Chapter 43
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Rhea Dalton.” The guard called, interrupting my obsessive counting, drawing my gaze up to her. “Let’s go, you’re out.”
I rose to my feet, keeping my hands at my sides, buried in the pockets of my dirty uniform I wore when I got arrested. It still beat a jail jumpsuit. I kept my movements slow and unthreatening as I followed her down the long hall to the exterior door.
Heaven forbid I do anything intimidating to them, to make them think of me as a criminal.
My soul crumbled inside my chest for the millionth time since Chief Weller had clicked the metal handcuffs to my wrists yesterday. The injustice of it all felt thick enough to choke the air from my lungs for good.
It felt like the weight of it would swallow me up and take every good thing I had in my life with it.
The good things. God, I had some great things in my life until yesterday. Would they ever be mine again, the way they were before.
My career.
My purpose.
Goldie.
Tanner.
“Rhea!” The golden sweet voice of my loving partner wrapped around me in the breeze like a physical embrace and I closed my eyes, soaking it up into every pore of my skin like it would help undo the wrong that burned in my gut. “Oh, my God!”
I caught her mid-air as I crossed through the barbed-wire fence; her pained voice echoing through my ears as I squeezed her with my entire body. “Marigold.”
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, kissing my face and running her hands through my hair as she pulled back and dropped to the ground.
I hated the second she wasn’t wrapped around me but let her go.
“I’m sorry, I told myself to be patient and wait and give you space and time and whatever else you might need, but then I lost my mind and I rushed you.
” She rambled a mile a minute, her blue eyes wide and her pink lips blurring as fast as they moved.
I slowed them down against mine, kissing her deeply, tilting my head and taking more from her than her lips.
Her breath shuddered, and then she was giving into it, kissing me back, her tongue tangling with mine in her sweet little way until her need matched mine. It was selfish to demand something from her, anything at all, after what I had put her through, but I felt like I was going to die without it.
So, I let my selfishness burn into her for a moment more before pulling back. “I’m sorry.” I whispered, forehead pressed against hers. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“My turn.” Tanner interrupted, and Goldie slid to my side, holding my hand as the big, powerful man I’d once thought couldn’t stand me engulfed me in his arms, tipping my head back to kiss me harder than I’d just kissed Goldie.
I instantly melted into him, bodies pressed flush, Goldie’s hands gripping my hand tight.
A weak, pathetic whimper left my lips as Tanner kissed me like a starving man, desperate for everything I had to give him, and he ate it right up.
“We missed you.” He finally said, pulling his lips away far enough to speak, but not moving any further than that. “More than you will ever understand.”
“I don’t deserve it.” I whispered and then turned and kissed Goldie again, sandwiched between them both. “I don’t deserve either of you.”
“Shut it, right now.” Goldie said, her perfect blonde eyebrows pinching in the center as she gave her best angry bunny impersonation. “Or I’ll take you over my knee and let Tanner spank you.”
I cackled, a loud, genuine burst of mirth ripping from my lips, and my head fell back at the absurdity of her statement.
And then there was silence.
While it was hilarious, and her attempt at dominance was adorable, the weight of the world was too heavy on my shoulders to escape it for long.
“Let’s go.” Tanner replied knowingly, kissing my temple and turning toward the truck waiting on the curb. “Wherever you want to go, any place in this world. Name it.”
I smiled sadly, jumping up into the cab of his truck and sitting in the center seat, as both of them touched me as much as they could. “I would say a Caribbean island sounds perfect right now, but I’m not allowed to leave the county, so…”
Goldie huffed, lifting my hand to her face and kissed my fingertips endearingly. “Come home to me?” She asked, looking at me. “Unless you want to go to your place, honestly, I don’t care. I just thought maybe—”
“Your place.” I cut her off, kissing her slightly swollen lips. “It kind of feels like home at this point. My apartment is just a landing spot, but I sleep at your place if I’m not working, and it’s far more comfy and cozy. Is that okay?”
