by Shey Stahl
“What’s your favorite color?”
Twirling a curl between his fingertips, he breathed the words out against my temple. “Rusty brown.” He winked, gesturing to turn four at Williams Grove.
For years, I struggled with thinking about this right here, the ones in his bed when I wasn’t. Did he want them like he wanted me? Like he said he wanted me?
The harshness of his words still burned in my brain, raw and clawing at me. And the more recent ones when he walked away from me after I told him I was pregnant.
“Why?” he shouted, his voice breaking around the blistering words ringing in my ears. “Why couldn’t you have given me a fucking chance?”
Rager hadn’t given me a chance to tell him it was his. And still hadn’t given me a chance.
With a lazy-lidded blink, my stare was drawn to them, slow dancing to Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush.” In my fucked reality, that song was perfectly played. Maybe that was why he chose then to ask the blonde to dance.
As they swayed, slow and sensual, I thought, no, I obsessed about the way he was holding her.
What did she feel when the heat of his breath hit her neck?
That was my heat she was feeling. I prayed for it to keep me warm. When his hands traveled to her waist and a little lower, the way his busted up knuckles turned white, made me question, did she sense the power his hands held?
With a hitched breath caught in my throat, unable to divert my eyes, they transfixed on him as he moved with her, seeming unaware that I was watching.
But then again, he knew I was watching, I could see it in the arrogant way he smiled at me. I hated how that arrogance looked so good on him. That particular trait was one he pulled off well.
He was assessing my reaction to her in his arms, the ones that pinned me down and wrapped so tightly I couldn’t breathe. The ones that broke my fall every time I was on my knees, begging for something.
Only now, they were bound around her. Giving her their warmth. Swaying back and forth, from side to side, their hips in line and every inch of them touching. Blondie was shorter than him with his long lean body. He bent forward, hunching over her like he did with me when the hard lines of his body trapped me against steel and tires.
Whispering in her ear, they grinded into one another. It was just a dance, but had there not been clothes, I knew what this resembled. Sex.
Their laggard movements were worse for me. Had this been something where they were dancing fast to a different song, it wouldn’t have hurt like this. No, this was so much worse, like drowning on dry land, slowly.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I brought the ice water in front of me to my mouth. The wetness of the glass against my lips reminded me of those lips, the only ones, the ones inches from her skin, his body arching and bending to a rhythm that wasn’t the beat of his heart in my hands any longer. He was taking it back.
Blondie did this move, raising her hands over her head, arching her body into his, her hips rolling slowly back against his pelvis, grinding, savoring. I knew that feeling.
Is he hard?
Does he want to fuck her?
With his eyes on mine, Rager’s hands moved at her actions, gripping her waist a little tighter. His lips moved, whispering in her ear words that should have been meant for me, only me. She smiled, who wouldn’t, melting into his touch. At the sensation of his grip, her head lolled back against his shoulder, revealing her exposed skin to him.
Did he want to kiss her?
Closing my eyes, I tried to breathe. When I opened them, Rager was still staring at me. Our eyes caught again. He was normally so sure of himself, but right then he looked so uncertain.
Everything I saw before me didn’t bother me as much as his hands on her.
I knew that touch. I knew it so well my body tensed and shook at the memory, like going through withdrawal to the high he gave.
I knew that feeling, the captivating power his words always held, so carefully thought out and delivered in a way that sent shivers through your body.
“I don’t like that I’ve been denied something for so long.”
His eyes were focused on mine and it was clear what he was thinking. “How does it feel?”
I’d never seen Rager with his arms around another girl in this way. Vegas his arm was draped around her, casually. This was something different. I had also never seen his lips that close to skin that wasn’t mine, never seem him flirt. I knew he had, but until now, I’d been blind to that. He kept that side of this hidden from me. And now I was thankful he did because with the way my heart was pounding and my body felt on fire, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
But he not only wanted me to see this, he wanted me to feel it. Had this been what he imagined when I was with Easton? Did he feel this sting, this sickness?
