“If I make love to you right now,” I say, “like I’ve wanted to forever, what will happen tomorrow? And the next day?”
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to set aside everything in my past to find out, because a future with you has to trump all my pain.” Her voice cracks and her fingertips dig into my hips.
“Pain, baby?”
She hugs me harder and wraps her legs around my thighs and her arms around my back as her heart fuses to mine. Tears river down her face, soaking her golden locks and the depths of my heart.
“Kiss me.” She breathes. “Make love to me. Please, Rebel.”
“I’ve only ever wanted you. No other man was supposed to have you… You were mine. You took that from me.” I wish I hadn’t said that, but it hurts. How something that happened so many years ago can cause an ache in my heart still seems impossible.
“I’ve never been anyone else’s. I promise you on your ring, my heart, Opal’s grave. It’s only ever been you. Please believe me.”
Is it possible? I honestly don’t know, because lies carry weight no matter when they’re revealed or how long they’ve lived.
Chapter 28
Ruby
Rebel’s warm skin meets mine. His sweaty, hair-dusted, rock-hard torso presses against my breasts. All these years of trying to heal, one man—now in my arms—and mission in mind.
“Tell me, Ruby. Eyes on mine. You love me? I can leap, but I need to hear it. No more bullshit. Honest-to-fucking-God, bare-our-souls love. You got that, woman?”
“I got it, and yes, I love you.” My lips tremble, mirroring my nerves.
The movie of my life is coming to fruition. My crazy leap into faith is taking hold like a winning lottery ticket. He wants me. After all I’ve said…he wants me. And here I am, crying.
“Hey, what are these tears for?” Rebel kisses the corners of my eyes. Then pulls back and stills in a deep gaze.
“I’ve never, in all my life, wanted anything more than you,” I whisper as I hold his face in my hands and revel in our closeness. Can we do this? Move forward?
“Tell me you’re on the pill or planning on marrying me when my seed makes our kid.”
“We have nothing to worry about.” I can’t say more than that. Can’t ruin this moment with more of my truths.
“Thank fuck.” Rebel nestles between my legs and time dissolves. Nothing in the world matters but us and our togetherness. “Ruby Mae, I love you. For all we’ve gone through, I will love you through anything no matter what words escape me.”
“No matter,” I answer.
The love of my life enters me, and worlds fall away. Faded thoughts of pain, healing, and angst hurtle time to forget, forgive, and claim my future. My soul is his to take and anchor. My heart is ripped from my chest and in safe keeping, nestled with his. My future is now wound in puzzling knots, needing-to-be-discovered stories, and ready-to-be-exposed first chapters. And I’m good with all of it.
I knew he’d be lovely, fierce, and commanding. All consuming. And my God, it’s all want with us. Fingers meeting in union, teeth clashing between wet aggressive kisses, hips and slippery abs crashing onto each other in waves of claim. Rebel owning me. Body and soul.
If this isn’t forgiveness, I don’t know what is. But what if forgiveness has another face I’ve not yet seen?
Chapter 29
Rebel
“Look at you.” I kiss Ruby’s tear-stained cheeks and trembling lips. “Do you know how many times I’ve jerked off to this vision?”
“Yeah?” She giggles. “That cracks me up. You’ve been jerking off to me?”
“Fuck yeah.” Inch by perfect inch, I slide into Ruby.
“Rebel, Jesus.” She gasps, her eyes squeezing shut then opening in a slow appreciative gaze that makes my cock impossibly hard.
“Baby, you’re so gorgeous.” And wet. Christ, is she ready for me. Wet, tight, and exactly what I thought she’d be.
We grind in slow motion, Ruby’s moans, my growls, and our sliding skin the soundtrack I’ve waited most of my life to hear. I claim her mouth, entering her deep, every thrust backed with emotion.
I suck her taut nipples, my tongue flicking her the way I remember she liked it, and based on her arched back and yesss and don’t stops, she still apparently does.
