Rebel (Renegades #2)(24)
Author: Skye Jordan

His free hand lifted, and he skimmed the back of one finger along the curve of her breast at the corset’s edge. The featherlight touch sent gooseflesh across her chest. Her ni**les puckered, and the crimson leather showed every last curve of the hard nub. He watched the reaction with a hunger she felt all the way through her.

“You are so sensitive,” he murmured. “If I dropped to my knees, would you take pity on me?”

Want swept through her in a fierce wave. Her eyes fell closed as she whispered, “There would be no pity involved.”

Air whooshed over her skin, and she opened her eyes. Wes was on one knee in front of her, one hand still gripping the railing, his other sliding around her waist. Rubi gasped at his touch. Every inch of her skin tightened in a ripple of pleasure.

His body remained perfectly still, his hand adding the slightest pressure to her lower back and drawing her belly toward his mouth. His warm breath touched her like fingertips, and she watched as he tipped his head, lowered those golden lashes, and opened his mouth against the strip of skin exposed beneath the edge of the corset.

Something tender and impossibly warm squeezed her heart so hard her chest ached. Something that definitely didn’t fall into the friend or sex category. Then the sensation of his mouth on her skin registered, and white-hot lust slid low, pooling between her legs.

“Oh hell,” drifted from her mouth in a desire-filled exhale.

A door downstairs opened, and Jax’s and Lexi’s voices touched Rubi’s ears, dragging her back from the blissful place Wes had taken her. Somewhere she desperately wanted to stay. But all her doubts from the past washed in, cooling her heat.

She combed a hand through his hair, slid her fingers under his chin, and lifted his mouth from her belly. With regret thickening her throat, she ran her thumb over his rough cheek.

“Find a girl tonight, Wes,” she told him, serious, resolute. “Because I can’t do this. Nothing’s going to happen between us.”

“You can. I know you can.” Wes released the railing and rose. His voice was soft and understanding as he drew her close and kissed her lips with a murmured, “Plenty has already happened between us. And it’s just the beginning.”

“Wes, get down here,” Jax said from the bottom of the stairs. “Lexi and Rubi need to work. And you need to get your ass to Lure before Bolton does something stupid.”

He turned and started for the stairs. With his foot on the top stair, he glanced back over his shoulder, but his gaze didn’t slide down her body as she expected. “Come keep me company when you’re done here.”

“No. I need some space.”

He held her gaze, and she swore she could see the reality of their situation solidify in his eyes. He glanced toward the floor and gave one nod before turning away and trotting down the stairs.

Rubi’s entire chest swirled with confusion, frustration, and loss.

She didn’t hear the words Wes and Jax exchanged, but she flinched when the door to the shop shut, signaling Wes’s departure.

Lexi climbed the stairs, picked up another style of lingerie, and wandered over to Rubi. “I’ve always stayed out of your sex life, haven’t I?”

Her gaze tore from the location she’d last seen Wes and jumped to Lexi. “What?”

“I’ve never told you what I think you should or shouldn’t do. Never nagged you about sticking with one guy. Never even whined about never getting to meet any.” She offered the lingerie to Rubi. “But this time, Rubi, this time, I really think you’re making a mistake.”

“Why would you say that?” Rubi scowled at her friend and took the lace from her hand. “We both know what would happen. I’d screw him once…okay, maybe twice, because he’d just be that damn good, and then I’d walk away. He’d be pissed and hurt. And how do you think he’d feel about hanging with me then? It would ruin what we have, Lexi—this comfortable, fun foursome. And imagine when he finds another girl and wants her to hang with us. God, what a mess.”

She strode into the bathroom and stripped the corset from her body. Her heart was beating too fast. Her breathing too shaky.

In the other room, Lexi said, “And what if the sky falls tomorrow?”

She wiggled into the translucent bra bordered in leather. Damn, Lexi made the most beautiful creations. “The chances of the sky falling are about one zillion to one. The chances of things going bad with Wes are 100 percent.”

“There is another side to those what-ifs,” Lexi said. “Like, what if…you screwed him once…okay, definitely twice, because he would be that damn good, and you didn’t walk away? What if…you stayed long enough to figure out if he’s everything you want and need in a man? What if…now I’m going out on a limb here…you actually admitted to yourself that you’re already half in love with the man and could easily finish falling if you even just tried on this friends-with-benefits deal?”

Rubi stepped out of the bathroom with what felt like a boulder in her chest. She could barely breathe. Both her fight and her flight reflexes were now amped to full power, gushing adrenaline into her chest. “You just told me you didn’t think it would work.”

“Not long-term, no. But I think it would give you the safety net you think you need to try with Wes.”

She was starting to sweat. Her heart beat even harder. “You’re delusional. Love has infected your brain. Just because you’re head over heels with Jax does not mean the rest of the world has changed. I have definitely not changed. I’ve never been a forever type of woman. Hell, I’ve never even been a more-than-a-month type of woman. And for the last five years I haven’t even been a more-than-one-night type of woman.”

Fear eclipsed her thought process. She had to work hard to think in a straight line. Extra hard to keep her arguments together. Because now that Lexi had gone and voiced those what-ifs that Rubi had suppressed in her subconscious, she couldn’t ignore them.

“Going around and around about this is just confusing you,” Lexi said. “You’re living off a script you put in your head a long time ago, one that doesn’t apply to who you are now.”

Lexi lowered to her knees again. Rubi knew she was blowing a chance with someone special, and that hurt. But she could handle being hurt if that meant Wes wasn’t. She could—she had to—let a chance with Wes pass if that meant he didn’t get damaged by her issues. As long as she was blowing it for herself and not for Wes, she could handle it.