Quarantales: The Complete Contemporary Romance Box Set, page 12
A new text arrives just as I’m walking in through the back house’s kitchen door. It’s from E. “Laundry done and waiting outside your door along with the mail.”
The twins had been weirdly wonderful during the days I’d been gone. A hadn’t texted me again to intervene in any arguments. And I guess the severity of this virus finally sunk in with E after I had to isolate myself away from them. No more requests to visit friends or go to parties, only offers of help.
My heart cheers as I walk past Rhys, who’s at Grandma’s desk. For somebody who has two weeks off, he always seems to be working. I should ask him about that after I’m done folding the laundry.
But both that question and my joy fade when I open the door.
There’s a letter on top of the mail pile. From R. Smith.
Those movies where someone’s talking about nothing as they walk into the street, then get hit by a car… seeing the letter from the biological mother I’d placed in a hidden away box a few weeks ago—that’s what it felt like. Like getting hit by a car out of the blue.
Why would she be writing me? Again?
I bend down and pick the letter up.
“Who’s R. Smith?”
I don’t know how long I’d been staring at the front of that envelope before Rhys came along and asked me about the person I hadn’t told anyone about. Not even Billie or the twins.
Damn his height. He could easily read the address over my shoulder.
“No one,” I answer and decide at the same time. I shove the letter into my back pocket and making my smile dazzling in a way that’s meant to distract. “Laundry’s here! Those sibs of mine might be useful after all.”
That was actually an understatement. The twins had taken over grocery shopping and all the laundry since I’d been in quarantine. And from what I could tell, they were keeping the house clean and themselves alive with minimum squabbling. They’d even made us pancakes yesterday and left them covered on the back house’s front step.
They’d been so great about everything, I hadn’t been left with much to do, save cooking and cleaning and looking for jobs in Pittsburgh. But I was only cooking for two now—a man with a normal appetite—not two vacuums disguised as teens. The back house was much smaller than the one I’d been cleaning since coming back to Guadalajara. And as for looking for jobs, well that wasn’t going so well. Surprisingly, not many Pittsburgh hospitals were interested in interviewing an ER nurse in April who didn’t actually plan to move to the city until September.
So that’s left me with a lot of time on my hands. Most of which I spend with Rhys.
Rhys’s eyes darken. “Is No One another man?”
I smile a little at that question.
And he glares. “You think my question is funny?”
“Yes,” I answer, voice frank as I take the laundry over to the bed to fold. “But I’m not making fun of you. My dad called you Mr. I Don’t Know.”
Rhys follows me. “You told your father about me?”
The hard accusatory tone from before is gone, replaced with something softer. And he starts folding laundry too.
“Told is a strong word. It was more like he guessed,” I answer. “He was a good doctor like that. He could always tell when something was going on with me, even when I didn’t volunteer the information. He just knew me, I guess.”
But did I know him? My eyes blur with tears. Not as well as I thought.
“Cynda?”
I look up to find Rhys regarding me with a somber expression from the other side of the bed. “Yes?”
“What’s going on with you?”
The question, simple as it is, nearly caves me. For a few moments, all I can do is wipe away tears and breathe. I feel like I’ve got a dam inside of me, trying not to burst.
But Rhys waits patiently until I get ahold of myself. Then he says, “You don’t have to tell me what this is all about if you don’t want to.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about this to anyone. But the dam suddenly breaks and the words come rushing out. “I guess…I guess my parents weren’t really my parents. I guess this R. Smith is. She’s my mom’s baby sister, and she basically abandoned me. But now she’s writing me to tell me the truth. She says it’s so that I don’t feel all alone. But now I feel more alone. A month ago I had parents. They were both dead, but I had them. Now all I have is this…this soap opera twist.”
I thought I was done, but I guess not yet. The world blurs again, and then my head is being pressed into Rhys’s chest.
And I can’t keep myself from basking in his comfort. “I’m sorry. It’s the coronavirus. Finding this out on top of being quarantined. It’s too much.”
“I think it would be too much under any circumstance,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “Do you want to open the letter?”
“No,” I answer. “I opened the first one and I want to be strong and brave, but this is…”
“Too much,” he finishes for me.
“Yeah,” I whisper against his chest.
“How about if I hold it for you, and when you’re ready, we’ll read it together.”
His offer makes me feel warm and grateful inside. But… “I think we’ve already established we shouldn’t mistake this mini-quarantine for more than it is. I don’t need any more hand holding. In fact, I’m not going to open this one.”
I remove the letter from my back pocket and toss it in the suitcase I left open beside the bed. As soon as I get back to the big house I’ll put it in the box with the other letter and all of the things I’d rather forget.
That decision made, I return to folding laundry.
But Rhys doesn’t join me this time. Instead, he asks, “Why did your father refer to me as Mr. I Don’t Know.”
Considering what we were talking about, the question feels so out of left field. But I answer this question honestly, too. “Because I told him I didn’t know what we were when he asked about you.”
