Chapter 42
RIGGS
Holding her, feeling Gemma fall apart beneath me, I expect to regret it. I expect to feel bad. Like I did something wrong. Something dirty. Something I should be ashamed of.
The only thing I regret is the time I spent fighting against the want I’ve always had for her. Ignoring the Gemma-shaped hole no one else has ever been able to fill.
It was stupid of me to even try.
As much as I want to pick her up and carry her into the shower so I can get her naked and fuck her for real, I can’t.
Gemma wasn’t wrong about my legs. The implant that intercepts and replays the impulses that stimulates the movement allowing me to walk is powered by an internal battery and that battery have been sending me low level signals for the past thirty minutes.
My legs are literal minutes away from shutting down.
Pulling back, just enough to see her, I reach up to push the wet tangle of hair away from her face while outside the bathroom, the storm rages.
Rain lashing against the windows and ceiling.
Lightning streaking across the sky, lighting up the room behind me.
Thunder reverberating against the glass.
“Sounds like we made it inside, just in time.” It’s a dumb thing to do.
Here we are, half naked and still buzzing from what just happened between us—something I’ve gone to great lengths to not let happen again for over a decade now—and I want to talk about the weather.
“Sounds like.” Smiling up at me, Gem runs her hands along the wide plank of my shoulders.
“We should get you in the shower.” Gripping them, she starts to try to push her way out from under me.
“I know you’re battery is low, I got the alert on my phone about an hour ago.
Finish getting undressed and I’ll go get your chair so?—”
“No.” Tightening my grip on her, I hold her in place, refusing to let her go. “You’re going to get in the shower and I’m going to charge up for a few minutes so I don’t face plant in the shower when it’s my turn.”
“Riggs…” Brow crumpled, Gem shakes her head. “Please just?—”
I know what she’s doing.
She’s retreating. Hiding. Trying to get away from me before I start swinging because this is the part where I fall apart and make it her fault. Take what I want and blame it on her.
Leaning into her, I dip my head, silencing her with a soft, lingering kiss.
Pulling back, I open my eyes to find her looking up at me, her cloudy hazel gaze widened slightly.
“It happened, Gem,” I tell her quietly, tracing my thumb along the soft curve of her lower lip.
“I’m not hiding from it. I’m not denying it.
I’m not running away. You’re naked, in my bathroom, because I got you that way and then I fucked you—albeit not nearly as thoroughly as I’d like—and I’m going to do it again. ”
“You are, huh?” She arches a slim, sandy brown brow at me, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her generous mouth.
“You can count on it, Gemma Rae,” I promise softly, a smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Are you on birth control?”
Gasping at my impertinence, Gemma slaps a hand against my chest. “You’re awful confident, Wheeler.”
“It’s not confidence—it’s conviction.” I can see it on her face.
She wants to ask me why. Why now. What’s changed.
Instead of letting her and probably disappointing her with answers I don’t have, I plant a hard kiss against her lips before pulling away from her completely. “Now get in the goddamned shower.”
Even though the fifteen minutes Gem took to shower was spent charging my implant’s battery, I count it a minor miracle that I was able to muscle my way through my ten minute shower without collapsing.
Partial charge on my implant or not, the unassisted walk from the car to the house was more difficult than I’d like to admit.
When I step out of the shower, I find a dry pair of sleep pants, folded neatly on the seat of my wheelchair. Begrudgingly toweling off with the help of the shower chair in the stall, I get dressed and transfer myself from shower to wheelchair.
“Welp—” I say out loud, my tone heavy with resignation and not a little bitterness as I wheel myself out of the bathroom. “Cinderella’s turned back into a pumpkin.”
I don’t expect a response. Matter of fact, I didn’t even really expect Gemma to still be here.
I expected her to be gone. Upstairs, hiding from what just happened between us because no matter what I said to her in the bathroom earlier, I’m a ticking time bomb and we both know it.
Historically, this is where it gets ugly.
Where I get ugly and nothing about the way I’ve behaved since I’ve been home has told her she has the right to expect anything different.
But she isn’t hiding.
Gemma’s still here.