“Yes!” She smiled, nodding quickly. “Home.” She leaned around me to look at Tanner, who put the truck in drive and got us away from the prison I’d somehow avoided after just one day. “What do you say, baby?” she asked him. “Home?”
“Home.” He repeated, sliding his hand between my thighs, nestling it tightly there, and I leaned my head on his shoulder. I was grateful that they were even there to pick me up after what I put them through, let alone acting as though they were still as desperate to be near me as I was them.
I didn’t understand it. But I couldn’t be the bigger person and turn away from the tenderness they were offering.
Not yet.
An hour later, I walked out of Goldie’s bedroom, running a towel through my hair, a pair of her cute little pajamas on, feeling like maybe, just maybe, I was going to be okay.
It was a wonder what a hot shower and clean clothes could do for the soul after spending the night in jail.
Goldie and Tanner had both refused to join me in the shower.
Well, Tanner enforced the no shower buddy method, pulling Goldie out of the bedroom when she told him to fuck off and threw her over his shoulder to make her follow his rules.
As much as I would have willingly and lovingly accepted either of their company in the shower, secretly, I was glad for the minute to just…
Breathe.
The noise in a jail, the chaos, the fear, the uncertainty of it all, had been overwhelming. And I needed the twenty minutes alone in the shower to just recenter and find my footing again.
Leave it to Tanner to know exactly what I needed and deliver it perfectly for me.
But now I was clean, refreshed, and I needed something else.
Something only they could give to me.
“Hi,” Tanner said from the couch, tossing a packet of paperwork to the side as I came down the stairs. “Feel any better?”
“A lot, actually.” I admitted, hanging the towel on the banister and pausing in the living room. “Where’s Goldie?”
“Cooking.” He grinned, nodding toward the kitchen at the back of the house. “She thinks she’s going to fill your belly and then take you to bed for the next three days straight. Figured she’d fuel you up now.”
I chuckled to myself, knowing our girl had a big sexual appetite, and she was always happy to fuel the soul with love and calories.
Love.
Which brought me to my first plan.
“Can we talk?” I asked, fighting off the urge to run and hide, avoiding a conversation I had been wanting to have but was too scared to have before.
The last day and a half proved to me I couldn’t hide my feelings anymore, because I didn’t know when something was going to come up and impede life again.
“Of course.” He said, patting the couch next to him.
I curled up on the couch with my feet tucked under me, facing him.
“I wanted to start by saying sorry.” I said, playing with the drawstrings on the flannel pajama shorts I had borrowed. “I’m sorry that this all happened, and I’m sorry if you were embarrassed at work by it all. Or ashamed of me.”
“Rhea—” he said, tilting his head to the side, but I held my hand up and pushed on.
“Let me finish. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on this while I was sitting there wondering what the hell was going to happen to me.
So, I want to say this.” I urged and then took a deep breath.
“I have spent the last five years trying to get your attention, Tanner.” Forcing myself to look at him for the vulnerable part of my story, I went on.
“I was instantly attracted to you physically, and the more I interacted with you, something about the way nothing seemed to ruffle your feathers in the least, got to me. It ruffled me, in a way. I’ve spent my whole life trying to change the way I handle things, to be calmer, more thoughtful in the moment and steady.
” I sighed. “I’m not easily attracted to men, past a physical appreciation, because one of two things happens when I get to know them.
Option one,” I held out my finger to tick off the scenario I met most when trying to date men.
“They treat me like one of the boys, because I put myself in that category professionally, and I have a dominant personality, so they fold into it rather than stand up against it. And for most men, I don’t mind.
They aren’t what I need if they can’t stand up to me at all.
” I closed my eyes, “Or stand up for me.”
I wanted to quit, to stop cutting myself open, but I couldn’t now that I had started. Tanner deserved to know just how deeply I felt for him and why.