Chapter 14 Rex
FOURTEEN
REX
I was shaking as I got off the back of the bike, so fucking hard that Rachel had to help prop me up.
Feeling like an old, old man, I wobbled up the stairs, just in time to drop to my knees.
The roar of pain that escaped me didn’t do anything to expel the agony deep inside.
I’d known this was coming, this day where I lost him, but I hadn’t thought I’d be the one behind his death.
I heard Rachel’s soft sob, but I didn’t listen. I just roared again, my face crumpling, my agony unreal as I tried to expel my grief.
It didn’t work.
The feelings inside me were like I had a hurricane tearing me to pieces. Destroying me and leaving devastation in its wake.
Hands on the floor, sorrow and guilt taking a chokehold on me, I finally heard Rach’s sobs as she tried to help me up when one of her tears splashed onto my hand.
That was my wake-up call. That was when I realized where I was and what I was doing.
Everything felt both crystal clear and hazy all at the same time. Like the pain clarified things but the desolation blurred it.
I’d been here before.
Too many times to fucking count.
But that didn’t make it easier.
Nothing about this was easy.
Still in a daze, I let her help me to my feet because I knew she’d hurt herself if I didn’t—I weighed over two-fifty. She was one-thirty max, soaking wet.
When I was standing, I curved an arm over her shoulder and hauled her into me.
My face burrowed into her throat as I tried to hide from what was happening.
I felt her hands on my back, fingers clenching down on my coat.
A sharp breath soughed from her lungs, whistling past my jaw, but in my state, I didn’t realize she was struggling.
Maybe I should have.
Maybe I should’ve recognized these things by now without any conscious thought, but I didn’t.
When she finally squeezed me back, it didn’t register how long it had taken her to hug me, and I didn’t care. I just needed her.
I fucking needed her.
Did she know how much?
“Rex? Come on, baby. Let’s get you inside.”
“Nothing’s ever going to be the same again.”
“No,” she agreed rawly. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t make things… better. Let’s get inside. It’s starting to snow.”
She turned in my arms, hiking one of mine over her shoulders and sliding a hand around my waist to prop me up.
Together, we staggered like I was drunk into the house. I stared up at the staircase like it was Everest, knowing I couldn’t make it that far.
She must have known because she didn’t guide me that way. Instead, she took me down the hall that led to her workspace.
Over the years, I’d grown fond of her offices. Sometimes, that was the only place she’d see me without putting a wall up. It was where we fucked. Only, she didn’t take me inside her office—she took me to the den off of it.
I was surprised enough by the sight of the fancy living room to blurt out, “What is this place?”
She shrugged. “It’s where I unwind. Rain knows not to disturb me here.”
The house was large, with several living rooms. Too large for a pair of siblings to rattle around together in. Why she needed this private one, I had no clue, but when she drew me over to the sofa, I let her.
The second I slumped on it, I stared blindly ahead, uncertain of what to do or say. My eyes burned with emotion, and when I swiped at them with my fingers, I brought tears forth, but they didn't express how I was feeling. They were inadequate for the task.
I wanted to scream.
I needed to rage.
My dad was gone.
The Sparrows had taken him from me.
The hurt was raw; the bitterness was real.
The desire for vengeance was paramount but even that was futile. Justice was being served to the Sparrows. Lodestar-style. That knowledge didn’t, however, take away the ache in my soul.
As I stared at nothing, waiting for my new reality to settle in, Rachel surprised me again by carefully propping herself on my knee.
I shot her a blank look, which she ignored and settled herself deeper on my lap. Her arms went around my shoulders, and she nestled into me.
The heat of her, the comfort, it rolled off her and into me, making me slouch against the sofa.
It was clearly stuffed with feathers, because the cushions conformed to my shape and weight, so, cosseted on all sides by the scent of her, by the heat of her, I tipped my head back and whispered, “I don’t know how to—”
“—be in a world without him. I know.” She pressed a soft kiss to my jaw. “I’m here, Rex. I’m here.”
“You’re here now,” I said bitterly, my voice thick as I closed my eyes.
“I’m always—”
“You’re not. Don’t lie, Rach. You’re here until I freak you out and then you back off.” Hell, she’d even admitted that she was thinking about moving to fucking Manhattan. “And that’s okay. It’s how we roll. But don’t make out like I can depend on you—”
“Hush,” she whispered, and I heard the tears in her voice. “You can always depend on me. Always. It might not be how you’d like, but I am always here for you.”
Before I could speak, she pressed her lips to mine to stem my denial. I knew it was crazy, knew it was inappropriate but I didn’t fight her off.
I didn’t stop her.
I let her kiss me, let her gentle pecks dot around my mouth, let her trace her lips over the hard line of my jaw. I felt the butterfly soft caress as she pressed them to my eyelids and then settled one on my forehead.
“I’m here, Rex. I’m here,” she repeated, and like the fool I was for her and her alone, I fell for it.
This year had been impossible. Not just Dad, but so many of my friends lost to the blast. So much change and so much grief and misery.
She was, and always would be, my home.
So I went home.
My mouth opened around the tender flesh that was the arch of her throat and I sucked down, enough to make her moan.
I let my lips travel down to the curve of her shoulder, and I nipped the part where it met with her neck.
Her whimper had me groaning and encouraged me enough that I reached up to shape the curve of her with my hands.
The feel of her was so rare, that it was like a treat. Like a kid who wasn’t allowed sugar from a helicopter mom who deep dived into a bag of gummi bears come Halloween.
