I knocked on Karsen’s door and told her I was leaving for the night. She just gave me a knowing look and then went back to whatever she was doing on her phone. I think the poor thing had had enough of everyone else’s drama to last her well into her own adulthood.
I got to the garage and punched in the code on those steel security gates, relieved to see the Stingray in the spot where the Mustang used to sit. I opened the side door and practically ran up the metal steps into the loft. When I entered the big, open space I almost tripped over Race, who was sitting in the center of the floor, a half-empty bottle of Scotch in his hand, and his green eyes hot and glassy. I sank down to my knees next to him and took the bottle out of his hand.
“You promised to come home.”
His chest rose and fell and his tongue darted out to run along his lower lip. Even drunk and moody, he was the prettiest man I had ever seen. I reached out to cup his cheek in my palm and his eyes drifted shut and he turned to nuzzle into the touch.
“That ‘being there’ thing works both ways, handsome.”
“I feel like shit because I feel like shit.” His breath was high octane, but he wasn’t slurring, making me wonder how long he had been hitting the bottle. Maybe it had been an all-day event and he wasn’t really as inebriated as he seemed.
“What are you talking about?” I pulled the bottle out of his hand and ran my fingers through his hair. It always felt like gold silk.
“He wanted to kill Dovie. He was in Novak’s pocket. He cheated on my mom all the time and he cut me off without a thought. He was manipulative and so fucking heartless. He deserved to die, I was going to let Bax kill him if it came to that . . . but now . . .” His head fell forward on his neck and I saw his shoulder hitch up and then drop. “I feel terrible.”
I rubbed the back of his neck and tried to get some of the tension out. “He was your dad. Of course you feel terrible. It doesn’t matter how awful he was, he was still your father. You’re allowed to be sad about it, but what you aren’t allowed to do is try and take responsibility for it.”
His head shot up and he looked at me as I scooted over him so that I was sitting on his lap. He put his hands on my waist and lifted both of his eyebrows up at me.
“What do you mean?”
“It isn’t your fault your dad turned on Novak’s guys to make a deal to save his own skin and it so isn’t your fault that Novak has more poison to spread around even though he’s long gone. Your dad ended up where he did because of his choices, not because of anything you did.”
He grunted and climbed to his feet, still holding me. Considering he didn’t stumble or stagger at all, I really doubted he was as drunk as I first thought.
“I know that, I just needed a minute and maybe you saying it out loud for it to sink in.” He headed to the foldout bed and tossed me in the center of it with far less finesse than he had been showing me since Drew’s attack. “And I was going to come home, I just had to sober up first and get my head back on straight. This is the kind of stuff that has no place there.”
Since he was standing at the edge of the bed looming over me, I reached up under his long-sleeved T-shirt and started to work it up over his always impressive torso. I would never get tired of seeing his abs flex and contract when I trailed my fingertips all along the dips and ridges.
“You’re wrong. I told you all along I want all of you; that includes this part of you. I get it, Race, you do what you have to do, not always what you want to do, but with me, that can’t be the case. I always have to be what you want to do, not what you have to do. You bring it home with you and we’ll battle through it together just like you told me.”
Since I had the top half of him naked, I decided I needed to get the rest of him that way as well. I reached for the button on his jeans and worked the zipper down, happy to see that even if he was feeling conflicted and melancholy, his always active sex drive wasn’t similarly affected. I worked my hands into the back of the fabric and gave his firm backside a squeeze while leering up at him.
He gave his head a rueful little toss and his dimple appeared and called to me. This time it was a real smile and that made my blood sing.
“You’ve been what I wanted to do since the beginning, Bry. How could you even question it?”
I wiggled a little closer so I could kiss him right over his heart and pushed his pants the rest of the way off of his hips. “Then come home so we can actually have sex in a bed and I can take care of you like you always take care of me . . . remember?”
He kicked his jeans off and stood before me in all his perfect gilded glory and lowered his head to give me the sweetest, most poignant kiss I had ever experienced. Any doubt I had lingering about how we were going to survive being together disappeared as our breath mingled together and I literally tasted his devotion on his smoky, Scotch-flavored tongue.
“All right, I’ll bring it home and we can wrestle around it together.”
I squeezed his biceps and squealed a little in surprise when he lifted me up and started to yank my pants down my legs. “I’m not scared.” I was breathless and my heart rate had kicked into overdrive.
His eyes shifted from moss to midnight and black velvet and the dimple got even more defined. I wanted to kiss it.
“Good.”
Impatient hands that were rough got the rest of my clothes off and finally, finally the Race I was used to going to bed with was back. His touch burned, his mouth was everywhere and left marks in its wake, and he used dirty words and pulled my hair. It was awesome and oh so welcome. He made me whimper, he made me gasp, and he made me scream his name over and over when he put his mouth between my legs and wouldn’t let up until I was breaking all apart over his thrusting tongue and stroking fingers. I thought I was spent, thought he would crawl up over me and sink inside to ride us both to a soft and mutually satisfying end, but Race was keyed up, on fire, and had other plans in mind for me. I told him I wasn’t scared and he was going to make me prove it.