.”
“Don’t care what it does to me?” God, does that sting like a bitch. “It’s just a stupid ring. It’s a piece of metal and doesn’t mean shit.”
“Is it? Or is it something else? A symbol of something you aren’t telling me? If it doesn’t mean shit, then fess up and tell me why you aren’t wearing it. Tell me where the fuck the ring is.”
“If I had something to tell you, wouldn’t I have done that already?”
“That’s what I thought too.” His arms drop to his sides. Is he giving up? “This ain’t gonna end well, is it?”
“End? That’s up to you,” I answer. I stare into the depths of his eyes. And, in them, I see myself along with pain and questions that will never be answered.
“No, baby, it really isn’t. The ball is in your court. Been there a long time.”
“I lost them.” My fingers zip to my earlobe for a reassuring squeeze. Choking on my spit, I fight to say it again. “Lost the necklace and ring. I’m sorry.”
“Did you now? Lost them? You couldn’t tell me that all the times I asked? Couldn’t say it the day you left? Couldn’t say it yesterday or five minutes ago? Sounds like you just manufactured that crap to shut me up.”
“I thought you’d be mad.” I place my hands on his shoulders, but he shrugs them off.
“What a crock of shit!”
“This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d act like this.”
“I wouldn’t have cared if you lost the ring and necklace. What I care about is your lies. You are not telling me something.”
“What’s this, Ruby Mae?” Kent fingers the ring on my necklace. “The dickwad boyfriend give you a promise ring? What sort of promise? He bone you yet?” He and Kyle snicker. “Tell me the truth. Tell me if this perfect little does-everything-right ass got dicked.”
I spit on his face. “That’s none of your fucking business.”
He wipes the wet gob off, adds a layer of spit into his hand, and pries my mouth open. Then he wipes the inside of it with the slimy mix of us. I gag, bile rising in my throat.
“Gimme this crap.” Kent yanks my necklace off. Then he adds the cross from his necklace to it and holds his hand out for Kyle’s cross. “Our pansy godfather gave us these. You’re going to wear them along with that ring while we give you a special graduation present. Gonna give the word ‘promise’ a whole new meaning.”
Chapter 19
Rebel
We sit across from each other in the ER. I require stitches, and Ruby needs a new cast. Stewing in anger and want, I stare at her as she flips through fashion magazines. Occasionally, she glances up, our eyes locking for a wicked second. I want to have faith that, one of these times, she’s going to fess up and tell me why she first said she couldn’t wear the ring then changed it to I lost it.
This whole thing is about more than the ring. It’s about what’s true between us, and at this point, I don’t know that anything is. Except this: I still love her and she says she loves me. But where will love take us without trust? You can love someone only so much without trust.
When my name is called, I rise, nod to the nurse, and then walk to Ruby.
“Meet me back here. I’ll give you a ride home.”
“I’ll find my own way,” she says to the magazine.
“Perfect.”
“Great.”
After a doctor whips seven stitches into my incision, I stalk out to the waiting room, more pissed than before. But then I’m stopped cold.
“Still here?” I ask. My insides slush when I see Ruby belly-down, propped on her elbows, playing with toddler boys on the floor.
“Tommy came in. It was an emergency.”
“Did you know he and India got married?”
“Nope,” she says. Her fingers skip across the boys’ faces as they giggle.
I can’t peel my eyes from her as she plays on the floor with the children. I want to make babies with this woman. I want to slow-dance around my kitchen with her in my arms while we cook dinner together. I want to wrap her wet body in a warm towel when she steps out of the shower, take her to my bed, and then make love to her all night. I want to grow old with her.
“They adopted these boys ’cause she couldn’t get pregnant,” I say. I kneel beside her, a moment of weakness swamping me.
Maybe I’m making too much of everything. This could be us. We could be together like I’ve always wanted. Ruby could be my wife, my kids’ mother. There’s nothing Rifle wants more than a brother or a sister, which I’ve been telling him for years isn’t likely. But it could be. We could happen. Could the ball be in my court after all? Maybe I do hold the key. Damn that long-standing, rusty lock. Damn my pride.
