Protecting Rayne

by Emily Bishop

“Why? I’m not interested in being an actor’s rebound. I don’t need that drama in my life.” She rose from the table, walked over to her cash box, and brought back my money. She tossed it onto the velvet tablecloth. “I’m not anyone’s joke. I won’t be judged by you.”

  “I’m not judging you, for Christ’s sake. Look, you’ve got this all wrong. I’m not the asshole here.”

  “And I am?” Aurora’s nostrils flared. Even that was cute.

  “No. You’re not an asshole, and I’m not judging you. I want to spend time with you.”

  She tossed her head, and her bun wobbled. “Why? Why would you want that?”

  “Oh, fuck, I don’t know, maybe because you’re gorgeous, mysterious, intelligent?” I got up and the chair toppled over behind me. I circled the table.

  She walked the other way around it, keeping out of reach. “I don’t do flings. I might’ve given you the wrong impression last night, but that’s not who I am. If that’s what you’re after—”

  “I’m not after anything.”

  “Fine by me. Leave.”

  “Not what I meant,” I replied.

  “Then be clear for once.” She continued circling the table.

  It was the weirdest game of cat and mouse I’d ever played. I didn’t play games at all, usually. I stopped dead in my tracks, and she did, too. “Stop avoiding me.”

  “It’s not about avoiding you, it’s about avoiding complications.”

  “Complications,” I replied and raised an eyebrow. “I’m more than a complication, Aurora.”

  She blushed and scratched the back of her neck. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

  I gripped the edge of the table and shifted it aside. Her glass of water toppled and splashed to the grass.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I crossed the distance between us and pressed my chest against hers, but my hands didn’t touch her. Just looked down into her eyes, wide and hazel, with a greenish bloom in her left iris—beautiful.

  “Why am I a complication?” I asked.

  She quivered against me, rubbed her arms and they brushed against my abs. “You’re not part of the plan.”

  “Life doesn’t care about your plans.”

  Aurora paled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Just something I heard already today. It’s nothing,” she whispered.

  My mouth dried up.

  Aurora was freedom made flesh, and all I could do was enjoy the experience.

  “I want to see you again,” I said.

  “You’re seeing me right now. You don’t understand, Jarryd,” she said. “Mr. Tombs, I mean.”

  “Fuck, don’t call me that.”

  “Fine, Jarryd. You don’t understand. I’ve spent my life working myself up to this time, this opportunity, and I can’t let it slip away. I have other concerns. I need to find a stable job. I have to figure out a proper savings plan. There are so many things you don’t know.”

  A job? A savings plan? It might’ve seemed trivial to me, but I’d been in her position before.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Aurora said. “You’re you, and I’m me. You wouldn’t understand.”

  I closed in again, and this time, I took her hands in mine and brushed my thumbs over her skin. The connection made her sway. I held back my reaction, kept control. “Help me understand. That’s all I ask.”

  “I—”

  “There’s something going on here, whether you want to admit it or not. I know I sound fucking crazy. We met yesterday, but we’ve got a connection, and I’d like to explore that. If it’s too much for you, too complicated, say the word and I’ll back off. I won’t approach you again.”

  Aurora’s lips parted.

  Don’t say the word. Christ, don’t say the fucking word.

  “You want me to help you understand?” Aurora asked. “Why it’s complicated?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “OK,” she said. “OK, that’s reasonable. I can do that. I—uh, it will be difficult to explain here, now. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll meet up and I’ll take you there.”

  “Where?”

  She smiled, a soft one that damn near melted the steel wall I’d built around my heart. “You’ll see. Meet me at the entrance to the park at 7:30 a.m. Bring shoes you can walk in, and some water to drink. We’ll go through the forest. It’s not too far from here.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  Aurora nodded then looked away, toward the tent’s flap, now guttering in the breeze. “OK.”

  I cupped her chin, tilted her face back to mine then gave her one sweet kiss—the merest brush of my lips against hers. “Tomorrow.” I took two steps back, turned, shifted the table to the spot it’d been before then picked up the glass that had thunked to the grass.

