Chapter 6
6
RAE
“ W here are your takeout menus?” Alec’s voice rumbled from the other side of the closed—and locked—bedroom door. It still wasn’t enough to keep his voice from doing funny things to my lower belly. Somehow he hadn’t lost that effect over me in the two decades we were apart.
Awesome.
“In the takeout menu drawer,” I shouted through the crack between the door and frame. “In the kitchen near the phone on the wall.”
Yep, I still had a home phone. Old-school rotary dial with a long beige curly cord. Since I had no family and stayed friendless, there was no need for a cell phone like the rest of the world. The home phone did everything I needed it to do—make a call for food orders and be available for emergency purposes.
I never even received calls from my boss. The head librarian knew I hated my schedule messed with, so I’d worked the same days and times every week for the past six years.
Sighing at the reminder of my boring life, I removed the soft black crewneck tank and tossed it onto the growing pile of dirty laundry. After stripping everything else off, I walked past the full-length mirror without a glance to the dresser and removed a matching pair of loungewear.
I didn’t spend what little money I made on the house’s upkeep or on fancy work clothes. It all went to soft coordinating pajamas and sexy matching bra and panty sets—those were my vice.
And wine.
But the wine was cheap.
Speaking of which….
With the long neck of the wine bottle in my tight grasp, I brought it to my lips for a drink. I eyed the clean clothes, not loving the idea of putting them on with the feel and stench of the station lurking on my skin. Glancing at the door, I debated my next move. I really wanted a shower, but that would require going back out there with only a towel between Alec and me.
If something happened between us, knowing I wasn’t stinky would be nice. At least I didn’t have to worry about shaving considering I was always smooth; taking the time to shave was a time filler instead of the typical time suck for most women.
My life really was depressing.
The soft cotton towel wrinkled beneath my grip as I wrapped it around my chest. With a quick look in the mirror to make sure my lady bits were covered, I unlocked the door and cracked it open. Alec was nowhere in sight. Perfect. Opening the door a little wider, I poked my head all the way out.
“I’m going to take a quick shower,” I shouted even though the house was small enough for me to whisper and him hear my every word. Except there was no response.
Easing through the door, I tiptoed a few feet to see every angle of the living room. Nothing. “Alec?” I called, the rising panic of not finding him making my voice shake. Had my curse already taken him from me? When I found him, would he be dead just like how I found Mom and Dad? “Alec!” I screamed in a full-on panic attack.
Heart slamming against my chest, I rushed to the kitchen, desperate to find him. My feet skidded to a halt at the narrow threshold. I placed a hand over my chest as relief flooded through me at the sight of him bent forward, searching the contents of the fridge with a cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Don’t do that to me,” I hissed. Grabbing the wine bottle cap off the counter, I chucked it at his back, hitting his ass instead.
He turned, both brows high on his forehead. “Yeah, two large supreme pizzas, two side salads with the house dressing, and a sweet tea.” Those intense gray eyes swept down my nearly naked body, pausing on my legs. Clenching the towel tighter, I fought the urge to hide from him. “What do you want?”
Wait, does he mean food or…?
“For dinner.” His lips quirked.
“Right, I knew that.” I totally didn’t. “That wasn’t for both of us?”
He shook his head, that heated gaze locked on my long legs. Which I was fine with. As much as I critiqued the rest of my body, my legs were amazing. Long and lean from my early morning jogs. Even though I was a curvy woman, that didn’t mean I wasn’t fit too.
“Right, forgot how much you can eat. Order another one of everything you just ordered except for the tea. Make mine unsweet.” I pointed to my lower half. “The sugar goes straight to my hips.”
He ran the tip of his tongue along his lower lip. “And that’s a bad thing?”
I sucked in a breath, preparing for him to launch across the kitchen and pin me to the wall, but he didn’t. Instead, all heat and desire vanished from his face and a blank mask slipped into place. Before I could register his sudden swing of emotions, he slammed the fridge shut and turned, putting his back to me, and relayed my order to the person on the other end of the line.
One hundred percent confused and slightly hurt, I slipped from the kitchen and hurried to the bathroom. Only once I’d closed the door and sealed my back against it did I let out a long, slow breath, releasing the tension that had climbed each second I stayed in that kitchen.
Was that sexual tension? Or something else? He flirted, then pulled back, like he couldn’t make up his damn mind. Maybe he’d turned into a natural flirt, and when he realized who he was flirting with, he shut it down.
That hurt.
I had to tell him to stop, to keep this professional. It was the only way I would make it out of this intact and survive when he left. But that look in the kitchen had ignited a spark between my thighs that still throbbed even though he shut down. Apparently my core didn’t care if he was wishy-washy; it only wanted relief from the ache he started.
But I didn’t need him to fix the uncomfortable situation he put me into. My toys were in the bedside drawer, which meant if I wanted relief, this would have to be a hands-on job. Damn that man for leaving me hanging and being so sexy that I was dripping wet just from his proximity and commanding, rough voice.
