“Chloe tells stories about how some folks behave in her store. People can suck. But that’s another level,” Rix remarked.
I nodded my agreement.
And sadly, since there was more, kept going.
“And she had some family sue, because apparently she messed up their boathouse pretty badly. In the end, with all her larking about, Dad’s spent a lot of time and money smoothing things over for her.”
Since it seemed he thought he’d paid short shrift to it, Rix put that foot down, and went back to the other one.
I was very okay with that.
I went back to talking.
“Which is a thing with her. Damage and destruction. She had a party here once when Dad was out of town, and I guess the results were extreme. To the point there was graffiti spray-painted on the walls, and Dad had to hire some experts to restore and clean some pieces that had been vandalized. And we’re not talking this happening when she was sixteen. She was twenty-six.”
“Jesus,” Rix muttered.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’d had other get-togethers, and those weren’t good either. But that one was the last. I think that’s one of the reasons he tends to be precious about his space, definitely with Blake. I don’t think she’s ever here without Dad here. She doesn’t even have keys to get in anymore.”
I rolled this around in my mind while Rix dug his thumbs into my sole.
And then I noted, “I also think he might be kinda like me. He never seemed really comfortable in big social settings, and he likes his space to be just his. So when she did what she did to his home, that was kind of a last straw deal for Dad.”
“Mm,” he hummed, that sound getting my full attention.
That meaning Rix had my full attention.
And I didn’t want to think of Blake anymore.
Or Dad.
Or any of them.
I wanted to think of Rix.
Here.
With me.
How handsome he’d looked that night.
How he made it fun, being all he was.
The preposterously beautiful ring he’d chosen for me.
So that part was pretend.
Still, that ring was gorgeous.
How we were now…us.
No end.
No limits.
Exploring this.
Together.
“Want to see something?” I asked.
He didn’t miss my change in tone, his gaze growing more attentive on me, and he nodded.
I pulled my foot from his hand, got up, which put me close to him, and I took his hand.
On bare feet, I led us out of the crisp and impersonal creams and whites with the elegant flash of De Gournay wallpaper on the wall behind the bed and minimal accents of chartreuse green of the guest room.
Then I led him up the stairs to the third floor, down the hall to the middle room at the back with a view to the garden.
We walked in, and I flipped the switch.
The personal touches were gone, and impersonal ones were put in their places in order the room could be ready for the guests who were never invited who would never use this space.
But the queen-size bed still had the filmy canopy gathering and draping around its head, fit for a princess. The satin bed linens were elegant, but just that shade or two beyond simply feminine to being girlie.
And the walls had been refreshed, but that paint had always been the same ballet pink.
“My room,” I told him, “sans the piles of books and CDs and smelly tennis shoes and reset, so if anyone ever used it, though no one does, Dad wouldn’t expose a single thing about me. And I’m not talking about him hiding me. He’s just private that way.”
Rix wandered in.
“No Rage Against the Machine posters. I was allotted the Degas that was moved to the library,” I said. “Though I had a couple of their CDs.”
I stood in the door and watched as he stopped at the window. He pulled the curtain aside, looked down.
He then turned, his eyes moving around, taking in the space, before he went to the bed and sat at the foot.
Shirt open. Dark slacks. Shoes that would remain on his feet once he removed his legs.
He seemed just like what he’d teased me he liked to pretend to be.
The invading marauder, a slash of alluringly sinister against an ivory satin duvet.
“I used to lie in that bed,” I started, and his caramel eyes came to me, “and dream about being a pirate.” I pushed from the door and began making my way to him. “Or living in a gunslinger town, drafted into a posse, riding my horse fast, chasing the bad guy.”
He opened his legs, and I came to a stop between them.
He put his hands on my waist and stared at my middle.
I put my hands on his shoulders and kept talking.
“I was quite a swashbuckler,” I whispered.
His head dropped back to look up at me as his hands went down, under my skirt, and hit bare skin.