Thea shivered in his arms. “Shit, I think we’re out of hot water.” She lifted on wobbly feet and stepped out of the tub. Lex got a glorious view of her generous backside and wet slit as she bent over and picked up her robe. Reaching down, he cupped his balls and gave them a light squeeze, begging them to hold on just a bit longer. When she turned, she stared down at him; the lusty gaze he’d admired was gone, and in its place was one of bewilderment, and possible regret.
Fuck that, he thought. Lex stood quickly and exited the shower, his big ass foot stepping on something sharp.
“Shit!” Lifting his foot, he caught sight of blood and the tiny pink razor.
Thea rushed forward. “Crap, are you okay?” Ducking her head, she knelt down and picked up the crushed razor. “Damn, there’s blood.”
Lex steadied himself on the wall and lifted his foot. “It’s nothing.” He stuck his foot under the cold water and rinsed off the blood. “But I guess I’ll have to stay hairy.” Waggling his brows at her laughter, he felt relieved. Gone was that silly emotion of remorse.
Turning, Thea dropped the razor into the trash. “I have more, but I am thinking we’ll need scissors before we tackle that heap of mess on your face.” Out the door she went, leaving Lex hopping on one leg, hard cock bobbling and looking like a fool.
By the time Thea returned with supplies in hand, Lex had stopped the bleeding, dried off, and gotten his manhood under control. With her back to him, she set her things in the sink.
Straining his neck to see what she was doing, he asked, “What is all that stuff?”
Thea scooted out of the way. “The only thing you may not recognize is the beard oil.” Pointing to a glass bottle, she added, “I assumed you’d want to keep some of your beard.”
Lex cocked a brow. “Does that assumption have anything to do with the fact I know you love a man with a beard?” His smile faded as he thought back to her fiancé. The man had a man bun and a beard. A freaking man bun. What self-respecting man wore a damned man bun? The kind of men Thea was attracted to. Lex rubbed his head, missing the close-cropped military cut he normally sported. What was that the singer Meatloaf had said about doing anything for love, save for one thing? Shit, well this was Lex’s one thing. Lex considered himself an honorable man, however he refused to ask Thea about the absence of her engagement ring. He’d never steal another man’s woman, but as long as Thea’s finger stayed naked, Lex would be hell bent on making love to her. And when the hell had that plan formed?
“Nah, I’ve never heard of the stuff.” Pushing the L-word out of his head, he grabbed the bottle and got his brain busy reading the ingredients.
“It’s good for your hair, and since you’ve been,” she paused, eyeing him appraisingly, “doing whatever the hell it is you’ve been doing over the past ten years.” Hand on her hip she sighed. “I mean really, is it so hard to bathe? You brushed your teeth all this time and you couldn’t drop your ass in some hot water with soap and a razor?” Anger flared in her eyes and Lex sensed it stemmed from more than his past lack of hygiene. His absence in her life, not a phone call or even a letter … yeah, he was positive that that was why she was pissed. But Lex had no excuse. Or at least not one Thea would agree with. As the silence between them grew, and Lex couldn’t pretend to be reading the three simple ingredients on the label anymore, he toyed with lying to her. Playing on the story she’d no doubt learned from rumors, a robbery gone wrong and a rogue run out of town, he could easily play right into that. Though, how could she think that of him? Would she think him a thief and a criminal? The man Thea knew had left town ten years ago, but he needed to convince her that a better man sat here with her now. For some reason, perhaps it was the golden eyes that bore into him now, Lex decided the truth was the best option.
“You wanna help me with this,” he asked, pointing to his beard, “while I tell you a story?” Handing her the bottle of oil, he waggled it in the space between them. “Please.”
With a roll of her eyes, Thea snatched the bottle from his hand. “Sit over here.” Lex plopped his ass down on the closed toilet and watched as Thea picked up a comb and began to fix the mess that was his face.
“Get started,” she commanded, her eyes hard as diamonds as she eyed him. “And I want you to remember something.” Picking up a very large, very sharp looking pair of scissors, she said, “Everything out of your mouth better be the God’s honest truth or so help me …” She brandished the sharp item like a weapon she’d gouge his eyes out with.