  “Leave it. I can clean it.”

  “I made the mess,” I replied and placed the tumbler on the table cloth. The tarot cards were there. The Lovers. Choices, romance to come. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I left the tent.

  Mistress followed me out, purring and half-tripping me. I scratched her behind the ears again then set off.

  Aurora needed time, and I wouldn’t pressure her with my presence. As long as she’s honest with you. Not like the last one. I tried blocking the doubts out, instead of feeding into them.

  Before Felicity’s extracurricular activities with her pool boy—how fucking cliché—I’d been trusting and totally unconcerned. I’d never imagined she’d cheat or that anyone else was capable for that matter. All that had changed.

  I walked the long track out of the RV park, and the skin on the back of my neck prickled. I stalled, looked around. “Weird,” I muttered. Nothing moved beneath the trees, but I couldn’t shake the sense that something, or someone, was out there, watching.

  It had to be paranoia—I didn’t have time for it. I marched beneath the sign to the RV park and turned in the direction of the hotel, thoughts on Aurora, on what’d she’d meant and the things I’d do to her given the chance.

  Chapter 8

  Aurora

  Every step brought us closer to the cabin at the lake, and with it, my palms grew sweatier, my heart raced. This was too important to me to risk, and I hadn’t opened up to anyone else about it yet.

  “It’s beautiful out here,” Jarryd said. He clutched a wicker picnic basket and kept an easy pace beside me, crunching over fallen pine needles and twigs. Birds hooted or chirped, swept between the trees. Small animals rustled in the underbrush. “So different from what I’m used to.”

  “I can tell,” I replied.

  “What? Why?”

  “Well, you’re wearing a suit. On a forest walk. And you brought a picnic basket.” Which had totally given me butterflies the minute I’d walked around the corner and found him waiting, phone in one hand, basket in the other.

  “I figured we’d get hungry.” He wasn’t defensive, but he did look down at his suit jacket. “This is all I brought with me.”

  “Just suits?”

  “Shit, you’re right. I should’ve brought a few fluffy robes along, too.”

  I laughed at that, and the memory of offering him one, and for a second, the nerves dissipated. They slammed home again instantly, redoubled by the brief absence. “We’re almost there,” I said.

  “Where are we going, by the way?”

  “You’ll see.” It was too difficult to explain without being there. He had to understand how important this was to me, and in order for him to do that, Jarryd had to see it for himself. “Through here.” I ducked beneath a low-lying branch and took the path that wound through the trees, reminding me of the times I’d read books in a favorite spot, or dangled my feet in the water.

  We crunched over the worn dirt and rounded a bend, slipping out from between the trees.

  And there it was.

  The cottage I’d called “home” for two years, right in front of the lake. The cool water was undisturbed, clear, pine needles dr
ifting lazily on the surface.

  “Wow,” Jarryd said. “This is some prime real estate.”

  “Not really,” I replied. “It’s not connected to any of the main roads. When we lived here, we had to rent out a plot in the park to keep the RV and we walked everywhere.” I crunched across the grass.

  “We?” Jarryd followed me.

  I halted in front of the cabin and looked at its empty windows, the locked front door, wood worn with age. Echoes of laughter, my mother’s voice, haunted me. Home. The only place I’d called home.

  A For Sale sign besmirched the front lawn, knocked into weeds and flowers.

  “Aurora?”

  I walked over to the solitary wooden bench beneath the four-paned window and sat down. He joined me. We looked out over the lake together.

  “Me and my mother. This was where we stayed the two years before she passed.” Finally, I looked at him, drank in his features and the wrinkling at his brow. The unspoken questions in his gaze.

  “I’ll explain it,” I said, before he could word them out loud. “You lay out the picnic. Deal?”

  “Deal.” He opened the basket and drew out a blanket. “You sure you don’t want me to sit and listen?”

  “No, this will be easier for me if you’re—busy.” If he couldn’t break my resolve to pieces while I spoke. At least it wouldn’t bring back tears I’d already shed.

