Tears streaking down my dirty cheeks, I forced myself to look at the woman who meant everything to me. “You’re the only person I can trust, Gramma. That’s why I’ve got to go. Let’s leave it at that.”
Anguish creased my grandmother’s aged face. “Rynna, I won’t let you just walk out like this.”
She reached out and brushed a tear from under my eye. Softly, she tilted her head to the side, that same tender smile she had watched me with at least a million times hinting at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t you ever forget, if you aren’t laughing, you’re crying. Now, which would you rather be doin’?” She paused, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer. “Wipe those tears, and let’s figure something out. Just like we always do.”
Sadness swelled like its own being in the tiny room. Loss. Regret. Like an echo of every breath of encouragement my grandmother had ever whispered in my ear. “I can’t stay here, Gramma. Please don’t ask me to.”
With the plea, my grandmother winced. Quickly, I dipped down to place a lingering kiss to her cheek, breathing in the ever-present scent of vanilla and sugar, committing it to memory.
Then I tugged my suitcase from the bed and started for the door.
Gramma reached for me, fingertips brushing my arm, begging, “Rynna, don’t go. Please, don’t leave me like this. There’s nothing that’s so bad that I won’t understand. That we can’t fix.”
I didn’t slow. Didn’t answer.
I ran.
And I didn’t look back.
“I just . . .” The words whispered from me on a regretful plea. “I just wish I would have come back sooner. I just wish I would have realized it didn’t matter what they’d done to me. My gramma would have never looked at me differently. She loved me, no matter what, and I let them steal eleven years of that.”
Fingers sank into my flesh, rage barely contained. “I want to hunt that little fucker down and kill him, Rynna. Who the fuck would do that to you? And that bitch? Fuck. I can’t even fathom it.”
Aaron’s name threatened on my tongue, the fact that I’d seen him on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant a couple weeks before. But there was no use in saying names. On laying blame. I just wanted to let Rex in, let him see me, understand me, the same way as he’d allowed me to understand him.
“It was a long time ago, Rex.”
“But it doesn’t take away what they did.”
“No.” My head shook, a tweak of hope lifting the corner of my trembling lip. “And you’re right. I spent a long time being terrified of them. Just the idea of ever seeing them again had kept me chained to San Francisco. But maybe they regret it now. Maybe the years passed, and they recognized the depravity of what they had done. Maybe they look back, and they’re struck with shame and remorse and would take it all back if they could.”
Rex touched the side of my face. “You are nothin’ but grace and good, Rynna Dayne. Forgiving them that way.”
“Holding on to hate would only hurt me more.”
It was almost a grin that lit on his face. “Am I allowed to hate them for you?”
I bit my bottom lip, fighting a smile. Again, overcome by him. By that beautiful exterior and the amazing heart beating its own kind of grace underneath. “If it makes you feel better.”
He clutched me to him, burrowing his face into my neck, pressing his lips against my skin. “Yeah, it makes me feel so much better.”
Then he nipped at me, and a giggle slipped out.
Because Rex Gunner made me feel completely free.
I moved to stare down at him, and I swore his eyes saw all the way to the depths of me.
The air shifted.
Hit with that charge.
A bolt of electricity.
I sucked in a breath, and he placed his palm at the center of my chest, nudging me back until I was sitting up, straddling him.
He gripped his length in his hand.
Already ready. Wanting more.
Which was just fine, because everything I had belonged to this man.
31
Rynna
Morning light flooded through the window. Bright, white, and glowing.
I thought maybe I was, too.
I watched Rex, the man lost to sleep. Peace floated around him like a full-body halo where he lay face down on his bed. Twisted in his sheets. A hint of his perfect, round ass peeked out from above the satiny material, the ridges of his muscular back on display, his shoulders so deliciously wide.
My gaze traced every inch of exposed skin.
Even though he’d been so lost, he’d opened up, willing to be found.
Redness rushed across my chest and up to my face, this feeling that was so heavy and warm and light fluttering through my senses. Everything so incredibly right.
Not even trying to stop my smile, I quietly dressed and slipped out of his room.