Torn Hart, page 6
Usually.
He got the lonely, lost and sad vibe from Lydia, but not the crazy vibe.
Particularly not the “does this shit for attention” kind of crazy. He’d dated one of those before. She flooded her apartment, claimed her ex came by and beat her up, then ran out onto her front lawn naked and started howling, all just to get Rex’s attention—or so she claimed—after he ended things with her.
Yeah, Lydia wasn’t like that—he hoped.
He stepped back into the apartment, went into her room and took a few pictures with his phone of what she said was “askew” before rejoining her by the door. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. “We’ll call Evelyn from my place.”
She seemed smaller than usual. Like she’d retreated into herself and was hiding.
He got that.
When shit hit the fan, no matter how much of a splatter it caused, human instinct was to fight or flee. Most people fled. Not him, of course.
“Don’t touch the handle,” he said, just as she was about to open the door with her hand. “I’m sure it’s a long shot, since we’ve both touched it, and door handles are riddled with prints, but I’ll call my brother to come by with a print kit and we’ll see if we can lift anything.” He tucked his hand beneath his shirt and turned the handle gently so as to not smudge any prints or leave any new ones.
Once they were out in the hallway, he took her keys from her trembling hands and locked the door, videotaping himself doing it with his phone just for good measure.
He shoved her keys into the pocket of his jeans, lifted the cat carrier and box in one hand and placed his other hand at the small of her back, urging Lydia to head toward the elevators.
“What if it’s nothing?” she asked, when they stepped back through the opened doors. “What if it’s all in my head?”
He shrugged. “Then it’s all in your head. But better to be safe than sorry, right?”
All she did was nod and adjust Pia in her arms.
“Hey.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her into his embrace, the soft curve of her hip beneath his palm. She was warm against him and fit just right beneath his arm. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
She nodded again. “Yeah, I’m just worried that if it isn’t me losing my mind, then it might be Dierks. And if it is him, I need to move. I need to leave Victoria. I honestly don’t know which one I’d prefer.”
Ice filled his veins. His hand dropped from her hip, and he glanced down at her. “Who’s Dierks?”
Chapter 6
Lydia took a deep breath, pressed her lips to the top of Pia’s head and swallowed. “My ex-boyfriend. We were together for about two years. He worked construction and was big into skateboarding. He had a really bad skateboarding accident and was in a coma for nearly three months. When he finally woke up”—she glanced up at him—“he wasn’t the same person I fell in love with.”
“Did he hit you?”
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Rex’s hand fell back to the small of her back, his touch reassuring, comforting and oh so welcome. She stepped off first, cradling Pia against her chest and taking comfort from the warmth of the cat’s body.
“Lydia?” Rex’s hand slid to her hip bone, and he squeezed, making her stop in her tracks and face him. “Did Dierks hit you?”
They were in the hallway again, identical in appearance to the one below, where her apartment was. The only difference was that the apartment numbers all started with four instead of three.
She shook her head. “No. But he became an angry man. He punched holes in the walls, broke dishes, took a knife to a piece of canvas art, smashed a few windows. He never laid a hand on me, but his anger was out of control, and I worried that one day it might get so out of control that ...” She could still remember the sound of her favorite coffee mug hitting the wall of their apartment and shattering. And all because she’d forgotten to buy more cereal at the grocery store for Dierks’s breakfast. “The smallest things set him off,” she went on. “If his phone battery died or he burnt his tongue on hot coffee, the bus was a couple of minutes late.” She shuddered. “That poor bus driver. It was only his first week of work, and the way Dierks tore a strip off him, the man quit on the spot.”
“He can’t drive, then?”
“No. He hasn’t been deemed fit to drive since the accident. Not that we really drove anywhere in Vancouver anyway. The SkyTrain, SeaBus and public transit are really good. A vehicle, insurance, gas and parking are unnecessary expenses when you live in the city. We used a car-share program for a while, but then when I ended things with him and moved in with some roommates, I bought a car.”
“Did he go back to work?”
“He tried to, but his anger was out of control, so they fired him. He’s on disability now. Problem is, he doesn’t think he needs help. He refuses to see a counselor or a doctor or get medicated. He knows he’s angry, but he thinks it will just heal over time.” But even if that was the case, which Lydia didn’t believe it was, she didn’t want to risk her own health and safety by waiting around for that time to come. What if it never did? She wanted children and a family, and as lovely a person as Dierks had been before the accident, she didn’t want to risk having children with him if he never returned to being that person.
