Then Comes Marriage (30 page)

“How long are you staying?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead. It kind of depended on your reaction.”
 

“Is this the reaction you were hoping for?”
 

“Yes, but I also envisioned it ending with you getting naked.”
 

I push my hips into his. “I’m also envisioning that. And you’re getting naked too.” I rest my head on his chest. “Is this real? You’re really here? You stayed for me?”
 

“I did.” He runs his hands through my hair. “And you’re really happy about it?”
 

“I am.” I close my eyes and listen to the rhythm of his heartbeat. “There is no one else I want to be with. No one else I want to kiss. I know it’s crazy, but whatever this is, Derek, I don’t want it to end when we both leave.”
 

He takes my hand and leads me to the shady spot. We sit in the sand close together. “It doesn’t have to. We can take this—whatever it is—off the island. It’ll suck with me being in Texas and you in Michigan. But if this turns into what I think it will, we’ll make it work.”
 

And now we’re kissing again, falling back in the sand. I just can’t get enough of him. “So, do you want to get naked now?” he asks with a grin.
 

“We can, or we can go rappelling.”

“You really want to go?”
 

“Hell yes. And now that you’re with me, I’m more than ready for an adventure.”

Chapter Twenty

Derek

“Admit it. You missed this,” Andy says, holding a cloth handkerchief over his nose. We’re investigating two bodies in a black car, baking under the Texas sun. “The smell of week old corpses is better than anything on that island.”
 

“There’s nothing quite like it. It’s a great day to be back.” I turn my head, hoping to find a breeze. There’s nothing. “They can’t have been in here for more than a few days,” I speculate and poke around in the car. Heat does fun stuff to corpses, but I can already tell that the victims were killed somewhere else, and put in the back of this old Cadillac, dumped off in the back of this parking lot.
 

“Get the crime scene unit in here,” I say to the officer that responded to the call and step back, eyes watering from the smell. This is what zombies smell like. The random thought makes me chuckle because only last night Rachel said something about how few creators of zombie fiction note the smell.
 

I’ve been back in Texas for four days now, and today was my first day back at work. Leaving Hawaii—leaving Rachel—was hard. Her return flight brought her back to Dallas, with a six-hour layover until her flight back to Michigan. Watching her walk through the terminal gate hurt.
 

But it’s not goodbye, it’s just see-ya-later. Which is a goodbye, no matter what people say. Rachel is one of those people, trying to be positive in a shitty situation. We’re taking things slow as well. We’re not exclusive, and I’m not calling her my girlfriend just yet, even though I have no intentions of even looking at another woman. The same goes for her, but we wanted to feel things out as we try the whole long distance thing.
 

It sucks, being away from her. But I’m not worried.
 

“It’s good to see that vacation treated you well,” Andy says when we get back in the car. I start the engine and roll down the windows. “You got some over there, didn’t you?Did you find a lonely island girl?”
 

I turn my head, raising an eyebrow. “Something like that.”
 

“Well, good. It’s what you needed. It’s good to have you back, kid.”
 

“It’s good to be back.”
 

“There’s something more,” Andy goes on. “More than getting some. You’re different.”
 

“How so?”
 

Andy shakes his head. “You seem…happy.”
 

“I…I am happy.” The words shouldn’t come as a shock, but they do. Being happy again seemed so impossible until I met Rachel. She’s not out of my life, but she’s not directly in it either. And still, it’s enough.
 

“Did you meet someone? You have that star-crossed look in your eyes.”
 

“I do not,” I say. “And maybe I did meet someone.”
 

“Good for you, kid. It’s about time you settled down.”
 

We roll to a stop at a traffic light. “We’re not settling down anytime soon. We met on vacation, she lives in Michigan, but we still talk,” I summarize because I know he’s going to ask.
 

“Any plans to have her come out and visit?”

