She fell silent. “Well, shit. You’re right.”
I didn’t even have it in me to smile.
Unknown Sender: You’ve got a problem heading your way. Trust starts both ways.
Nyx: Cryptic much?
Unknown Sender: You’ll understand when it happens. It’s my pleasure to help resolve this for you.
Nyx: Don’t do me no favors.
Unknown Sender: You’ll be thankful once the job’s done.
THIRTY-FOUR
RACHEL
“I have a question.”
“One of your two-a-day or just a regular, ‘What’s your favorite color?’ kind of question?”
He scoffed, “If I didn’t know your favorite color already, you’d have tossed me to the curb years ago.”
“What is it then?”
“Your real favorite color or the one you tell everyone is your favorite?”
Grinning down at my desk as I worked on annotating yet another deposition for Luciu Valentini—seriously, the man had better donate an arm and a leg at the gala—and with a rerun of The Kardashians on the TV, I asked, “Tell me both. I have to check up on you.”
“You tell everyone your favorite color is navy blue, but it’s actually fuchsia. And trust me, there’s no way I’d ever forget that because when I was a kid, I had to look it up to know what fuchsia even is. I thought it was a curse word at first.”
Laughing, I said, “Fair play. Sounds like ‘fuck.’”
“Sure does.” He cleared his throat. “My question was about that.”
“About fuchsias?” I arched a brow, but it was wasted on my lap desk. “Or fucking?”
“Fucking.”
“I wondered when we’d talk about sex.”
“You have?”
“Yes. Since Link told me you don’t fuck Peach.”
“Fucking Link.”
Doodling on my notepad, I demurred, “He did you a favor.”
“He did? Aside from emasculating me?”
“Proving you’re faithful is emasculating you?”
“It proves that I’ve been a dipshit.”
“Why does it?” I countered. “You’re talking to the woman invested in your faithfulness. Anyway, I’d say you were a dipshit if I’d fucked around… but I didn’t. Haven’t. Don’t want to.”
His heavy breath rattled down the line. “We have a lot of wasted time to make up for.”
“Women in their late thirties/early forties have a bump in their sex drive.”
He groaned. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
I chuckled. “It’s supposed to reassure you. You’ll need Viagra.”
“I doubt it.”
His snort made me grin. “Anyway, what about sex? We’re good together, aren’t we?”
“We are.”
When his voice dropped, everything in me melted into my armchair. I was in my bedroom, staring at a bed we’d never fucked in, wishing that weren’t true so I could at least envision us there together.
God, he wasn’t wrong about us having a lot of wasted time to make up for.
“Well?”
“Sometimes I’m concerned I’m going to trigger you.”
I pondered that, pondered the hesitancy in his voice, and remarked, “Did I ever come across as the kind of woman who wouldn’t be able to tell you what I wanted or didn’t want?”
“No.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s irrational. Maybe it isn’t. After the last time, after how it ended, I mean, I’m wondering if I’ve always known something wasn’t right.”
“It isn’t your fault that my subconscious is a dick.”
“I don’t want that to happen again.”
Thinking about staring at him, telling him to get out, had my voice deepening as I told him, “I can’t promise that.”
“Is there something we could do—” He sighed again. “I’m asking for the impossible.”
“You’re not.”
“I guess I’m asking if there’s something I do during sex that takes you back to that time.”
My eyes rounded in horror. “No, Rex. God, no. Nothing about what we do is in any way, shape, or form like what happened to me.”
“Even when I’m rough with you?”
“Rex, what we do is consensual. There’s a massive difference,” I tried to reason. “I want what we do. Everything.” God, did I. “What happened to me… I didn’t want that. I pleaded… I—no. No, Rex.” I sucked in a breath and decided to shift this conversation. I was so fucking sick of the past. I wanted to deal with the future. That was what mattered. “I’ll tell you what I do want though.”
“What?” he asked quickly, his eagerness telling me he wanted to change the subject too.
“To have… to do—” Jesus. What verb went with oral? “To give you oral.”
“I am beyond willing.”
Snickering, relieved that he’d decided not to tease me, I told him, “Good to know.”
“Seriously. Willing and able and ready to show up.”
“I might be bad at it. I haven’t done it in years,” I warned.
Eighteen to be precise.
History.
That was the past.
This was the present.
“My dick will explode the second you put your lips around it.”
“I’ll just have to keep on trying until I do it right then, won’t I?”
Another groan escaped him. “You make that sound like explosion isn’t what I want.”
“Premature explosions are good for no one. Especially not if I want to practice.”
“Practice makes perfect. I know what a perfectionist you are. Again, I’m beyond ready and willing.”
Smirking to myself, I said, “I guess it’s only fair seeing as you turn my innards to mush.”
“Well, my outards are anything but mush.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. Right now. So we should change the subject.”
“Do we have to?” I stared down at the deposition on my lap desk. “I’d prefer that to what I’m currently doing.”
“Which is?”
“I’m going through a witness statement.”
He hummed. “It’s annoying that I can’t ask you for details. Like wanting to know what happens in a show but your friend won’t give you spoilers.”
“Friend… Is that what I am?”
“You’ll always be my friend, Rachel. You just happen to be the love of my life too.”
I sighed. “Stop being charming.”
“I mean, I can’t. It’s too ingrained.”
“Jackass,” I said with a laugh.
“I can’t be both, can I?”
“It’s possible seeing as you’re being a jackass and charming all at the same time.”
His chuckle did things to me that were probably illegal in some states. “You should get on with your work. I don’t want to be a distraction.”