Last Chance Rebel (13 page)

He started to move. She wanted to beg him to stop. Not because it hurt, but because it began to feel good. And that was even worse.

He flexed his hips, his hard body pressing up against her clitoris, sending sparks of pleasure through her. She fought it. There was no reason for her to have an orgasm again. She'd had one already, and honestly, another one would be gratuitous. And dangerous.

But, Gage didn't seem to take note of her resistance. Or, he didn't care. He slid his hand down her back, moving to cup her butt, pulling her up hard against him with his every thrust, forcing her into deeper, harder contact with him.

He ground his hips against her every time he went in deep, making her gasp, pushing the strange surge of emotion that had overwhelmed her when he had first entered her into the background. It was still there, lingering, but the feeling, the pleasure, it was bigger now. Starting to blot out common sense, self-protection and everything that had just told her to try and hold back.

She didn't want to hold back anymore. She just wanted, more than that, needed him. Needed this. Needed satisfaction more than she could ever remember needing anything else in her entire life.

He wasn't talking now. He was just breathing, hard and fierce, broken. She liked it. Because it sounded like she felt. On the verge. Out of control.

She let her head fall back, and he kissed her throat, those hot lips and the gentle scrape of his beard sending a sensual shiver right down through her body.

Suddenly, the sensation of being overwhelmed by him wasn't bad. It wasn't too much.

It wasn't enough.

She found herself arching into him, holding on to him, pressing her body against him. Clinging to him, to this.

She wrapped her legs around his, tangling herself in him completely as he continued to drive them both harder, higher.

He gripped her face again, holding her steady as he kissed her deep, his desperation echoing through her, pushing her to the brink. She held there for a moment, suspended in space. And then she fell.

She felt him stiffen above her, heard him growl as he pulsed deep inside of her. But she was too caught up in her own release to have any more than a vague awareness for what had happened with him.

When she came back to herself, she was still clinging to his shoulders, and he was breathing hard, his face buried in her neck.

She blinked, realizing that there were tears on her face that she wasn't aware of having shed. He moved away from her and she rolled onto her side, curling into a ball, tucking her knees up against her chest.

She closed her eyes tightly, listened to the sound of him cross the room, going into what she assumed was a bathroom. She just lay there, counting her breaths. She had done that. She wasn't a virgin anymore.

She'd had sex with Gage West.

She sat up, breathing hard, an adrenaline surge pouring through her. She had to go. She had to get out of here or she was going to completely lose her mind in front of him.

She swung her feet over the side of the mattress, pressing her hand to her chest, feeling her heart raging beneath her palm.

“You don't have your truck.”

She turned, seeing the vague silhouette of Gage standing in the bathroom door. “I know,” she said.

“I don't think you did. You had the look of a woman about to run out on a man.”

“I'll just walk home,” she said, ignoring him.

“Like hell. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll drive you back if you need to leave. Or, you're welcome to spend the night here.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

He let out a heavy sigh, crossing the space and moving to the foot of the bed, where he retrieved his jeans. “Have it your way. I don't exactly want to go outside again, but if you need your space...”

“I need to go home. I told you. One time. That was it. It's done.”

He started to pull his pants on slowly. “Right. And you were a virgin. You just...wanted to lose that really quick?”

“There was nothing quick about it. I'm twenty-eight.”

“Sure. But I think you know that's not what I meant.”

“Hey, could we skip the heart-to-heart, postmortem thing?”

“I haven't decided yet.” Suddenly, the sound of a phone vibrating on a hard surface cut through their conversation. He crossed to the nightstand and grabbed hold of his phone, looking down at the screen. He answered it. “Hello? Yeah.” He paused. “Is everything okay?”

In spite of herself, Rebecca felt tense listening to the single-sided conversation.

“I can come down there.” There was another pause. “Right. All right. Some other time then.” This pause wasn't longer than the others, but it felt thicker, heavier. “Tell her I said... You know what, don't tell her I said anything.”

