Entangled (14 page)

I roused a bit before dawn, to sneak in some early Monday morning
nooky before we had to part ways for the week. This time I did the waking with thorough kisses and a fiery trail blazed across his skin. He moaned as he came to, before pulling me back up into his arms. There were no clothes between us as our bodies came together. I felt every little hair across his lower tummy tickle mine as he fit himself neatly and perfectly against my curves.

“I’ve dreamed about you,” he murmured against my skin. “But this is so much better than a dream.” He buried himself within me. “It’s real. And you’re real.” His hands cupped my face as he luxuriated in every stroke. “I thought it would be impossible to find someone like you, Rachel. My God. How are you real?”

I answered with another kiss. I grabbed onto the headboard as he pumped harder and more desperately. Maybe we were both trying to feel as much as we could just to prove it wasn’t another dream, that there was a flesh and blood lover warm in our arms. I clutched him tighter and he shuddered within me. Before I knew it, he cried out into the curve of my neck. He lay perfectly still for a moment before he could speak, trying his best to catch his breath. I thought he might lift away, but he wasn’t done with me yet. His hand slipped between our bodies until it touched me at my most sensitive core. I bit my lip to prevent crying out as he moved his fingers against me quick as lightning until I was writhing underneath him. He made me come twice before he began to stroke again, hardened by my tight body contracting around him. I was incoherent as he rode through another explosive orgasm. I gasped and he covered my mouth with another hot kiss, taking us both over the edge.

When we finally fell apart, we were breathless and electrified. He reached over to deliver a playful peck to the hardened peak of my breast, causing me to quiver all over. “See if that won’t hold us over until Thursday night.”

I groaned as I pulled him close. “Don’t remind me. I’m going to spend most of my nights in a cold shower just so I don’t come screaming down the hall.”

He laughed. “Be comforted by the fact I’ll likewise be standing in an ice cold shower, miss. And then, come Thursday, it will be so worth the wait.” He caressed the curve of my face with the back of his hand. “You were worth the wait.”

I wound my arms around his neck. There were so many things I wanted to say, but words seemed inadequate. I said it all with a kiss before I regretfully untangled myself to head back down to my room by daybreak.

By nine o’clock we had resumed our respective roles. Jonathan arrived with his suitcase to spend another week, and he was likewise invigorated by the jaunt to San Diego over the weekend. Much of Monday morning was spent hearing his tales from the Con. He showed me notebooks full of artwork he had purchased there, which sparked a desire to pursue digital art. I was uncharacteristically exhausted by the time we broke for lunch.

Alex had taken the day off to spend time with Max, since his unexpected illness had kept them apart all weekend. They were already at the table when Jonathan and I made our way to the kitchen. Alex and I shared an intimate smile, which said more than words ever could. We dug into Millicent’s egg salad and I retrieved the canister of Cleo’s cookies for our dessert.

It was all downhill from there.

Max was excited to see the familiar tin, but Jonathan was stunned. He looked up at me. “How did you get Cleo’s cookies?”

This drew Alex’s attention as he
glanced our direction. His brow furrowed as he spotted the tin, and the cookies inside. Anyone who had ever had them knew that they were Cleo’s specialty. His eyes met mine as he likewise waited for an answer.

“I went to the house over the weekend,” I supplied, although I felt decidedly put on the spot as I did so, like I had
been caught doing something wrong. Perhaps it was the stunned, betrayed expression on Alex’s face as he tried to piece together the eventful weekend. “Your father asked me to come get my things, and I thought it was high time that I did so.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said softly as he looked down at the cookies. “So I guess that means you’re never going back.”

Alex was quiet as his eyes scanned my face. I met his glance. “That’s exactly what it means.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said again, his enthusiasm zapped just like a popped balloon. He barely touched lunch, and didn’t eat one cookie, before we retreated back to the library for the rest of our lessons that day.