Placing two fingers in the air, he said, “Scout’s honor.” When he winked at her, the fire in her eyes had him thinking he was about to lose those two fingers. Dropping his hand, and fast, he added, “I promise, Thea-bear. I just don’t think you’re gonna like what I reveal to you.”
Thea lifted the comb and gently detangled his beard. “I know I’m not, but I want to hear it anyway. I need to hear it.” The serenity in her tone scared the fuck out of him. It was possible that once he told her, she’d hate him.
Lex cleared his throat and began. “Thea, it wasn’t just one event that made me leave, but a series of events and it wasn’t only my choice.” He paused and rethought his words. He wouldn’t place any of the blame on Earl. Earl had only ever tried to look out for him. And when he pulled the money out of his account, drove him to the nearest bus stop, and told him to go as far as he could, Earl had been protecting the two people he loved most. So how was he to explain this to her without Thea harboring anger toward Earl?
He tried again. “Remember that night Earl caught you out swimming naked in the lake at midnight?” Hell, he’d never forget it. Moonlight danced across her flawless brown skin, highlighting every burgeoning curve of her body. Lex had nearly died at the sight and it wasn’t just from lust, but fear. Watching Thea grow from an adolescent to the courageous, beautiful woman she’d become had caused a change in him. No longer was Thea a kid with a childhood crush, but she’d become a teenager with dreams and goals he feared couldn’t include some white trash loser from the bowels of Blackwater. It’d been that night Lex knew he would never be able to accept the gift that was her love. And moreover, it was the night Lex realized Thea would thrive—without him.
She scoffed. “Hell, yeah. Tanned my naked hide all the way home.” She wrapped a rubber band around his beard and hefted up the scissors. “I’d never seen him so mad in my life. I mean, yeah, I shouldn’t have been out there, but that lake was on our property and I had my shotgun with me. I was as safe as a person could ever be in Blackwater.”
He harrumphed. “You were a beautiful creature, naked and alone. You weren’t safe, Thea.” Once he was positive his rough tone conveyed his objection, he continued. “That was the day before your thirteenth birthday, I remember ’cause that night I was over for dinner and you kept running around the house saying,” he gave his voice a higher pitch as he mimicked her, “‘I’m gonna be a woman tomorrow!’ And you wouldn’t shut that shit up.” Their mingling laughter died down. “Hell, Earl got so damned sick of hearing it, he went to bed early.”
She snipped at his beard, taking the majority of it in one clip. Laying down the scissors, she sighed. “Yeah, he did. So, I snuck out and headed to the lake. I was having my last dip as a child and I had got it in my head somehow that women swam naked, so I ran back, got my gun, waited ’til midnight, and went for my first dip as a woman.” She paused as she was about to pull the band from his hair. “What does this have to do with anything?”
His voice low, Lex admitted, “I was there that night.” He lifted his hand and squeezed her thigh through that crazy pink robe. “I watched you take off that cute little sundress Earl forced you to wear for church that day.” A soft smile played over her lips. “You chanted this adorably cute womanly psalm—”
She gasped, pink tinting her chocolate cheeks. “Oh my God. You didn’t.” Covering her face with her hand, she squealed in embarrassment.
Reaching up, Lex pulled her hands away. “Hey, stop that.” He tugg
ed her onto his lap and buried his face into the crook of her neck. “I still remember it like it was that day.” Lex closed his eyes, thinking back to the second she’d dropped that sundress, revealing to him the body of an innocent young girl soon to morph into a teenager. He’d been so damned young himself, a maelstrom of emotions mingled in his head, uncertainty and desire wrestling to take the lead. He hadn't been a virgin, far fucking from it, but he’d also never felt the need to protect a woman as fiercely as he felt it when it’d come to Thea. One he’d soon no longer be able to deny. “I am woman hear me roar,” he started. Patting her thigh, he urged her to continue.
