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“You mean, stay with Soldier?” he asked.
Ray nodded before saying, “Yeah. As long as you’re okay with that … and Soldier’s okay with it too, of course.”
Noah was slow to nod, and his smile was even slower to grow. But when it did, he looked like a kid on Christmas as he beamed bright enough to light up the blackened sky.
“Yeah,” he said as he slid his arm around my waist, “I think that’s a good idea.”
I pulled him tighter to my side, my smile matching his. “I do too.”
***
We had a quiet and comfortable but fast dinner as we listened to the low, growling rumbles of thunder in the distance. The ominous clouds let loose the moment we stepped out of the diner, and we laughed as we ran through the rapidly multiplying raindrops, racing each other home until Ray and I were breathless and panting and Noah was more than ready to keep going.
“Jeez, you guys are old,” he chided before running the rest of the way down Daffodil Lane.
I took Ray’s hand, interlocking our fingers, and tipped my head back to feel the rain patter against my face.
“You look happy,” Ray commented quietly.
I smiled as we strolled. “Iamhappy.”
She smiled, but her eyes held a little doubt. But it was true. Even despite my mother’s death and the lone bogeyman still lurking in the shadows, I was truly, undoubtedly happy.
“I love you,” Ray whispered, squeezing my hand.
We passed beneath a lamppost, the light illuminating the hundreds of raindrops as they fell to wet the ground at our feet. I stopped us from walking and tugged at her hand, pulling her against me. She laughed loudly, elated as she pressed her hands to my soaked T-shirt, the fabric plastered to my skin.
“I love you too, Rain,” I said, my throat clenching around the words as they were spoken. “And it’s because ofyouthat I am happy. It’s because of you that I love my life. Things that I never thought could ever be possible have been turned into a reality because you’re in my life. And I know you thank me for everything all the time, but right now, I’m thanking you. For opening your mind and giving me a chance when everyone else was reluctant, for loving me, and for giving me a life I never thought I could have. I could never thank you enough for that. Because I’ve finally won.”
Even in the rain, I could see the watering of her eyes as she swallowed. “If you win, I win, Soldier, and I’d say we both got very, very lucky,” she whispered, moving her hands up from my sodden shirt to grasp my face between her palms.
She lured me down to her open, waiting lips to kiss me deeply, passionately between the raindrops beneath a lamppost on Daffodil Lane. Her hands pushed into my hair as mine tangled within hers, our mouths opening wider and deepening the dance of our tongues.
I will miss this so much, I thought, immediately shaken by the mere act of thinking it at all, and it worked its way down from my brain to my heart, settling in to cause an ache the kiss couldn’t touch, let alone erase.
Ray pulled back, leaving me instantly lonely and longing for more. But her eyes met mine with a promise.
“I think we need to get inside and take care of this,” she said, dragging her fingers slowly from my shoulder, down my chest, across my navel, and right along my bulging erection, straining painfully against the zipper of my jeans.
I groaned, instantly desperate for her touch the second she took it away. “Only if I get to take care of you first,” I said as I grasped her hand and led her home, desperate to seek refuge from the warning bells residing only in my mind.
***
My hips rolled beneath her as I held on to her waist, staring into eyes that held every little thing I’d ever found important. Her fingers clung to my chest, piercing the skin with the crescent-moon shape of her nails. Her lipsfellopen; her jaw trembled. Her gaze flooded with a plea for release, and I would be damned to deny her.
My hand slid around her waist, resting on her thigh as my thumb pressed between her legs. Circling. Grinding. Moving with purpose and tantalizing persuasion.
Ray’s eyes fluttered, threatening to slam shut at the cusp of her orgasm, but I stopped her with a tightened grip on her thigh.
“Don’t close your eyes and disappear,” I whispered in a low, husky voice. “Stay with me. Let me have this. Let me watch.”
Her head jittered something of a nod. “Brawny, I’m not going anywhere.”
The statement was multifaceted, and I held on to it with every bit of strength I had as my thumbworkedand our hips came together and apart, together and apart, until her body tensed and she came undone. She strained to keep her eyes on mine, to not throw her head back and bite her lip, the way she always did. For a moment, I thought it was cruel to not let her, to not release her from my hold. But I needed to see the way her eyes hooded and deepened with euphoric lustat the momentof climax, to witness her passion for me in this fraction of time. To know without any inkling of doubt that I’d put that there and that no other man would ever do for her what I had.
I needed it.
No, mysoulneeded it.
