28. Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Echo
" I don't wanna." I sounded like a toddler, and any minute now, I was going to stomp my feet.
Remi grinned. "I can just see how our daughter will look when she's throwing a tantrum."
I froze. Did he just say our daughter in that casual way of his? This man who was militant about never ever getting involved with a woman to the point he never slept over was talking babies with me?
"Now, now, don't stop, keep it going," Remi urged. "Just because I said the M-word doesn't mean you need to freak out."
"M-word?" I quirked an eyebrow.
"I said daughter. But we ain't having kids until we're married. I'm a good ol' Southern boy, darlin', and we don't have children out of wedlock."
I swallowed. "Let's get through this Thanksgiving dinner, yeah?"
Remi cupped my face in his hands. "I know you're scared. I know you don't fully trust me—"
"I do," I cut in, holding on to his wrists, keeping him close. "I I let it go, Remi. You're more than one screw up, or two, well, you screwed up a lot."
He laughed but then his eyes became somber. "Thank you, Doll."
"For?" I looked into his blue eyes, feeling happier than I ever had, despite not being able to spend the day at my home instead of going to the Drake residence for Thanksgiving dinner, where Sierra Drake was going to be an uber bitch to me.
"For trusting me even though I broke us. For giving me a chance to show you that I can be better, for being you. I don't think you realize how much you've changed for me. Even Lani."
When Remi told me about his conversation with his mother the previous evening I'd been shocked to hear how much Lani had reformed.
"Heavens to Betsy; I can't believe she finally ended that sham engagement. Tommy, bless his heart, is a douchebag." I closed my eyes. We had to go to his parent's house, and I was so not ready to deal with that drama. I wanted us to find ourselves first, build a relationship for real and then deal with the Sierra Drake shitshow cause there was gonna be one.
He kissed my lips. "It's going to be fine."
"Famous last words," I said sullenly. "You know your Mama told Aunt Fern?"
Remi sighed and nodded. "I know, Doll."
Aunt Fern had been loud and clear when she called me. I was out of my mind and getting too big for my britches if I thought I could be in a relationship with a Drake. She also told me that Remi was probably just using me for sex and would throw me away like trash. I hung up after the trash comment.
Remi had almost decided not to go to his parents' after that call, but then Dallas talked to him and convinced him that we had to come together as a family. And when he said we, he meant Remi and me.
Yeah, it was surreal.
"I don't want y'all arguing because of me, Remi."
"If we argue, it's cause Mama is being a racist snob."
A part of me wondered if it was a good idea to even be in a relationship with Remi with all this drama. I'd be better off with someone whose family wasn't quite so upper echelon and didn't mind a half-black girl dating their son. But the heart wanted what it wanted; and mine was madly attached to Remington Drake.
"Okay, if I'm doing this, then we will have sex tonight."
He refused to have sex; the penetrating kind. He made me come with his mouth but wouldn't let me take care of him.
"You said you sometimes felt like I just wanted sex with you; I want it, Echo, but I want you so much more. So, even if, say, we could never have sex, I'd still love you."
It was a sweet admission, and I appreciated what he was trying to do, what he was trying to show me—but I was sexually frustrated.
"Do we have a deal, Remi?" I demanded.
"Deal. You come for Thanksgiving dinner, and I'll fuck your brains out tonight."
I narrowed my eyes. "That means you also orgasm."
He chuckled. "Yes, ma'am."
"Inside me?"
He laughed. "I love you, Echo, so fucking much."
"That's a good thing." I kissed his lips softly. "Because I feel exactly the same way."
He arched an eyebrow.
"I love myself a lot, too," I said cheekily.
It wasn't like Remi was a whole new man—I knew this Remi well. He was the one who spent time with me. He was affectionate. He made love to me like I was the last pussy on earth. The big difference was that he now accepted we were in a relationship, that this was special and unique.
By now, I was sure most of his friends circle knew about us. I still hadn't gone back to Paint the Town Red—cause I wasn't ready. I still had some PTSD from that fateful night, and the only people we saw were my colleagues and his who knew and accepted us as a couple.
Remi handed me a helmet. I put it on. I loved riding on his Ducati and was fully intending to learn to ride myself. It was one of the most freeing things ever.
