Chapter 8 #2
“So, when I saw this,” Xander remarked, pulling out the mini dollhouse. “And this,” he added, lifting the Bill Nye virtual reality science kit from the second bag next. “I just had to get them for you two.”
“Oh. My. God!” LJ whispered. His little jaw dropped as he picked up the kit, his eyes locked on the VR goggles. “This is so cool.”
“Thank you, Uncle Xander!” Nova said, wrapping her little arms around Xander’s neck from behind. “It’s my favorite.”
“Yeah!” LJ echoed next, running up to Xander and embracing him in just as tight of a hug as his big sister. “It’s my favorite in the whole wide world too. Thank you.”
Xander laughed as he hugged them back.
In that moment, he felt so damn full and couldn’t deny it.
He hadn’t planned on it. But after answering a call at a toy store—just some overheated batteries in a display—he saw the dollhouse and the science kit, and he couldn’t not get them.
“Mmm-hmm,” his best friend Jamal teased, smiling at Xander as Xander paid for the toys at the register. “He lost in the sauce.”
Xander didn’t mind it or care when his fellow firefighters teased him on the way back to the firehouse.
They laughed and talked shit at Xander and his big self cradling bags of toys in his seat on the truck.
But he didn’t care. He just blocked them out, choosing to imagine the kids’ reaction when he brought the toys to them. He knew it would be worth it.
And it was.
He peeked back at Rylee to see her arms folded. The moment she saw him looking at her, he noticed her force a smile. Knew it was forced by how tight it looked on her lips.
Xander arched a brow at that.
“Can we play with them, Mommy?” Nova asked. “Please, please, please!”
“Yeah,” LJ chimed in. “Please!”
“Only for a little.” Rylee smiled, Xander admiring the dimples adorning her cheeks. This time her smile reached her eyes. “But then you have to get ready for bed.”
They all hung out in the living room for the next hour. Xander on the couch with Rylee, and the kids on the living room floor, distracted with their new toys.
“Everything good?” Xander asked, his arm draped over her shoulder.
“Mmm-hmm,” she replied with a nod.
He tightened his hold on her shoulder, brought her in closer so he could whisper in her ear.
“So why does it feel like you’re mad at me?”
Rylee tilted her head back to look at him. Leaned in a second later to press a kiss to his lips.
“We’ll talk about it after the kids go to sleep.”
The smile that was on his face slowly released.
Talk about what, exactly? he thought to himself.
Xander was confused. Really confused… and justifiably so.
He was quiet for the next few minutes. Quiet as Rylee got up to help the kids put their toys away so they could get ready for bed.
Quiet after walking with them and Rylee up the stairs, telling them goodnight from their bedroom doors, choosing to wait for Rylee out in the hall to walk with her to her bedroom.
And when they got inside her master bedroom and she closed the door, Xander got right to it.
“So?” he asked, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets.
She folded her arms. “So?”
He shrugged. “What did I do now?”
She sighed. “Xander, don’t say it like that.”
“Say it like what?”
“Like… that.” She gestured at him.
He laughed, shaking his head. “Aight, so how should I say it?”
Rylee twisted her lips to one side.
“Because I didn’t pop up this time, right?”
“You didn’t.”
“I texted and you said it would be cool, right?”
“You did and I did,” she replied. “But what you didn’t tell me was that you were going to bring gifts.”
“Oh, my God.” Xander gasped exaggeratedly, then pressed a hand to his chest. “Criminal. I’m a criminal.”
Rylee sucked her teeth.
“To bring gifts to the children… gifts that they loved, no less. My God.” He shook his head while waving his hand in the air. “Nah, baby, you gotta call the cops on this one. Because this right here was totally reprehensible.”
“Xander, please be serious.”
“I am, call ‘em!”
Rylee rolled her eyes and tried to swallow back her laugh but failed.
“You keep making them love you more.”
“Disgraceful,” Xander whispered, pressing his hands to either side of his face. “Shame on me. My offense just keeps getting worse and worse by the minute.”
She punched him on the arm and he snorted.
“You know who’s really to blame here, right?
” He wagged a finger at her. “It’s that Nova and her excitement.