“You didn’t know.” He puts his thumb under my chin and tips my head up. His eyes are blazing with anger. “Are you serious?”
I glance to the side, then back at him, not understanding. “Why are you so mad? We never had any discussions. And it was only six months—”
The laundry basket goes flying, and he flips me over on the bed before I can finish that sentence. The next thing I hear is the slide of the nightstand drawer with the condoms coming open and the next thing I feel is his hand on my back, pressing down.
“So you’re saying that six months meant nothing to you? You were a star in my universe and I was merely a shrug in yours?”
My heart jolts painfully. A star in his universe? Why would he say that? I told him…I told him from the start that things would end badly with me. I should have been a shrug in his universe too.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask him, something ugly and mean rising up inside of me. I’m three years older now but that angry defense instinct hasn’t aged a day. “That you got under my skin, the way I got under yours? That no way are you a psycho for firing me from my job over a fling that happened three years ago?”
I know I’m being mean. Like, everything he’s made me out to be. But there’s some vicious in me that won’t let me stop. “Maybe you want me to say I left my Dansko at your apartment on purpose. Because deep down inside where no one but you can see it, I’m really just one of those basic girls who wants to worship at the altar of your dick.”
There’s a moment of dangerous silence.
And then comes the rip of the foil package he took out of the nightstand.
“Turn over,” he commands, his voice clipped.
I do as he says and the sight of him stops my heart. He’s stroking his dick and looking down at me, his gaze heavy-lidded. And intense.
“Do you like what you do to me?” he asks, his voice flat and cold.
Sounds like a trick question, but I’m feeling brave. And reckless.
“I don’t dislike it,” I confess in that cheeky tone he didn’t miss. I glance down at his arousal. Then back up at him.
He lets go of himself and grabs a hold of the shorts I’m wearing. One yank. That’s all it takes and I’m naked from the bottom down.
He steps closer to the bed, and I brace myself to receive him. I’m not wet yet, but I know my body will adjust. Especially for The Real Prince.
But instead of thrusting into me, he rests a hand heavy on my thigh and rubs the hood of his erection into my slit. And I draw in a sharp breath when The Real Prince finds my clit…and begins a slow circular massage. Deliberate and not at all playful. Every time the shiny head of his cock touched my clit a little jolt went through me. Soon I’m moaning and working my hips up and down as we both watch my core go from dry to wet under his manipulations. His expression stays calm and unaffected. But I start breathing harder, then moaning.
What’s he’s doing is both torture and pleasure.
“Do you like how hard you still make me? How crazy you make me?”
That’s two questions. “Yes, and I’m not trying to.”
“So when you dumped me and blocked my number….”
I can’t decide what’s more disturbing. This conversation or the fact that I’m close to coming, just from the way his dick is massaging my clit.
“I’m sorry!” I cry out either way.
“What are you sorry for?” he demands. “Are you sorry for how coldly you cut me loose? Are you sorry for all the pathetic messages I left you, begging for another chance before I realized you had blocked me? Are you sorry that crossing me cost you your job?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry for all of it.”
He abruptly stops manipulating my clit. And then there’s nothing but silence.
The silence goes on for so long, I open my eyes to look at him.
And immediately wish I hadn’t.
His jaw is tight and unforgiving, and his eyes are a cold blank, devoid of any emotion whatsoever.
“Wrong answer,” he says.
Then he crashes down on top of me and thrust himself into me at the same time.
He bands my wrists together over my head with one hand. There should be fear. There should be denial and resentment of my own.
But my body sighs with relief when he starts moving on top of me. His expression…it’s no longer vacant. And there’s nothing cold about the way he takes me with savage thrusts. Like an animal, wounded and enraged.
I crave this. Crave his punishment. If I’m the witch he’s put on trial, he’s the fire set underneath me. And I’m happy to burn.
I cry out when the orgasm overtakes me. It’s as brutal and unforgiving as his thrusts. And all I can do is gasp and hold on to him as it does what it wants with me.
He shoves his face into my neck, his hips hammering between my thighs. Until suddenly his entire body goes rigid and he buries himself deep.
The anger seems to fade out of him. And then it’s just the two of us, exhaling fast as we try to recover our breath.
He’s way fitter than me, but I get to the part where I can speak again faster than he does.
“So you’re just going to stay mad at me forever?” I ask. My voice is half-wry and half-tired.
He rolls off of me. Lies there, still breathing hard. But not hard due to physical exertion I suspect. He’d always been a little commanding in bed. But he’d never been this rough. I think he surprised himself even more than he did me.
“My revenge is my revenge and I don’t really care how unhinged it makes me appear. I won’t apologize. For anything,” he says, his voice firm and resolute. But then he pulls me close, and says, “However, I am trying…I’m trying to figure out how to simply forgive you and let go of this.”
I think about his words. Think about the emotions swirling in my chest. The ones that make me feel weak like I’m on the brink of heart failure when I give them too much attention.