“Yeah,” I say honestly. “But nothing’s set yet.” Rachel and I talked about that just last night. She would stay with me of course, so that means I’d have to do something about the nursery that’s still set up in my spare bedroom. And I don’t want to do anything. That door hasn’t been open in a year. I’m not about to go in there and have the memories come rushing back. Along with the memories might be all the emotions and feelings I refused to deal with.

Like I said…I’m happy now, and I’d like to stay that way for a while.
 
I feel like myself again. Though I have to admit I forgot what that felt like. We go back to the station, question a suspect, and fill the rest of our hours with paperwork. Not much has changed in the time I was gone, well, other than the FBI taking over the homeless victim murder cases. Like I suspected all along, the murders were connected to a larger drug operation headed up by Trenton, one being dealt with on a federal level. It pissed me off at first. I hate when we get overrun like that, like we’re too fucking stupid to do our jobs.
 
And if it wasn’t for me, none of this would be under investigation in the first place.
 

The getaway driver who shot at me was eventually caught when he took himself to the hospital. Turns out I shot him in the leg, and he couldn’t resist medical attention for long once his wound got infected. He was arrested, and gave a confession to lesson his sentence. He admitted that he shot Matt, the homeless man with PTSD that I still haven’t told Rachel about, and gave up a few names that will further the investigation and hopefully lead to more arrests.
 

Though working on a new case fit with the whole moving on with my life thing, which has been working out pretty well for me. And there’s no shortage of murders this summer, sadly.
 
It’s back to the grind as usual, only this time I’m not running.

~*~

“I miss you,” Rachel says.

I hold the phone a little closer, looking into her eyes. It’s not the same as it is in person, but it’s the best we can get right now. Another month has passed since coming back home, and I feel stronger for Rachel each day. I count down to the hours when we can FaceTime at night like this. “I miss you, too.”
 

“You know what else I miss?” she whispers.

“What?”
 

“Your cock.” She angles the phone down, showing me her breasts, which are covered in see-through black lace.
 

“Fuck, I miss you,” I breathe and lean back on the couch. Phone sex is nowhere near as satisfying as the real thing. It was a little awkward at first, but we’ve gotten pretty good at it. Being able to see her like this helps. Though right now she’s holding the phone too close. I can’t get a good view of her.

“Do you want to see more?” she asks as if she can read my mind.

“You know I do.”
 

“Good. Because I might have on matching panties.”
 

“Show me,” I groan.
 

“Oh, I will.” She slowly moves the phone lower, but all I see is blurry fabric. As I impatiently give her time to adjust, the doorbell rings. “Is someone at your door?” she asks. “I thought I heard a doorbell.”
 

“You did but I’m ignoring it. Show me your tits again.” The doorbell rings again. And again. Over and over. “What the fuck?” I mutter and get up, ready to yell at the damn neighborhood kids. I throw open the door, but instead of some asshole kid, I see something
so
much better.
 

“Surprise,” Rachel says, beaming. “Still want me to show you my tits?”
 

I’m too shocked to speak. Instead, I grab Rachel, arms going around her waist, and bring her inside. I close the door with my foot and press her up against it. I kiss her like I’ve never kissed anyone before, stopping only to pull back and look at her. The top of her dress is halfway unbuttoned. I grab the fabric and pull, unbuttoning it all the way. Then we tangle together again.
 

“I’ve missed you so much,” she says between kisses. She frantically undoes my belt. “Fuck, I want you, Derek.”
 

Hearing her talk like that fuels the fire and adds to my desperation to get her clothes off. Her dress lands on the floor. She pushes my pants down around my feet. I pick her up, intending to go into the bedroom. Her fingers wrap around my cock.
 

Fuck it. The couch is closer.
 

~*~

Rachel drapes a blanket over our naked, sweaty bodies. We’re still on the couch, wrapped up in each other. She’s in my arms and I never want to let her go.
 

“Were you surprised to see me?” she asks, tracing a jagged scar with her fingertip.
 