She’s wearing one of my T-shirts, standing over my bed, turning down my covers and arranging my pillows the way I like them.
Watching her quietly take care of me hits me in the chest with enough force to steal my breath because I finally get it.
I finally understand. Gemma’s never going to give up on me.
No matter how many times I walk away, no matter how long I stay gone, she’s never going to stop hoping for someday.
And knowing that crumbles away the last, tenuous hope I had of protecting her from what comes next.
Shooting me a quick grin over her shoulder, she continues her pre-bed checklist. “Cinderella was never turned into a pumpkin.” Leaning over the edge of the bed to smooth out the sheets, the move gives me a heart-stopping peek at her bare, perfectly round ass cheeks.
The shadowy cleft between her thighs. “Her coach was a—” Straightening herself, Gemma turns around to look at me.
What she sees on my face kills the fairytale ramblings and bleeds them into a short, awkward silence whiles she nervously shifts from one foot to the other.
“I borrowed a shirt,” she says, stating the obvious.
“I’ll wash it and give it back tomorrow.
I just wanted to make sure I got you situated for bed before?—”
“I don’t mind.” I cut her off before she has the chance to completely spiral. I don’t mind is an understatement. If I could force her to wear nothing but my T-shirts for the rest of her life, I would. The only thing I’d rather see her in is nothing at all.
“Oh…” She gives me a tentative smile before rolling her lips between her teeth.
Releasing them on a small pop, Gemma bobs her head.
“Okay. Well… thank you.” The smile on her face wobbling a bit, she takes a step into the space between me and the bed while rain continues to lash against the glass that surrounds us.
“My weather app says we’ll get a few more hours of rain before it lets up so you’re in for a pretty epic light show.
” On cue, thunder rumbles outside, loud enough to reverberate against the glass that surrounds us, followed by a bright flash, streaking across the sky.
Misreading my expression, Gemma shakes her head.
“You don’t need to worry about the roof leaking or anything.
Colt came in and resealed all the window panes a few months ago, so…
” Again, what I’m thinking must show on my face because her rambling peters out and she looks away, her expression caught somewhere between embarrassment and apprehension.
“There’s nothing going on between us. Colt and me. I know I let you think?—”
“I don’t care, Gem,” I tell her honestly, my tone jerking her gaze back to mine. “I already told you—if you were fucking him, you’re not anymore.”
Her head shifts back on her neck, jaw set before she tilts it slightly. “Is that so?”
“It is.” I say, giving her a bland smile to hide the fact that just the thought of her and what my being here could’ve interrupted makes me feel a little unhinged.
“That overly confident nature of yours is going to get you into trouble someday,” she warns me with an arched brow.
“That time has come and gone,” I assure her with a laugh. “One of these days, I’m going to have to explain the difference between confidence and conviction to you, Gem.”
Giving me a bland smile of her own, Gemma sighs. “Is there something I can get for you before we call it a night?”
“Yeah…” Pushing myself over to the nightstand, I reach out and click off the lamp. “You can get in bed.”
“But—”Gemma shakes her head, covered in shadows. “I’m not finished. I still need to fill your water and?—”
“You never answered me—are you on birth control?”
My question cuts her off and for the space of a second, all I can hear is her soft, shallow breath while she contemplated my question and what it means.
“No.” The shape of her shakes its head. “I’m not on birth control.”
I’m definitely an asshole because hearing her say it fills me with equal parts relief and disappointment. Relief because Gemma is smart—too smart to let Colt or anyone else for that matter—fuck her without protecting herself. And disappointment for the same reason.
“I don’t need water, Gem,” I tell her quietly. Eyes adjusted to the dark, I can see the silhouette of her, still, near the side of the bed. “I don’t need you to put my phone on the charger or gather up my wet towels. All I need from you is for you to get that bare ass of yours in my bed.”
She stands there, I imagine blushing because I just called out the fact that I’m very much aware that she isn’t wearing underwear, for a few moments before she moves.
Turning away from me, I watch while she pulls back the covers on the bed she just made, her movements illuminated by another crack of lightening, before climbing into it.