He hung up the phone, setting it slowly on the nightstand again. Then he turned, walking toward the window and bracing his hands on the windowpane.

Her breath caught as she looked at his powerful physique, outlined by the pale moonlight. She felt exposed, she still wanted to escape, but that didn't make him any less beautiful. It didn't make her any less captivated by him. Or any less concerned about what was happening, even if she shouldn't be concerned about him at all.

“What happened?”

“My little sister,” he said, his voice like gravel. “She had a baby.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I
S
EVERYTHING
OKAY
?”

He wasn't accustomed to Rebecca looking at him with anything like compassion or concern, but she definitely showed both at the moment.

He nodded slowly, his heart thundering a dull, painful rhythm in his chest. A lot like a boulder hitting up against a bruise. He had barely recovered from what had just happened between him and Rebecca, and having this thrown over the top of it when his orgasm was still buzzing through his blood was all a little bit much.

“Yeah, everything's fine. Madison wasn't sure if Sierra would want me to come down to the hospital.” And why would she? Until that first day he'd come back, he hadn't seen her since she was six years old.

Damn.

Suddenly, he felt the weight and importance of every single year he'd been absent. Sure, he'd been close enough to an adult when he'd left, but his siblings had been kids. Those years mattered. They had changed things in inestimable ways. He could never have that time back. Ever.

He had missed everything. First dates and inches grown and all the shit that Madison had gone through. Colton was married, and in his mind his brother was still a skinny sixteen-year-old, not a man. Not someone's husband.

He had missed Sierra getting married, and now she was a mother.

All in all, he had changed the least.

His years hadn't been full of this kind of change. He had just wandered on down empty roads, rolling into towns where no one knew him and then rolling back out again when they knew him a little bit too well.

Yeah, it had all blurred together out there. By himself, the years hadn't seemed to matter so much. But back here, he could see just how essential each and every one had been. Now that it was too late.

“Why doesn't she think you should go to the hospital?”

“Probably because me being around is still a little bit of a problem. Colton is mad because I'm the one that Dad put in charge of managing his affairs if he ever became an invalid or died. I think that pisses him off because he was here being the good son, and I was off doing God knows what. That's fair enough. Except, I don't actually think he wants a front-row seat to all of this. But, I don't blame them for not trusting me.” He looked at her, at the woman he had just slept with. The woman whose virginity he had just taken. She looked rumpled, warm and soft, and a hell of a lot more tempting than the problems that were laid out in front of him.

The prospect of taking Rebecca back to bed was much more appealing than walking through this field of emotions that he had a feeling was full of a hell of a lot more burrs than wildflowers.

“At a certain point you're going to have to start going,” she said, her tone maddeningly matter-of-fact. As if this weren't a complicated issue.

“No,” he said, “I don't. I'm not going to stay in town. Nobody wants me to. Come to that, I don't think I want to.”

“Plenty of people live out of town and still stay in touch with their families. Do you honestly think that coming back for a few months and laying out ultimatums and commands is going to heal a rift? I mean, that's what you've been doing with me. Burst in and tell me how it's going to be, then expect me to thank you for it.”

“You didn't mind being told what to do a few minutes ago,” he said.

He couldn't read her expression in the darkness. But, he had a feeling that it wasn't a pleasant one. He was comfortable with that, though. Comfortable with her being angry with him. More comfortable with sex than he was with the complicated feelings surrounding his family, and his sister giving birth.

“How old was she when you left?” He hadn't expected that.

“Six,” he replied.

He remembered her clearly. An impish little girl with wide blue eyes and almost white blond hair. And of course, he'd been a teenager, so he had found her mostly boring. He'd been so wrapped up in his own life, a life that he had been convinced the universe revolved around. What else mattered except for his own comfort? His own happiness?

He had never, not once, considered that his actions might affect other people. He had never particularly cared. The entire world—in his mind—had existed to bring him happiness.