Nah, nah… it’s LJ and his hugs. Them kids are trouble, Snoop.
Children of the Corn level trouble. I’m telling you.
Look what they’re doing right now, getting me in trouble.
Went to sleep and shit, leaving me to fend for myself in the wild. Just evil, baby.”
Rylee balled her lips to keep from smiling.
“Because when I answered a call to check out a toy store and their fire alarm,” he recalled, closing the distance between them and only stopping when he was close enough to wrap his arms around her waist. “And I saw those toys, I just couldn’t get out of my head how happy they would be if I brought them to them.
And I didn’t tell you because I wanted it to be a surprise.
Because yes, I love them kids…” He tilted her head back so she’d look at him.
“I really love you. And baby, while I get your hesitation, I’m tired of getting into fistfights with your fears.
They hit really hard for real. And they’re impossible to duck. ”
She scoffed a laugh.
“They giving me black eyes and busted lips and shit.”
She playfully slapped his chest. “Be serious.”
“I am, baby, see...” Xander pointed at his eye. “They got me good right here.” He took her hand and pressed it to his chest against his heart. “And here.”
Rylee’s smile relaxed on her lips as she maintained eye contact.
There was silence between them. With the children in bed, the house was quiet on the other end of Rylee’s door, allowing Xander’s words to settle between them.
“I get it,” Xander continued, nodding now, lifting her hand to kiss and place it by her side.
“I may have thought it once before, but that day I showed up to see you so…” He swallowed hard.
“So down on the anniversary of Lennox’s death…
I got it that day. Lennox wasn’t just your friend.
He wasn’t just your kids’ father. He was the love of your life. ”
He noticed when Rylee held her breath and didn’t let it go. So he held her firmer against him so she would exhale what she was holding in.
“I understand that now.” He nodded. “But I need you to understand this… you’re mine, Rylee. You’re the love of my life.”
Her jaw slacked a little, eyes never wavering.
Xander lifted his hand to brush the side of her face with his fingers.
“I love you with everything in me.” He bobbed his head up then down. “And with that, I know I have to love every part of you, including the loss and the pain. So I get it, aight?”
Her chest was rising and falling harder now.
“I need you to also know that you stole my heart and I don’t want it back from you.
And…” His arms grew firmer around her waist. “As much as you try to fight it, I know you feel the same. I can feel it every time I’m with you.
Around you. I can feel it deep down in my bones.
I know I have your heart too… what’s left of it at least.”
He noticed when her eyes began to water as she held their stare.
“Xander—”
Him pressing his thumb to her mouth stopped her. Xander ran his thumb down her lips, watching as her eyes closed, then he leaned in for a kiss.
He exhaled on her lips, loving the weight of her in his arms. Parted her lips slowly to slide his tongue into her mouth in search of hers.
She moaned, like she always did. Moaned in a way that made him feel like she wasn’t thinking of anything else but the two of them, there, in her bedroom.
Rylee kissed him back, her arms raising to coil around the back of his neck to take their kiss deeper.
Neither of them were in a rush. And that was clear from the kiss that was soft but aching, and filled with all the unspoken truths between them.
Xander confessed that she was the love of his life, but he didn’t tell her that he laid in bed at night wishing he could be in hers instead. How he wanted so bad to go to sleep and wake up to her every night and be whatever she needed in whatever way she needed him.
He didn’t say any of those things, but his kiss did. And he was sure she could feel that.
“I got a gift for you too,” he said on her lips when they could break long enough for air.
Rylee smiled on his lips. “Oh?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he answered, walking her back against her dresser. “Can I give it to you?”
Rylee grinned, her eyes locking with his. “Of course.”
Xander grabbed his shirt by the back and lifted it up and over his head.
Rylee pressed her hand to his broad chest as always, caressing his tatted skin, her eyes locked with his. He loved watching her switch modes with no issues. Going from mama to this… a woman with so much fire in her eyes she could burn him right where he stood and he’d love every lick of that flame.
Xander walked between her thighs, his fingers immediately sliding into the waistband of her leggings. He pulled them down and lowered between her legs, pulling her closer to the edge.
He wasted no time, pressing kisses to the seat of her panties, then gently moving them to the side to swipe his tongue up her slit.