I released my death grip on the towel and it fluttered to the floor, puddling around my feet. Teeth digging into my lower lip, I brushed my fingertips along my collarbone, sweeping lower with each pass. Nipples tight, I pinched and twisted, biting back the moan desperate to escape from the spike of pleasure bolting through my veins. It wasn’t my hands, my fingers I imagined caressing and pinching to the point of pain, no, it was his. Alec wouldn’t be gentle; he’d take and take, demanding more of my pleasure with each tweak and tug. Keeping one hand in place, I stroked down my soft belly, fingers itching to slip into my drenched core.
Fuck, when was the last time I wasthiswet without extensive buildup from a racy romance novel and a toy in each hole?
A groan resounded in my chest when my fingers slipped between my slick folds, brushing over my swollen bundle of nerves. My head thumped against the door, causing it to rattle against its ancient hinges.
“Food will be here in forty minutes,” Alec’s voice said through the door. His very close-sounding voice. I leapt back, turning in the same movement, my heart now racing from surprise instead of lust. “You okay in there?”
“Great,” I said, my voice pitched higher than normal. “I’ll be right out.” My shoulders sagged as I turned to the shower and twisted the hot and cold knobs. Fingers playing under the spray, I squeezed my thighs to ease the prominent throb. I would not let him cockblock me from my pleasure. Instead of depriving myself, I stepped into the shower to pick up where I left off.
Hopefully this would make being in the same room with him easier.
If he wanted to keep this professional, then so could I.
He was here to make sure I didn’t run, not pick up where we left off all those years ago. Even if he wanted to, did I? Would my younger broken heart allow him back in with a simple look and smirk?
Yes. Yes, it would.
I was so screwed.
Relaxed, clean, and comfortable, I collapsed onto the worn love seat, keeping the wine bottle raised to prevent spillage from the jostling. Since I’d claimed the only actual seat in the living room, Alec stared at me, then the unsteady three-legged stool I’d picked up off the corner last spring, lips pressed in a tight line. Great, seemed his foul mood from earlier still lingered.
I tilted the wine bottle back, never dropping his stare, and patted the other lumpy cushion. “There’s room for both of us. If you don’t mind getting close, that is.”
His nostrils flared at my words, but he still stood and stretched from side to side.
“Why aren’t there more seats in here?” he grumbled, eyeing the area beside me like it might hurt him. Or maybe more worried about me. His jaw worked back and forth as he drew closer.
“No one comes inside, remember? No reason for seating when it’s just me. And I only sit here when I’m reading.”
Careful to not disturb me, he eased onto the love seat, almost sitting on the armrest instead of the cushion to keep any part of him from touching me. I frowned at the vacant space between us. What a dick. If he didn’t want to rekindle what we had, fine, but he didn’t have to act like I had the plague.
“I don’t have cooties,” I grumbled and then downed another swig straight from the bottle.
Ignoring my comment, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and interlacing his fingers. “Enough stalling, Rae. Out with it. Every detail, anything and everything you think I should know about the mess I’ve fallen into. I need….” He flexed and tightened his hands. “I need to know everything.”
“Still a control freak, I see.”
Those gray eyes snapped to me and narrowed. “You have no idea.”
“Where should I start?” Apprehension bloomed within my chest, making me regret ever calling Alec, even if it was a last resort.
“From the beginning. You mentioned someone murdered your parents. Start there. But first let me say I’m sorry you lost them. I know they meant the world to you and you to them. Can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you without them.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, the sincerity in his low tone releasing the flood of emotions I’d kept at bay for years. “They were amazing, the best parents.” Curling my wrist, I held the nearly empty bottle of wine close to my chest like a security blanket. “Everything they did was for me. The tuition to our private school nearly broke them every year, but they figured out a way to make it work, sacrificing things they wanted for me to have the best of everything.”
The warm glass rolled along my lower lip as I lost myself to the memories I never allowed to float to the surface. We were the perfect family. Not rich, not poor, but filled with love and laughter. That’s what someone stole from me.
“Then one night, it was all taken away.” I took a long gulp to chase away the unshed tears clinging to my throat.
“What do you remember?” he asked. Reaching over, he rested a hand on my knee and gave it a comforting squeeze before retreating like I really did have cooties.
“For you to get the full effect of how long this has been happening to me, I should start earlier than that night. Do you remember me having a dog in middle school?” His dark hair shifted with the shake of his head. “We rescued him from the animal shelter. Rocky, that was his name. And we were best friends until one day I found him dead in our back yard. It looked like an animal hopped over the fence and ripped him to pieces. My parents said it was a coyote, that some prowled around town, but it never felt right. I think it started then. It wasn’t a coyote that killed Rocky. A someone, not an animal, hurt him.”
“I don’t understand how all this ties to why I came to save you from the police station today. That happened years ago.”
“Saved me from peeing my pants, that’s for sure.” His head bobbed with a brief chuckle. “And I’ll get there. You said to start from the beginning, so I am.”
Alec simply shook his head and motioned for me to continue.
“The night of my parents’ murder was like any other. I was seventeen. We ate dinner together, laughed. Mom even made me drink my full cup of milk before I could get up from the table. She said I’d get my growth spurt late, she just knew it, and my bones would need the calcium. Which I did. The summer I turned eighteen, I grew five inches to my now five-foot-ten self.”