My spirit was equally low. I couldn’t get that look on Alex’s face out of my mind. I hadn’t brought it up to him because it was far more important to me to spend what precious little time we had together focused on each other. Had that been a mistake?  I wasn’t hiding anything.

Was I?

After I started Jonathan on his reading assignment, I excused myself to find Alex. The sooner we could talk about it, the better. I wanted no secrets or misunderstandings. This was my chance to get it right, and Alex was far too important to me to make any stupid mistakes.

I finally tracked him down in the media room, where he
had stripped down to jeans and muscle shirt, and was moving furniture around like they were light as a feather. My tummy tightened as I watched those strong, defined biceps curl with such quiet strength. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“You were right,” he said without looking me in the eye. “This room isn’t as comfortable as the family room. Need to make it more kid friendly.”

I nodded as I shut the door behind me and walked over to where he stood. “Maybe even dog friendly.”

He looked down at my face. “What do you mean?”

“Yoda. He doesn’t get any real human interaction at the house without Jonathan there. And Jonathan spends more time here than anywhere else. I was thinking maybe he could come stay with us.”

He lifted another leather love seat out of the way. “One of the things you talked about with Drew, I take it.”

“Yeah,” I answered quietly. He didn’t even turn to face me. “I was going to tell you.”

He nodded as he surveyed the room, his hands on his hips. “Or not,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not like you owe me any explanations, Rachel.”

My heart sunk. He sounded so hurt. Like a lost little boy trying to keep a stiff upper lip. “You know that’s not how I want it.”

He still couldn’t look me in the eye. “And how do you want it?”

“I think I proved that over the weekend. I told you. I made my choice. And it was you.”

“After you saw Drew,” he clarified.
“No doubt he was bragging on and on about how he planned to move Olivia right into your spot, should you reconsider vacating it.” I didn’t confirm his comment, but I knew he could tell just from the look on my face. “Yet you made no mention of any of this, whatsoever, to me. What, exactly, happened at his house?”

My arms crossed in front of me. “What are you saying, Alex?”

“I’m not saying anything,” he grunted as he lifted another love seat toward the corner of the room. “Like I said, you owe me nothing.”

That was it. I walked over to where he stood and turned him to face me. “Stop, look at me.” His eyes were bright
when they finally met mine. “I gave myself to you because I wanted to. I know now that you are everything that I have wanted or needed. And yeah, maybe it took going back to that cold, empty mansion to figure that out. To see the difference in what is real and what is fantasy. I was an idiot, Alex. You said it many times yourself. I saw Drew as the man I wanted him to be, not the man he was. And that was my mistake. But that part of my life is over. I knew it the minute I left that driveway. This is the life I want. To be here with you and Millicent and Max. That is why I was finally able to give myself to you in every way that counts. I wasn’t going to wait one more day, or one more minute. That’s why I didn’t tell you. It just didn’t matter.”

He didn’t say anything at first. I could tell he was dissecting everything to see if I was telling him the truth. He scanned my face for any hint of deception. “I want to believe you,” he finally said softly. “But I’ve been on the losing end of this kind of thing before.
If you went back to him now,” he started, but couldn’t even utter the words of how awful that would be.

I slipped my arms around his waist and pulled his rigid body close to mine. “
You’re not some consolation prize, Alex. You’re the gold medal. You always have been.” My eyes locked with his. “I love you.”

He sighed as he slumped into my arms.
“God, Rachel,” he muttered as his arms tightened around my waist.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I should have told you.”

“You can tell me anything,” he said. “Even if it’s goodbye.”

I held him tighter. I had no plans of ever doing that. I even broke our unspoken rule about public displays of affection as I kissed him hard, to show him how committed I was to him. He grabbed me in a fevered embrace that branded me as his woman from head to toe.

He dragged his mouth away and pulled back. “I should probably finish this.”

I didn’t like his pulling away but I knew he had to process things for himself. “Yeah. I should get back to Jonathan.” I was at the door before he said anything.

“I love you, too,” he said without looking at me. “More than you know.”

