“You want a hint?” I asked, glancing over at her.
She looked back at me and bit her full red bottom lip. “Yes.”
“All right. It’s none of the three places you’re thinking.”
“That’s not a hint!”
I chuckled as we turned off her street and headed north into town. “Sure it is.”
Rein crossed her arms and slumped lower in her seat. “If we’re going to the harbor, I’m going to make you take me home. I do not want to socialize with the fishermen down there.”
“It’s not the harbor,” I said, unable to stop smiling.
“Good.”
Ten minutes later, I was turning off the ignition of the truck, and we were parked outside the grocery store. Rein looked out her window then turned incredulously to me. “The deli in the grocer? Really?”
“Nope. Do you really think I would do that? Come on now.”
“I don’t know what you would do, Brayden,” she said, her tone darkening when she said my name. “Because I don’t know you anymore.”
I ignored the comment and got out of the truck. I helped her out and offered her my elbow again. She didn’t accept it and marched up onto the sidewalk where she waited for me with her arms wrapped around herself and her teeth chattering.
“I can’t believe I got dressed up for this,” she muttered. “I feel like a Class A idiot.”
“Well, you look like a Class A lady.”
“Shut up.” She scowled, swatting at me as I joined her on the sidewalk.
I knew laughing at her wouldn’t help my position, but I couldn’t help it. She looked too damn cute when she was angry, and she always had. Her lips were pouted and her brow was furrowed as I put my hand on her upper back and guided her to the art gallery door.
“Come on, grumpy, this way,” I said, pushing the door open and holding it for her.
She peered up at me as she slipped inside. She was confused, which was better than angry.
“Upstairs,” I said, and she started climbing. I wished she would take her coat off now so I could see the swing of her hips and her ass as she walked above me. I reprimanded myself for being such an ass.
Rein walked quickly down the hall toward her gallery, which was where she must have assumed I was taking her.
But I stopped at one of the office doors on the opposite side of the hall and cleared my throat.
She turned back to me and arched an eyebrow. “Are you coming, or what?”
“I’m waiting for you,” I said, gesturing at the door to my right. “This is the place.”
She looked imploringly up at the ceiling before marching back toward me. “Really? This is just another loft. A smaller one but a loft nonetheless.”
“I know what it is,” I said, and I pushed the door open.
Rein looked through the doorway and gasped.
I had spent the entire afternoon readying the place for a dinner for two. I knew it might have been overkill—correction, it was overkill—but I desperately wanted the privacy. Valdez was a small place, and if the two of us were seen at a table together, I knew it was only a matter of time before people joined us and started asking questions.
So, I had paid a couple teenagers to clean the loft, and then I brought my mother’s kitchen table and two chairs in the back of the pickup truck. I had set it up all while Rein had been working in her gallery, and I’d given the trio of teenage boys twenty dollars each to pack everything up for us after we were done. I would swing by and pick it all up in the morning.
The loft was empty, save for the table setting, which was lit with a few candles and accompanied by a bottle of wine and two glasses from my mother’s cupboard. It was simple, that was for sure, but hopefully, it was enough.
Rein stepped in and looked back at me. “This is surprisingly nice.”
“I just wanted somewhere we could talk without half the town trying to join us.”
“Smart,” she mumbled as her fingers worked mindlessly at the sash of her coat. She took it off and left it on the floor. Then she turned in a circle and paused when she was facing me. “I don’t mean to be rude, but where’s the food?”
“On its way,” I said, going to the table and pulling out a chair for her.
She sat and I took the chair across from her. Then I poured us each a glass of wine and slid hers toward her. “Thanks for agreeing to come. I know you didn’t want to. And you had good reason to say no.”
She sipped her wine and stared at me over the rim. When she set it back down, a smile played in the corners of her lips. “I couldn’t say no after making you rearrange the gallery for no reason.”
I shrugged. “I deserved that whether I got dinner out of it or not.”
“True,” she said.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I called.
The door swung open, and in came Emmett with two paper bags of takeout. He grinned at Rein, who burst out laughing as he set the bags down. “One bacon cheeseburger for you,” he said, opening one bag and placing everything in front of me. “And a chicken burger for the lady with extra pickles, just as she likes.” Emmett gave a little bow like a true professional waiter. “Enjoy the evening.”
Then he departed, leaving me and Rein in the solitude I desired.
“I won’t lie,” Rein said after removing her burger from its foil wrapper. “I’m impressed. You pulled out all the stops.”
“I tried.”
Rein dabbed at her lips with her napkin and looked at me seriously. “I have to ask. Why are you back in Valdez? I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, and if I ever did, I sure as hell didn’t think it would be here.”
I should have expected the question a lot sooner than now, but it still threw me off. I hadn’t talked to anyone but Drew about my mother’s cancer. But Rein deserved to know.
“My mom is sick,” I said. “Really sick.”
Rein froze with a fry halfway to her mouth.
I looked down at my hands. “I had no idea she even had cancer. She never told me. She said she didn’t want to bother me or pull me away from Florida. And now, I can’t help but hate how much time I missed with her. Bella barely knows her. I just left her behind and became so consumed with work that she became a second thought. Now she’s dying.”