Mutual friends of hers and Dierks called her heartless for leaving him. They all thought she should have stuck by him and helped him work through his issues. But you can’t help a person when they’re unwilling to accept it or admit they need it, and Dierks still didn’t believe he needed it. And she wasn’t about to put herself or her cat in harm’s way.
Maybe she was heartless, but if she didn’t look out for herself, who would?
Her explanation seemed to satisfy Rex enough, and he released his death grip on her hip and encouraged her to head toward his unit again.
“And you think he might be the one who broke into your apartment?” He set the cat carrier and litter box down on the floor and dug into his jacket pocket for his keys.
She shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, when I broke up with him, I didn’t immediately move to the island. I sublet a room in a house with four other people for a few months, as I had a great job at a Montessori preschool I didn’t want to leave. But Dierks found out where I was living and would wait for me on the sidewalk. He followed me on walks, showed up at my work. He was never aggressive, but it was still harassment. He said he wants me back and is willing to work on himself if I take him back, but I don’t do ultimatums. He needs to get better first and for himself.”
He unlocked the door. “Hold on tight to the cat, eh. I don’t think Diesel will hurt her, but he will be curious.” He opened the door, and nails on the wood clickety-clacked like crazy as Diesel scrambled to gain his footing and greet them. “Hey, buddy. Did you miss us?”
Diesel didn’t quite ignore Rex, but he didn’t give him much attention either. He was too caught up in the fur ball that was digging its nails into Lydia’s arm.
“You think he’ll be okay with her?” Lydia asked, murmuring shushing noises into Pia’s ear at the same time Diesel shoved his big nose into Pia’s stomach and did the muffled snuffle sniff. His tail was wagging like crazy too.
“We’ll have to see,” Rex said, toeing off his shoes and stowing them on a two-tiered shoe shelf in the entryway. He set the carrier and litter box down just inside the living room, then took Pia from her arms and wandered deeper into the manly, immaculate but somewhat sparse living room.
A dark brown leather sofa with what appeared to be two recliners on either end sat across from the enormous mounted television, and a big snake plant nearly as tall as her sat in a black pot near the corner, next to the sliding glass door to the balcony. There was only one piece of decor in the place, and that was a big, blown up photograph on the wall over the couch. It was grayscale and seemed to be treetops in the mist taken from a mountain or hill summit.
Diesel followed Rex, who gently held on to Pia as he sat down on the edge of the couch. “She’s not food, dude. She’s a new friend, and I expect you to be nice to her. No roughhousing, no play biting. Just respect and cuddles. Got it?”
Either Lydia was losing her mind or Rex’s dog really knew what he was saying all the time and nodded in acknowledgement.
Pia looked scared out of her fur as she sat on Rex’s lap and Diesel went nose to nose with her, whimpering and sniffing up a storm. His tongue poked out of his mouth and touched her face, and she reared back and swatted at him with her paw.
But that didn’t seem to deter Diesel at all. He leapt back, kicking his hind legs for a moment before bouncing forward again and pressing his nose back to hers.
Then Pia did something Lydia wasn’t expecting at all. She leapt down gracefully from Rex’s thighs and silently sauntered over to Diesel’s big bed in front of the gas fireplace and beneath the television. She pawed at it, circled a couple of times, then nestled down smack-dab in the middle of it. Diesel watched the whole thing, cocked his head side to side, did a few more weird puppy leaps, then trotted over to the bed too, climbed on behind her and lay down until they were spooning. In less than thirty seconds, both of them had their eyes closed and were snoring.
“Well, I’ll be,” Rex said, standing back up and joining Lydia where she stood gobsmacked in the middle of his living room, staring down at the two new best friends. “Didn’t think it would happen like that or that fast, but I think it’s a good sign our pets get along so well.” His hand found her hip, and he drew her near to him. “I still haven’t even kissed you, but my dog has licked your pussy.” His joke worked, and she tossed her head back to laugh.
“Oh, you are a slick one, Mr. Hart.”
There went those dimples.
There went her dry panties.
“Just trying to take your mind off the scary stuff,” he said, allowing his thumb to brush across her hip bone in a way that made her insides turn warm and gooey. “We don’t have to do anything, but I want you to know that I’m here if you need me. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. We’ll figure out who if anybody was in your apartment and, more importantly, why?”
