Rubi wanted to do what she always did—laugh off her concern. Add an airy, careless wave of her hand and assure her friend that her life was perfect.
When she only squinted into the sunshine showering downtown LA, Lexi went on. “This last month is probably the happiest I’ve ever seen you. Don’t you feel how good it is, Rubi? Healthy. Happy. Just plain right?
She did. Which was what scared her into silence. The stakes were high for Rubi. Higher than they were for Wes. If things went south with Wes…
Rubi saw an edge disintegrating beneath her feet. A bad fallout between her and Wes would inevitably cause tension between Rubi and the other Renegades. Tension between Rubi and Jax. Tension between Jax and Lexi. And ultimately, tension between Rubi and Lexi.
Messing things up with Wes could very well mess up every relationship that mattered to Rubi. Leaving her alone. Completely alone.
Yet, she felt so strongly about Wes, the thought of backing away from him now laid a boulder on her heart.
She. Was. Fucked.
Lexi shifted on her feet. “Rubi.”
She curled her fingers around the iron railing, her gaze fixed on her deep-red manicured nails as she flexed, tensed, flexed, tensed. Then she clenched her eyes shut. “Okay. I…have a problem.”
Her throat grew tight. She had to pause and push the burst of irrational panic down before she could go on.
“Wes and I…”—she wet her lips and scraped her upper lip between her teeth—“had sex.” Voicing it made all her anxiety intensify. “And…and…it was great. Beyond great. Better than I expected, and I expected phenomenal.”
Rubi labored to gather air again. Her heart beat fast, adding pressure on her lungs. She opened her eyes but couldn’t bear to look at Lexi. She didn’t know what she’d see, but part of her didn’t want to know.
“I’d…tell you that’s awesome, because it totally is,” Lexi started, her voice guarded. “But I’m guessing by how you’re acting it’s too awesome, right? So awesome you’re going to have to f**k it up because you’re terrified.”
A world of emotion floated in Lexi’s words. Understanding, disappointment, heartache…and that always-present unconditional love they’d shared from the beginning of their friendship. Her tone made Rubi’s fears seem both ominous and ridiculous at once.
“I know. So stupid, right?” She tried to laugh at herself, but it came out weak. “I mean, seriously, I couldn’t ask for a better guy. He even left after without me having to shove him out the door.”
Lexi’s hand closed around Rubi’s arm. She didn’t know why the touch startled her, but she flinched and turned to Lexi’s surprised, questioning gaze. “You had sex at your house?”
Splinters of heat and pressure scattered through her belly. “Yeah.”
Rubi had never brought a man to the house. Ever. She needed the control of being able to leave when she was ready. And the house was her personal space. Her and Rodie’s sanctuary. She didn’t want men showing up without an invitation, expecting her to give in to a bootie call.
Only, f**k, wasn’t that just what she’d allowed Wes to do last night?
Lexi’s hand slid from Rubi’s arm, dragging her—feeling a little drunk, and not in a good way—from the realization.
“Well, that’s…interesting.” Lexi drew out the word.
Rubi crossed her arms so tight over her chest, a tug of pain shot through the girls. “You sound like my goddamned psychotherapist.”
A suspicious, sly look narrowed Lexi’s eyes. “What other boundaries are you letting Wes trample on?”
Rubi’s mind immediately veered to the night before.
“I want to be different, Rubi. I want to feel you. Every inch of you.”
That drunk sensation deepened until Rubi’s stomach twinged the way it did when she’d had one too many.
“We…didn’t use a condom.” Rubi lifted her hand to her forehead and found it damp. “Isn’t it hot out here? Let’s go inside.” She turned and took giant strides toward the living room’s French doors, craving a cool sweep of air-conditioning.
“Rubi.”
She ignored Lexi’s confused call, stepped through the doors, and closed her eyes, absorbing the settling sensation of refrigerated air on her damp skin.
“You’re on birth control,” Lexi asked. “Right?”
“Of course.” The words came in an irritated, lightheaded rush. “That’s not the problem.”
Lexi’s frown turned suspicious again. “Then what’s the problem?”
Now that Lexi had voiced the more severe consequences of Rubi’s condom-challenged sexual encounter, she found herself, once again, feeling like an emotional hypochondriac.
“It’s just…this thing I have. I’ve always used a condom. Ever since I started having sex. Always.” Rubi dropped into a sofa. “It’s… I don’t know…a layer of protection, you know, in a different way. Like…a psychological way.”
Lexi’s posture softened, and her gaze widened with understanding. “Oooooh. Got it.”
Christ she was sick. Beyond sick, now she was scared. Before now, without Lexi shining a spotlight on every little thing Rubi had done with Wes, she had been able to push them into the background. Now she worried over the message she’d sent Wes by letting the issue slide when she could have reached out of the shower and simply grabbed one from a drawer. Two seconds. Max.
“I want to be different, Rubi.”
He’d been different from the f**king start.
“Scary,” Lexi said, her voice soft with their shared fears. She lifted her hands to indicate the house. “I know.”
“But that’s the difference—you move through it. You live it. I put up walls, create detours. It’s like my feet are stuck in concrete. Wes terrifies me, Lex. He’s… God.” She turned her gaze back out over the city. A knife twisted in Rubi’s chest. Emotions rose and swirled in her head. Anxiety crawled over her skin. Terror closed in. “I can’t do it. I just can’t…”
“Jump?” Lexi drew in a breath that raised her shoulders, then slowly blew it out as she gazed out over LA. “What if we jump together?”
Lexi didn’t wait for Rubi to answer. She pulled her phone from her pocket with one hand and covered Rubi’s hand on the railing with the other. Tapping one number on her phone, she dialed, then touched the Speaker icon.