The sugar hit went straight to my brain.
And my dick.
I burrowed beneath the layers, the very un-Rachel-like plaid shirt she wore that had a fleece lining for warmth.
My fingers found bare flesh, and when she moaned as I started to tug on the buttons, her chin tipped forward, her forehead colliding with mine.
I pressed my lips to hers at that point, needing to taste her. Needing to rediscover her.
Hers parted to let me in, and as I stroked my tongue along the length of hers, I unfastened her shirt and started to explore her by touch alone.
Her bra gave way under my demanding caresses, and my hands found her and shaped her, savoring the feel of her. She was chronically underweight, to the point where her ribs usually bumped my palms, but her tits were heavier.
Her ribs less pronounced.
If I’d been in my regular headspace, I’d have asked what was going on, but I didn’t. I just took what she offered.
Accepted what she gifted me.
I groaned, savoring the taste of her, the feel of her.
God, she was like fucking fire in my hands. It was like I’d been swallowed up by a blizzard and she’d been sent to thaw me out. This was my Rach. Not the ice queen. The firestarter.
Her tongue had been hesitant at first, but now, her confidence regrowing, she started to taste me back.
Rachel wasn’t shy. Not with me. But it took her a while to remember that.
I knew her body as well as she knew mine, and she knew what drove me wild as well as I did with her.
As she became more aggressive, her nails digging into my shoulders, her grip on me tightening, I dragged off her shirt, exposing more silken flesh to my hungry hands.
Exploring the length of her back, I felt the vertebra of her spine, but they weren’t as pronounced either. I savored the small curves of her hips and reached around to flick at the fly of her jeans.
When I slipped my fingers between the tines of her zipper, and I rubbed over her panties, I found her hot and wet.
She shuddered against me, her mouth tearing away from mine as she pushed her forehead into me too.
“Oh, God,” she mewled as I teased her with my hand.
When our lips collided again, as she whimpered into my mouth, I finally dragged her panties away and brushed up against slick, silken flesh.
She was so goddamn wet that I hissed under my breath and, as I found her slit, I thrust two fingers in, knowing how ready she was for me.
Scissoring them had her squealing, and her back arched against my hold even as I snagged her mouth in a kiss that I knew stole her breath away.
It was mine.
All fucking mine.
As I fingered her pussy, she rocked into me, her knees spreading as she moved to straddle me. With her knees digging into the sofa, I expected her to rock against me, to finally get some fucking friction, but she didn’t.
She launched off it.
She started to strip out of her clothes and, once bare, her hand went between her legs.
When she rubbed her clit, her eyes closing, she might as well have put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger—she raised her fingers to her mouth and tasted them.
I growled, and it was deeper than before, outraged and hungry and fucking desperate for this woman.
My mate.
I darted forward and dragged her against me as she let loose a choked laugh and straddled my legs again, rubbing against me like I’d hoped she would before.
Then her fingers were shaping my dick, and her hands were delving into my fly, and her palm was suddenly holding my cock in her fist.
As she stroked me a couple times, I tipped my head back, watching as she arched upward on her knees, legs parting wider to straddle higher up mine, and she rubbed the tip of my cock against her slit.
She nudged her clit a couple of times, until she gasped with the sensation, before she tucked it against her gate and let me slide home.
The pressure, the sensation, the fucking delirium that triggered had me closing my eyes a second as I let the sofa take all of my weight. Then, I realized what I was missing, and I quickly opened them again and watched the flush on her chest slowly start to spread.
Her tits were tinging pink, her cheeks too. Her eyes grew misty, and her breath started to sough from her lips.
Before my eyes, Rach became the woman I knew. The woman I recognized. Not the icicle who’d taken my girl’s place. She returned to me.
Somehow, that was more painful than anything today.
She was there—within touching distance.
But she was only here for a short amount of time.
She was on loan to me.
Partially thawed.
But fuck, what she could do to me half-frozen was decimating by comparison to another woman.
I’d learned a long time ago that Rachel was it for me.
It.
She groaned as she started to ride me, finally drawing higher on her knees, rocking into me, grinding down hard as she twisted her hips to take every inch.
Her hands drifted to my shoulders, and she leaned on me for strength as she started to move faster.
I watched her nostrils flare as our eyes clashed and held, and I twisted us around so she was flat on her back and I was looming over her. Her nails dug into my shoulders and this time, she ordered, “Rub my clit.”
The second I did, letting the tips of my fingers slip and slide through her juices, she immediately clenched down around me and her hands slid around to the back of my neck, her heels digging into my ass to urge me on.
We both groaned at the change in angle, and her pussy started fluttering around my cock like it was panicking, choking on me like it needed the orgasm to survive.
She screamed, her hands finally moving, dragging through my hair, nails scraping over my skull as she ground into me, chasing release, finding it and rewarding me in return.
The second her cunt clamped down around me, clutching at me, milking me, I let go.
Of the present, the past, the future, and everything else.
As my orgasm hit me, I felt the whack of it like a punch to the solar plexus.
It stole my breath, melted my bones, and made me feel like the world beneath my feet was shaking.
That was Rachel.
Always Rachel.
My girl.
Mine.
I gripped her hips, urging her to ride me a couple more times, and as the ecstasy slowly started to fade, the comfort of our proximity, of our rejoining hit me.
Pivoting us to the side, I flopped down, encouraged her to keep one leg straight so I could stay inside her for as long as possible, and burrowing my face into her throat, my goddamn home, I fell asleep.