Inhospitable, my soul.
No life or love can thrive.
But your belief in me
Is what keeps me alive.
--Ataxia
Gia
I didn’t know until now, wasn’t sure who I was or who I’d end up being in a year’s time. But now I know.
I’m Gia.
Rex’s Gia, new and improved.
My body and mind are soothed by our lovemaking; a slow grin spreads across my face. His weight is heavy between my legs, crushing against my chest, and I’m lighter than I’ve ever felt. What we did had nothing to do with the past, but paved the way to our future.
I only hope he feels the same. “Everything okay?”
He kisses my throat, my jaw, and then my lips. “Perfect.” Pushing up, he moves to separate our bodies.
My legs lock around his hips. “Not yet.”
His pierced eyebrow lifts and he smirks. That, combined with his mussed-up hair and piercing blue eyes, stirs a delicious ache in my belly. “Don’t you worry, baby. I’m far from through with you.”
I roll my lips between my teeth to avoid an all-out grin. Never thought I’d hear those words from his mouth, and even more fascinating is that I believe him.
“Let me ditch this condom and order some takeout.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “You haven’t eaten anything since we left Denver. You need to get something down every two hours if you can.”
He kisses down my throat to my chest, severing our connection as he trails his lips all the way to my belly button. A few passes of his mouth and he breathes in deep against my skin before pushing up off the bed.
I watch in awe as his powerful frame, covered in vibrant tattoos, moves across the space to the bathroom. It’s not lost on me how far he’s come since I left, and I wonder how he got here. Is it possible that his past coming back to him may have helped in his recovery?
“I wanted to ask you,” he says from the bathroom before walking back out completely naked and unashamed.
My eyes rake over him, taking in all his piercings including the new one. I lick my lips, remembering the feel of the metal in the back of my throat, the combination of his taste and the metallic taste of his barbell.
“Eyes up here, baby.” He’s standing by the bed, and there’s humor in his voice rather than the usual strain that would accompany anything sexual. It’s so different from before.
My eyes slide up his rippled abs to his chest and sober when I study the three letters tattooed on his pec: Mom.
“So, as I was saying, I was thinking you might want to hit the gym with me a few times a week, put some muscles back on that fine ass body of yours.”
My gaze darts from his chest to his eyes. They’re shining with happiness and love, all the things I hoped I could bring to his life and finally have.
But there’s still one thing he doesn’t know.
“Well?” He snags his pants off the floor and pulls his phone from the pocket. With one knee on the bed, he climbs in next to me. “What do you think?”
I curl into his side and rest my cheek against his chest. “Oh, yeah, I think that’s smart.”
He chuckles, scrolling through his phone contact list. “Smart?”
“A good idea. I meant a good idea.”
He hits the button to call for Chinese food, and his fingers sift through my hair. “You sure you’re all right? You seem, I don’t know, preoccupied.”
Preoccupied? Or absolutely terrified?
The last time Rex and I had sex he found out the truth of his past and wanted nothing to do with me. And here I have to tell him the one thing I’ve been keeping from him that has the potential to ruin everything we’ve built over these last couple days.
While he orders enough Chinese take-out to feed thirty guys his size, I contemplate my options.
What if I tell him and he kicks me out again? I can’t bear to lose him, but keeping secrets got me in trouble before. He called me a liar and accused me of manipulating him. He compared me to my parents. My stomach lurches and I breathe through the urge to barf.
I have to tell him regardless of the fallout.
Rex has taught me that hiding from the truth, no matter how ugly, only prolongs the inevitable. Facing the fire head on, knowing it has the potential to burn and destroy, is always the best thing to do. The right thing to do.
And now that I have him back, I’ve vowed to always do right by him.
“Shit, Gia. You’re crying?” He shifts up on the bed, trying to look at my face.
I am? I wipe away the hot tears that wet his chest. “Ha.” I force out a laugh. “Guess so.”
“That’s it.” He pushes back so that he’s resting against the headboard. “What’s going on?”
I wrap up in the sheet and face him cross-legged. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from all this, it’s that I want to always be honest with you.”
His eyes narrow and the sting of possible rejection has me second guessing my vow.
“Honest about what?”
This is the right thing to do. I take a deep breath. He needs to know, and after this, I’ll never keep a secret from him again. If he’ll still have me.
“Rex, I’ve been trying to tell you something important, but every time I get the chance, it just doesn’t come out.”
His mouth forms a tight line, mimicking his eyes. He nods once. Firm and demanding.
“It’s about your biological father.” I study his expression and only see a slight response in the flare of his eyes. “I know who he is.”
He shakes his head. “Impossible. No one knows who he is. My mom didn’t even know. There was no name on my birth certificate.”
This is going to be harder than I thought. It’s as if he’s refusing to even entertain the idea of having a biological father to avoid the pain it might bring. Makes sense, but it doesn’t change the fact that he needs to know.
“When they took you from my house, I thought you were dead.” I shake my head, trying to rid my mind of the memory. “God, Rex. There was so much blood.”
He blinks rapidly, either pushing back the memory as well, or fighting off the emotion that comes with it.
“I was miserable, thinking I’d signed your death warrant. My parents thought you’d talk, but then . . . you didn’t. You were gone. No one believed me when I cried and screamed at the top of my lungs that you’d been abused. It was like it never happened.”
He rubs the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable, but then he looks at me. “Go on.”
“Then he showed up and pulled me from the dark closet I’d been locked up in.” Relief billows in my chest even now remembering his face, bright blond hair slicked back to reveal the blue-green eyes that were so clear they were ethereal. I thought he was an angel. “He took me in, fed me, and spoke so sweetly that I was convinced with him all the world would be made right.”
“I don’t understand.”
I chuckle at the irony. “I didn’t either. The day I was locked up in the institution, a raving little girl going on about bad men and my dead brother, he walked away from me and I realized then he was the incarnation of evil.” My body breaks out in a rush of goose bumps as I remember his evil grin as he stared down at me with the pride of an executioner. “Before he said goodbye, he leaned in and whispered the words I’ll never forget.”
The more you talk and scream, the crazier you sound.
“Wait, are you talking about . . .?” His biceps flex and a muscle in his jaw jumps. “What did he say?”
Keep it up, Georgia. You’ll never get out of here.
He used my love for Rex and my fight for justice against me. According to the police, Rex was a troubled foster child who tried to kill himself. He didn’t speak of what happened to him in the basement. Nothing I said was taken seriously.
Accused of being crazy eventually made me just that.
“Rex is alive.” I swallow the next words and say a quick prayer that when they come up again they don’t slaughter him. A single tear rolls slowly down my face. “And he’s my son.”