Chapter 18
Vaughn
Her sated body becomes heavier, and I hold her tighter. “Are you okay?”
“Mmmhmm.”
I kick off my jeans and walk to the bathroom where I set her on the counter and then turn the water in the shower on. When it warms, I open the curtain and step in. “Coming?”
Rayne’s lips tilt up in a smile, and she hops down off the counter and then joins me. As soon as she steps into the tub, she shrieks. “Holy shit, that’s cold!”
I turn us around, so the water is hitting me. “Sorry.” I turn the knob to make it hotter. “There, better?”
She sticks her hand under the stream. “No way. That’s not even warm yet.”
“How damn hot do you want it?”
“Hot.” She leans past me and cranks it farther than I ever have.
It goes from lukewarm to boiling, and I hiss as it belts my back. “Jesus, woman.”
She shuffles us, so she’s the one under the water now. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
“Perfect? It’s scalding!”
Her laughter fills the small space, and she turns the knob a fraction of a centimeter. “There, is that better?”
It doesn’t make a lick of a difference, but if she’s comfortable, then I’ll just have to endure. “Sure.”
She doesn’t buy it, because she adjusts it even more. “That’s as good as it’s gonna get.”
“You’re wrong.” I wrap my arms around her, kiss her smiling lips, bury my head between her breasts, and then hold on for dear life. “This is as good as it gets.” I flex my arms to emphasize my point. Her, this, us together, my arms around her, this is the best thing in the world.
As steam begins to fill the bathroom, her weight against me becomes even heavier as she relaxes.
I don’t want to bring it up, but I have to know. “Was I too rough?”
“No,” she answers immediately. “Not at all.”
The tension that was in my shoulders releases, and I kiss the top of her head. We finally do what the shower is intended for and wash. I step out first and then hand her a towel.
“Can I wear a shirt?”
“I’d prefer you to walk around naked.”
She shoves me as she walks out and heads to my room.
“Second drawer.”
She grabs a shirt and walks out while I dress. By the time I’m done, she’s already sitting on the couch. “What did that guy want?”
“How did everything go today?”
“It went. I didn’t go to eat. I just left.”
Because I wanted to be here for her when this was over, I rescheduled my appointments today. “Why?” I thought she got here too early.
“I wanted to see you.” She shrugs. “When I’m with you, it’s like everything else just goes away.”
Leaning against the archway, I nod in agreement. “Same with you.”
“Who was that guy?”
Fuck. I was hoping she’d forget about that. Though, when a man puts you in a headlock, I suppose that’s not something easily forgotten.
“We grew up across the street from each other. In the valley.”
Her eyes widen just as I knew they would. She didn’t know the man she declared her love to is valley trash.
“As you can imagine, I didn’t have the best upbringing.”
“I had no idea, Vaughn. I mean just because you grew up down there doesn’t mean you automatically had a crappy upbringing.”
I love that she’s so naïve. “Yeah, it does, baby.”
“You were yelling at him.”
“Not at him, at the situation.”
“What situation?”
This is it. This is where it all ends; this is where she finds out the ugly truth. I don’t want to tell her because I can’t fuckin’ live without this girl. She says she loves me, but I need her to be so in love with me that she’ll stay when she finds out. She can’t leave me.
So I do what I have to . . . I lie. “Just about money.” I don’t give her a chance to question it. “You want to order a pizza? I’m sure you’re hungry since you didn’t eat earlier.”
Her eyes narrow and she twirls some wet hair around her finger. After she lets out an exasperated sigh, she agrees. “I’m pretty hungry.”
“Cool. What do you want on it?”
“Whatever.”
“Sausage and mushroom?”
“Gross. No mushrooms.”
“Okay, sausage and pepperoni?”
“That’s too much meat.”
“That’s not what you were saying earlier.” I raise an eyebrow, and she tries to stifle a laugh.
“Oh, my God, you’re such a guy.”
I ask again. “What do you want on your pizza?”
“Cheese and pepperoni.”
I shake my head as I grab my phone, damn woman. Make a mental note of the kind of pizza she likes, so I don’t have to do this again. I order from the place just down the street and grab some drinks for us from the fridge. We fire up a movie, and when the pizza comes, I get up to get it. I love that she doesn’t care that we eat it right out of the box.
The rest of the night, we just hang out. She makes me watch a chick flick, and when that’s over, I can’t stand to sit anymore. “You wanna get outta here? Go grab a drink or something?”
“I don’t have any clean clothes.” She fingers the hem of my t-shirt.
“We can stop and get you clothes.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
No way am I letting her out of here with just a shirt on, so I grab an old pair of sweats for her. Since she drove here, I follow her back to her apartment. After she tosses her purse on the kitchen table, she goes down the hall to change.
