Every part of me softened. “Rex . . .”
And, God, I wanted it, everything he was willing to give.
“Too much, too fast?” he asked, a self-deprecating grin rimming his mouth, so sexy and sweet.
“I’m not sure there’s ever going to be too much when it comes to you. I’m just asking you to talk to me.”
His thumb brushed the angle of my cheekbone, and my mouth dropped open a fraction, relishing in the feel of his simple touch. “Warned you I have no goddamned clue what I’m doing. That I always manage to fuck up.”
“You’re not fucking up. We’re just . . . learning each other.”
He pressed against me, his voice growing rough. “Like all the ways I’m learning you.”
I clung to his shirt, flooded by warmth.
He edged back. “How about I make you a deal?”
“What kind of deal?” Cautious. Careful.
“You need a loan.”
“Rex,” I warned, already knowing what he was getting ready to say.
“Just hear me out.” He paused, waiting for me to give him a tiny nod before he continued. “You figure out how to get all the equipment for the restaurant, but we do all the installation and renovation.”
“Rex—”
He pushed a finger against my lips. “And you pay me back. Consider it a loan for something I believe in.”
My heart thundered, and my breaths became shallow. He pressed the gentlest kiss to my forehead, the word a vibration against my skin. “Please.”
Setting my hands on his waist, I chewed at my bottom lip as I shifted to look up at him. “What does this mean?”
What do we mean?
I wanted to ask him, but the tensing of his body cut me off. As if he didn’t want me to say it. To bring it out into the open. The fact that neither of us seemed to truly know where we stood. If we were coming or if we were going.
He pulled me against him. “I need to figure out some shit in my life, Rynna. I warned you, it’s a mess. But I’m going to fucking try. There’s a lot I can’t make sense of, but it’s time I do. Figure out who I am and who I’m supposed to be. Take care of some shit I should have a long time ago. But the one thing I do know? The one thing I know is I want you in my life. And if I can at least give you this? Then please . . . let me. Let me take this chance.”
26
Rex
Rain battered the roof and lightning lit up against the darkened windows. Thunder a constant rumble in the toiling sky.
I was already rushing for the door after I’d heard the bell ring.
My jaw dropped a bit when I flung it open and found her standing there. Drenched. Chestnut darkened to mahogany.
Standing there in the rain looking like a second chance. A better day.
Four soaked paper bags were wrapped in her arms, precariously clutched to her chest like she could keep them from ripping apart and sending all the items contained inside from toppling to the ground.
“Rynna,” I finally managed when I processed she was really there, standing on my stoop. I widened the door. “Come inside before you get struck by lightning.”
She ducked past me, filling my senses with all that sweet, intensified with the soak of the rain.
Fuck. She was undoing me. Minute by minute. I let the door fall shut behind her. “Here, let me help you with that.” I took two bags from her.
“Thank you.”
“What are you doing here?” I finally asked, feeling the satisfied grin slide to my face, because I sure as shit wasn’t gonna complain.
She cast me a cautious smile. One that slammed me right in the center of the chest. Kind of the way Frankie annihilated me every time she looked at me a certain way. Though, this was different. Obviously. This was lust and want and confusion and every-fucking-thing I wanted more and more.
She hefted a shoulder. “I just thought I would do something nice for you.”
Nice.
My chuckle rumbled like a partner to the sky. “Nice, huh?”
She bit her bottom lip with a nod. “Yeah. It seems my neighbor is a little on the thoughtful side. I figured I’d return the favor. How does dinner sound? Of course, I might owe you dinner for the rest of my life.”
I dipped my head her direction, whispered at her ear, “Why’s that sound like the best damned payback I’ve ever been offered?”
She giggled and headed for my kitchen. “I see how it is. You want me when I’m baking for you.”
A growl slipped free, my eyes honing in on the slow sway of her delicious ass as I followed her. Voice lowered to keep my next words from little ears. “Oh, believe me, baby, I want you all the time. But you don’t actually think I’m going to refuse you cooking for me, do you? Especially considering I was just about to take out a frozen pizza to toss into the oven.”
Setting the bags on the counter, she looked back at me with a feigned gasp. “Blasphemy.”
I set the bags I was carrying beside them. “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
Her expression went tender, and she reached up, cupping my cheek in one of those soft, soft hands. “And you should know I would consider it an honor that I get to help with that now.”
She peeked in the direction of the hall where we could hear Frankie playing, talking and squealing, living in her own blissful little world. “Is this okay? That I’m here? I don’t want to confuse her or rush you. I just . . . I wanted to spend the evening with you. With her,” she added quickly, like it might scare me away.
And fuck. Yeah. It scared me, just not the way she was probably thinking. I wanted it, I was just too scared to hope for it. But it didn’t matter, that anticipation was right there, strumming an escalating beat inside of me.
Savage and fierce. As fierce as the storm that rattled the windowpanes and drummed on the roof.
I threaded my fingers through hers, brought her knuckles to my lips. “What do you say we take it slow in front of her? Get her used to the two of us. She’s gonna have questions, and when she does, we answer them.”
She worried her lip, peeking up at me. “And what’s the right answer, Rex?”
Releasing her hand, I let my fingers glide into those silky locks of damp hair. That was all the contact I needed for my chest to tighten, for the things held within to go haywire. A disorder that was shifting into something new. I pulled her closer and set a kiss to her forehead, murmured against it, “We tell her we care about each other. Simple as that.”
Did she know that’s how I was feeling? Did she know every time I looked at her, another piece crumbled out from under me, my footing no longer my own?
I leaned down, my mouth barely brushing the edge of hers. “I want you here.” I inched even closer, the heat of her body lighting me up. “Really fucking want you here. In the end, I think that’s all that matters.”
I moved to grip her by the waist, and her breath caught as my fingers cinched around her, everything growing thick when I let my nose trace up the column of her neck.
That overpowering scent was back. Radiating from her skin. Sweet, sweet bliss. Cherry pie.
I groaned, and she exhaled, then we both froze when we heard the pound of little feet thunder down the hall.
I stepped back, putting space between us, and a rush of redness bloomed on Rynna’s neck.
Like she’d been caught.
It was so fucking cute.
Frankie skidded to a stop at the end of the hall when she saw Rynna in the kitchen. “Rynna! What’s you doin’ here?”
My daughter kicked right back into action, flying across the floor, jumping around in front of Rynna to grab her attention.
As if she didn’t already have it. Because Rynna smiled when she saw my kid. Smiled like it meant something.
A bolt of old fear struck somewhere deep in my chest. A warning that I’d crossed a line when I’d let Rynna into our lives. That I’d been begging for trouble. Taunting me with a reminder of that penalty I’d forever serve. Punishment for what I’d done. Did I think I was exempt?
Rynna knelt in front of my daughter, her expression soft, almost as soft as the way she brushed her fingers through Frankie’s wild mane of hair.
“I thought maybe you could help me make dinner. What do you think about that?”