A shiver careened through her when his thumb pushed up the fabric of her shirt so he was now touching flesh.
“Let’s do something fun,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her toward his bedroom. “Go crazy.”
Go crazy?
Another tremble took her by surprise, but her feet followed him anyway.
Just like the rest of his house, his room was sparse, manly and tidy. A dark brown duvet cover lay flat across a made bed, and dark blue curtains hung on either side of the big window, letting in what little daylight there was. Just as they were climbing back into Rex’s truck after breakfast, thick, fat, gray clouds had rolled in and the sky had opened up.
Spring showers bring May flowers or however the saying went, but why couldn’t it rain at night while they slept?
He glanced out the window. “It’s really coming down out there now, eh?”
She swallowed hard and fought the urge to shut her eyes from how good his thumb on her hip felt.
“I don’t know about you, but this is the perfect weather for some extracurricular activities. What do you think?” He guided her to the bed and helped her sit down. “Close your eyes.”
She did as she was told, her entire body now trembling as if she were sitting on a block of ice. Even though she’d only just met this man, they seemed to have this connection, and he put her at such ease. Made her feel safe and desired, cared for. He wanted her, which just blew her away, since a man like Rex was far out of her league. Not only appearance-wise but also in life experiences, education, strength, probably financially too. What did she have to offer him?
“Put your hands out,” he ordered.
Shit!
A flash of memory from their conversation yesterday while she was very drunk came back to her like a splash of cold water to the face. Had he actually said a former girlfriend broke up with him because he was too big?
Was that why he told her to put out two hands?
Oh God!
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she said, trying to mentally prepare herself to have a German sausage laid across her palms like a baton in a relay race. But it wouldn’t be like a baton. It would be more like a javelin. She opened her eyes, expecting to find him with his pants down, python out, but he wasn’t. He was still dressed, and he had a box in his hand and a hilarious expression on his face.
Damn, those dimples.
“What did you think I was going to put in your hand?” he asked slowly, teasingly.
“I … uh …” She stood up to look at the box. It was a beautiful one-thousand-piece puzzle of a coral reef.
“I got this for Christmas from one of my brothers. I love jigsaw puzzles. I figured we could crack this baby open. I could make us some hot chocolate and we could spend the day getting to know each other and building a puzzle. What do you think?”
I think you’re my dream man.
“I noticed you had a bunch of puzzles on your bookcase, so I figured you’d be into it, but”—he lifted a brow—“now I’m not sure, based on your current expression and the weird look you’re giving me.”
Her butt plopped back down onto the bed. She stared straight ahead and blinked.
Was she disappointed?
She’d been nervous, no, terrified to have him lay his anaconda across her palms a second ago, and now she was disappointed that he didn’t and instead wanted to do a puzzle with her?
What was wrong with her?
Where do you want to start? Childhood and work your way forward, or present day and work your way backward? You’re jobless. We have time.
Rex set the puzzle box down on the bed before sitting beside her and taking her hand. His lips fell to the back of her knuckles. “I know when we got in the elevator, hell, when we got in my truck, we were planning to come back here, rip each other’s clothes off and make the beast with two backs for the rest of the day …”
Well, if that didn’t conjure images in her head.
“But after what just happened in your apartment, I don’t want to push you. We have all the time in the world to get naked and nasty.” Naked and nasty. More images. “But I want it to happen when you’re in the right headspace. When you want me because you want me and not because you’re drunk or feeling scared and just need to feel safe or distracted. You’ll always be safe with me, but I just don’t think sex is what you need right now.” His mouth twisted ruefully. “Unless I’m way off base here and sex is exactly what you need, then I can be naked in under two seconds and hard in like five.”
Gah! The dimples.
To be honest, a jigsaw puzzle and hot chocolate sounded perfect.
“I also need to text my brother and get him to bring a print kit over, and I’d rather not have our first time in bed together be interrupted by somebody who used to sit on my head and fart until he shat himself.”
She snorted a laugh, which turned into a smile.
Rex cupped her cheek with the other hand. God, his hands were big. Maybe he really did have the Loch Ness Monster in his pants. She was unable to stop herself, and her eyes drifted down to the V of his pants.
“Later,” he said, drawing her gaze back up to his face and the penetrating blue of his irises. “But first, before we puzzle, I think I should at least kiss you.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him there. She’d been dreaming about what his lips would feel like against hers. About what kind of a kisser he was.
She fluttered her lashes. “I think you should at least kiss me, too.”
