Instantly, my nipples budded into tight, pebbled peaks.
My hips jerked. “Rex. Please.”
I needed him more than I’d ever needed him before. I felt closer to him than I ever had. All his exteriors ripped away, shields down. It was just him and me.
I set my palms flat against the hard, defined ridges of his abdomen, and he rubbed his cock against my center.
A slow, sensual tease.
A shiver slipped down my spine. It dove straight into the pool of desire that grew to a boil in my belly.
My hands slid up his smooth skin.
Greedy as they explored. Savoring every inch. “You’re so beautiful, Rex Gunner. Inside and out. Thank you for letting me see it. For trusting me with it. With who you are.”
I let my fingers trace across the tattoo on his arm that so clearly wept.
Finally understanding what it meant. The kind of loss that would go on forever.
He cupped my face in the palm of his hand, something so serious blanketing his expression. “Who I am is yours, Rynna. I’m going to fix the bullshit in my life I should have fixed a long time ago.”
My mouth dropped open to ask him what that meant, but he took it as an opportunity to delve his tongue between my lips in a kiss that seared my soul.
All thoughts evaporated.
“Rynna.” My name was a plea. A prayer. I don’t think either of us could tell the difference anymore.
He wedged deeper between my thighs. His cock so big, trapped between us, begging for release.
Need throbbed, and he suddenly grasped me by the knees, spreading me wide as he edged back onto his. He dove in, licking through my folds.
I moaned, writhed, fisted my hands in his hair. “Rex.”
His only answer was to devour me. Fucking me with his tongue. Long laps and sweet, dizzying sucks.
Pleasure wound. So fast that I restrained a scream. That I writhed and moaned and whimpered his name.
It built to a pinpoint. Ready to burst.
The second before I did, he was over me. One hand planted next to my head as he hooked his other arm under my right knee.
He pinned my leg up high on his arm, pressing our chests together.
I could feel the beat of his heart where it raged against mine.
Wild. Wild and free.
He slowly pressed himself into my body. Never looking away.
Taking.
Owning.
Obliterating.
My mouth dropped open while his jaw clenched.
He began to move. His thrusts slow. Each rock of his hips deliberate. A slow, steady conquering. Winding me right back up.
He teased me with the most exquisite kind of torture. Passion stretched taut. Palpable and alive.
It was too much and too little and I begged him for more.
The physical and emotional that had waited anxiously on opposite sides suddenly charged toward the other.
The two crashed in the middle.
Sublime devastation.
Body and soul.
Tears pricked at my eyes and streaked down my face.
Because I was again overcome.
Overwhelmed by this man. I inhaled and filled my lungs with the magnitude of him.
Lake and earth and the clearest sky.
He moved in me in barely contained thrusts, slow and hard in his claiming command while I spun through the brightest kind of bliss.
Blinding.
Where I basked in this unfathomable beauty.
In that place that had become us.
Real and whole.
His mouth brushed against mine. “You changed everything, Rynna. Where I found an end, you saw a beginning. You saved me. Called me from the shadows. You changed everything the day you walked into my life. You are my heart’s second chance.”
I floated on the ecstasy of that chance.
Elevated.
Tossed into our perfect harmony.
Where I’d fall forever.
Weightless.
Rex clutched me by the shoulders, his rocks turning frenzied as he clutched me against him, as he burrowed his face into my hair, as he whispered my name.
“Rynna.”
And Rex.
He fell with me.
Exactly where he’d always belonged.
30
Rynna
Peace swam through his room, a dusky quiet broken by the milky moonlight streaming in from the window. I didn’t think there could be anything more perfect than being nestled in the crook of his arm with my head resting on his chest.
Tangled together.
Basking in the afterglow.
He gently brushed his fingers through my hair, and I sighed, so content, and I could only pray this incredible man felt the same. I rolled a fraction so I could place a kiss over the thrum of his heart. “You’re my heart’s second chance, too,” I told him through a murmur.
He shifted me to lay on top of him. Nudging me back, he peered up at me. “How’s that?”
I played with one of the longer locks of his hair. “The entire time I was in San Francisco, I felt as if I was missing something. When I left . . .” I blinked through the memories, searching for what to say, wondering if I should even bring it up.
The past was the past.
But he’d shared his, and I needed him to know mine.
“I won’t pretend what happened to me comes anywhere close to what you went through. To what you and Ollie and Kale lost that day. But I lost a piece of myself when I left. More than one piece,” I admitted in a hurried whisper. “I left behind my dreams and my innocence and my hopes. I left behind my grandmother. My only family.”
The loss of her drummed through me. A woeful ache.
He threaded his fingers through my hair and cupped the side of my head. “You don’t have to minimize what you went through, Rynna. Yeah, what happened with Sydney was brutal. So goddamned brutal. But I know I’m not the only person in this world who’s suffered.”
Rex wavered for a moment, before his words dropped low. “What happened, Rynna? What sent you running?”
Blinking into the distance, I let my thoughts slip back to that time. “There was this girl . . . we were friends.” I shook my head, my voice going even quieter. “But really, we weren’t. I told you before how I never quite fit in. I was always on the outside. Lonely. Looking back now, I see how she took advantage of that. That I was willing to take any abuse if it meant I had friends.”
I could feel the flinch of his fingers he held against the side of my head. “It got worse as I got older. Much worse. I found out she’d been stealing, and maybe it was stupid, but I was actually worried about her.” Regretfully, I looked at him. “So I told her mom.”
My head shook. “She was so angry. So angry. I should have known when she warned me I was going to pay for it that she meant it. But I was naïve that way. I never suspected cruelty because it was so far out of the realm of anything I’d ever wish against someone.”
“What happened?” His voice was a low rumble, and I could feel his unease. I could feel anger sifting through him, shaking out and taking hold.
I eased down onto his chest and laid my ear against the soothing thrum of his heart. I wasn’t sure I could look him in the eyes when I made this confession. Distractedly, I traced over the tattoo on his arm and shoulder, whispering the words into the dense air.
“I’d had a crush on this boy for as long as I could remember . . . middle school at least.” It was almost sorrow that formed on my mouth, though it was brittle with hurt. “I never thought he’d look my way, then one day . . . one day he asked me out.”
“You want to grab a bite Friday night?”
I stood behind the long counter at my gramma’s diner, looking behind me, around me. Was Aaron really talking to me? Every one of the butterflies in my stomach held their breath. My heart shook so hard I was sure everyone in the diner could hear it.
“Rynna?” he prodded.
Mouth dropping open, I stared blankly at him, my tongue not cooperating. “You . . . you want to go out with . . . me?” I finally managed to stutter around the shock.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?” He shrugged a muscular shoulder, and my wide-eyed gaze got transfixed on the motion. This had to be a dream, right?
“So what do you think?” He angled his face down to capture my attention. “Don’t break my heart, Rynna.”
Don’t break his heart? Oh God. Oh God. This was really happening. “Um . . . yeah . . . yes. Definitely. I definitely want to go out with you.” I nodded frantically.