“Your beautiful tits are bigger, and shit, they taste like you’ve always tasted. Sweet and sexy. You’re still my Ruby, only better.” Pushing her soft full breasts together, I drag my mouth from peak to peak, nipping each one when they tickle my lips. “I can’t believe I’m fucking this pussy.”
“Rebel.” My name is an achy whisper wrapped with desire. “Don’t stop doing that.”
“This?” I shove her legs wider, anchor my hands on her shoulders, and drive hard. “You like that, baby? Hard and deep?”
“Yeah.” Her sex voice makes me crazy. It’s soft as powder and greedy as spring is for rain.
I’ve forever wondered what she’d sound like when I fucked her. It’s the most gorgeous noise my ears have heard. My name and the yeahs coming out of Ruby’s lusty throat crank up my desire. Her hips curl and she tightens on me, the arch of her neck and her begging for more almost pushing me over the top with her. Fuck. I am not coming yet. I’m taking my sweet-ass time with her.
“Not yet, baby.” I pull out, though it almost kills me. There’s so much I want to do with her. Years of tasting and touching need to happen. I nip her neck then suck her there. “I want you spread on my mouth, want your pussy on my tongue.”
She smiles, and my already flipped world somersaults.
“I love the shit out of you.”
“I love you too, Rebel.”
Like a hungry hunter, I travel down her curves, following the moonlit path to my target. “Baby, why is your pussy hair blue?” I pull back then dive in, nipping at her gorgeous hip bones and sweet lines waiting for my tongue. Blue pussy hair? My silly girl is all I can think.
“It’s just something I do.” She bites her lips then sucks one finger and giggles. “I’m colorful like that.”
“You’re still silly. Always been a silly girl. Ruby Mae, bring those fingers down here and open your pussy lips for me. Show me what you want me to eat. I want your whole soaked cunt on display for my eyes.”
“Jesus, you haven’t changed.” She laughs. “You are filthy. No, you’re worse! You’re the man version of filthy!”
“Damn right I am. And there are things…so many things, ways I can make you feel, that I promise no one else ever has. Come on, baby. Open your lips and show me. I want you to touch yourself for me. Show me what you want.”
Ruby was never very shy with me, save one thing: She would not let me fuck her. Christ, I wanted to. More than anything, I wanted to be with her like that. To lie with her and love her with my whole body, not just my heart. Right now, though, I see shy. A curl on her mouth, her eyes darting, that bottom lip sucked between her teeth. It’s provoking. Sexy. And it’s a mystery I want to crack. She is.
“Don’t you want me to?” I slide my hands between her thighs and press them apart, more ready than ever to taste my girl again.
She shakes her head and squeezes her knees on my shoulders. “I just ended my period. Remember?”
“Jesus, you think I give a fuck?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Not a chance.” I lift her knees over my shoulders and kiss her inner thighs. I could live in the sweet, soft crease of her thigh, my face nestled here for all of eternity. “I could dip your pussy in pig shit and eat it out.”
“Rebel...that’s gross.” Ruby laughs and covers her face with her hands.
“This tongue is not missing an inch of you tonight. Not one fucking inch, Ruby Mae. It will lick every spot on your body, and by that, I mean every fucking one.”
She tucks her chin and rolls her eyes, doing that shy thing again.
“I’m done waiting.” I drag my thumbs in a line across her skin, her soft curls and her lips parting. “This
fucking pussy, I swear.” Her hips lift off the bed, her hands threading my hair. Her moans chasing one another. “My sweet thing.”
“Rebel, oh God.”
I thrust my tongue deep inside her then drag it up for another suck, my mouth bearing down when she gyrates and moans out my name time and again.
“You taste like a promise.”
With her ass in the air, resting on my open palms, I open her wider. My tongue delights in her taste and texture. All of my senses come alive as I inhale her beautiful scent.
“You like that, don’t you? I told you I’d lick you everywhere. Now, I’m gonna make you come in my mouth, gonna make you squirm.” And I do. Jesus. “Beautiful, baby.” My greed-filled climb up her body makes my dick ache for her. “Time for me to fuck some ruby-red pussy again.”