He wished he would have cared about her then. When it would have mattered. It was all a little bit too late now.

“That must be hard,” she said, speaking slowly, as though it were foreign to her to say something comforting.

“Yeah,” he said, bracing himself on the window, staring out into the blackness beyond his front yard. “You could say that.”

“Let's go.”

“Where?” he asked, turning slightly to face her.

“To the hospital. I'm driving you. No matter what Madison says, if you don't go, they're going to hold that over you. Better to go and have them be unfriendly jackasses when you get there.”

“You care whether or not they're mad at me?”

She shrugged one bare shoulder, then moved across the room, fishing around for her clothes.

“Now suddenly you don't have a comment?” he asked.

“I don't know why I care,” she said, straightening, pulling her dress over her head. “Maybe because there's no chance ever that I'm going to make up with my mom? Maybe because I never even knew my dad, and also maybe because my brother is one of the most important people in the world to me? Maybe it's just the fact that your family is right there, and you could fix it. But you aren't.”

“Our situations aren't that easy to compare,” he said.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You have a lot of
maybe
s.”

She growled. “I'm sorry, I'm fresh out of certainty. I just did about the craziest thing I can think of with the last person on earth I ever should have done it with. You want certainty? You should damn well be at the hospital with your little sister. No matter what. Even if she doesn't want you in the room, even if you end up cooling your heels at reception, you should be there.”

“Why?” he asked, taking a step toward her, pressure building in his chest. “According to you I'm a scourge, so what good could I possibly do there?”

“You're her brother,” she said, her expression furious. “Maybe that doesn't matter to you right now. Or you've lost touch with what that means, but it's a big deal.”

Everything in him felt like it exploded then, a devastating thunderclap that toppled defenses, that exposed pain he hadn't even known existed.

His little sister. His little sister he'd abandoned. It was so clear then. What he'd lost. What he'd missed.

All he could think of was that he had to make it stop. That he needed something, anything. And since Rebecca was the one to rock him like that, he felt like she might be the one to fix it. He advanced on her, only stopping when she shrank back. He closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of her, so close he could reach out and touch her with ease. So close he could just pull her into his arms and kiss her and forget that Sierra was in the hospital. That she'd just given birth.

That his whole damn life was...this. Years wandering in the wilderness, building nothing except a fortune, without a single damn person to call if he had a heart attack or some shit. He had a family. That was his one tie. The only one that couldn't be severed by distance or negligence. Because it was blood.

Whatever he'd been about to say, whatever he'd been about to do...it all just sort of evaporated. Because there was nothing he could rail at, destroy or run from that would fix this. Distance would only widen the wound, and he'd had enough of that.

There was only one thing to do.

“Take me to the hospital,” he said.

He should take her home. He shouldn't have her drive anywhere.

“Sure.” Her voice was blank, and what he could see of her face was too.

They didn't talk as they headed out of the house to the truck. He handed her the keys when they got to the vehicle and she took them, getting inside and starting the truck while she waited for him to get in.

As soon as they were on the main highway, she started to chatter. Which was very un-Rebecca-like.

“You probably don't know the layout of the new hospital,” she said. “So it's better if I drive because the birthing center is kind of hard to find. Like it's in its own little...part of the...” She trailed off.

It suited him to have her manufacture excuses for why she was coming with him. For why he was having her drive. It was true, he didn't know where the birthing center was, but he had a smartphone so he could figure it out fast enough by using the map app.

But he just wanted her with him. Whatever the fuck that meant, he wasn't in the mood to figure it out.

“I bet when you left there were hardly any shops open on the main street,” she said as they drove through town. “So this must be very different.”

She sounded nervous. Nothing like she normally did. He didn't like it. He would rather have her going after him with verbal knives than acting like she was nervous. He didn't want her nervous. Pissed and profane, or panting beneath him, sure. But not nervous.

“Yeah, it's pretty different,” he said.

