Chapter 8
He had kissed her. She did her very best to go back downstairs and not look as if he had just kissed her. Her head was spinning.
Somehow, she had gone from being absolutely certain that Remington Lane would never see her as anything more than a child, to being embarrassed about what she had said about her virginity, to being . . . very nearly grateful for it.
Because he was going to . . .
It was what she wanted. She wanted him to be the first.
She wanted him to be the only, that was the problem. She had feelings for him that were so much deeper than she would like, but maybe this was the only way to get past them.
Maybe this was the only way to pursue being a normal woman. One who could look at other men and want them.
Maybe she had to mark this occasion. Maybe she had to answer the question—what would it be like to have Remy?
If nothing else, whether it fixed something or broke it more, she was about to live out a fantasy. And very few people could ever claim to live out their fantasies.
Up until now, she never had.
Mostly, her fantasies stayed locked in a box that she couldn’t access. Mostly, they were nothing she could reach.
But she could reach him now.
She swallowed hard, her throat feeling scratchy.
“I thought you were going to change,” her mom said, as Lydia’s foot hit the last step.
“Oh. I . . . I’m going to wash the dress when I get home.”
“All right. Cold water.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Mom.”
“I know. You don’t need me to tell you what to do.”
“Sometimes I do,” she said.
Remy came down the stairs then, holding a box, and Lydia didn’t think it was her imagination that her mom’s gaze lingered on him for an extra moment. But she didn’t say anything.
“I’ll just go say goodbye to the boys.”
Lydia slipped into the kitchen and gave Wesley a giant kiss on his chubby cheek, then said goodbye to Matthew and Jackson.
And her father.
Hank had been waiting patiently by the table. Probably hoping for more treats.
She reached down and petted him on the head. Somehow, she had a feeling he was responsible for all of this.
Whatever all this turned out to be.
“See you all,” Remy said, sticking his head in. “Come on, Hank.”
The dog stood up and was instantly glued right to Remy’s heel.
She ducked out the front door, walking alongside the two of them. “Do you think it’s obvious that we’re leaving together so we can . . .”
“No. Because believe me, nobody would . . .”
Of course. Nobody would suspect what they were about to do. If Remy hadn’t even seen her as a woman a week ago, why would anyone think they were about to get together?
Just because it all felt big and obvious and real to her.
She blinked and watched as he helped Hank up into his truck, her heart squeezing.
And then, once in the privacy of her own car, safely distant from her family, she started to tremble.
They were going to have sex.
She didn’t know any other man the way she knew Remy. She knew him better than she knew almost anyone else. They had been part of each other’s lives for years. She had literally lived with him.
She wanted him.
She fantasized about him. She burned for him.
She also realized she hadn’t established where they were going. But before she could pick up her phone to call him, he called her.
“We are obviously going to my house. I am not having sex in the presence of a raccoon.”
She laughed. Because honestly, that was the most ridiculous thing he had ever said. “My bedroom has a working door.”
“Raccoons have hands.”
“The door has a lock. Anyway, he can’t reach the doorknob.”
“What about if he put his hand under the door where I could see it and flexed his little raccoon fingers?”
Pascal had done that before. “I can’t make any promises one way or the other.”
“The sex is happening in my house.”
“Well. Okay.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment. “What do you think you like?” He asked that question all throaty and low. And it took her off guard.
“I don’t know. I haven’t had sex before, remember.”
“Yeah, but you must have fantasized.”
About you, idiot.
“Your kiss was better than any kiss I’ve ever had. I feel like I just . . . Go with that and you’ll probably be pretty set.”
“It’s a good thought. But I want to know. Fast, slow. Rough?”
“All of the above?”
She was sweaty. Her heart was beating so fast she thought she might actually pass out.
She was grateful when they pulled up to his house and it was finally . . . time.
She put her car in park, turned off the engine and nearly tumbled right out.
But as soon as her shoe hit the gravel, she looked up and saw that he was there.
Like Prince Charming in a cowboy hat. He reached his hand out, and she took it. The gesture was so much more loaded than any other contact they’d ever had. It was different.