He smiled again, disarming her completely until she melted into him, closed her eyes and waited.
It was soft at first, gentle and almost a whisper of a touch. His lips were like velvet against hers. Warm and inviting. His hand on her cheek and jaw tightened its grip, and he encouraged her to tilt her head a little more, giving him better access to dive in. She did. And he did.
Rex’s tongue swept inside her mouth, soft, wet and warm.
He was a really good kisser. Like really good.
He knew when to nibble, when to suck, when to twirl his tongue and how much pressure to apply. It would be a safe bet to say she’d never had anyone kiss her the way Rex was kissing her. So thoroughly, so expertly. She was mesmerized by the way his lips moved against hers, the way his tongue tangled with hers.
She made to recline onto the bed and welcome him on top of her, to hell with the jigsaw puzzle. He’d advertised naked and nasty. She wanted naked and nasty. But he resisted the pressure she applied to his back, and she was forced to stay sitting up.
“Nuh-uh,” he said, his lips creating a gentle but electrifying buzz against her mouth as he spoke but also kept kissing her. “Puzzle and hot chocolate, no sexy time.”
Lydia whimpered, released his back and let her hand slid down to the apex of his thick thighs.
Holy fuck!
It was like a goddamn redwood in his jeans. She pulled her hand away as if his pants had caught fire.
Rex broke the kiss and gauged her warily. “Are you scared?”
She shook her head.
No.
Scared was not the right word.
Nervous?
Yeah.
Intrigued?
Oh yeah.
But she also had this feeling that because Rex was so … well-endowed, he also knew how to be gentle. She was seeing him gentle right now, and it was wonderful.
He wouldn’t split her open like an ax in a cedar stump; he would take care of her. Make sure she was good and relaxed, thoroughly turned on, wet and open for him before he released the cobra from its denim basket.
She shook her head and slowly put her hand back on his erection. “No, I’m not scared. I trust you, and I know you won’t hurt me.”
“I won’t,” he said, staring down at her. “But I’m also not going to fuck you right now.”
She whimpered again, which only caused him to smile, beautiful and bright, and stand up abruptly from the bed. The kielbasa in his jeans was unmistakable, particularly because she was now at eye level with it. She licked her lips.
He got the lonely, lost and sad vibe from Lydia, but not the crazy vibe.
Particularly not the “does this shit for attention” kind of crazy. He’d dated one of those before. She flooded her apartment, claimed her ex came by and beat her up, then ran out onto her front lawn naked and started howling, all just to get Rex’s attention—or so she claimed—after he ended things with her.
Yeah, Lydia wasn’t like that—he hoped.
He stepped back into the apartment, went into her room and took a few pictures with his phone of what she said was “askew” before rejoining her by the door. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. “We’ll call Evelyn from my place.”
She seemed smaller than usual. Like she’d retreated into herself and was hiding.
He got that.
When shit hit the fan, no matter how much of a splatter it caused, human instinct was to fight or flee. Most people fled. Not him, of course.
“Don’t touch the handle,” he said, just as she was about to open the door with her hand. “I’m sure it’s a long shot, since we’ve both touched it, and door handles are riddled with prints, but I’ll call my brother to come by with a print kit and we’ll see if we can lift anything.” He tucked his hand beneath his shirt and turned the handle gently so as to not smudge any prints or leave any new ones.
Once they were out in the hallway, he took her keys from her trembling hands and locked the door, videotaping himself doing it with his phone just for good measure.
He shoved her keys into the pocket of his jeans, lifted the cat carrier and box in one hand and placed his other hand at the small of her back, urging Lydia to head toward the elevators.
“What if it’s nothing?” she asked, when they stepped back through the opened doors. “What if it’s all in my head?”
He shrugged. “Then it’s all in your head. But better to be safe than sorry, right?”
All she did was nod and adjust Pia in her arms.
“Hey.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her into his embrace, the soft curve of her hip beneath his palm. She was warm against him and fit just right beneath his arm. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
She nodded again. “Yeah, I’m just worried that if it isn’t me losing my mind, then it might be Dierks. And if it is him, I need to move. I need to leave Victoria. I honestly don’t know which one I’d prefer.”
Ice filled his veins. His hand dropped from her hip, and he glanced down at her. “Who’s Dierks?”
