“Uh-hum,” I hear an amused voice clear behind us. I jump out of his arms as if I were burned and bump my head into the cabinets above the sink. How the hell did we end up over here? We started off at the chopping block in the center of my kitchen on the island. I don’t remember feeling my body being moved, but Rayne has the capability to cause me to lose all train of thought. “Just thought you may wanna know that we can all see everything you’re doing,” Sibley advises with cherry tomato colored cheeks. I’m sure my own mirror her shaded ones.
“Sorry,” I squeak out, embarrassment swimming through my system. Without saying another word, Sibley gives us a shy look then heads back into the living room. What were we thinking? My house is an open floor plan, meaning that everyone witnessed the first kiss we’ve shared in years. How damn humiliating.
I look over and see Rayne’s shoulders shaking, then I look at his face and see it crinkled with amusement. “I don’t see how this is so freaking funny, Rayne,” I scold him as I put a serious look on my face. I see how hard he’s working to straighten his expression out, but it must be an impossible task because he bends over and barks out with hilarity.
“Y-your face,” he wheezes out as he points at me.
“What about my face?” Now, I’m getting a bit angry and a whole lot perturbed at his chosen words. “Grow up, Rayne,” I snap, finally losing my cool and allowing my temper to rear its ugly head.
“Momma’s don’t fights wiff my daddy!” Hadley stomps her foot, which I can clearly hear from the other room, and jabs her finger accusingly at me.
“We’re not fighting,” I call back out to her. “We’re having a very in-depth conversation.”
“I does not know what’s that means, but I don’t want y’all doing its no more,” she pouts. It’s the wobbling of her lower lip that finally cools my tirade.
“I’ll apologize to your daddy, Hads,” I promise.
“We’re just playing around, love bug.” Rayne saves the day. She gives us both a skeptical look, one filled to the brim; screaming out ‘I don’t believe you’ before returning her attention to her grandparents, whom she has wrapped around her pinky finger.
“Um, I’m not sure who the parent is here,” I say with a confused tone.
“Yeah, I’m on the same page. It’s crazy how with a look or a pout she’s able to put us in our proverbial place.” Rayne tilts his head to the side as he says this and it’s like a slap to the face. Hadley does the same exact thing. I knew she had some characteristics of her father, but I didn’t recognize she has a lot of the same mannerisms as he does. He hasn’t been around for her to pick them up. Crazy how genetics play a role even when the other parent has been absent for a period of time.
Rayne
As the night winds down, our parents finally leave to head to the hotel that they’ve made reservations at. I just hope it’s not at the same location as my sisters and I are currently occupying. Not because I don’t love my parents, it’s just that sometimes I feel smothered when they’re around. Mom misses us so much that she wants to spend every waking moment with us.
It’s fucking suffocating.
I do my best not to show her that’s how it makes me feel. The last thing I ever wanna do is hurt her feelings. She gave me life after all. What kind of asshole would that make me if I spent her visits hiding away like a scared little kid?
I turn around and my eyes zoom in on Jacey’s sweetheart-shaped ass as she’s bent over cleaning up some of Hadley’s toys. My tongue comes out and swipes across my lips as my mouth waters wanting a taste of her skin. Knowing that I won’t get a good night’s sleep unless I quench my thirst for her, I walk up behind her and wrap my arms around her chest. I lift her upper half up and pull her hair to the side. “I need to feel your lips on mine, Jace.” As the whispered words leave me, chill bumps swarm up and down her arms. I can see the fine hairs standing on end and I know she’s just as affected by me as I am of her.
Lowering my arms, I place my hands on her hips and gently turn her around to where she can look at me as I claim her lips… again. I just stand here as still as a statue waiting on her to make a decision. She may not understand, but once she gives into me on this, she’s signed on the dotted line and she’ll belong to me. I’ll never allow her to place any distance between us. She’s mine and I’m hers and no one will ever come between us again, not even me. I won’t allow it, it’s time that I show her how serious I am when it comes to rebuilding what we once had.
“Yes,” she quietly, barely above an audible sigh, says to me in response.
Needing her to understand where I’m coming from, I repeat my earlier inner thoughts to her. “This means everything, Jacey. There’s no turning back once I get a taste of those lips again. You will be mine again, in every way that counts.”
“Slowly, Rayne. I’m willing to give us a chance, but I want us to take our time and build the new us on a more solid foundation than what we had before.”
“How slow are we talking here, Jacey? Because if I have my way about things, you’ll be in front of a judge, a ring on your finger and signing that document that proclaims you as my wife as early as tomorrow morning.”
“Um, I’m just gonna put this out there—that’s all a bit too quick for me. I want to date for a while. I want to get dressed up and have you take me out on the town. I want to work up to becoming lovers then we’ll work our way up to discussing that ring and paper you were talking about.”
Dear fucking God! Is she talking a few days here, weeks, months, a year? My dick needs to know these things. Is my palm going to become my second girlfriend? These are things that you can’t keep a man wondering about. “Uh,” is the only thing that escapes my lips. I’m an intellectual man, you’d think I’d be able to get more than one syllable uttered in response.
Jacey simply smiles up at me and pats my cheek with the palm of her hand. “You’ll survive, Rayne. I won’t make you wait too long.” The last word comes out with a ruptured giggle. Losing myself in her happiness, I lean down as she lifts up. Meeting in the middle, we both greedily claim one another.
My heart rapidly beats in my chest as my hands grow clammy, just as they used to when we’d meld together as one. My woman has once again reeled me in… hook, line, and sinker.
I am hers and always will be.
18
Rayne
“What do you mean I’m fired!” Jameson thunderously roars out at me and my sisters. His veins are protruding from his neck and his fists are balled at his sides. If he so much as thinks of taking a swing at one of my sisters, I’ll remove his testicles and feed them to those damn piglets at that petting zoo I took Hadley to.
“We know what you did, Jameson. How you kept my family from me, helped hide the fact that I’m a father. On top of that, we have discovered you’ve also been taking some money from us and profiting from our hard work. We pay you fucking good, man, much better than most managers, yet you tried your hardest to fuck us over. We’ve been gathering evidence against you for a while now. You’re done, get the fuck out.” He turns around and punches a hole in the sheetrock that’s in the conference room of the hotel we’re staying at, which is where we’ve chosen to have this meeting with him.