“Oh, it’s been so long,” she whispered. A moment later, she continued. “This is my year.” Her lulling voice soothed Lex. “My time is now. I am woman, hear me—”
“Rooaar,” He finished. “And you jumped into that lake only to remerge a woman. I was older than you. Too old for the law to ever consider what you asked of me consensual.”
Thea pulled away. “I know that now.” Soulful eyes met his.
“But you didn’t back then.” He kissed her chin. “And that was when I realized that I would soon give in. I loved you so much, Thea.” Thea’s grip on his shoulders tightened. “You were the sunshine in my storm, the bread to my butter.” They shared laughter at his joke. Lex sobered. “But you were just too young and I was weak. I knew then that I couldn’t say no to you forever. I wanted you. I wanted everything you stood for … love, acceptance, and respect. But in doing that, in taking you, I would have ruined your life.”
Thea pushed away from Lex. “You left because of me?” Her words were laced with emotions and watering eyes. “That’s crazy! By the time you left, I was old enough to be with you and, I would have waited for you, Lex.”
“I know. You always had big plans. College in the big city, a loft, and all that shit you drew on your dream board. You would’ve given all that up to stay in Blackwater,” he said somberly, his heart breaking at her pain. “Earl knew it, too.”
Glancing away from him she stood. “Earl? What did he have to do with this?” Thrusting her thumb to her lips, she bit at the short nail and paced.
Lex reached over and picked up the scissors. “Come finish this, Thea.” Slowly, she made her way back to him and took them from him. “Earl caught me out there watching you.” He ducked his head, sure a blush stained his neck and cheeks. “I’d never gotten so hard in my entire life.” He chuckled. “Earl warned me that your feelings for me weren’t the kind to play around with. Told me you were special and I needed to let you live the life he’d worked hard to give you. That special school for the gifted wasn’t free, Thea, and then there was college in New York.” Lex risked a glance up at her. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “He wanted you to have the life your mama couldn’t have.” Lex pushed her hands away from his beard and pulled her into his embrace, his face pleasantly pushed into the fluffy robe. “When you sent me notes and asked me to sleep with you because you were a woman now.” Pulling back, he lifted her chin so she met his gaze. He wanted her to look in his eyes when he revealed this to her. “I wanted to say yes more than anything in this world, baby. I wanted to show you what you meant to me, but I knew I couldn’t. Leaving you alone was the only good thing I’d ever done in my life.”
“What about when I was sixteen? I came to you again.” The age of consent in Kentucky was sixteen and the law wouldn’t have done a damned thing had she consented.
Catching a tear with the pad of his thumb, Lex reminded her, “That was the year you got the early acceptance letter to NYU, and like you said, you would have waited for me and wasted your life.”
She shook her head vehemently. “I wouldn’t have wasted—”
“Stop, ’cause you would have and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”
With a sigh, she came back to him and placed that plump butt on his lap. “So, why didn’t you just tell me all this before you left?”
“I needed you to move on and not wait for me. I didn’t think I’d ever come back, but I did. I saw you graduate …”
Thea punched him on the shoulder, hard enough to hurt. “You did?”
He clutched the throbbing area. “Damn, yeah.”
“And you didn’t think to say anything to me at all?” There was that fire in her eyes again.
“Hell, no. Earl asked me to leave and I did.”
“Oh, so Earl sent you away? Why? You had nothing.”
He swatted her ass. “I had the two grand Earl gave me and a couch to sleep on. It was all I needed at the time. Then I joined the Marines and stayed in until two years ago.” Thea grew silent, no doubt adding up the math. “And while I did all that, you lived the life you wanted. School in New York, you got to travel—”
“Yeah, but I could have had all that with you, Lex. I had a failed relationship and I moved back home. Back to Blackwater where it all started.” She shrugged. “You staying wouldn’t have changed any of that.”
