Down to My Soul (Soul Series Book 2) (43 page)

“I don’t want that either.” I lean into his gentle fingers, wanting him to touch every part of me, seen and unseen. “God, Rhyson, you’re all I want. That’s what I know. Everything else can go to hell, but please forgive me, because you’re all I want.”

Everything in my body pauses, waiting for his response. Waiting to see if my words are enough to convince him.

“Somewhere along the way I failed you.” He sinks his fingers deeper into my hair and sighs. “Somehow, I wasn’t clear. I haven’t made it abundantly clear that this—what I feel for you—goes nowhere. Maybe it was your good-for-nothing father that planted this insecurity inside of you. This sense that I might walk away, might leave, might love you less.”

The look he gives me reaches in and squeezes my heart.

“Aunt Ruthie said it’s dangerous to love the way we do because people die and aren’t perfect.” He smiles a little. “She promised me that you would make mistakes, and that the real test would be to love you through them. It’s a test you already passed when you loved me through mine.”

Aunt Ruthie has done an awful lot for me over the course of my life, but she may have just given me the greatest gift. One I didn’t even know to ask for.

“You once told me there are at least two categories of forgiveness,” he continues.

I nod into his hand, closing my eyes like a sinner waiting for atonement.

“My Daddy said that, believe it or not.” I breathe something close to a laugh into the pillow that smells faintly of Rhyson. “In one of his sermons, and I still can’t forgive him, so I’m not sure how much weight it should carry.”

His fingers still in my hair for a few seconds, before moving again, lightly massaging my scalp and pushing the thick strands when they fall forward.

“What was that second category?” he asks.

My mind reaches for the conversation he and I had a few weeks ago. Reaches further back to the day I sat by Mama on a wooden pew, wearing my pink and white dress with roses she sewed on at the waist. I’d absorbed every word Daddy said like water, as truth. And as flawed as he was, as wrong and broken as he was, and despite his lies and his secrets, maybe there
was
some truth to what he said because I’ve never forgotten.

“It’s that kind of forgiveness where you just love the person so much, you can’t stand being apart from them. You have to forgive them because you’d do whatever it takes to restore the relationship.”

I finally look up from under my mound of covers to find his eyes waiting for me.

He smiles just enough at me to let me know we’ll be okay.

“That’s the one.”

I drag myself out of the covers and onto his lap to reacquaint myself with his lips, but stop when I notice his right hand beside him on the bed, wrapped and splinted.

“Rhys, what happened to your hand?” I’m horrified. I’m afraid to touch it in case I hurt him. I go to pull back, but his left hand pulls me closer so that I’m straddling him, knees folded under, pressed into his chest.

“Don’t move.” He leans into my neck, inhaling whatever scent I have left at this late hour. “Stay.”

Tears blur my vision for a few seconds, but I blink at them so I can see him clearly. I force myself to speak past the sorrow and guilt searing my throat.

“Baby, oh God. What happened?” I palm his face, catching and holding his eyes with mine. “This is my fault.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I lost my temper, missed Drex’s face and hit a stone patio. My bad, not yours.”

“Oh God.” I cover my mouth, closing my eyes with tears trickling down my cheeks and over my fingers. “But you wouldn’t have been in that situation if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Stop.” He buries his face in my hair, his hand splaying over my back and soothing me when he’s the one hurting. “
He
put me in that situation when he threatened the most important thing in my life, and I’d do it again.”

I pull back as much as he’ll let me, enough to peer into his face with the beautiful tired eyes.

“Your music, Rhyson.” I shake my head helplessly, a sinkhole opening up in my belly as I consider the implications of this injury. “What did the doctor say? Will you need surgery? What’s the prognosis? Should we—”

“Stop.” He presses a finger to my lips. “All great questions that I’ll answer tomorrow. Right now, I’m exhausted. I just want to go to sleep. We can talk details tomorrow, but that tape is dead and so is your contract with Malcolm. I promise I’ll tell you everything in the morning. Right now I just want to hold you.”

I nod, sitting back on his legs a little to look at him. My fingers shake, but I reach for the hem of his t-shirt and pull it over his head, being mindful of his hand. I had fallen asleep again in my clothes, so I peel my t-shirt off next, my skin heating under his watchful stare. I scoot back until I can reach the buckle of his belt, undoing it, unsnapping his jeans and carefully tugging them and his briefs over his legs and feet until his long, lean body is completely naked. Standing, I strip off my jeans, my panties, my bra. I’m as naked as the day I was born when I lie back down on our bed. His eyes rove over me as hungrily as they always do, but oddly, as much as I know we want each other, this isn’t about sex. I was doing more than stripping away our clothes. I was stripping away the last of my secrets, baring my soul to him. Baring his to me.

I press our foreheads together until I can whisper over his lips.

“I live you, Rhyson.” My voice shakes with emotion. With acceptance. With gratitude that he’s forgiven me. Assuring him that I’ve forgiven him. The words land on a slate that is finally completely clean.

He nods, eyes pressed shut and lips open over mine to make his words simultaneously a kiss, a confession, and a promise.

“I live you, too, Pep.”

I explore the sharp, strong angles of his face and roam into the gorgeous mop of messy, burnished hair. I claim him with the pads of my fingers, with the palms of my hands. He is mine and I am his. Our darkest secrets, shared. Our deepest places, reached. We are completely known. Completely loved down to our very souls.