One of the boys craps himself as I’m fantasizing.
“Barn burner,” I say.
We chuckle, and Ruby claps her hands.
“Smells like one.” She snickers and reaches for a diaper bag. “I hope Tommy left me some diapers.”
“You ever changed a baby?” I smirk.
“Nope.” She yanks a diaper and a container of wipes from the bag. “But I’m sure it’s not that hard.”
“Well, good. Have at it, girl.”
A wet cast on one arm, and her trigger fingers on the other hand. If only I had chopsticks to hand her.
“See if there’s a changing pad in there,” I tell her. “It can get messy.” And I am going to take pleasure in watching you navigate.
“Right.”
She dives in like a pro. Lays the kid on his back, hands him a toy from the diaper bag, and strips his pants off. I wish it were me. Then comes the diaper. I cross my fingers, hopeful it’s a shit-up-the-back crap. Oh, and it is. It’s beautiful, and right now, I am loving my life.
“Is this normal? Oh my God.”
“There’s no normal with shit.” I wink. “Just happens. You know, sort of like between us. Sometimes crap flies and stinks and is messy as fuck to clean up.”
Ruby glares at me. “I love how you’re comparing a poopie diaper to us.”
“It’s a metaphor.” I stand, glancing at my watch. “Gotta get going.”
“You’re leaving me with this?” The shocked, slack-jawed expression on her face makes me laugh damn hard.
“Told my girl I’d get her early,” I lie.
“Your stripper friend?”
“Acrobat. Lady on the street, whore in the bedroom—every man’s fantasy.” I grin and lick my lips.
“Great. Yes, go get your girl and leave me with the crap.”
“You’ll be fine. You’ve been slinging shit for a while now. ’Bout time you clean it up.”
She looks at the kid, then her shit-covered hands, then me. How a woman can look gorgeous while doing what she’s doing is fucked up. But Ruby Mae wins.
“You’re relentless,” she says.
> “Just calling it like I see it.”
After opening the wipes, she starts mopping the kid’s belly and legs. There might be more crap on her cast than on the kid at this point.
I kneel beside her. “Move over. All you’re doing is dragging crap around this poor kid’s body.”
“Good idea. Show me how a real man cleans up shit.” Ruby shifts away from me.
“I’ve been trying to do that.”
“Be careful, Rebel.”
“I’m just sayin’, some shit is more slippery than others.”
When I arrive home, I find my sister, Storm’s, truck parked in the driveway. Tied to the front porch is Bubble’s pink-maned pony. We’re starting to see Bubble about every day now. Good damn thing I grabbed a box of condoms for these kids.
Around the kitchen table sits my crew, a mean game of Scrabble in the middle. Gilbert’s flopped on the floor next to Storm, looking as uncomfortable as a stuck pig.
“Who’s winning?” I ask, tossing the box of condoms to Rifle.
He catches them in midair and grins. “Thanks, Dad. I’m winning.”
“Are those? Wait… He’s…” Storm’s eyes widen when the realization of what I threw him hits her.
“You didn’t tell your only aunt?” I ask.
“Rifle!” Storm slugs Rifle in the arm.
“Dad.” Rifle shrugs, rolling his eyes. “Give it a rest.”
“Relax. You can take a little ribbing, can’t you? Speaking of, I didn’t buy the ribbed ones and I guessed on size. Bought large… That about right?”
Storm snorts out a laugh and grabs the box from Rifle’s grip to examine it.
“Probably nailed it,” Etta says. She lifts her glass of sherry and winks at Rifle. “Don was large before I flipped him inside out to make Donatella.”
“Don was Rocket’s dick before he became Etta. Welcome to my family,” Rifle says, slinging an arm over Bubble’s shoulder when she cracks up.
“I live in a circus. Not much fazes me,” Bubble says. “I mean, come on. An elephant lives in my home.”
“An elephant?” Storm pushes the condoms toward Rifle.
“Yes, Queenie. She’s pretty much my sister.”
Sunshine Bleeds A Black Edge (The Wild Things (standalone) Book 3) Page 9
