Chapter 4 #2
She peeked through the peephole and immediately unlocked the door. When she opened it, she was prepared to see that cunning grin on Xander’s lips and to hear him beg her to come inside next, but both his smile and his words were missing.
His bomber jacket was unzipped, and he only wore a white tee underneath. Joggers wrinkled, face with black smudges on one cheek and beneath his right eye.
Xander didn’t have to say anything in that moment. His appearance said it all.
The cold air rushed in behind him… or maybe it was just the way he looked that sent a chill racing down Rylee’s spine, making her shiver in reaction.
“Hey,” he rasped, inhaling a deep breath that made his chest swell.
“Hey,” Rylee whispered, eyes darting between his, trying to read him.
His broad shoulders looked heavier. Like something was weighing them down. Something he couldn’t just set aside. And only looking at him had Rylee feeling it in her chest too before he told her anything.
“Umm…” He cleared his throat, then ran a hand through his deep brown locs, the motion slow, like he needed something to do with his nerves. “I know you asked me to give some space between me and the kids, and I’m trying, Snoop. I am, but uh…”
He squeezed his eyes closed, and that was all it took for Rylee to go to him.
She pressed her hands to either side of his face, making him look at her.
He exhaled all the air he seemed to have in him, dropping his head a little in her cradling hands.
“I lost two kids in a house fire two hours ago…”
Rylee gasped.
“And I just…” Tears slid from his eyes and Rylee caught them, wiping them away. “I just need to be around joy right now. And I know where to find it—”
Rylee cut his words short, balancing herself on the arches of her feet to wrap her arms around him the best she could.
A short second later she stepped back and invited Xander into the brownstone.
His Jordans had yet to step off the welcome mat, when Nova and LJ shouted, “Uncle Xander!”
The two children dropped the Legos they were playing with to run up to Xander, wrapping their little arms around each of his legs.
And that smile Rylee noticed was missing on Xander had instantly returned.
“What are you guys still doing up so late?” Xander asked as he kneeled to give the children a hug.
His voice didn’t sound the same in this state. It sounded broken, strained, and hearing that made Rylee’s heart ache even more.
“Mommy was cleaning but then we’re going to sleep,” Nova informed.
“Oh!” LJ shouted. “Can you read us our bedtime story, pleaseee?”
Xander peeked back at Rylee, and all Rylee did was nod.
“Of course,” Xander promised with a nod of his own. “I’ll read you both one. How does that sound?”
“Great!” LJ expressed with a playful jump like a superhero.
Xander laughed, scooping up the children. “Aight, so let’s go.”
“Uncle Xander,” Nova said as Xander carried the children, one on each arm, up the stairs effortlessly. “You smell a little funny… like that black stuff my Grandpa Gannon makes barbecue with.”
“Yeah,” Rylee heard Xander say as he reached the top of the stairs. “Uncle Xander had some kind of day.”
As always, Nova and LJ didn’t even look back at Rylee. They just buried themselves in Xander’s embrace on the way to their rooms like he’d always been part of the blueprint that were their lives. And maybe… he had become that.
Rylee squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, attempting to shake the thought while making her way to the living room to clean up the Legos.
Any other night, Xander popping up without calling first would have gotten under her skin, but based on Xander’s mood when he arrived and based on what he said happened, he needed this. And Rylee was willing to let it go… this once.
After the Legos, Rylee made her way up to the rooms. She checked Nova’s room to see she was already in bed, tucked in, and dozing off.
She could hear Xander reading the last of the few lines to LJ in his room and made her way there.
When she arrived, she watched from the doorway, as Xander read to a drowsy LJ. Xander’s hulking figure, sitting in the chair Rylee kept in LJ’s room for herself to sit and read to him.
Her heart was full and aching at the same time. But for once, as she watched Xander be the amazing man he’s been from the start, she doesn’t resist the warmth. She lets that warmth and the view of her son and her man wash over her.
She stepped back as Xander stood from his seat. He extended his fist for LJ to bump and wished him a goodnight before leaving LJ’s room and shutting the door gently.
“Thanks,” he said low. “As simple as that was and maybe inconvenient, I needed that, for real. I appreciate it.”
Rylee watched as Xander pinched the corners of his eyes before running his hand down his face.
“I should get going.” He grabbed the bottom of his jacket to zip. “Long day, and I need a shower bad.” He smiled next. “Because as Nova told me, I smell funny.”
Rylee smiled back, reaching for his hand and stepping closer to him.
“You don’t have to go,” she told him low. “Not tonight. You shouldn’t be by yourself tonight.”
This was one of the things that made Rylee uneasy about dating a firefighter. Though he’s often assured her that a majority of the work he did as a firefighter was not dangerous or life-threatening, every so often they got a call that was.
And tonight, Xander had gotten that call.
But instead of telling him, “See, this is what I worry about,” Rylee chose to extend that joy he was seeking when he showed up at her brownstone.