Ruby’s mouth forms an oval when I slam balls-deep inside her. At first, I see pleasure. Then her eyes mist and tears fall again. For the life of me, I don’t know why. But I guess all the years we’ve waited are crashing down hard on her emotions.
“Rebel…don’t say that again.”
“That I’m going to fuck your ruby-red pussy? Or what? Tell me you love how it feels.” I thrust deeper, so close to coming. Then again, so deep. So fucking deep and close. “Tell me you love it.”
“Rebel…I...” Ruby bursts into a full-on ugly cry.
What now? There can’t possibly be worse news than what she’s already dumped on me.
Chapter 30
Ruby
Those fucking Kline boys. I wish they weren’t here, but they are. They said something so similar the night they stole everything from me. And that’s why I dye my hair blue. We all cope differently. We all find a way to camouflage our pain.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Rebel flips to my side, my face crushed to his chest.
I’ve healed; mostly, I have. But being with Rebel brings so much of that night back to me. Part of me feels silly for having these feelings, but I know what they’re attached to. And there’s not an ounce of silly in them.
“There’s more to tell, isn’t there?” A sliver of moonshine highlights Rebel’s stare. In it I see fear.
“No, there isn’t,” I say quietly, hopeful he believes me.
“You’re naked in my arms, we just made love for the first time, and you’re lying to me?”
Ouch. There’s hurt in his words, but I’m sure he can’t imagine what he’s doing to me by spilling his feelings.
“There is nothing else to tell,” I say.
“Why does it look like you’re reliving something?”
“I’m not. Now, leave it.” I twist my body and bury my face in the crook of my arm.
Rebel’s hands surround my biceps, and he turns me to him in a swift motion. “Then why did you tell me not to say that about your pussy?”
“I just don’t—”
“And why is your hair blue? Do women really do shit like this? Is it some European trend?”
I scramble for an answer. Anything. “Because I wanted to give you my virginity.”
“And you’re blue because you didn’t? You’ve been dying your hair blue for seventeen fucking years over me? Not sure I’m buying it.”
I nod, grateful he came up with something better than I could have. Like the truth. But then he keeps going.
“Why didn’t you give it to me? Just spit it out once and for all.” He presses his forehead to mine then lifts his head and kisses that spot. “Why, baby? Just tell me.”
“I couldn’t.” Shit. Shit. This cannot go further than it already has.
“We talked about it. Planned on it. Knew where it was going to happen. I had champagne. I had those fucking cookies you like. And what, you had a weak moment? None of it makes sense. It’s not like you. Not the girl I knew, anyway.”
“Can’t you leave the past alone?”
“It’s not that simple,” he says.
“Something about us has to be.”
Rebel wraps his arms around me and whispers in my ear. “You’re shaking, crying, and I’m loving you, holding you. I’m trying to give you everything right now. Can’t you do the same for me?”
“I’m giving you everything I am. I came to your house and into your bed after you called me awful things. I forgave you because…”
“Because you have no choice? You feel guilty about something. What woman would climb into a man’s bed after he called her the things I called you?”
I pull away and sit up. This is going nowhere. “Rebel, please don’t. I’m trying here.”
His warm hands land on my back. What do I say to soothe him but not turn his life upside down?
“Tell me now or get out of my bed.” It’s a command, and it hurts like vinegar in an open wound.
I feel bad for us. Because the truth will hurt him too much to share.
“I don’t know what I did,” I say quietly. And God, there is so much truth in those words.
I don’t know what I did to deserve what happened. Or why being a martyr made things worse. And here I am, doing it again. Are their deaths enough redemption? I wish they were, but mysteries don’t get answered with redemption. Mysteries get answered with explanations, and there are too many coincidences that happened that week. Too many I know about.
The question I’ve pondered for months now feels like a never-ending bleeding wound: Who else in this town knows what I went through?
