Falling for Rex by Shayne Ford
9
LUNA RAE
He startsto run to catch me, and I zoom by the door, rounding the front of the car and stopping on the other side of my ride, the terrain becoming abrupt, dipping toward the beach.
I pivot to him while he stops a few feet away from me, his arms up in the air.
“It’s because of my brother.”
I turn to stone.
“What?” I gasp, a hand on my car, my heels sinking into the soft ground.
I lose my balance for a moment, struggling to stand.
“It’s because of Kian,” he says again, his eyes sliding down, noticing the precarious situation. “Let me help you,” he offers, pointing to my shoes.
“I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself.”
I swivel and press my back against my ride, my palm fanned against the door.
“Let’s talk in my car,” he says.
“No. I don’t want to. Say it here if you have anything to say.”
He comes closer, his back turned to the ocean.
“What about your brother?” I ask in a shaky voice.
His eyes dip.
“What happened to your neck?” he asks.
“You are asking me that?”
“Was that me?” he asks in a softer voice, lifting his fingers to my skin.
I swat it away.
“It didn’t look that bad this morning.”
I cuff his wrist to get his attention.
“Tell me about your brother.”
His eyes come to mine.
“He was curious about you.”
“He doesn’t know me. Why would he be curious about me?”
“It’s not you. It’s me,” he says in a quiet voice.
Oh... All right. So that’s what it was?
And I thought he had a crush on me.
“He knows about you because of me,” he continues. “I didn’t talk about you. And I swear, I tried to keep it a secret, but he knew that something was going on. He became very interested in you and who you were, although I misled him as much as I could.”
I slacken against the hood of my car.
“Did it work?” I ask, not knowing what to believe.
“I don’t know,” he mutters sincerely. “Even if it didn’t, you’re safer if he believes I’m not interested in you.”
I look at him, baffled.
“What’s his problem?”
A soft smile tugs at his lips.
“Everything. Me, you, the world. He hates everything. He wants everything. He wants everything I have. He’s unhinged most of the time and loves to steal from me. He always has, but not so much the women that we had. They were fair game.”
“Is there a difference that escapes me?”
“We’ve had women, hookups, but nothing more. We’ve never had anything steady. I’m not saying that you and I are steady, but you’re different from the women we’ve had before. He’s never wanted someone like you.”
“What’s wrong with someone like me?”
“Nothing. It’s just that we’ve never had that experience.”
“You said he never wanted it. What is it so bad about me?” I insist.
He smiles again.
“Nothing. He just goes for a different kind of woman. And quite often, he wants what I have. I didn’t volunteer information about you. He asked me because he wanted to know more. He was intrigued and stirred up when I pretended that you meant nothing to me. I tried to convince him that I didn’t care about you. I thought it had worked, and frankly, I didn’t expect him to show up at the party. He said he’d go to San Francisco. Instead, he came there to catch me with you. Yes, I wanted to come to you when I walked into Amber’s house. I talked to Frankie, and I knew you were upstairs, but then I saw him, and I knew why he was there. I stuck with Sammy because you already knew the truth about her. Had I picked a different woman, it would’ve looked suspicious to him, and you would’ve freaked out.”
A moment passes by before I breathe out a nervous chuckle.
“And you think that this is not freaking me out?”
He closes the space between us completely.
“Listen to me,” he says, his hands resting on my shoulders. “I’m not the kind of man that sends mixed messages. I’m just not.”
I lift my gaze to him.
“Is that why you didn’t want to pick me up?”
He tips his chin down in response.
“Yes. I hoped we’d meet at the party, spend some time together and leave without raising any suspicion. Normally, you wouldn’t catch me dead at a party like this. That’s what made my brother suspicious. Do you think he usually shows up at these social gatherings? No. His parties are different. And the crowd he hangs out with is also different than Amber Stone’s family and friends. We are part of the same circle, and her parents know my stepfather, but we’re rarely partying together. My brother is at the bikers’ club most of the nights while I only pop in occasionally.”
