Chapter 50
When I get home after another long shift of hauling too-heavy packages and a run-in with an Iron Wraith who claimed I was refusing to deliver his titty magazines—does the guy not know about boobs on the internet?—the last thing I’m mentally ready to see is Robin sitting at the kitchen table with a duffel bag next to her chair.
My feet trip to a stop, and I stare at the luggage, gut plummeting at what this means.
“Hey. Your dad dropped off a rotisserie chicken. And there’s some Tater Tots in the oven. I put cheese on them ’cause I’m a fancy chef now.” She glances up from her laptop toward the oven clock that reads eight forty-five. “Long day, huh?”
A moment ago, I was starving for dinner. Now, I’m not sure I’ll ever want to eat again.
“You’re leaving.” I don’t phrase it as a question. Don’t want to give her a chance to say yes.
This is it. I told her to tell me when it was over, and this is it.
I shouldn’t have said that.
When Robin whispered, It’s inevitable, I should’ve shouted, The fuck it is, and hauled her out of that restaurant over my shoulder.
“My mom invited me to spend the holidays with her and Jeremiah,” Robin explains. “He’s gonna show me his fleet. That’s what he called it. A fleet.” She sighs, her shoulders drooping. “And Malcolm said he and Thomas can handle the shop fine without me for a bit.”
Those goddamn assholes don’t know the perfect person they have in their lives.
I know. I just can’t keep her.
Still, I say, “You’re not driving in the dark.”
It’s more than four hours from here to Lexington.
Robin smirks. “Someone is growly tonight. I was planning on leaving first thing.” Her toe taps her bag. “Figured it was best I get out of your hair before Krautmas and all that.”
Three days from now is Christmas Eve and the start of some wild family celebrations. Traditions my dad and uncle began when we were toddlers. I think it was the first Christmas after my mom passed, and Uncle Jensen wanted to help distract my dad.
We fill tables with hearty food, sing off-key carols, wear ugly sweaters, and hold a football game that usually turns into a wrestling match.
Robin came the last couple of years, jumping into the middle of it with all of us. One time, she put Marvin in a headlock for fouling her.
Now, she’s leaving so she doesn’t make waves.
My fists clench, and I want to punch Daren in the face yet again.
“Are you . . .” Damn, I don’t want to talk about this. But not knowing is gnawing a painful hole in my intestines.
“Am I . . .” Robin prompts.
“Going to take the job?”
That perfect position, working on Jeremiah’s fleet.
She sighs, deep and heavy. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She closes her laptop. “I love Green Valley Aviation. But it’s kind of a hard deal to pass up.” Her blue eyes pin me in place. “What do you think I should do?”
Stay with me. Love me. Let me love you.
But this isn’t about us. This is about Robin putting herself first.
Not letting another Kraut man ruin her life.
“No reason to stay here if there’s something better. Not if Green Valley is a dead end.” The words physically hurt, leaving my throat, but I forced them out like exhaling razor blades. “Hear what Jeremiah has to say.”
Her sky-blue gaze drops from mine. “Yeah, I will.”
I should walk away now. Practice putting distance between us for the day she doesn’t come back.
Instead, as Robin stands with her water glass in her hand, headed toward the sink, I pluck it out of her grasp, set the cup aside, then hook her around the waist, and pull her close.
“I need you,” I tell her. The way I growl the words and kiss her hard makes it sound like I’m talking about sex.
All to hide that I mean that I need her in my life.
Robin kisses me back just as fiercely, wrapping her arms around my neck so it’s easy for me to lift her off the ground and carry her to the counter, where she likes to sit while I make food or when she gets up in the middle of the night to scrounge for a snack like a raccoon.
The counter is the perfect height for me to press my hardening cock into the warm apex of her thighs. I could come in my pants just from this.
“Wait,” she gasps.
My body freezes, and then I pull myself away, detaching my grasping hands from her waist and pressing my lips together hard to keep them from begging her to give me one more night.
“I can’t get my jeans off when you’re pressed up against me like that,” she says, fingers busy at her fly. “Also, just FYI, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor after the Trinity discovery. She let me know I’m STI-free. And my IUD is good for another two years.” As she talks, Robin toes off her shoes and shimmies her pants and underwear down her legs. “So, are you interested? If not, you might want to pop upstairs and grab a condom.”
My brain is just about to catch up with what she’s saying when the embodiment of all my wants and dreams and fantasies parts her thighs and starts fingering her clit.
Right in front of me.
On my kitchen counter.
Her pussy glistens in the dim lighting.
“Arthur? What are you thinking?”
Fuck.That’s what I’m thinking. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Want to fuck. Fucking want you.
So, I just grunt, my stare trained on her fingers, my mouth dry as her skin grows slick.
“Am I distracting you?” Robin’s voice is all teasing, and she dips a finger lower. Inside.
I nod.
“Sorry.” Her hand leaves off its stroking, and I groan in protest.
But Robin merely leans back against my cabinets, her legs still spread wide, grin playful. “Arthur, would you like to have sex without a condom?”
Right. That’s what she was getting at.
I nod again.
Robin pushes herself to the edge of the counter and extends a hand to me. In one stride, I’m in front of her, and her quick fingers are on my belt, pulling my zipper down, reaching inside to palm me.
That’s all I can handle before taking over. I need to be inside her. To convince myself she’s here to stay. Knowing that as long as her pussy is clenching around me, she’s mine.
Robin got herself so wet that I sheathe myself with ease, other than my knees almost buckling at the perfect sensation.
She lets out a gentle whimper, the vulnerable sound so unlike her. I clutch her close, and Robin wraps her arms and legs around me, holding on tight in a way that has my body thrumming with triumph.
She wants me. I’m the one those little needy noises are for. My name will be the one she gasps and screams.
The idea of Robin leaving, of one day holding on to someone else like this, brings on a new emotion.
Fury.
“Mine,” I grunt, slamming in deep.
“Oh God,” she moans, her fingers knocking off my baseball hat as she digs them into my hair, short nails dragging along my scalp.
The reaction has my balls tightening and urging me on. So, I do it again and again, rutting into Robin like a beast, wanting to brand her body with a memory she can’t escape, no matter how far she runs.
Don’t forget me,I silently beg with my heavy thrusts.
Don’t leave me.
And when she buries her face in my neck, crying out my name, pressing her heels into my ass, I convince myself that Robin craves me like I do her.
That she wants every part of me, body and soul. Not just the hard length fucking her in a desperate hope of being remembered when she’s gone.