She shook her head and her arms slid around his shoulders, she buried her face in his neck and her body trembled with her tears as she kept talking, her voice rough and thick, difficult to hear and not because her words were hard to make out.
“Every day for eighteen years, Layne, every fucking day. I missed you every day. I’d wake up next to Jarrod and wish it was you, I’d go to sleep next to him and wish it was you.” She pulled her face out of his neck and her eyes hit his but hers were so wet he knew she couldn’t focus on him when she said, “That’s why he said that at the restaurant. He knew. He threw you in my face all the time. We fought about it, God, all the time. Once,” she pulled her hand through her hair then swiped at her cheeks in agitation, “we were making love and he asked me, right in the middle of it, ‘Who do you see, Rocky, do you see me or is Tanner fucking you?’”
Layne had been holding his tongue.
Until then.
Then, he growled, “You are fuckin’ shitting me.”
“No!” she cried and flopped back on the couch, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t blame him.” Her head was shaking side to side. “I don’t blame him.”
“Baby,” Layne’s hands went to her wrists to pull hers away from her face but they moved suddenly, turned to frame his and they held on tight.
“Merry called,” she whispered. “He called me and told me to get to the hospital. He couldn’t go. He was dealing with…” She shook her head. “He told me. He told me you’d been shot. When I got there, Gabrielle was there with the boys. She was so pissed when she saw me. Jasper and Tripp, they were in a fog, they didn’t even know I was there. But Gabrielle, she was pissed. And I didn’t care. I just sat there until the boys left you and I could get into your room and I sat there until you woke up and I knew you were okay. And that was it. I couldn’t fight it anymore, whatever it was and now…” she stared up at him, “now…” her eyeballs went side to side, “well, now I’m here.”
“Now you’re here,” Layne repeated, her eyes came to his and her hands slid from his face and down to rest on his chest.
“Now, I’m here,” she whispered.
“You play me?” Layne asked and he felt pressure at her hands at his chest before they went away, one folding around the other and she rested them on her chest.
“Play you?” She was still whispering.
“Sweetcheeks, leg of lamb?”
Light dawned and Layne watched her face close down but not before he saw the pain knife through her eyes. “No, Layne,” she said softly. “I didn’t play you.”
Then she shifted as if to slide out from under him but he gave her all his weight, pressing her into the couch and he framed her face with his hands.
“You played me,” he murmured, looking into her eyes.
“I didn’t.” She bucked her back to try to throw him off.
“You played me, just didn’t know you were doing it.”
She stilled under him, held his gaze and announced, “I think I’m sleeping at home tonight.”
He grinned. “Oh no you’re fuckin’ not.”
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“Layne, I am so get off,” she demanded, bucking again.
His thumb slid over her cheek and down to rest on her lips and his face got close. “No, Roc, you’re not gonna go home. You’re gonna go upstairs and you’re gonna get naked and climb into my bed and then you’re gonna let me do what I want to your body, whatever I want, for as long as I want and, when I make you come, you’re gonna hafta be quiet about it so you don’t wake up Ma and my boys.”
“Get off,” she whispered but there was no fire to it and his grin turned to a smile, he dropped his head and whispered in her ear.
“First I’m gonna suck your tits and finger fuck you ‘til you come. Then I’m gonna go down on you ‘til you come. Then I’m gonna fuck you hard ‘til I come.” He lifted his head and looked at her face, eyes half-mast, mouth soft and she was already breathing heavily. “You’re up to it, you can come when I fuck you too. We’ll see how I do.”
That got him the breathy, “Layne.”
He had her. He not only had her, pretty soon he was going to have her. Thank fuck.
He put his mouth to hers and whispered, “I gotta turn the lights out and secure the house. Go upstairs and get naked for me, baby.”
“I don’t know if I can –”
“Sweetcheeks. Go upstairs and get naked for me.”
“Layne.”
“Do it.”
She pressed her head back into the couch and whispered, “But… I don’t think I can be quiet.”
Layne grinned again.
She probably couldn’t. She was a moaner eighteen years ago and she was again last night. She was great at giving head, mostly because she liked doing it and it helped when she moaned how much she liked it around his cock.
“We’ll get creative,” he promised and her eyes got round. “Go upstairs, honey, and get naked for me.”
“Okay,” she whispered, he rolled to the side, she shot off the couch but strutted up the stairs.
Layne took his time as he secured the house, turned out the lights and followed her.
He found her naked in his bed.
He got naked and joined her.
Then he did everything he promised and then some.
And he just managed to muffle her moans with his hand the first time she came, his mouth the third time and she muffled them in a pillow the second.
*
With Rocky dead to the world and pinning him to the bed, Layne stared at the dark ceiling and remembered his dream.
“Do you get it?” Rocky whispered in his ear.
“Get what, baby?” he whispered back.
“Why I left you?”
He didn’t get it. She’d finally explained it and he still didn’t get it.
That wasn’t a scene she acted out on his couch that was real.
Fuck, Rocky didn’t even fucking get it.
Which made Layne wonder why she left him? Why she took everything from their house, jammed it into her room and lost two days? Why she spent every day for eighteen years struggling against connecting with him? Why she spent the last months since he’d been shot losing that struggle but grasping at it?