Slowly grinding into her, with his chin resting on her shoulder, he buried his head in her beautiful blonde hair, and I lost sight of those eyes momentarily. His left hand glided up her side, stroked the side of her breast, and then sketched the curve of her body. Blinking softly, his dark lashes lowered. His hand moved again, fisting in her hair, knuckles clenching and angling her face toward his.
That should be my hair he was pulling.
Though the dance floor was dark, I could see his eyes from here. Anyone could. The pain in them took my breath away.
Gasping, I knew I couldn’t stand this throbbing. I couldn’t stand the void and the obsession it was bringing with it to watch them, to envision in detail where this was going.
Would he be between her legs later? Would she feel the heaviness of his weight on her and capture the groan with her mouth as he entered her? Would she feel those powerful dirty words that only seemed to come out when he was fucking?
“This is how a real man fucks his girl.” He slammed into me, my head snapping back against the wall. “If you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to walk. Even the brush of your panties would hurt.”
A jolt of nausea hit me at the thought and I swallowed over the bile rising. Fire broke out over my skin, spreading throughout, igniting the thunderous roar of my pounding heart. Placing my hand over my chest, I felt the racing beat, wondering when we would finally get our shit together.
All I heard was the music, a slow beat and the twang of the guitar. But then I felt whispers, floating over my skin like feathers, words he’d said to me over time, over the last few weeks.
In the last few seconds of the song, when she twisted to face him, his hands lowered further, just above her ass when she turned. And then his mouth lowered to hers and I couldn’t take it any longer.
Didn’t even wait to see if they touched hers.
I couldn’t.
The humid summer night hit my face the instant the doors opened, like a slap to my already heated skin.
I took about twenty steps and around the corner to the alley beside the bar, pressing my back against the brick wall. With my hands on my knees, I bent forward, taking in heavy breaths. It did nothing but make my nausea worse.
I wasn’t out there a minute before I felt his warmth next to me, waiting on my reaction.
“Are you taking her home later?” The lump in my throat rose.
Rager sniffed, nodding his head in annoyance as he scowled at the pavement. “Don’t ask unless you want the truth.” There was laughter behind his words, but it certainly wasn’t from amusement.
It sent my nerves sailing out of control with the night and made me want to push him away.
He was leading me on, making me think he was, but in reality, he wouldn’t be. He’d be taking home a bottle of whiskey and drowning himself in the misery that was me.
“You’re a fucking asshole when you’re drunk,” I spit out through gritted teeth, moving away from him, but he wouldn’t let me, stopping me with his hand on my arm.
“You sure about that? Who said I was even drunk?” He curved an eyebrow at me, waiting on my reaction, running the back of his hand over his jaw before burying his han
ds in the pockets of his jeans.
“Did she turn you on?”
Rager hid his patronizing grin by lowering his head. “What do you think?”
“Yes.”
Moving quickly, he had me trapped against the side of the building, making me feel every hard line of his body that was once against her. “Then you’d be wrong.” He focused on my lips, knowing what he was doing to me. “If I was turned on, you’d know it, wouldn’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His stare darted from my eyes to my lips and back again. “If you don’t know…” He licked his lips and mine parted in response, always igniting a reaction from me even in anger. “Why do you do this to me?”
“Do what?” I asked, my breath caught in my throat, trying to focus on breathing. It was like tasting bile, my skin covered in needles, my heart sinking. It seemed like the moment our eyes actually met, we were back to being miles away from each other, distanced by what neither of us wanted or could say.
“The fact that you don’t know is a goddamn joke.” I didn’t saying anything and he glared, red-faced, eyes locked on mine, his chest rising and falling faster, clearly struggling to remain in control. “Keep me hanging on with hope.”