I hop up on a stool and play a game on my phone while I’m waiting. Her bag vibrates over and over. I grab her cell since it’s halfway out of her purse to see Kristen flashes across the screen. A few minutes later, Kenny’s name comes up. Then The Parentals. Kristen and then Kenny again. I swipe the screen to unlock it and answer for Kenny.
“What’s up, Ken?”
“Vaughn?”
“Yeah. Why the hell is everyone calling her?”
“She fucking disappeared. Jesus.” He sighs. “Where are you guys? I tried calling you, too.”
“Right now, I’m at her place, but we were at mine earlier.” Once she was with me, I didn’t even think to grab my phone after I ordered the pizza. I don’t have the desire to speak to anyone but her.
“I stopped by there, and she wasn’t there. Brad is on his way to your place now.”
“Well, we’re both here.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah. She’s good.”
“Who are you talking to?” Rayne’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn and lean against the counter.
“Kenny. Apparently, everyone was worried because you disappeared.”
She shakes her head and holds her hand out for her phone. When I hand it to her, she clicks the speaker button and continues brushing her hair. “Hey, Kenny.”
“Fuck, Rayne! Don’t you ever do that shit to me again!” he screams.
I know they’re best friends or whatever, but he’s not going to talk to her that way. “You fuckin’ yell at her like that again, and you’ll have to get through me until you chill the hell out.”
Rayne’s eyes lift to mine, and she doesn’t blink. I don’t give a shit if she thinks I overstepped. “What?” I question.
“He was just worried,” she whispers.
“I don’t care. He ain’t got the right—nobody has the right—to raise their voice to you like that.”
We stand just a few feet apart, but she couldn’t be further away from me right now. A vacancy shadows her and confuses the hell out of me.
“Sorry, Rainey, I was just worried about you.” Ken’s voice comes through the speaker, and Rayne shakes her head.
“It’s fine, Kenny.” She glances at me. “You don’t need to apologize.”
I raise a brow at her attitude and cross my arms.
“I sent a text.” Her attention shifts from me back down to her phone as she slides her fingers across her screen. “Shit. It didn’t go through. Sorry. I’ll call my mom.” She takes it off speaker and puts the phone to her ear. “Yeah. No. I know. He is.” Her voice fades away as she heads back down the hallway.
What the fuck? How is she going to give me attitude for sticking up for her?
Deciding that she’s probably going to be a while, I go to her living room and kick my feet up on the coffee table. I grab the remote and flick through the channels and settle on the news.
The mayor is being interviewed about the crime in the valley and what he’s doing to stop it. I huff; nothing can stop it unless you kill off the thugs and druggies. It’s never going to get better.
“Kenny has never once done anything but love me and be there for me.” I didn’t hear her footsteps. She stands at the threshold of the room, not coming all the way in. “He has never hurt me or treated me badly. His anger was out of a place of worry.”
I set my feet on the floor and rest my elbows on my thighs. “Doesn’t matter, Rayne. Nobody should scream at you like he did.”
“He loves me.”
“Don’t doubt that.”
“People who care about each other sometimes get mad and say things they don’t mean; they yell and throw stuff, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me.”
My ears perk up at the robotic tone of her voice.
“Just because he yelled doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. If anything, it means he cares the most.”
“Rayne, what’s going on?”
She presses her lips together and then squeezes the pressure point between her eyes. “I’ve got a headache. Can we reschedule?”
“Reschedule?”
“Yeah. I think I’m going to go to bed early.”
I get off the couch and stand in front of her. “What aren’t you saying?”
After a moment of hesitation, she turns around and flips her hand in the air at me. “Nothing. I’m just tired, Vaughn.”
“Bullshit.” I reach for her arm, but she yanks it away from me.
“Just go.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Oh, just like you told me about those guys who were in your apartment?” She twirls around. “And like how you’ve told me about the stack of unopened return to sender envelopes on your desk?”
Damn, I didn’t think about putting them away. “Don’t try to deflect this onto me.”
“Who is she, Vaughn? Who’s Rose?”
Just hearing her name makes my blood boil. I don’t want to taint the good between Rayne and me with my shit. I don’t want my dirty to ruin her clean.
“Why were those men with guns in your apartment? Huh? You expect me to fucking tell you everything, yet you give me nothing in return.”
“Nothing? You think I give you nothing?” I run a hand through my hair and take a deep ass breath. “You have everything, Rayne. You have absolutely everything I can give. It’s not much, and I know that . . . I know I’m not enough for you.” I swallow the lump in my throat and continue. “This is me.” I shrug. “This is who I am. I love hard, baby. I love so goddamned hard, and I love you. I’m sorry if that’s nothing to you, but to me, it’s everything. It’s all I’ve got.”