“Brayden,” Rein said slowly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s alright. It’s out of anyone’s hands now. But I’ll be here until…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, so I didn’t try. “I’ll be here awhile longer, hopefully.”
“I hope so too,” Rein said. Then she reached out and grabbed my hand. Her touch was warm and terribly familiar. “You realize no one in town knows about this, right?”
I met her eye. “I was sure the word would have gotten around.”
“No, I’d have found out by now if it had. I won’t say anything to anyone.”
“Thank you.”
I kind of wished my mother’s illness hadn’t come up because it put a bit of a damper on the rest of our meal. Rein worked to keep the conversation flowing, and I was grateful for it because it helped chase away the guilt that had settled in my chest at finally saying out loud that I had left my mother behind. Rein reserved no judgements and simply accepted it for what it was.
She still knew me better than I knew myself, despite what she had said earlier in the evening when we arrived at the gallery.
After dinner and after the wine, I was disappointed to have to drive her home.
Chapter 16
Rein
Brayden, always the gentleman, walked me from his truck to my front door after he drove me home from dinner.
My mind was spinning a mile a minute. The surprise dinner at the loft had given me all sorts of feelings that I immediately tried to dismiss, but couldn’t. This was the Brayden I remembered. Kind, gentle, and too suave for his own good.
Then the news of his mother’s cancer had broken my heart, and I had seen firsthand how damaged he was becaus
e of it. I wanted to piece him back together and hold him. I wanted to tell him that no matter how hard things got, because they were only going to get worse, I would be there for him.
But I couldn’t be there for him. Not without putting myself right back in the same position I had been in ten years ago. I couldn’t go through that again. I’d barely endured it the first time.
So when I unlocked my front door, I knew I had to say my piece to him.
“Brayden,” I said, turning to face him as I stood in the warmth now slipping out of the open door of my home. “Tonight was really nice. Honestly. I’m glad I agreed to go. But I need to be clear. I can’t do this with you.”
If my words surprised him, he didn’t show it. He tucked his hands in his pockets and stared me straight in the eyes. “I know you’ll always be mad at me for leaving. I didn’t expect that to change.”
“It’s not just that you left,” I said. “You abandoned me without saying a word. And I wasn’t just some girl, Brayden. We were serious. We were real. We were building a life together and talking about getting married. Then, all of a sudden, you’re just gone. It was like we never existed.”
He hung his head.
“I’m not saying any of this to make you feel bad, but I had to get it out there. You broke me. It took me a long time to put myself back together. And meanwhile, you were finding somebody else and falling in love with her.”
He lifted his head slowly, and I saw the anguish in his beautiful green eyes. “I know,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry for what happened to your wife. I didn’t mean to bring that up. I just…” I paused, not knowing what else to say. “I had to accept the fact that you mattered a hell of a lot more to me than I ever mattered to you. And that sucked, Brayden. It really fucking sucked.”
“I didn’t know how to reach out to you.”
“Didn’t know? You were scared. You chose what was easy, which was to pretend I never existed.”
“That’s not true,” he said sharply.
“No?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you call me? You could have sent me a fucking email at the very least. But I got nothing. There’s no excuse in the world for that.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you I loved someone else when I was still in love with you,” Brayden said, his voice loud enough to almost be considered shouting.
I blinked at him.
He ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. “None of this is what you think it is, Rein. Yeah, I left you behind. And I’m sorry. I can’t change that. But I never forgot you. Not even after I married Isabelle. Every time I looked at her, I saw you, and that wasn’t fair to her, but God help me, I couldn’t do a damn thing to change it.”
I stared at him as something inside of me unraveled. Control, anger, anxiety, it all slipped away and left me feeling lightheaded.
“It’s always been you, Rein. There’s no fighting it. And now that I’m back here…” he trailed off and the air around us felt like it was burning.
He closed the space between us in one step and lifted a hand to my cheek. I stood completely still as his thumb grazed my jaw and his fingers slipped into my hair. He tilted my head back and then pressed his lips to mine in a ferocious kiss that sucked the air out of my lungs.
I turned to putty and gave in.
It felt so good to let it all go. I felt lighter as I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung to him as his tongue pushed between my lips. I drew him into me and suckled his bottom lip as his other hand took my waist and he guided me backward into my apartment.
He kicked the door closed behind him and pulled the sash open around my waist. His hand left my cheek, and he ripped open my red coat and threw it off my shoulders. It fell to the floor where I nearly tripped over it. He caught me and pulled me back up to ravage me with more desperate kisses.
His lips were salty, and his tongue tasted like wine. He was everything I had been craving and more, and the feeling of his strong body against mine was the most delicious thing I had felt in years. A tiny voice in the back of my head was screaming at me to stop—screaming that I would regret this.
But how could I regret something that already felt so fucking good?
We wove around my kitchen table and cut through the living room, bumping into almost every piece of furniture as we went. Brayden knew where he was going as he pushed me backward through the open doorway into the darkness of my bedroom.