Rylee’s head rolled back as she rested the heels of her feet against his shoulders, getting lost on his tongue.
Xander hardened at the sounds of Rylee enjoying him. Damn near came in his jeans at the sound of her trying to silence her moans through tight lips.
He moaned with her as if he could feel what she felt. Especially when she met the tide of her orgasm with a shuddering body. She lifted her hips and circled them with his tongue that orbited her clit, then tensed up as her mouth dropped open in a silent cry.
Off the dresser and onto the bed he took her, sliding her night table’s drawer open to retrieve a condom.
They hadn’t spoken about the night they went without protection, and Xander believed they likely never would. They were in a relationship. Sex without protection would have eventually happened… although he didn’t think it would.
As guarded as Rylee was, as protective of her little family she insisted on being, Xander thought she’d always be the careful one.
None of that mattered though after Xander got rid of the rest of her clothes and his. Erection sheathed and gliding into warmth ditched any wandering thoughts of anything tied to that night he and Rylee slept with each other to ease her pain.
Tonight, all was well between them.
He told her he loved her. Told her he wasn’t going anywhere. Promised to love her just as she was… pain and all.
With each thrust forward, Rylee’s walls sucked him further in, engulfing him in heat he didn’t want to be free of. He prayed he’d never have to go without it… or her.
He kissed her while stroking to a silent rhythm, feeling when it got too good for her to kiss him back.
Her head would fall to the side when he elevated the pace, and he’d guide her mouth back in place against his every time.
The friction mixed with their sounds of pleasure reached a level of silence with their bodies doing most of the communicating after a while.
Xander watched as she bit down on her bottom lip, her body statue-still but moving with him, under his control. He couldn’t help feeling privileged in that moment.
“I love it here,” he told her, voice low and sure, stroking with his words. “Not just being inside of you like this… I love being with you. Period. You don’t have to choose, baby. I’m here. I love you. And I’m staying.”
Her eyes softened.
“I just wanna love you where you need it the most.”
Silence. Then breath.
All the signs that she heard him.
He licked his lips as he slid his hand up against the mattress to provide leverage to push her legs back.
“Oh!” she moaned before tucking her lips into her mouth.
“Can you let me do that, baby?” Xander slid deeper, pushing her legs further back. “Can you?”
She nodded slowly, her hand snaking to his backside to guide him in deeper.
“That’s it, baby,” he whispered inches from her lips. “Bring me in. Just like that.”
Her lids fluttered, head tilting back, exposing her neck, as only the whites of her eyes became visible.
Xander grunted at the sight, slowed his pace to a generous glide to make it last.
“Oh, God,” her voice trembled. “Mmm, Xander.”
His hard exhales matched his strokes until he was closing his eyes to the rush that swept through him, too, challenging his restraint and forcing him to gradually move faster to ride the wave of his release.
He felt as she clung to him, shook when he reached the peak of it all. And even though he would always try to be mindful of the crash, his arms, like always, gave out, causing him to collapse on his woman.
As always she caught him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him close. Giving him all the reasons to believe that she got him. Despite it all, she had him, and for Xander that was all that mattered.
He rolled off and onto his pillow, catching his breath but pulling her to him too.
His chest rose and fell, fighting gravity to pull in more air but blissfully struggling.
Why couldn’t I have this every night? he wondered to himself, but still allowed himself to enjoy the moment with that question on his mind.
It was quiet in the room after that. And he couldn’t tell if Rylee was still awake or if she’d fallen asleep like she usually did after they made love.
Still, Xander said to the air, “I love you, Rylee, and I don’t just say that because it sounds good. I say it because I mean that.”
Rylee didn’t say any words back. But her tightening her grip around his waist let him know he had her attention. So he continued.
“And I love those kids. A lot.” He nodded. “I’m not him, baby… I know I’m not Lennox. But I swear I’ll never stop showing up for you the way he would’ve wanted someone to. At least what I’d think he’d want if he loved you as much as I love you.”
And though she didn’t speak any words after that, the fact that she kept him in her hug, her head on his chest, her heart beating against his rib, for Xander… that was enough confirmation, and it would have to do.