“I wondered when that happened. The little Rae of sunshine I remember barely came up to my waist.”
“Disappointed?” I questioned.
His head tipped forward and hung between his wide shoulders. “Not in the least.” The words were muffled, almost like he hated saying them out loud.
Confusion drew my brows together as I stared at his profile. “Anyway, that night I went to bed, and I never heard a sound. Later I found out they died in their sleep, so maybe there wasn’t even a noise for me to hear. That next morning when I woke up, I stayed in bed until lunchtime since it was summer vacation. I ate a package of stashed powder donuts and watched reruns of Saved by the Bell . Since both my parents worked, I didn’t think twice about them never coming in to say good morning.”
My grip tightened on the nearly empty bottle. “That’s why the detectives at the time suspected my involvement somehow.”
“What?” Alec whipped his face my way. I sucked in a quick breath at the restrained anger in his eyes. “They suspected a seventeen-year-old girl for her parents’ murder?”
“Oh, it gets better.”
“Great,” he grumbled and leaned forward to run both hands through those dark locks.
“As I was saying, they assumed I knew something, because who in their right mind would lie around in bed eating junk food, never checking on her parents? They assumed I knew what happened and was just buying time to call the police. It wasn’t until lunch that I rolled out of bed. There was a strong smell, a strange, unique scent besides Mom’s normal lavender plug-ins, but like any teenager, I ignored it and went about my day. They found my socked footprints with drops of their blood all over the house. I never noticed because of the dark maroon carpet.”
“Why would you have looked for blood? It wasn’t your fault.”
Tugging on my ponytail, I brought it over my shoulder and brushed the ends over my lips. This next part would be the most difficult to relay, the part that still haunted my nightmares.
“It wasn’t until they never came home for dinner that I thought something was wrong. That’s when I noticed other things out of place. Their closed bedroom door, the back door slightly opened, the smell.” My voice turned monotone. “I found them. Both in their bed, lying side by side. So much blood, but that didn’t stop me from trying to shake them awake even though I knew.”
Alec’s large hand engulfed my own and dragged it to the space between us, interlacing our fingers.
“I’m so sorry, Rae.”
“Have you ever smelled death?” I asked without expecting an answer. “It never leaves you. Like this dark stain sealed inside your nose, your mind. The smell stays attached to your soul almost no matter what you do.”
“Fucking hell,” Alec hissed. Hot skin pressed against the back of my neck, fingers carefully circling. With a gentle tug, he guided me across the small gap between us and urged my head against his chest. A heavy arm draped across my shoulder, securing me to his side. “I can’t believe you had to go through that alone.” The grief and sincerity in his gruff voice finally broke the dam holding my tears at bay. Streams of warmth trickled down my cheek before dripping onto his white dress shirt. “I didn’t know. I would’ve… hell, I don’t know what I would’ve done, but I would’ve done something.”
I so wanted to believe that lie. That he would’ve come back, but the fact is he didn’t. He wasn’t there, and I had to endure the investigation, questions, funeral arrangements, everything on my own.
“Were you ever charged with accessory to your parents’ murder?”
His heart raced beneath my ear. I pressed a palm to his solid pec, cherishing the strong steady beat. “No.” Scooting closer, I tucked my knees to my chest and finagled half my body onto his wide lap. He always had a great lap to snuggle on, but now it felt like solid muscle. “There were assumptions, some kind of evidence that pointed to me, but nothing solid. There was no forced entry, the fact that I waited so long after their death to call the police, and other small things.”
“What evidence?” His tone was all business.
“I don’t know. They weren’t that forthcoming on what they found to a traumatized girl who they thought had something to do with a brutal double murder.” Sliding my cheek along his shirt, I tilted my face up to his. “Those assumptions made it difficult for them to find a foster home willing to take me.”
“Foster care?” he whispered. Warm fingertips brushed along my forehead, shifting a piece of hair out of my eyes. “For how long?”
“A little less than a year before I turned eighteen. I had to move schools, to a completely opposite side of town. I ended up on the east side the longest.”
“That was a rough part of town even before I left,” he growled, clearly not liking the idea of me somewhere gang shootings happened on the regular.
“It’s worse now. Around my senior year, meth swept through town like a sudden dust storm, addicting anyone in its path. It’s still bad.”
A deep line formed between his tight-knit brows. “Wonder if that’s what’s happening to all those missing women,” he mused while twirling a few sections of hair around and around his fingers.
I bolted up, my palm pressed against his chest to stay upright. “What women?”
“At the station, I met a big fucker who came to see where they were on finding his missing wife. The officer up front said there were several missing women cases over the past several years. Makes me wonder if meth has something to do with it.”
“Oh, yeah, wow.” I bit my tongue to stop rambling. “That’s terrible.” I tipped the wine bottle that I’d hugged to my chest up for a drink, but nothing came out. “I’m going to get more wine for the next part.”
“Next part?”
“Yeah, we’re just on murders one and two. We have three more plus the disappearance of the guy last night to cover.”
“Well, hell, Sunshine. Got any whiskey?”