Chapter 6
Lydia took a deep breath, pressed her lips to the top of Pia’s head and swallowed. “My ex-boyfriend. We were together for about two years. He worked construction and was big into skateboarding. He had a really bad skateboarding accident and was in a coma for nearly three months. When he finally woke up”—she glanced up at him—“he wasn’t the same person I fell in love with.”
“Did he hit you?”
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Rex’s hand fell back to the small of her back, his touch reassuring, comforting and oh so welcome. She stepped off first, cradling Pia against her chest and taking comfort from the warmth of the cat’s body.
“Lydia?” Rex’s hand slid to her hip bone, and he squeezed, making her stop in her tracks and face him. “Did Dierks hit you?”
They were in the hallway again, identical in appearance to the one below, where her apartment was. The only difference was that the apartment numbers all started with four instead of three.
She shook her head. “No. But he became an angry man. He punched holes in the walls, broke dishes, took a knife to a piece of canvas art, smashed a few windows. He never laid a hand on me, but his anger was out of control, and I worried that one day it might get so out of control that ...” She could still remember the sound of her favorite coffee mug hitting the wall of their apartment and shattering. And all because she’d forgotten to buy more cereal at the grocery store for Dierks’s breakfast. “The smallest things set him off,” she went on. “If his phone battery died or he burnt his tongue on hot coffee, the bus was a couple of minutes late.” She shuddered. “That poor bus driver. It was only his first week of work, and the way Dierks tore a strip off him, the man quit on the spot.”
“He can’t drive, then?”
“No. He hasn’t been deemed fit to drive since the accident. Not that we really drove anywhere in Vancouver anyway. The SkyTrain, SeaBus and public transit are really good. A vehicle, insurance, gas and parking are unnecessary expenses when you live in the city. We used a car-share program for a while, but then when I ended things with him and moved in with some roommates, I bought a car.”
“Did he go back to work?”
“He tried to, but his anger was out of control, so they fired him. He’s on disability now. Problem is, he doesn’t think he needs help. He refuses to see a counselor or a doctor or get medicated. He knows he’s angry, but he thinks it will just heal over time.” But even if that was the case, which Lydia didn’t believe it was, she didn’t want to risk her own health and safety by waiting around for that time to come. What if it never did? She wanted children and a family, and as lovely a person as Dierks had been before the accident, she didn’t want to risk having children with him if he never returned to being that person.
Mutual friends of hers and Dierks called her heartless for leaving him. They all thought she should have stuck by him and helped him work through his issues. But you can’t help a person when they’re unwilling to accept it or admit they need it, and Dierks still didn’t believe he needed it. And she wasn’t about to put herself or her cat in harm’s way.
Maybe she was heartless, but if she didn’t look out for herself, who would?
Her explanation seemed to satisfy Rex enough, and he released his death grip on her hip and encouraged her to head toward his unit again.
“And you think he might be the one who broke into your apartment?” He set the cat carrier and litter box down on the floor and dug into his jacket pocket for his keys.
She shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, when I broke up with him, I didn’t immediately move to the island. I sublet a room in a house with four other people for a few months, as I had a great job at a Montessori preschool I didn’t want to leave. But Dierks found out where I was living and would wait for me on the sidewalk. He followed me on walks, showed up at my work. He was never aggressive, but it was still harassment. He said he wants me back and is willing to work on himself if I take him back, but I don’t do ultimatums. He needs to get better first and for himself.”
He unlocked the door. “Hold on tight to the cat, eh. I don’t think Diesel will hurt her, but he will be curious.” He opened the door, and nails on the wood clickety-clacked like crazy as Diesel scrambled to gain his footing and greet them. “Hey, buddy. Did you miss us?”
Diesel didn’t quite ignore Rex, but he didn’t give him much attention either. He was too caught up in the fur ball that was digging its nails into Lydia’s arm.
“You think he’ll be okay with her?” Lydia asked, murmuring shushing noises into Pia’s ear at the same time Diesel shoved his big nose into Pia’s stomach and did the muffled snuffle sniff. His tail was wagging like crazy too.
“We’ll have to see,” Rex said, toeing off his shoes and stowing them on a two-tiered shoe shelf in the entryway. He set the carrier and litter box down just inside the living room, then took Pia from her arms and wandered deeper into the manly, immaculate but somewhat sparse living room.
A dark brown leather sofa with what appeared to be two recliners on either end sat across from the enormous mounted television, and a big snake plant nearly as tall as her sat in a black pot near the corner, next to the sliding glass door to the balcony. There was only one piece of decor in the place, and that was a big, blown up photograph on the wall over the couch. It was grayscale and seemed to be treetops in the mist taken from a mountain or hill summit.