EVERY MORNING I’M AWAKENED BY AN
ocean breeze. The wind whispers through the sheer netting encamping our bed, skipping across my naked shoulders and lifting the hair from my neck. Here in Bora Bora, we haven’t glanced at our phones for the time, text messages—nothing. The ocean is my alarm, but this morning, something else lures me from sleep. It’s music wafting from the deck into our bedroom.

I wrap the soft sheet around my breasts toga style, and notice the nameplate “Pepper” necklace hanging at my neck above Gram’s for the first time. I touch it with a smile. I thought I’d lost it the night we fought and I ripped it away. Yet another thing of mine he held on to. Having it again makes my day before it even starts.

I shuffle across the bamboo floors that give glimpses of aquamarine beneath our overwater bungalow. Rhyson stretches out on a lounger, a pad on the deck beside him and harmonica in hand. He bends to jot down a few notes, sun-darkened and beautiful in just his board shorts, the coppery streaks in his hair deepened by our two weeks here.

His right hand is still paler than the rest of him, even though the cast has been gone for a few weeks. Guilt seizes my insides every time I imagine one of this generation’s greatest musicians slamming his hand into stone for me. I’ve cried about it more than once, but I’m trying to forgive myself for something Rhyson insists wasn’t my fault. The surgery was three months ago, so he’s in very aggressive, well-monitored rehab. The insurance company’s specialist will examine him when we return to LA next week. I think I’m more worried about it than he is. He does all the rehab exercises and keeps all of his weekly appointments. He even brought a small keyboard with us so he can practice some basic scales every day. The specialist advises slow and steady, and I can only pray that he regains full mobility. If he is any less of a pianist than he was before we met, I don’t know how I’ll forgive myself. I don’t think there’s a category of forgiveness for that.

“How’s the hand?” I lean into the door, knotting the sheet under my arms.

He looks up from the notes he’s scribbling onto a composition pad, his smile bright against his tan.

“Sixty percent of the time,” he says, wiggling his fingers. “It works every time.”

“It’s too early for
Anchorman
.” I laugh and roll my eyes.

“Will I ever stump you?”

I pretend to think about it, tilting my head and tapping my chin.

“Probably not. You’re the better musician. At least give me movies.” I flick my chin toward his hand. “So you think you’ll be ready for the Boston Pops come Fall?”

Even though he doesn’t talk about it much, I know he regrets not being able to accept the invitation to play with the famous symphony orchestra this summer. Of course, they extended the offer to whenever Rhyson Gray is good and ready.

“We’ll see where I am with the album.” He glances at his hand, shrugs. “And everything.”

A cloud passes over the sun, temporarily dimming its brightness, just like this moment dims all that’s bright in our life. We have so much, but a full recovery for his hand is what I want most.

“Is that the harmonica I gave you for Christmas?” I ask, needing to change the subject, gesturing toward the small instrument in his lap.

“It is. Come here.” He extends his arms for me to join him on the sun lounger. A smile stretches wider across my face and the shadow lifts the closer I get. I climb on top of him, locking our bodies at the center.

“Are you writing something for the new album?” I nuzzle into his neck.

“Uh, no. Not for the album. Something else.”

“Vegas?” I pull back to peer at him.

Prodigy is holding an artist showcase in Las Vegas soon. Grip will preview songs from his new album. Kilimanjaro will perform a few songs they’ve been doing at festivals. And Rhyson will introduce me as Prodigy’s newest signed artist.

“No, not for Vegas.” He gives me a careful glance. “You still thinking about inviting your sister? About meeting her while we’re there?”

My teeth snap together. I decided I’d like to meet my sister, the only blood I have left in the world besides my father, but I’m not sure what I want with
him
. His betrayal, not just of me, but of Mama, cuts so deep, I just don’t know if it will ever fully heal. I’ll take it one day at a time. The same way Rhyson takes his relationship with his parents. His father came over for dinner right before our vacation, and I was amazed by the growing ease, maybe even affection, between them. They talk at least once a week outside of their sessions with Dr. Ramirez. His mother . . . I don’t know why that relationship remains frozen, or if it will ever thaw, but I don’t think she’ll be coming to dinner any time soon.

“Pep, Vegas?” Rhyson’s raised brows remind me I haven’t answered him.

“Yeah, I want to meet my sister when we’re out there.” I shrug. “We’ll see what happens with my dad.”

I nibble and lick the strong tendon in his neck, wanting to shift away from something I’m not certain of to something I absolutely am—our connection.

“So what
are
you working on?” I ask, my voice dipping to a provocative whisper.

“This is what I’m working on.” He presses my butt until his erection grinds between my legs even through the sheet. “You wanna collaborate?”

My husky laugh is his answer, and I unknot the sheet so it falls away, kicking it to the floor. It took me a while to get used to the “private” part of private island, but after days of walking around naked, not another person in sight, I got it.

My breasts are already heavy and begging for him. There’s an ache building between my legs that only he can satisfy. I spot a tray of fruit on the deck beside his lounger. Pineapple, limes, mangos—our meal every morning.

“I’m ready for breakfast.” I snatch one of the lime halves, poising it over his chest and squeezing the juice over his nipples. My lips and tongue slurp at the juices running over the muscles in his chest and abs, his grunts and groans more music to my ears than the tune that woke me up. Fingers steady, I pull back the Velcro strip on his board shorts, sliding them over his hips and down his legs. I grab another lime half and squeeze it over the powerful thighs, licking and nibbling my way to the most sensitive part of him. Grabbing one more lime, I squeeze the juice over him, my mouth watering in anticipation.