“Why was Sammy there?”
He shrugs.
“She’s free to do whatever she wants. She’s single. She’s not attached to anyone.”
I look at him frozen, his hands sliding up to the root of my neck, his eyes diving into mine.
“We’re not having this conversation, are we?”
He’s right.
When did this whole thing become about me being jealous of that woman and holding him accountable?
“You’re right,” I say, lifting my hand and cuffing his wrist. “What did you say to that cop?”
He smiles.
“That you are my girlfriend. He knows my father.”
I feel him tense beneath my touch.
“Girlfriend? Am I?”
His answer lags.
“Never mind,” I say abruptly. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend.”
I shift.
He blocks my retreat, his hands landing on the hood of the car on either side of me. I lean back a little while he tilts forward, his breath fanning over my neck.
He doesn’t say a word before kissing the mark he left on my neck last night, the patch of skin his brother ravished, the very spot that’s telling me these men are crazy and I should steer away from them.
A quiver falls through me as he caresses my skin.
“What we had last night has never happened to me before...” he says, breathing against my skin.
He lifts his gaze and searches my eyes.
“Do you understand?”
A soft smile curls his lips. I nod in silence.
His eyes catch a sliver of moonlight, glinting in the dimness.
Far away, close to the horizon, the ocean glimmers too.
“I want to keep you away from him,” he says, no longer smiling.
“How can you do that?” I ask. “He knows about us. He told me you’d fuck another woman tonight.”
His eyes turn to forget-me-nots of ice.
“He... what??”
His voice propels out of his throat, his eyes blazing at me. His reaction scares me.
He straightens, grappling with tension.
“When did he say that?”
His eyes stay locked with mine as I go over every possible scenario in my head.
So many things escape me.
“Tonight.”
“He talked to you?” he asks, washed with surprise.
I nod.
“He ran into me when I tried to come to you. You were on the terrace. I didn’t say who I was or where I was going. He knew. He said I shouldn’t wait for you because you’d be with someone else.”
He doesn’t say a word, a muscle ticking in his jaw, his tension palpable.
“That was it?” he asks, distrust flowing through his eyes.
Struggling, I hold his stare.
“Yes. That was it. He scared me,” I add, hoping to diffuse his suspicion.
Suddenly, he seems to be wrestling with conflicted thoughts, the moment of silence prolonging.
“Okay. I’ll go home now,” I say, pivoting away from him.
His hands come to me again.
“No, no,” he mutters.
I turn to him, wrestling with surprise.
His hands come to my face.
“You need to stay away from him, all right?” he says, concern glinting in his eyes. “Promise me that.”
He seems so tormented, and although I have no idea what I promise him exactly, I agree. It’s not as if I want to see his brother again.
His fingers stroke my cheeks mechanically while I spin a crazy thought.
“Maybe this thing is not supposed to work for us...” I murmur in a stream of consciousness.
He runs his thumb across my lip.
“Don’t say that... It will work for as long as it works, and then we’ll see. Don’t give up on the idea of us,” he says quietly, his moment of vulnerability touching a soft spot inside me.
“How will this work if we need to hide from him?”
Him... Who is crazier than a box of rocks, I might add.
“We’ll hide or not. We’ll see how it goes. I’m certain Kian and I will end up fighting over you.”
Breathlessly, I observe him, feeding on the passion in his eyes.
He must know his brother better than me.
He must’ve often seen in Kian what I saw tonight–– sheer determination, raw force, a streak of craziness, and rapaciousness.
His strange sense of morality or lack thereof.
I don’t know much about the man in front of me, but he seems like an angel next to his brother.
I don’t know what makes people become brutes. Granted, Kian doesn’t look like one. He has charming looks, social skills when needed, and immense power.
What makes men like him a vicious brute?
Hmm... I don’t know.
“You don’t have to fight him. I will,” I murmur, not knowing what I’m talking about.
His soft smile suggests that, the sadness in his eyes relaying that too, while his soft strokes confirm it.