Main Street had been white noise to him when he'd been in high school. Something he'd driven by every day of his life. He'd stopped looking at it. He'd stopped looking at much of anything except for what benefitted him, what gave him a rush of adrenaline.

He'd been the heir apparent to the town in his mind, and he'd felt like it all existed for him. That was what he remembered now as they drove on the dark, rain-drenched streets. The world's quietest homecoming parade. Just him riding shotgun in his own truck as Rebecca filled the silence with talk about what business was where and for how long.

While he thought about that night he'd driven through town then sped off north. His friends were messing around. Passing on double lines, and it was his turn to pass and take the lead so, even though it wasn't safe, he did. And then he saw headlights coming his direction.

He gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes on the road. On the headlights firmly in the correct lane.

Finally they arrived at the hospital. The tiny parking lot at the birthing center was packed full, and there was only one available space. Rebecca turned into it sharply and killed the engine, then got out without waiting for him.

She scurried quickly to the automatic glass doors, dodging raindrops as they started to fall. He walked slower, not caring when the icy drops hit his bare skin, slid inside the collar of his shirt and down his back. He'd forgotten his hat. Which seemed about right since his whole world had been pitched just slightly to the left and he wasn't sure what the hell he was going to do about it.

He wasn't sure what the hell he was going to do next.

They walked into the waiting area, a small space with double doors on the opposite side of it, guarded by a man sitting at a desk positioned out front.

“Who are you here to see?” he asked.

“Sierra West.” Then he remembered that wasn't her name anymore. “I mean Sierra Thompson. Sorry. I can't quite get used to that.”

The man looked at the registry book in front of him, offering Gage an understanding smile as he did. “Takes a while for a name change to stick.” He took two name tags and dated them, then passed them over to Gage and Rebecca to add their names. “If she's not taking visitors the nurse will stop you. She's in room three.”

He nodded, missing his hat again and feeling a little like an ass.

“Come on,” Rebecca said as the man at the desk pressed a button and opened the security doors.

She didn't touch him, but he still felt connected to her by some invisible thread. But that was low on his list of things to worry about. Especially when he saw Colton, his wife, Lydia—who Gage had yet to formally meet—and Maddy sitting in the waiting room.

They all stood when he walked in. Colton wrapped his arm around Lydia and drew her close. Maddy crossed her arms, holding herself close and putting obvious distance between her and himself.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he said, his lame joke doing nothing to defuse the tension in the room.

“Then, maybe don't make a habit out of showing up only when someone is hospitalized?” This came from Maddy.

“How is she?”

“Great,” Colton said. “Resting.”

“Everything is good with the baby?”

“Everything's fine. It's a girl,” Maddy added. “If she wasn't okay, I would have told you.”

“Yeah, I figured.” He actually had. Madison was straight up, that much he had gathered in their limited interaction.

“You can go,” Colton said.

Lydia put a hand on her husband's shoulder. “I don't think he wants to go, Colton.”

“No,” Gage said, “he doesn't.”

“She didn't ask for you,” Colton said. “Why would she? For seventeen years you haven't been around. There would be no point in her asking for you. Why would she ask for you now?”

“I know. I'm not going to stand here and try to justify myself. Not now. That's a conversation for a different time. And it's going to take a lot more than one conversation, frankly. But right now, I want to see her. Or, I at least want her to know that I was here.”

Colton frowned, looking past Gage, his eyes landing on Rebecca. “Are you with him, Rebecca?” he asked.

Gage looked down at Rebecca. Her golden cheeks darkened, pink flushing up beneath her skin. “I drove him,” she said, her voice monotone.

Colton looked like he wanted to launch into an inquisition, but he refrained. “I can check and see if she wants to see you.”

“I will,” Maddy said, treating him to a look that would have scorched a lesser man before she walked toward the patient rooms, disappearing into one of them.

A heavy, uncomfortable silence descended over them.