She whimpers and then throws herself at me, squeezing so hard I find it hard to breathe. “I’m sorry.” Her shoulders shake as she cries against my chest, and I wrap her up as much as I can. I don’t know what the hell just happened, but I’m going to figure it out. I have a feeling, a guess, but I don’t want to make assumptions.
“You don’t need to apologize.” I press my lips against her forehead and lean back, so her face is in my line of sight. “I don’t give a shit about much in my life, but when I find something that matters, I guard it fiercely.”
She nods and wipes her face. “Well, there goes the night.”
I smile. “It’s all good.”
“I really am tired. Kind of a rough day.”
“Yeah, I bet it was.” And here I am, once again throwing my shit on her. Probably would just be better if I take off. “Well, I’ll head home then, let you get some rest.”
Her face falls. “Oh. I thought . . . never mind.”
“What?”
“Just. I thought maybe you’d want to stay.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
She walks around and shuts off the lights while I use the bathroom. When I get to her bedroom, I do a double take at the bed. Fuck. It’s going to be so difficult for me to be there with her where another man has been. As I unlace my boots, I look around. It surprises me that I don’t find more pictures or anything with her and Bryan.
I strip down to my boxer briefs and sit on the end of the bed. She walks in a few minutes later and stops right in front of me. I raise my head and feel my dick doing the same.
Her fingers work at the buttons on her jeans. She slips them off right along with the panties she had on. I reach out and slide my hands up her bare thighs until the material of her shirt is in them, and then I stand as I remove it.
The very tips of my fingers slide down her arms, and when I reach her waist, one of them slides across her lower back. She shivers, and I do the same when she pushes my underwear down my legs. “Sit down,” she whispers as she gently shoves at my chest.
I comply and lean back on my arms as she crawls into my lap. Wordlessly, she reaches between us and slides my cock between her wetness and centers herself over me before holding my shoulders. My eyelids become heavy with lust, and I fight to keep them open.
Her heat begins to engulf me, but she stops just as her nails bite into my skin. The question is on the tip of my tongue, but when I finally look away from where we’re joined and at her face, I get it.
“I’m yours, darlin’. Do whatever you need.”
Her mouth parts as she slides all the way down and I have to fight from pounding into her as she surrounds me. She rides me slow. Takes what she needs. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. Her thighs begin to shake around me, and every time she takes me all the way, she grinds erratically.
“Shit,” she pants.
“You almost there?”
“Yes.”
Just when I almost can’t take it anymore, she screams my name and takes us both over the edge. She falls forward, and I go all the way flat on the bed with her.
“Do you want to come to my parents’ for Christmas?”
“Babe. My dick is still inside you, and that’s what you’re thinking about?” I’m hoping she drops it because I really don’t want to talk about Christmas.
She slides up, and we both groan at the loss. “There. Now you can think.”
“You’re still naked.”
She runs her fingers over my shoulders and kisses my collarbone. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. I felt bad enough that we didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving.”
I had to work over Thanksgiving. Holidays are actually a busy time for me, so I declined her invitation to go to her parents’ then. I’ve never celebrated a holiday or even a birthday. Normally, I don’t give a shit about anyone else or what they think about me, but the thought of sitting around a table with her family is a version of hell to me.
When I was younger, I didn’t realize what I was missing. I remember going to school and feeling a different feeling in my stomach. The teachers were always so nice, and when they’d ask how things were at home, I lied. I don’t think they believed me because sometimes they would sneak me food at lunch or accidentally leave a pair of gloves in my cubby.
I think I was about nine or so, and it was the day before Christmas break. All the kids were talking about Santa coming and how they tried to be good that year so he’d bring presents. They said if you were bad, he’d bring you coal.
It hit me at that moment, as I was sitting at the lunch table, picking the mold off a piece of bread I found in the cupboard before I got myself ready and on the bus, that I realized how different I was . . . how bad things were.
And when Christmas came, and I didn’t even get coal, I figured my mom must have been right when she told me that I was so rotten Santa didn’t even waste a trip coming to our house.
The hair on the top of her head flutters when I release a breath. “If you want me to come, I’ll come.”
She raises a brow. “I thought you just did that.”
I flip her over and tickle her.
“Stop. Stop.” She pushes my hands away. “I swear I will pee. Please stop.” Her eyes well with tears, and her voice is shaky, and my hands freeze.
“Sorry, baby. I didn’t know you were that ticklish.” The fear in her face doesn’t settle well with me. “Something else wrong?”
“No. No. I’m just super ticklish, and I hate when people don’t stop when I tell them to.”
“Did somebody do that to you?”
A shadow crosses her face before she masks it. “No. I just really hate it. So . . .” She wraps her legs around me and lifts her hips a few times to rub against me. And just like that, I’m ready to go again. “You’re going to come?”
I slide home in one slow thrust of my hips and hold still. “Yeah, baby. I’ll come.”