I waited, he waited, neither speaking. “You’re not the one hanging on. I am! I had sex with you, Rager. A lot of fucking sex in a matter of two weeks.”
How he wasn’t seeing that this baby was his was starting to piss me off. I wasn’t about to tell him at that point either. Call me a stubborn fucking mess if you want to, I wasn’t going to do it. If he could blow this up over nothing, well, I could be stubborn.
Rager came on just as strong, his tenacious side revving as he took a forceful step back, creating space between us. Grabbing my left hand and jerking it up in my face, his jaw clenched and eyes torched, staring at my ring.
“Don’t tell me you’re hanging on, princess, when you’re still wearing that!” He glared, his scowl so set on mine it was evident in the dead of night. He was starting to hate me. Cold blue eyes dropped to the pavement as he let go of my hand. Leaning in slowly, he whispered. “I would have been that guy. If you had let me, but you never gave me a chance to be.”
Withdrawing, he turned and walked away.
I wanted to scream at him, make him see that he was wrong. I had chosen him all along.
I wanted to cry, but found that I was numb, my tears were gone.
That feeling, the one I couldn’t shake, became a pulse and my heart beat for it, fed my fears. The truth was, I had given myself to Rager and I would never get that part of me back, but it was a part I could never imagine giving to anyone else. Ever again. It was something he took and made me feel like I’d given him a gift.
TWO DAYS LATER, Rager was being a dick to me, and I was pretty sure I deserved it after the last few weeks, but it still hurt nonetheless. It always did when he showed any amount of annoyance with me.
It started sometime after his third beer in the pits at River Cities Speedway and got worse by the sixth. Lane tried to get him to leave with him a few times, even took his keys and offered to drive him back to the hotel, but he wouldn’t leave. It seemed he was hell-bent on making me see what I’d done. The pain I caused. Like I didn’t know.
He slurred his words and wasn’t making any sense, and I wanted to punch him for being this way. What right did he have to act like this?
Okay, he may have had some reasons. But still…way to make a girl feel like an asshole. And let’s face it, I was a Riley. Wouldn’t be the first or last time I was considered an asshole.
“So tell me, Arie,” Rager said to me, low and rough, his eyes half closed. “Is Easton that good in bed? He must not be if you kept coming back to me. Or am I only the weekend fuck now?”
A total dick.
“You’re being a jerk!” I yelled, wanting to do one of those moves where I smacked the beer out of his hands. But I didn’t.
“Come on, man...” Lane reached for Rager’s beer. “I think you’ve had enough for one night.”
Rager grunted his reply, pushing himself from the chair. “Yeah, I have had enough.”
“What a fucking mess,” Hayden sighed when Rager left, her eyes on mine. “You should go talk to him.”
Of course she thought that. Shaking my head, I stood. “Why? He hates me. I don’t see how I’m going to convince him of anything besides pissing him off even more. Dude already burned his house down.” Sadly there was some truth to that. “Want him to destroy his car too?”
Lane shook his head, setting his own beer on the ground. “He doesn’t hate you, Arie; he never could. He’s just confused and hurt.”
I understood that very well because I felt the same way. That was the part they were forgetting. All this time I told myself I couldn’t have a life with Rager and that it was out of the question. Now, the opportunity was here. Only I couldn’t do that either because I was living a lie—tied to someone who didn’t want me.
I found Rager sitting on the tailgate of his truck staring off into the parking lot, his legs dangling on the edge.
“I can’t find my keys,” he said when I stood next to him, resting against the tailgate.
“I know…” I patted my pocket. “I have them.”
“Give them back.” He scowled, trying to persuade me with a look. It wasn’t working. There was no way I was letting him drive this drunk.
We said nothing for close to twenty minutes when I tried to get him to look at me. I had some things I wanted to say.
“Are you still married to that douchebag?”
I shook my head and sighed, adjusting my stance when the metal of the tailgate began digging into my lower back. “Stop it. Stop acting like this.”