So she walked him into her bedroom, closed the door behind them, and helped him undress in silence… not out of lust, but out of love. Then she watched him retreat to her en suite, knowing some grief had to be washed away before it could be touched.
He spent a little extra time in there, more than usual. When she’d peek inside through the gap in the en suite’s door, she’d seen his hands planted against the shower wall, his head slung forward. Xander just stood there as the water poured down on him.
But she waited, the wait giving her an opportunity to realize this was the first time she’d let him stay without excuses or feeling guilt.
And that made things feel different.
She was laying in the bed when Xander emerged out of the bathroom. Rylee had decided to get comfortable when she noticed him taking longer than usual in the en suite.
Xander kept a few of his things in Rylee’s room, including the boxers he pulled from the drawer in the bathroom.
All six-foot-something of him swaggered to her in bed. She almost felt embarrassed by how she was admiring his physique at a time she felt she shouldn’t have been.
Instead of heading to his usual side of the bed, he peeled back her covers and climbed on top of her… not to take, but to rest.
Not in a way to initiate sex, either. He laid on top of her for comfort.
The moment Rylee spread her arms wide enough for him to bury his face against the tee she wore, it didn’t take long for Xander’s shoulders to shrug in the cry he tried to muffle against Rylee.
Her arms curled tighter around him, the heat of his skin bleeding through the cotton of her tee, her hand drifting slowly up and down the ridges of his back.
Two kids. He’d lost two kids and for how much Xander loved children, she knew he was really feeling the loss that night.
So she held him as tight as she would her kids whenever they hurt themselves. Allowed Xander’s tears to dampen the fibers of her tee. Her fingers stroked his damp locs—neatly rolled, despite his day, and still warm from the shower—offering the comfort he didn’t know he needed.
No questions, no checking if he was okay.
He would let her know everything when he was ready.
When his shoulders finally relaxed, Rylee took his face in her hands, lifting his head so she could look into his eyes.
And he let her.
Allowed her to see the red-streaked whites of them. How the puffiness of them were proof that this was not his first cry of the night.
They held their stare for a bit before Rylee tugged at him just right and lifted her head high enough to press a kiss to his lips.
With her conversation with her friends from earlier that day at brunch playing in the back of her head, Rylee let Xander in with that kiss in a way she hadn’t before.
That moment, in her bed, with Xander laying on her for comfort, was the first nonverbal yes she’d ever given to the idea of them without hesitation.
Xander balanced himself on his strong arms to bring himself closer to her.
She moaned at the weight of him on her, which inspired her to pull her legs from beneath him to spread them instead so he could position himself between them.
A low groan rumbled through her chest as the heat between them bloomed.
She blindly reached for the night table’s drawer, opening it and grabbing a condom, sight unseen. Ripped the wrapper open mid-kiss and lowered it between them. Xander assisted, pulling himself out of his boxers so Rylee could slide the condom over his growing erection.
Xander made enough room between them to aid her actions, then raised himself higher, slid her panties to the side so he could sink his hard into her soft.
Rylee whimpered as he guided himself in slowly.
“Mmm,” he moaned, his tongue still entangled with hers as he pulled back under the covers to push into her again.
Did that enough times to make Rylee break the kiss to get lost in the rhythmic strokes he always knew how to give… even in grief.
Xander did that for a little, removing his boxers in the act before turning Rylee over onto her stomach to remove her panties next. He guided himself in once more, this time not as slow as the first time.
Pressed his lips to her ear and filled her listening space with exhales that mirrored his thrusts, making her bury her lips into the pillow so she couldn’t be heard enjoying it all.
The weight of Xander inside and over her. His presence not only in her bed but in her space.
How could something that felt so right make her feel guilty too?
And any other night, she would have let that question haunt her, as her body gradually softened to the point she could hear her heart’s rhythm in her ears. Her body growing statue-still, her inner walls fluttering on their own, and her moans reduced to just heavy breaths.
“Rylee, mmm…” Xander breathed in her ear, shuttering his strokes now. “You feel like peace right now, baby. Just like it.”
When nothing could be heard after that between them besides her body’s natural lubrication and Xander’s deep dives and guttural grunts…
And when all that remained was the ringing in their ears, the pounding of hearts, and the soft clap of skin against skin, Rylee surrendered blissfully to the now—feeling as though she'd been catapulted so high that only the wrap of Xander’s arms around her waist could ground her again.
He held her close and pressed breathless kisses up her shoulders and against her neck, turning her onto her back to kiss her again, making Rylee feel like she would melt into the sheets.
After a moment of catching their breaths together, Xander fell to his pillow, bringing Rylee with him. She rested her head on his chest, listening to the galloping of his heart, holding him tighter against herself.
In that position, her eyes drifted to the photo of Lennox she kept on the night table.
Unlike other times, the sight of Lennox’s photo doesn’t stir panic inside her. It doesn’t make her flinch or feel disloyal or brace for regret.
All she felt was… acceptance.
Warm and steady as Xander’s arms around her.
An acceptance that made her close her eyes and let herself be held.