Chapter 31
Rebel
Ruby scoots off the edge of the bed, scoops her clothes off the floor, and tiptoes toward the door.
“You’re really doing this? Leaving? Because you can’t tell me what you did?”
“You told me to leave.”
I grip handfuls of sheets, wishing it were handfuls of her. “Fucking tell me already! This is insane.”
“I told you I don’t know what I did.” She slips into her sundress. With her back to me, she sniffles, glancing over her shoulder before walking out of my bedroom barefoot, her shoes dangling from her fingertips.
Rolling off the bed, I land hard and stomp to the door.
“Goodnight, Rebel,” she says as she descends the staircase.
That’s it?
“Goodbye, sweet thing.” I slam the door, undoubtedly waking Rifle and Etta with the muscle I put behind it.
Gripping the windowsill, about to rip it off the wall, I watch Ruby climb into her car and drive away. What isn’t she telling me? Flipping onto the bed, I rewind my mind while sprawled out, annoyed, crushed, and confused. Whatever she’s holding on to must be massive. Dots connecting to dots, intersections meeting in riddles and retorts.
I shoot off the bed and pace in circles. Holy Christ. No. Don’t go there. Jesus…could she be? Ruby Mae Rose, a murderer? How am I even entertaining this? A chill zings up my spine, my heart heavy. Why would she get it on with them one day then kill ’em days later? None of it makes sense.
Ruby did borrow Rocket’s gun that week, though. I delivered it to her house so she could shoot a pesky possum that was getting in their garbage. Or so she claimed. The next day, the twins’ murder-suicide occurred and the gun was back in our locked case that night. But I swear the article in the paper claimed it was their hunting guns that were used. And then something went down between Etta and Dick Kline. What? There were no autopsies, though everyone questioned the entire situation. So, did someone besides me get a shit-ton of cash? Who?
Ruby left for Paris the day of their funerals. Hell, maybe she was running from everything. Murder, her sister’s death, and me. Why me? Why would someone run from the person they love unless they have a damn good reason? Unspeakable guilt? I’d say that’s a good reason.
The woman I love…a murderer? Fucking great. Of course, she can’t tell me. What would I do if she confessed? I have no idea. I couldn’t turn Ruby in. She’d spend her life in jail. Not turning her in, though, would make me a criminal too.
Is this why Etta had the crosses, the necklace, and the ring in her jewelry box? Ruby kill
ed the twins and Etta knows? Impossible. How the hell would Etta know? She would have turned Ruby in if she knew. But she did lay some thick shit out about letting go of the past earlier. Are Etta and Ruby in cahoots?
Well, this is one fucking dandy crossroad. I don’t want to know if Ruby killed the Kline boys. Don’t want to know if Etta was involved.
I don’t want to know a damn thing now.
I rise at the crack of dawn. My mind’s whirling when I show up at the Rose house at eight to help with the move. Rowdy’s beat me here, and by the haggard look on Ruby’s face combined with no hello, I deduce she never slept.
“We’re good here,” she says, making zero eye contact as she muscles a box around. “You can go.”
“I’m helping, and you shouldn’t be using your arm that way. You aren’t doing yourself any favors.” I jail the box she’s struggling with between us, easing it out of her arms.
“The only favor I’m doing today is staying clear of you. Since that’s what you want from your slutty ex.”
“Ruby.” My voice cracks through the thickness in my throat.
“Or wait—skank whore. Which is it?”
“Don’t act like this.” I place the box on the ground and square up with her, my hands gripping her shoulders to still her squirming agitation.
“How would you like me to act? More like I was last night?” She squints, her impatient gaze pinned on me as her chin rises.
“We should talk.”
“I already told you there is nothing else to say.” She pulls an imaginary zipper across her lips then drops her gaze.
I grunt out a long sigh and lift her chin. Her eyes—her soft, sad, and angry emerald eyes—are so gorgeous, so captivating. But are they the eyes of a murderer?
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I say.
Sunshine Bleeds A Black Edge (The Wild Things (standalone) Book 3) Page 13