  “Got ya.” Jarryd busied himself laying out the blanket. Sunlight cut between the trees, glimmered on the surface of the lake. Soothing, natural sounds filtered through the silence.

  “My mother was a wanderer. I never knew my father. He never had any interest in knowing me, so it wasn’t a great loss. I know that my mom, Libby, hated the fact that she couldn’t give me stability. I spent the first fourteen years of my life traveling from town to town, learning tarot, doing odd jobs when I could, attending whatever school would take me. The longest we stayed in a town was probably six months.”

  Jarryd didn’t speak but continued laying out the paper plates and Tupperware. It helped.

  “I got used to it. Well, that’s not right, I guess. I never knew anything else but my mom had. She always spoke about having a home together and settling down, and eventually that happened. She got enough money together and rented this place.”

  The memory of moving in played on repeat.

  “God, it was the best feeling. I went to school and knew I could make friends and stay in one place. We’d finally settled down. The people seemed to like us, even though there were rumors about us being gypsies or strangers. Mom was sweet and kind, and people genuinely liked her when they spoke to her for more than a few minutes.”

  Jarryd straightened. “So, that’s where you got it from.”

  I bowed my head. “We lived here for two years,” I said, brusquely. The sooner I made him understand, the better. “My mother passed when I was sixteen. I couldn’t afford to stay in school, so I dropped out, got a job. Things went… sour. With my mother gone, rumors spread about me, about the cabin. They didn’t take pity on me. They saw me as the gypsy girl, the pagan, I always get a bad rep.”

  Jarryd finished setting up then sat down on the bench. “What happened then?”

  “I could barely afford to make rent on this place on my own. I got a job at the restaurant but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t have any marketable skills apart from those my mother had taught me, so I packed up my shit, repaired the RV, and left.”

  “You repaired it? By yourself?”

  “No, I had it fixed. Why does that matter?”

  Jarryd stroked his chin with his thumb. “Sorry, I’m a car enthusiast. Anyway, so you left.”

  “Yeah, I left,” I said. “But I’ve always wanted that feeling of happiness and stability. And though there were tough times after she was gone, this is where I’m meant to be.”

  “It’s for sale. You want to buy it?” he asked.

  “That’s right. I don’t have enough funds yet, but I’m going to make an offer on this place,” I said. “As soon as I can.”

  “How much for this place?”

  “Thirty thousand. It’s cheap for the setting, and because it needs work done inside.”

  “That’s—” His phone buzzed, and he grimaced. “Fuck.” He drew it out and checked the Caller ID. “I can’t get a minute’s peace.”

  “You can,” I said.

  The phone’s shrill ring echoed through the clearing. Across the lake, a small flock of birds burst from a treetop in a spray of leaves.

  “Throw the phone in the lake,” I said. “Simple.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said. The phone finally stopped ringing, and the screen blacked out. “Just throw it away.”

  “Yeah. Why not?” I asked. “It’s not like you enjoy getting calls. Why keep something that irritates you?”

  “I have responsibilities.”

  “And throwing it out changes that?” I gave him a quizzical look.

  “I—” The phone rang again, and Jarryd grunted. He lifted it, took aim, and loosed. The sleek black rectangle turned end over end once then plopped into the water. The ringing cut out immediately.

  My stomach gave a tiny jolt. “There,” I said and clapped my hands once. “Isn’t that better?”

  Jarryd’s laugh rumbled in his chest. “You’re amazing,” he said, and faced me, skin around his eyes wrinkling, the corner of his mouth lifted on one side. “I would never have even thought of doing that.”

  “Why not?” The Hierophant. Conforming to norms.

  “Just wouldn’t have. And, uh, yeah, I wouldn’t have done it if that was my only phone.”

  “You’re kidding.” I laughed. “That was, what, a burner phone?”

  “Basically,” he replied, and chuckled, too. “But it’s the gesture that counts, right?”

  I wriggled my nose.