Diesel followed Rex, who gently held on to Pia as he sat down on the edge of the couch. “She’s not food, dude. She’s a new friend, and I expect you to be nice to her. No roughhousing, no play biting. Just respect and cuddles. Got it?”
Either Lydia was losing her mind or Rex’s dog really knew what he was saying all the time and nodded in acknowledgement.
Pia looked scared out of her fur as she sat on Rex’s lap and Diesel went nose to nose with her, whimpering and sniffing up a storm. His tongue poked out of his mouth and touched her face, and she reared back and swatted at him with her paw.
But that didn’t seem to deter Diesel at all. He leapt back, kicking his hind legs for a moment before bouncing forward again and pressing his nose back to hers.
Then Pia did something Lydia wasn’t expecting at all. She leapt down gracefully from Rex’s thighs and silently sauntered over to Diesel’s big bed in front of the gas fireplace and beneath the television. She pawed at it, circled a couple of times, then nestled down smack-dab in the middle of it. Diesel watched the whole thing, cocked his head side to side, did a few more weird puppy leaps, then trotted over to the bed too, climbed on behind her and lay down until they were spooning. In less than thirty seconds, both of them had their eyes closed and were snoring.
“Well, I’ll be,” Rex said, standing back up and joining Lydia where she stood gobsmacked in the middle of his living room, staring down at the two new best friends. “Didn’t think it would happen like that or that fast, but I think it’s a good sign our pets get along so well.” His hand found her hip, and he drew her near to him. “I still haven’t even kissed you, but my dog has licked your pussy.” His joke worked, and she tossed her head back to laugh.
“Oh, you are a slick one, Mr. Hart.”
There went those dimples.
There went her dry panties.
“Just trying to take your mind off the scary stuff,” he said, allowing his thumb to brush across her hip bone in a way that made her insides turn warm and gooey. “We don’t have to do anything, but I want you to know that I’m here if you need me. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. We’ll figure out who if anybody was in your apartment and, more importantly, why?”
A shiver careened through her when his thumb pushed up the fabric of her shirt so he was now touching flesh.
“Let’s do something fun,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her toward his bedroom. “Go crazy.”
Go crazy?
Another tremble took her by surprise, but her feet followed him anyway.
Just like the rest of his house, his room was sparse, manly and tidy. A dark brown duvet cover lay flat across a made bed, and dark blue curtains hung on either side of the big window, letting in what little daylight there was. Just as they were climbing back into Rex’s truck after breakfast, thick, fat, gray clouds had rolled in and the sky had opened up.
Spring showers bring May flowers or however the saying went, but why couldn’t it rain at night while they slept?
He glanced out the window. “It’s really coming down out there now, eh?”
She swallowed hard and fought the urge to shut her eyes from how good his thumb on her hip felt.
“I don’t know about you, but this is the perfect weather for some extracurricular activities. What do you think?” He guided her to the bed and helped her sit down. “Close your eyes.”
She did as she was told, her entire body now trembling as if she were sitting on a block of ice. Even though she’d only just met this man, they seemed to have this connection, and he put her at such ease. Made her feel safe and desired, cared for. He wanted her, which just blew her away, since a man like Rex was far out of her league. Not only appearance-wise but also in life experiences, education, strength, probably financially too. What did she have to offer him?
“Put your hands out,” he ordered.
Shit!
A flash of memory from their conversation yesterday while she was very drunk came back to her like a splash of cold water to the face. Had he actually said a former girlfriend broke up with him because he was too big?
Was that why he told her to put out two hands?
Oh God!
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she said, trying to mentally prepare herself to have a German sausage laid across her palms like a baton in a relay race. But it wouldn’t be like a baton. It would be more like a javelin. She opened her eyes, expecting to find him with his pants down, python out, but he wasn’t. He was still dressed, and he had a box in his hand and a hilarious expression on his face.
Damn, those dimples.
“What did you think I was going to put in your hand?” he asked slowly, teasingly.
“I … uh …” She stood up to look at the box. It was a beautiful one-thousand-piece puzzle of a coral reef.
“I got this for Christmas from one of my brothers. I love jigsaw puzzles. I figured we could crack this baby open. I could make us some hot chocolate and we could spend the day getting to know each other and building a puzzle. What do you think?”