Her heart squeezed tight.
“Are you good?”
“Oh, I’m very good,” she said.
“I want to make it clear to you that you’re more to me than Matthew’s little sister. I think the world of you. You know that, right?”
His words, so sincere, so deep, left her breathless. “I . . . I can’t say I do know that. But it feels good to hear.”
“You’re one of the people who makes me believe in the good of this world. I think basically all of those people share your last name.”
She huffed slightly. “Well, is it me or is it my family?”
“Let’s put it this way—no one else in your family is here. It’s you. So yes, your family may feel a certain way about people, about connection. But you’re the only one who . . .”
She laughed. “In fairness, I’m the only one who would’ve been available to you, who would also be your type.”
“It’s not like that.”
She let him lead her into the house. Hank followed them and immediately jumped up onto the couch, unperturbed by whatever they might be planning.
She knew that no matter what, she would never regret this. It wasn’t possible. It was something that she had wanted for a very long time. Him.
“Kiss me.”
So he did, right there in the entryway of his house, first with his hands spanning her waist, then moving up her back, before he wrapped his arms around her entirely and brought her in close as he consumed her.
It was far more intense than she had ever imagined a kiss could be. And if she had any insecurity about him not wanting her, about this not being what he really wanted, it was laid to rest nicely at the altar of that kiss.
She looked at him, and her whole body felt strung out on a wire. Pulled as tight as it could possibly go without snapping.
Because this was Remington Lane, a man she had known most of her life. A man she had cared for, over so many years. Looking both familiar and like a stranger all at once.
The very object of her fantasies and also an enigma she didn’t think she had ever truly known until this moment. After all, did you really know a man when you didn’t know what he tasted like? How he kissed?
How he made love.
The very idea made her shiver, shudder.
Maybe she didn’t know what she was doing. But they had transformed this thing between them into something new, something magical, and she had been part of that. So maybe she wasn’t as inept as she feared.
His hands moved over her body, and she arched against him, ready for everything, ready for him.
She had been, for years.
He pushed his hands up underneath her dress, his rough palms scraping against her skin. She gasped.
When he parted from her, he was breathing heavily, raggedly. She could see that he was on the edge of his control. There was barely any left, if there had ever been any at all.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing her fingers through his hair and shivering.
He propelled them both down the hallway, to his bedroom. It was neat and immaculate, the same as the rest of the house.
The sight made her heart ache, just slightly.
He had made a beautiful facsimile of a home, but he didn’t think that he deserved to have a family. He took such pains to exercise ruthless control over all of his surroundings. It was evident in every detail of this place.
But he had brought Hank in.
Yes, out of a sense of duty because of what his father had done, but also because he just cared.
At the end of the day, Remington Lane was a good man.
He always had been. And she had always known it.
It was why she could trust him now with her body.
Oh, how she wished that she could trust him with her heart.
Yes, she wished that.
But for now, she would just give him everything else, simply everything she had to offer.
She unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his muscles, and she trembled with desire.
He was so beautiful. Every hard-cut line of his body was now more than just a fantasy. He was reality. A beautiful fantasy made masculine flesh before her, and she could scarcely believe the gift of him.
She pressed her palm to the center of his chest, moved her fingertips over that rough hair and hot skin.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“Lydia,” he said. She looked up, her eyes meeting his. “You good?”
“I’m better than good,” she said.
“Perfect.”
And that was when she found herself stripped of that white dress.
When she found herself standing nearly naked before him, only covered by her insubstantial white bra and cotton underwear.
It was hardly the outfit she would’ve chosen for losing her virginity, had she planned ahead.
But he didn’t seem to mind at all. “I always knew that you were some special kind of beautiful. Like something from another world. The kind of sweet, the kind of generous that I didn’t think existed.
But I didn’t guess.... You’re a damned miracle, Lydia Clay. ”
His words were like balm for her soul. Like a magical gift. Because if weird Lydia Clay could be a miracle to Remington Lane, then maybe all her weirdness was okay after all. Maybe it was a gift.
He made her feel as if everything she’d ever done meant something in a way she hadn’t been certain it did before.