His lips were still sealed to mine when his fingers grazed the tops of my breasts. A shiver shot through me at his touch, and he must have felt me tremble.
“Is this okay?” he whispered, pulling away from me.
In the darkness, I could just see the glint of his eyes and the outline of him.
“We can stop,” he said.
“I don’t want to stop,” I managed to say before reaching for him again and clinging to the front of his shirt for dear life. We had come this far already, and my body was calling the shots now. A warmth had gathered between my legs, and I was aching to be touched there, to be stretched and filled. It had been such a long time.
Brayden lifted the straps of my dress from my shoulders and gently pulled it down my arms and breasts. When it sat around my waist, he paused to distract me with tender kisses and didn’t stop as I worked the dress over my hips.
I stepped out of it and was aware of the cool air on my skin. I was glad I had taken Gracie’s advice and worn a cute matching bra and panty set.
“You’re so fucking sexy,” Brayden mumbled in my ear before licking at the side of my neck.
I moaned softly and turned my face to the ceiling while he unclipped my bra. It popped off, and my breasts came free, my nipples grazing his chest. He cupped them in his hands and squeezed firmly. Then he trailed his hands down my ribs and hips, where he worked my panties down my legs.
I hated that he still had all of his clothes on as he backed me up until the backs of my knees hit my bed. Then he pushed me lightly by my shoulders, sending me to my back on the mattress. I propped myself up on my elbows to watch him undress in the dark.
He took his time about it, like he knew what his movements did to me. He unbuttoned his shirt, one button at a time, and tossed it aside. Then he worked his belt off, followed by his black pants. When he was in nothing but his boxers, I sat back up to explore his body with my hands.
He was harder than he used to be. He was a man now.
His stomach was chiseled with muscle, as was the rest of him. I traced the cut of his hips with my fingertips as I kissed the soft skin above the waistband of his boxers. He grew impatient as I teased him and tried to push me onto my back.
I hooked my thumbs in the waistband of his boxers and pulled them down. He sprang free, long and hard, and I took the tip of him in my mouth. He groaned as I slid my lips down his shaft, working my tongue along the bottom of his dick. His hands slipped into my hair, which was falling free of its bun, and he held me in place as he began fucking my mouth.
I had forgotten how much control he liked to have in the bedroom.
His shaft slid in and out of my mouth, pressing deep into the back of my throat with every thrust. When he held himself there, I forced him in deeper, taking all of him and waiting for him to let me breathe again.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his grip tightening in my hair. “That feels so fucking good.”
I was so turned on. I wouldn’t be able to wait much longer.
He pulled out of my throat and pushed me back more roughly this time. His cock bounced between us as he hooked his arms under my knees and pulled me to the edge of the bed. Then he dropped down in a crouch, and before I had a chance to lick my lips, his tongue was dancing over my clit.
I gasped as my veins exploded with pleasure.
He tantalized my swollen clit with delicious circular movements until I thought I was going to come undone, and then he plunged downward, dipping his tongue inside me before licking me all the way up to the top
again.
“Oh God,” I breathed, gripping the sheets at my sides and closing my eyes. This felt so much better than I remembered.
“You taste so good,” Brayden said between licks.
I opened my mouth to tell him not to talk like that, but I couldn’t get the words out as he slipped a finger inside me. He pressed in deep, and I could feel my channel closing around him.
“So fucking tight,” he breathed before resuming his delicious suckling on my clit. He worked his finger, pushing in and out of me
I was going to come, and he was going to know how long it had been since I’d had sex. He was going to know he was the last man I had been with.
The only man I had been with.
He stretched me with another finger, and my orgasm rolled over me, pushing a cry of sheer ecstasy from my lips. I quivered and shook as he sucked harder until I came again, and beads of sweat formed at the nape of my neck.
Suddenly, I was empty, and Brayden’s arms were under me, lifting me and moving me higher up on the bed. He was on his knees between my legs and rolling a condom over his cock. He was swollen and huge, and the thought of him fucking me made my head spin.
“You’re too big,” I whispered, unable to look anywhere but at his massive cock.
“We’ll go slow,” he said. “Just relax. I won’t hurt you.”
His voice was calming, and the way he took my hips in his hands and held on to me made me feel safe. Cherished. He gripped my sides and pushed his hips down. The tip of his cock grazed my clit, and I sucked in a sharp breath.
Then he was slipping between my folds, pushing me open, and sliding deep inside me. Every inch of him eased the ache below my belly. It was like every ounce of anger I had held on to toward him floated away and was replaced with relief. Sweet, sexy, wonderful relief.
Then he started fucking me.
I came within seconds and screamed his name shamelessly. He held onto my shoulders, keeping me in place as he buried himself deep inside me over and over and over again. I clung to his wrists and dug my nails into his skin as he dropped his head to ravage me with a kiss unlike any other. He was tender but wild, and every second brought me closer to the brink of another earth-shaking orgasm.
My Last First Kiss: A Single Father Secret Baby Novel Page 10