"I think I'm going to sign up for motorcycle classes," I told Remi as I got on behind him.
"Hell no!"
"Why?"
"Baby Doll, it's fucking dangerous."
"But you do it?"
"Yeah, 'cause I know what I'm doin'."
"I said I'll learn."
He started the Ducati and turned toward me. "Ain't ever fuckin' happenin'."
On that note, we took off.
Remi was, as he said, a good ol' Southern boy, which meant that sometimes, even to his own detriment, he behaved like a caveman. I was a Southern woman who came from the generation of "a man is not a plan," so our wires often got crossed.
To give him credit, he didn't put on his alpha male act often. And despite what Betty Friedan had instilled in me, the truth was that his dominance was hot as hell. Well, not about the motorcycle—I was definitely going to get on one of those. The thrill of riding a bike was something I definitely wanted to experience.
I leaned against Remi's leather jacket, laying my cheek on it. I hugged him tight, and he stroked my hand and touched my thigh as he rode. We couldn't talk as much as we could when we were in a car, but the intimacy of holding him was worth the silence.
Sometimes, I forgot that things were so complicated when it came to his family. When we were together like this, we were in a cocoon, and it was safe. Even before, when we were hiding our relationship, when we were alone, it was perfect. It was only when the outside world encroached that we had problems.
I had asked myself if my reasons for being with Remi were pure or if I was also living a fantasy of being with the boy from the master's house. I found the whole idea distasteful. The truth was that I didn't care who Remi's parents were—but I had to ask myself if I understood my own needs and desires.
Love was tricky because you could love people who were mean to you, treated you horribly, were bad for you. Love was unreliable. The person you loved could one day wake up and decide they were done with you—say they didn't love you anymore. Love wasn't an emotion you could let drive your decisions. Well, that's what scientist Echo thought. Echo, the woman, was lost in love and didn't give a shit about being sensible.
I worried that I was like one of those silly girls in movies who falls for the rich guy, only for him to leave her because his family disapproves. Would that be our relationship? Always fighting to stay together because his mother or someone else in his family had a problem with me?
By the time we were at the Drake's, I was wound up tighter than a pecan in a nutcracker.
My legs were wobbly when I got off the bike. Remi had told me that would stop happening when I got used to it, and he fully intended to make sure I got on his bike plenty.
"I want you to have unsteady legs 'cause I made you come hard, not because of the bike."
He took one look at me and shook his head in disapproval. "You went down a rabbit hole, didn't you?"
"I'm being realistic," I countered.
"No, you're working yourself into the worst-case scenario. What was it this time?" He removed my helmet and hung it from the bike's handlebars and did the same with his.
"That after we got married, your family would tell you horrible things about me, and you'd believe those things and throw me out of the house and divorce me. For some reason, I'd be poor and maybe even pregnant," I divulged.
"Didn't we see a movie like that on Hallmark or Lifetime recently?"
"And then I'd be on the streets," I continued and then brightened as I remembered the movie. "But then another very wealthy and handsome guy would rescue me."
"Cause you need to be rescued?" He kissed my nose.
I groaned. "You know relationships are hard; ours will be harder cause your Mama hates my black ass."
"Half-black ass, and may I add, a very beautiful and fine tush it is." He stroked my butt over my jeans. "I promise you, Baby Doll, I won't believe any nasty things anyone says about you."
I put my hand on his chest and stared at my unpolished nails. I was never going to make a good society wife. I forgot manicures and pedicures. I shaved my legs, bikini line, and pits, and that was all the grooming I managed to do. The effort it took me to look and behave like Lani or Sierra wasn't something I could do on the regular. It would be a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of situation.
"Maybe I should—"
"Shut the fuck up and come inside with me," he suggested. "Echo, sure, our relationship could be harder to maintain cause of all the societal bullshit. But don't you think what we have is worth it?"
That hit home. He was right. Just because something was hard didn't mean it wasn't worthwhile.
"We're worth it," I replied and went on tiptoe in my sneakers and kissed him on the mouth. "You're right."
"Thank the fuck, God." Remi put his arm around me and took me inside his mansion.
Damn, but this was going to be unpleasant. I could feel it in my bones.