  “Aurora, you’re a breath of fresh air. You’re free as a bird.” Jarryd’s thigh pressed against mine.

  “There are lots of different types of freedom. I guess, I was free in one way and stuck in another, if that makes sense.” I had to make him see. “This is everything to me. I want to have a good life, a happy life.” And hopefully, a child of my own someday. Even if that child didn’t have a father.

  “Why do you think I’ll change that?”

  “It’s a small town. A lot of the folks around here remember me, and not the good stuff. Some of them don’t want me in the RV park. They definitely won’t want me to stay here permanently.”

  “I see. Being with me will make that worse?”

  He had a point. “Maybe. If they think I’m a homewrecker. You and Felicity—”

  “Are over. Long gone over. We were over before we officially ended the relationship.”

  “They won’t see it that way. And the real estate agent is a local, too. If the current owner sees me as a flight risk or as untrustworthy, they probably won’t sell to me.” I took a breath. “I don’t want anything to ruin this.”

  “I’m not planning on ruining it,” he said.

  “Gypsy whore,” I replied.

  “Well, fuck you, too.”

  I snorted a laugh. “Not you—me! That’s what they called me when I was eighteen years old, before I left. Gypsy whore.”

  “That’s disgusting. Why do you want to stay here? Apart from the memories of your mother.”

  “They’re not all bad, only some of them.”

  “Like that ex?”

  I focused on the lake instead of answering that.

  “I’m not here to ruin your plans,” Jarryd said.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “It’s too soon for me to answer that. I want to spend more time with you, Aurora. If you want it to be on the down low, that’s fine. I’m used to doing things out of the public eye. It’s the life I’ve had to lead the last eight years.”

  “Since you were twenty.”

  “That’s right,” he replied. He brushed my hair behind my ear. “No one has to know if
you don’t want them to.”

  Or maybe it was that he didn’t want them to know.

  His fingertips tickled my ear, traveled down the side of my neck, came to rest on the strap of my bra. “You want to be with me,” he said.

  I leaned into his touch and shut my eyes, blotted out the fear that I’d lose my chance at finally settling down. The musk of his skin invaded my nostrils, stunned my senses, and I rested my forehead against his, breath catching in my throat.

  “Be here with me,” he said. “Nowhere else but here.”

  I’d been hard on myself for too long. I deserved joy, didn’t I? Other women would’ve melted the minute he laid eyes on them. Why did I have to deprive myself of something I desired? I wanted a normal life, and sex was a part of that.

  I sucked my bottom lip, released it slowly. “I think… I think I need this. You,” I said, softly. Eyelids flickering open, I gauged his reaction.

  His eyes flashed, chain lightning in a clear blue sky. “Here,” he said and got up. He led me to the blanket at the lake’s side, sat me down. He was so sure of everything. What was that like?

  Jarryd lowered himself to his knees in front of me. The front of his suit pants stretched taut over his erection. We’d barely touched, and he wanted me this bad. My skin tingled. My heart skipped a beat.

  He stripped off his shirt and jacket, tossed them aside, and astounded me with his state of physical fitness. He must have had to work out every day to get like this. It was crazy.

  And I had the opportunity to enjoy a real connection, and I wouldn’t give it up. A normal life. Maybe with something extraordinary thrown in.

  I dragged my camisole top down then reached back and undid my bra, releasing my breasts. They bounced, and the skin around my nipples puckered at the influx of fresh air.

  “Someone might see,” Jarryd said and gripped the front of his pants.

  “There’s no one out here.” We hadn’t been followed, and none of the others in town would come out to the old, abandoned cabin.

  I scuffled forward on my knees, tugging my skirt down accidentally, and unzipped the front of his pants. I brought out his dick and held it, stroked the shaft once.

  Jarryd’s expression hazed. “Aurora.”

  Pre-cum dribbled from his head. I collected it with a finger and ran it down the side of his dick, tracing the veins and ridges, wetting them and then licking my lips. I looked up at him again then back at his dick, overwhelmed. “I want to taste you,” I said.