“You wouldn’t have tried your hand at dating, Thea. You would have just clung to the boy you thought you knew and don’t tell me otherwise. You deserved to experience life, fail at relationships, and not be bound to Blackwater because of me.” When she wouldn’t listen, he shook her. “You deserved the adventure you wrote about in your journals, to have diverse experiences in order to grow into the woman you’ve become. And now that you’ve done that … accomplished those goals, now that you’ve experienced life and taken it up on what it has to offer, would you be willing to give us a try?
“I can’t offer too much,” he added quickly with a nervous chuckle. “But I can offer you the love and respect I’ve carried for you all these years.” Lex braced himself for her answer. He’d kept up with her life in the past and knew that she’d graduated college, had become an ER doctor, and could probably do much better than his dingy, dirty ass. But the words were out there and he couldn’t take them back—he wouldn’t take them back.
Thea stood in front of Lex, the man she compared every other man in her life to, the man who told her no, more times than she could count, the man who ripped her heart out of her chest and smashed it to pieces. Moreover, the man who’d given her one of the best orgasms she’d ever had and had also owned her heart from the first time she’d met him. While most would call Lex a liar and a thief, Thea knew him as the man who taught her to shoot her gun, to swim, and how to put herself back together when he walked away. Now, he was back, but her plate was just too damned full. There was no way to make room for the emotions that surrounded this man and their past. Emotionally exhausted from Earl’s cancer and the ex-fiancé who moved on before her heart had a chance to mend, Thea felt as if something as light as a feather could knock the wind from her. However, that orgasm had breathed life into her, but orgasms weren’t enough to keep her sane and on her feet. If Lex decided to snatch the choice away from her by leaving her again, Thea would break and she just didn’t have time or rather the strength to face that outcome.
“Lex …” Thea thrust her fingers through her hair. “I thought this was just sex?” She turned, and needing something to busy herself with she picked up the clippers and plugged them in.
“Well, we didn’t have sex, baby. I ate your—”
Turning on the clippers to drown out his words, she added, “Got it!” Heat crept up her neck and her face surely reddened.
He gave her his signature smirk. “Okay, okay.” Thea placed her fingers under his chin and lifted. “Is that what you want?” Thea proceeded to edge up his beard, cleaning up the stray hairs around his neck area. Trying to avoid the hurt she saw in his eyes, Thea paid close attention to her work.
“I don’t know, Lex.”
“The passion is there. All the emotions and shit,” he explained.
Thea rolled her eyes. “Just earlier you were planning on screwing a hooker, yet all of a sudden you want to talk about love and passion.” Thea sighed. “I just don’t know.” Finishing up, she moved to his face to clean up t
he area there as well. His blue gaze met hers. Though years had passed, Lex was still that blue-eyed boy she’d fallen in love with. “You weren’t even thinking about me up until you broke in here.”
“You’re right,” he confessed. “I thought you were still in New York and that I didn’t stand a chance. How was I supposed to know you’d come home?” Thea froze and Lex caught her hesitance. “What? What’d I say?”
It’d been ten years since he’d been home. Earl was diagnosed with cancer only four months ago and there’d be no way he would know about it. Unwilling to reveal his cancer to Lex, sure it was something he’d want to reveal to Lex himself, Thea shook her head and got back to work.
“Well, my fiancé—”
Lex reached up, his hand moving fast as a snake and stilling her hand. “Ex fiancé,” he corrected, his tone terse.
Shit. She often did that and it annoyed her to no end.
Brow raised, she repeated, “Ex fiancé …” Finished with the clippers, she placed them down and returned with the beard oil. “Things didn’t work out, so I moved back down here and took a go at Coston Memorial.” She hoped her dispassionate shrug ended the conversation. Rubbing the oil through his beard, the scent of wood and the sweetened scent of tobacco filled the room. Lex closed his eyes as she rubbed the oil into his hair. He was not letting it go.
“What happened with you two?”
Releasing him, she picked up a brush and started to run it through his damp hair. “It just didn’t work out, happens sometimes.” After untangling his hair, she motioned for him to turn around. Both of them were quiet as she gave him the short-cropped haircut she was used to seeing him with.
Rogue In Love: Thea and Lex: Love Against the Odds Page 5