“We have plenty of time for you to show me,” I promised.
His eyes finally met mine and he offered a small smile before he went back to his task.

With a sigh, I escaped back to the library.

Alex left by late afternoon and hadn’t returned by dinnertime, which meant both boys were subdued. Millicent and I shared silent glances, but no one at the table really said anything. After dinner, the boys retired to the family room to watch a movie, and I went back to the media room, which had been completely emptied of furniture. I decided to vacuum the room and leave it clean for however Alex had decided to repurpose it. Jonathan found me dusting and cleaning when he came looking for me after Max had gone on to bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Alex wants to change up the media room,” I said from where I sat cross-legged in front of the control panel with all the electronics and storage. I was so desperate to keep preoccupied that I had resorted to alphabetizing the movies and games. They were sprawled out in piles in front of me. “Make it more kid friendly,” I added with a smile.

Jonathan sat next to me, taking the video games and separating them by game system format. “You like it here, huh?”

I nodded. “Very much. Don’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s cool spending time where my dad used to stay as a kid. Hard to imagine it, though.”

I laughed. “It is.”

“Do you hate him?”

His candid question took me off guard. “Why would you ask that?”

He shrugged. “I know you left because you were mad at him. He lied to you. He hurt you,” he added softly.

I sighed. “It’s all complicated grown-up stuff,” I dismissed.

“Just like everything else that controls my life,” he shot back. “Maybe one day I’ll be old enough to ask why.”

“I guess I deserved that,” I muttered as I set aside a pile of cases. “I don’t hate your father, Jonathan. I did. For a very long time. For hurting me. For hurting you. For trying to force what should always come naturally. Staying here, spending time with your uncle and learning about their past… I guess I’ve come to feel sorry for him mostly. It wasn’t that long ago when he was a hurt little boy himself. The reason he does the things he does is because he was taught to. A lot of it probably isn’t really even his fault.”

“So you’ve forgiven him?”

My eyebrow arched. “Have you?”

Those big eyes were so bright and so blue. “That’s what love does, right?”

My mouth thinned in a hard line. “There are some things even love can’t do, Jonathan. And some things even the most loving heart can’t forgive.”

“You don’t believe that,” he argued.

“Yeah,” I confirmed quietly. “I do.” I resumed my filing as I went on. “You want an adult story? Here’s one. Once upon there was a girl named Rachel, who married her college sweetheart mere weeks after they started dating. Weeks later, she was pregnant – but her fairy tale prince wasn’t happy about it. In fact, he pretty much made her feel like crap about it for the next five years of her life. He wanted nothing to do with the baby he helped create. Instead he wanted to be what he had always been: young, and handsome, and free. So he spent lots of time with other women who made him feel that way.”

Jonathan’s gaze dropped to the floor. I already knew he had a ringside seat to a similar situation with his own parents, but I was almost completely certain no one ha
d ever talked to him about it so he could see things from their point of view.

Yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself
.

“The day the baby prince fell into the hot tub that would rob him of his
life, the fairy prince was romancing another girl right in their home, and never even heard him fall in. Rachel discovered her dead marriage and her brain-dead child all on the same day.”

He glanced back up at me and watched emotions march across my ravaged face as I finally finished my tale. “For that week afterwards, Zach and Rachel said nothing to each other. There was nothing left to say. She had moved in with her best friend and her family, while Zach moved his new girlfriend into the home Rachel had spent years building. When the doctors confirmed there was no hope for the sleeping little prince, it was Rachel who had to sign the consent form to take him off of life
support, virtually killing the last shred of hope she had at a normal life and a normal family. Zach wasn’t even at the hospital.” Tears streaked down my face. “Rachel’s best friend was the one that helped her organize the funeral and the burial, none of which Zach attended at all. There were flowers and casseroles and sympathy cards… but the only thing Rachel got from the father of her dead child were divorce papers, and a box of Jason’s belongings tossed into a couple of bins.”