“What shit?” she prompted when he stopped talking.
“Shit I don’t know what to do with. Like, go back and Brian doesn’t fuck up. Where does that leave me?”
She’d been with him, but that made her full-on perplexed.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re on my back deck, so cute, tossing cushions around ’cause you’re so pissed Brian did what he did, then he shows, expecting me to make him feel better. And I’m watching you throw a hissy fit, using everything I got not to think about how I didn’t want to be anywhere but there.”
Now she gave him surprised confusion.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked.
“With you, throwing pillows off my deck. I didn’t want to be anywhere else, but there with you.”
Now, completely mystified.
Jesus.
She was even cute totally lost.
“Babe,” he said patiently. “Think about it. If that tree didn’t fall on me, I’d be married to Peri. We might have a kid. Josh and Hailey’s wedding was supposed to happen just a couple of months before Peri and mine, and they already have a kid. Think about that. I’d be married to fucking Peri.”
“Um…”
Still confused, though now a little freaked.
“Judge would not need to get me a job at River Rain,” he went on.
She stared at him.
“Alex, honey, I would probably never have met you.”
Her body pulsed.
There it was.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Oh,” she said.
“Maybe on a hike with the kids or something. But I’d then be thinking how I got my shit in the sling of being married to a selfish, self-absorbed woman, and possibly allowing her to be the mother of my kid. I would not be thinking about the cute trail guide with all the hair and the great ass wondering what she’d think of my big dick.”
The dimple flirted with her cheek.
“Though, I hate to say this, especially to you, and remember, this is me trapped in an imaginary marriage with Peri, but even so, it’s gospel truth, if I got a good look at your ass, I might be thinking it.”
The dimple fully popped.
“So what? Now I’m supposed to be happy that tree fell on me?” he asked.
And another pulse went through her.
“You get me,” he stated.
“I don’t have an answer for all of that, sweetheart,” she confessed.
“I know,” he returned. “I don’t either. It’s one of those things in life. Something fucking sucks and something fucking awesome happens because of it. It makes no goddamn sense. But there it is.”
“Something fucking awesome?” she asked.
“Babe,” he growled. “Seriously?”
She did the lip pressing and big eyes thing at the same time.
Christ.
She stopped doing those and asked, “Are you done shouting and pacing?”
“I think so,” he answered.
She hesitated.
Then she moved.
And she hit him like a bullet.
He rocked back on a foot and wrapped his arms around her.
“Al—”
Her body hitched, and the sob exploded.
Oh Christ.
Fuck, but he’d fucked this.
He tightened his arms, dropped his lips to her hair and whispered, “Baby.”
She didn’t reply, didn’t take her face out of his chest, she held on and her frame shook with her emotion.
“I’m a dick,” he muttered.
“I’m s-sorry,” she sniveled into his chest. “This isn’t about me. B-but th-he last f-few days…they h-hurt.”
“I know, baby. I’m such a fucking asshole, pulling that shit on you.”
“B-but, I p-promised.”
“Promised what?”
“We’d end, and I’d b-be okay. W-we’d s-still be f-friends.”
“That was fucked up, sweetheart, and we both knew it. C’mon.” He gave her a squeeze. “We both knew it.”
“I didn’t know it.”
God-fucking-dammit.
“I’m such a fucking dick,” he bit off.
She tipped her head back, he lifted his and saw her face red, eyes swollen and wet.
Shit.
“You were dealing with stuff,” she said.
“You don’t jack your woman around when you’re dealing with stuff.”
“Probably not,” she allowed.
“Christ, Alex, definitely not.”
“Well, it’s not little shit you were dealing with,” she defended his treating her like shit.
“Babe, it could be the last few hours before the big meteor hits, I’m a dick to you, you call my ass on it, get me?”
She stared up at him.
Then she grabbed his head, brought his lips crashing down on hers, and her little tongue was dancing in his mouth.
The taste of her, even the tears on her lips, Rix couldn’t hack it.
He crushed her against him, took over the kiss…
This lasted a second before she tore from his arms.
He was confused half a second before he saw her running to the stairs.
He chased after her.
He caught her halfway up, whirled her, threw her over his shoulder, and her surprised “oof” scored through his dick.
He hit the top, got across the space, and tossed her on her back on the bed.
She recovered from the bounce pulling off her sweater.
He stood beside the bed and ripped off his Henley.
She was pushing her jeans down her legs while he finished with his belt.
Her pants hit the floor when his dick sprang free.
He barely had his jeans over his ass before his hips jerked because she’d latched on to his dick and was pulling him by it.