“Very,” I say and kiss her forehead. “That’s the best surprise I’ve ever had.”
 

“I am pretty good in bed,” she jokes, only she isn’t joking. She’s got skills, and I’m so thankful for it.

“How did you get here?”
 

“Your sister picked me up from the airport and dropped me off. My suitcase is still in her car, actually. She said she’ll be back in like an hour. I told her I wanted to bone you hard the second I got here and would need some time.”
 

I laugh. “Did you really say that?”
 

“Not those exact words, but yeah. I requested alone time. And since your birthday is tomorrow, we’re going to need lots of alone time.”
 

“That can be arranged,” I say and kiss her. “How long are you here for?”
 

“I haven’t bought my returning flight ticket yet,” she says almost shyly. “In case you want me to stay for a few days or leave in the morning.”
 

I hold her tight against me, glad the small part of me that worried things would be awkward when we saw each other again was wrong. Dead wrong. “At least a few days. I hope you didn’t make plans, because I just want to do this over and over again.”
 

“Good. Because a long distance booty call was pretty much the only reason I took this trip. You’re off the weekend, right?”
 

“Kind of. I’m always on call, but I won’t go in tomorrow unless I have to.”

“Let’s hope you don’t. I want to be greedy and take up all your time.”
 

“I’m fine with that. Do you have to work?”

“I do,” she says and wrinkles her nose. “But it’s nothing horrible, and if you help take some pictures, I’ll get done faster.”

 
The sponsorship Rachel was offered panned out. She wrote a post about getting cheated on and not letting that stop her from living out her dream vacation, and the thing went viral and her social media presence increased tenfold…which led to more sponsors. Right now she’s working every other weekend at a hospital in her hometown, and doing her fashion stuff during the week. She’s giving the paid sponsorships a couple of months to make sure it works—and pays—well for her, then she plans on quitting her job as a nurse. Neither of us have said anything about it yet, but working full time as a blogger gives Rachel the freedom to travel…or move anywhere she wants. Like Dallas, perhaps.
 

One step at a time though. Life is crazy. Life is beautiful and scary. Life is unpredictable and I know I don’t want to go through it without her. But…one step at a time. Sometimes I’m so eager to take things forward it kills me. I know Rachel isn’t going anywhere and besides, she’s more than worth the wait.

I run my fingers along her back. Things finally seem to be falling into place. The doorbell rings again, and I remember Rachel saying my sister was coming back in an hour with her stuff. Has it been an hour already? It seems like Rachel just walked through the door. I pull my boxers and pants back on and go to answer the door while Rachel gets redressed.
 

“Really?” Margery says when she sees me. “You couldn’t put your clothes back on so I could pretend you didn’t just have sex. You’re disgusting.”
 

I roll my eyes. “You’re just jealous.”
 

“Rachel is hot. Anyway, here’s her stuff.
 
Mom knows she’s in town, just to warn you so you don’t get caught with your pants down.”

“So you’re saying she’ll be over first thing in the morning.”
 

“More than likely. Oh, and she had grandma’s wedding ring cleaned yesterday. Good luck!” Marg turns and jogs down the porch steps. I shake my head and go back inside. “Are you hungry?” I ask Rachel, who is wearing my shirt…and only my shirt. Her bra and panties are on the ground.
 

“I’m starving,” she says and gets up.

“Remember when I said I’m not a good cook? It’s true. But I can make a mean frozen pizza.”
 

She laughs and that sound is like music to my ears. “That’s perfect.”
 

We eat, get ready for bed, and have sex one more time before passing out around midnight. And only an hour later my phone rings.

“Is everything okay?” Rachel sleepily asks, rolling over and reaching for me. Seeing her in my bed puts me at peace. This is where she’s supposed to be, where we both are supposed to be.
 

Together.
 

“Not for the victim,” I grumble.
 

“I had no idea so many people were murdered in Dallas. It’s scary.”