With my arms crossed over my chest, snaking around my body in comfort, I wouldn’t look at him, despite the feeling of his eyes on mine, contrite and somewhat sincere given the moment. I couldn’t look at him, because if I did and saw anything in them that controlled me, I’d want to crawl inside their storm, meet his storm head-on when I really needed to find comfort, cover…shelter.
Rager grunted, removing himself from the tailgate to stand in front of me. His hands hung loosely on his hips as he faced the parking lot, his breathing rapid.
I placed my hand on his back, but he refused to look at me.
“Rager?” Why I was comforting him after all this was beyond me. I was angry that he made me feel this way, so of course I turned it around on him.
When he jerked away from me, my temper came to life. “You made me a promise in Williams Grove. Remember? Now look at us! You’re such a hypocrite!” I yelled.
“I’m a hypocrite? Oh Christ, Arie!” He pushed farther away from the truck, pacing the gravel parking lot and then stopped suddenly and looked directly in my eyes. “You…you have no idea what this is like for me, you have no fucking clue. To see you with Easton…kissing you ... You—” He paused, abruptly, his words hanging between us, struggling to talk to me this way, open, honest, unguarded. “What are you doing with him?” He trembled, moving closer to me again. “You don’t love him…I see it in your eyes. You love me, and you know it. I know every time he kisses you, you’re wishing it was my lips on you, my tongue tasting your skin.” His breath blew across my face, sweet as the day I met him, but there was anger there, too. I could see what he was trying to do.
Backed against the truck, I had nowhere to go. I started to stammer. “There’s so much more to this than you’ll ever understand.”
“Bullshit! It’s all bullshit, Arie. You won’t let me understand it. You pushed me away. You decided for yourself that I can’t be what you need or even understand it.” His rough voice echoed through the parking lot. “You were sixteen at the time. What was I supposed to do? And then you fucking turned to him when you were old enough. But you know, I get it. You’re with him because he was suddenly there for you when you wouldn’t let me be. He was the safer option. The easy option. You don’t have to try wit
h him or hide him from your daddy. You were with him because he fit in your world and you thought he was good for you. Someone was better than having nobody. You’re scared, scared of being with me and scared of what that would mean,” he said, staring at me, his breathing heavy as his words crashed over me.
For a moment, I processed every single truth he’d just given me and what that meant. He knew all along. He understood all along. But still, I wasn’t going to let him think that I was scared. Wouldn’t be me if I let him.
“I am not scared!” I lied through clenched teeth, my eyes blurred, my skin prickling at his words. The truth stung, but I refused to acknowledge it.
“I knew exactly what you were doing when you married him. And even now.” Rager snorted, the amount of alcohol he consumed evident in his bloodshot eyes. “I used to do it all the time. You’re trying to fill the void, trying to keep your mind off of me. I did it with racing for years. I threw myself into anything that didn’t involve you. Because God forbid, I fall for my boss man’s daughter. Wouldn’t be right, would it? And I did it with women, all along imagining you.” The words crashed against me, knowing he’d never stopped loving me since that night in Williams Grove. “So yeah, I know, because I’ve only ever felt love with you. You feel this unbearable ache that you can’t get rid of, unless you’re around me. It’s why you keep coming back to me. It’s why we both torture each other...” He motioned between us. “You do want me, and that’s why you can’t leave him or admit to anyone what’s going on. You’re scared of what it will mean and what they’ll say.”
For so long, I was good at ignoring my own heart.
I was good at pretending to be happy.
Rager, he was just as good.
“I am not scared, Rager.” Right then, his eyes shot to mine, the heat between them had me flinching back. “I’m only with him because I can’t tell anyone about the divorce yet. I thought you knew that.”
“Don’t you see it?” he said, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “It’s only ever been you for me. I’m fucked without you. So thanks, you know,”—he waved at me with a flick of his wrist—“for breaking my heart, yet again.”