Then I put on my easiest breeziest tone to say, “Okay…I hope you figure it out. But if you don’t, I guess that’s okay too. It’s nice keeping company with another adult who was born in the 20th century. And messed up as it is, I gotta say that punishment sex is off the chain.”
He makes a sound between a laugh and a grunt.
Then he gives me a surprisingly tender kiss on the forehead.
Chapter Sixteen
“Rhys!” I yell from inside the house a couple days later. “Could you come out here?”
“What is it?” he calls back from outside. He’s been working outside at the picnic table since, like Day 3 of our quarantine. Apparently being inside with me is too much of a distraction from whatever work he’s doing on his laptop. And going somewhere, anywhere gives him a sense of normalcy.
“I’ll tell you when you come in.”
“Could you tell me now. I’m in the middle of something important and unless it’s an emergency—”
“Okay, it’s an emergency,” I yell back. “It’s a total emergency. Like, a matter of life or death.”
Several beats. Then: “I don’t believe you’re telling the truth.”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
More beats of silence. And I wonder if I’ll have to go out there and physically pull him inside.
But then he suddenly comes crashing through the door. “I swear to Christ, Cynda, if this is your idea of a joke—”
He stops short when he sees me on the couch…sitting in front of a TV filled with computer-animated men in cricket uniforms.
He looks from me to the TV. “Is that…is that Cricket 19?”
“Sure is,” I answer, holding out one of the game controllers. “It took me half the morning to set this up even with A giving me step-by-step directions over the phone. Happy Birthday, Dr. Prince. You ready to play this life or death cricket game with me?”
There’s not even a beat of hesitation this time. Rhys practically leaps on to the couch, and we spend the rest of the afternoon playing video game cricket.
It’s more fun than I’m expecting it to be, especially considering how steep my learning curve is. Rhys wallops me at most of the games, but by the time my usual cooking hour rolls around, I think I’ve got the rules of the game figured out.
At least enough to talk trash over the special fish and chips I make him for dinner.
“Give me til the end of this mini-quarantine. I bet I’ll beat you! You’ll be on the phone crying about how an American totally kicked your ass.”
He laughs. “I highly doubt that. But I look forward to you trying. I haven’t allowed myself a whole afternoon of gaming since I was in boarding school. Thank you, Cynda. It was delightful. And these fish and chips are delicious.”
“You like them?” I ask, weirdly pleased. “The recipe promised this was super authentic to England. But I wasn’t sure I got it right….”
“These are honestly the best fish and chips I’ve ever had.”
“Not better than your mom’s though, right?” I remember Rhys telling me once that his mother was a fantastic cook and that she used to make him a special meal whenever he came home from boarding school.
He tilts his head to the side. “Well my mother is Welsh, so she’s more of a shepherd’s pie for dinner kind of woman. She never made fish and chips that I know of, but this was one of my favorite dishes when I was in boarding school.”
I preen. “Then I totally picked right.”
He laughs again. “You did. You really did.”
But then he sobers. “Cynda?”
“Hmm?” I ask, lowering my fork for another bite of haddock.
“Why did you do this?”
“Because it’s your birthday,” I answer.
“So you’ve done this before? For all the other men who came after me? This is simply protocol?”
His eyes are still shining with amusement, but his questions feel…dangerous.
Like little grenades casually placed on the table between us.
And it feels like I’m pulling the pins when I answer, “Actually there haven’t been any men after you.”
He stills on the other side of the little table, his face turning to stone. “Cynda, if you’re lying….”
“Why would I lie about that?” I ask before he can finish that threat. “And it’s not like it had anything to do with you. I was just busy taking care of the twins. I didn’t have time for guys. Not like you apparently had time for all the girls.”
A smile spreads across his lips. “Are you jealous of the other women, Cynda?”
Yes. Sort of. “No,” I answer out loud in a very firm voice because this mini-quarantine relationship is already confusing enough as it.
A moment of silence. Then: “You know, I only slept with them to get over you. If it had worked, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
I have no idea what to do with that information. No idea how to respond to it or what to feel about it.
So I do what I always do when things get too intimate to bear. Change the subject. “Anyway, I’ve got one more gift. But I’m not sure about the execution on this one because I had to practice silently when you were outside working.”
Without waiting for him to answer, I go to the piano where I’ve got the sheet music I’ve been practicing pulled up on my iPad.
After getting situated, I take a big breath, just like I used to before every pageant performance. Then I begin playing “Remember September,” the only Death Buddha song that isn’t hard, fast, and screechy.
Muscle memory is a hell of a thing. Other than falling a little off-tempo in the careful beginning, the song comes out perfectly. And after a few bars, Rhys crosses the room and starts quietly singing along.
He’s no West Nygard, but I think the lead singer of Death Buddha would appreciate the solemn resonance in his voice. And the fact that Rhys has apparently memorized every word of the sad “life on the road” song that every rock band was required to make back in the 90s. I play and he sings until the last few notes when it’s just a few more bars of bittersweet music until the song is done.
We’re quiet for a long time after I play the last note.