I think you’re my dream man.
“I noticed you had a bunch of puzzles on your bookcase, so I figured you’d be into it, but”—he lifted a brow—“now I’m not sure, based on your current expression and the weird look you’re giving me.”
Her butt plopped back down onto the bed. She stared straight ahead and blinked.
Was she disappointed?
She’d been nervous, no, terrified to have him lay his anaconda across her palms a second ago, and now she was disappointed that he didn’t and instead wanted to do a puzzle with her?
What was wrong with her?
Where do you want to start? Childhood and work your way forward, or present day and work your way backward? You’re jobless. We have time.
Rex set the puzzle box down on the bed before sitting beside her and taking her hand. His lips fell to the back of her knuckles. “I know when we got in the elevator, hell, when we got in my truck, we were planning to come back here, rip each other’s clothes off and make the beast with two backs for the rest of the day …”
Well, if that didn’t conjure images in her head.
“But after what just happened in your apartment, I don’t want to push you. We have all the time in the world to get naked and nasty.” Naked and nasty. More images. “But I want it to happen when you’re in the right headspace. When you want me because you want me and not because you’re drunk or feeling scared and just need to feel safe or distracted. You’ll always be safe with me, but I just don’t think sex is what you need right now.” His mouth twisted ruefully. “Unless I’m way off base here and sex is exactly what you need, then I can be naked in under two seconds and hard in like five.”
Gah! The dimples.
To be honest, a jigsaw puzzle and hot chocolate sounded perfect.
“I also need to text my brother and get him to bring a print kit over, and I’d rather not have our first time in bed together be interrupted by somebody who used to sit on my head and fart until he shat himself.”
She snorted a laugh, which turned into a smile.
Rex cupped her cheek with the other hand. God, his hands were big. Maybe he really did have the Loch Ness Monster in his pants. She was unable to stop herself, and her eyes drifted down to the V of his pants.
“Later,” he said, drawing her gaze back up to his face and the penetrating blue of his irises. “But first, before we puzzle, I think I should at least kiss you.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him there. She’d been dreaming about what his lips would feel like against hers. About what kind of a kisser he was.
She fluttered her lashes. “I think you should at least kiss me, too.”
He smiled again, disarming her completely until she melted into him, closed her eyes and waited.
It was soft at first, gentle and almost a whisper of a touch. His lips were like velvet against hers. Warm and inviting. His hand on her cheek and jaw tightened its grip, and he encouraged her to tilt her head a little more, giving him better access to dive in. She did. And he did.
Rex’s tongue swept inside her mouth, soft, wet and warm.
He was a really good kisser. Like really good.
He knew when to nibble, when to suck, when to twirl his tongue and how much pressure to apply. It would be a safe bet to say she’d never had anyone kiss her the way Rex was kissing her. So thoroughly, so expertly. She was mesmerized by the way his lips moved against hers, the way his tongue tangled with hers.
She made to recline onto the bed and welcome him on top of her, to hell with the jigsaw puzzle. He’d advertised naked and nasty. She wanted naked and nasty. But he resisted the pressure she applied to his back, and she was forced to stay sitting up.
“Nuh-uh,” he said, his lips creating a gentle but electrifying buzz against her mouth as he spoke but also kept kissing her. “Puzzle and hot chocolate, no sexy time.”
Lydia whimpered, released his back and let her hand slid down to the apex of his thick thighs.
Holy fuck!
It was like a goddamn redwood in his jeans. She pulled her hand away as if his pants had caught fire.
Rex broke the kiss and gauged her warily. “Are you scared?”
She shook her head.
No.
Scared was not the right word.
Nervous?
Yeah.
Intrigued?
Oh yeah.
But she also had this feeling that because Rex was so … well-endowed, he also knew how to be gentle. She was seeing him gentle right now, and it was wonderful.
He wouldn’t split her open like an ax in a cedar stump; he would take care of her. Make sure she was good and relaxed, thoroughly turned on, wet and open for him before he released the cobra from its denim basket.
She shook her head and slowly put her hand back on his erection. “No, I’m not scared. I trust you, and I know you won’t hurt me.”
“I won’t,” he said, staring down at her. “But I’m also not going to fuck you right now.”
She whimpered again, which only caused him to smile, beautiful and bright, and stand up abruptly from the bed. The kielbasa in his jeans was unmistakable, particularly because she was now at eye level with it. She licked her lips.