“You miss me already, don’t you?” Jax’s rich, sexy voice came over the line. “Change your mind about the terrace? I’ll turn around right now.”
The grin that lit up Lexi’s face made Rubi’s heart swell. That was happiness. And seeing Lexi happy thrilled Rubi. She knew Lexi wanted to see Rubi just as happy. She just didn’t think a man was the ticket.
“Yes, I miss you already,” Lexi said. “And yes, I’ve changed my mind about the terrace. But Rubi’s right, we can’t christen it until you own it.”
Lexi’s grip tightened on Rubi’s. Her eyes slid closed, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. The expression of hope and fear on Lexi’s face mirrored so much of what Rubi felt over Wes.
“Hold on,” Jax said, his voice now tight. After a second, he continued. “I had to pull over. I didn’t want to hyperventilate on the freeway. I thought I just heard you say you wanted to buy that house and live in it with me.”
Lexi’s brow furrowed, and a look of terrified pain came over her face. She released Rubi’s hand and pressed her own to her stomach. “That’s because…”
Rubi laughed and covered her mouth to hold it back. Her eyes swelled with tears.
“I did,” she finally said. “Make an offer, Jax. I love this house. I love you. I want both.”
Lexi opened her eyes and pinned Rubi with a sharp, what-the-fuck-did-I-just-do look. Rubi still had her hand over her mouth, her chest bursting with happiness. Lexi pressed the phone to her body and whispered, “I think I’m going to puke.”
Rubi couldn’t hold back anymore. Laughter rolled out of her. Lexi’s laughter echoed Rubi’s.
Lexi disconnected with an ecstatic Jax, and they finished touring the house. But Rubi couldn’t get Lexi’s earlier words to Jax out of her head: “I need you to push me past these fears, because I don’t want to lose you over them.”
Her own fears could easily ruin something with Wes that she knew in her heart had the potential to be really good.
In the driveway, Rubi hugged Lexi good-bye. When Lexi pulled away, she held Rubi’s arms firmly, her eyes direct. “It’s your turn to jump. Don’t leave me hanging out here by myself.”
“Have I ever left you hanging?”
The smile that beamed across Lexi’s face was filled with giddy excitement. “Keep me posted.” She stepped back, pointed purposefully at Rubi while walking backward toward her car repeating words Rubi had once said to Lexi, not that long ago. “And I want details, girl. Details.”
Rubi didn’t follow Lexi down the hill. Instead, she took out her phone and tapped a message to Wes.
Thirteen
Wes crouched in front of the second of four identical Ducatis he was working with on this series of scenes. The first bike, the one he’d crashed a few days ago, lay alongside the others—a burned-out corpse he would part-out to keep the other three running. Keaton wiped a rag over the handlebars and scrubbed the body until the red paint shone.
“She’s insane,” Keaton said. He’d been droning on about some girl he’d been banging. “She lives alone, but she’s got a two-bedroom apartment, and the extra room’s filled with sex-toy shit. Like…serious…sex-toy shit. I don’t know, man. I mean, I’m up for just about anything, but honestly, this chick kind of freaks me out.”
With the clutch cover removed, Wes listened with one ear and sprayed compressed air over the metal to clear residual dust. The bike groaned every time Wes switched gears, pissing off the audio gurus. And while Wes could pull apart any motorcycle and put it back together drunk, standing on his head, he was having a hard time focusing on a simple clutch clean today. And Keaton’s chatter wasn’t the problem.
His gaze blurred over the machine, and his mind drifted toward Rubi. Toward the sight of her spread out on the kitchen counter. Her wickedly sinful, drool-inducing body smeared with chocolate ice cream. His c**k hitched against his jeans, and Wes clenched his teeth.
Ping. Clank.
The can of compressed air hit the concrete, and Wes startled.
“Yeah.” Keaton laughed the word. “I about dropped the lube bottle just like that.”
Wes had no f**king idea what Keaton was talking about, but right now, he didn’t want to know. He was having enough trouble dealing with all the heat tumbling through his body and emotion expanding his heart.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and his mind jumped to Wyatt. He’d already talked to his mother today, but…
He pushed to his feet and pulled out his phone, thinking a hundred different things. Shock sizzled low in his belly when he saw the text was from Rubi. Her contacting him today…or any day in the next week…was the opposite of what he’d expected.
Don’t get your hopes up, dude.
RUBI: Hey, handsome. Do you have your rig with you or is it at your place?
His mind tried to read ten different meanings into the text. It took him a minute to realize she was talking about the rig for Wyatt. But the fact she’d reached out to him at all had to be a good sign, right?
WES: Baby, I carry my rig everywhere.
“Is that Rubi?” Keaton asked.
“Yeah.”
“She’s kinda out of your league, isn’t she?”
Wes looked up only long enough to shoot the other Renegade a glare.
“Just sayin’.” Keaton held up his hands, palms out. “I can totally see why you went for her, but…not your usual type.”
“I’ve only heard that half a dozen times already.” His phone buzzed again, and he glanced down.
RUBI: Did you find someone to relay that beautiful rig of yours?
His lips twitched up into a cautious grin. Not a “Last night was so hot I can’t wait to have you again,” but Wes would take what he could get.
WES: That’s all you, baby. I don’t want anyone else touching my rig.
“I’m going over to Tommy’s Burgers for lunch,” Keaton said. “Wanna come?”
“Kinda early for lunch, dude.”
“I’ve been up since four. Starting a new workout. I go to this CrossFit gym near my place. Man, those bitches work me into butter. I’m burning so many calories and building so much muscle, I can’t keep weight on.”
“I’m not hungry.” At least not for anything but Rubi. “You go on.”
Keaton tossed down his rag and straightened, stretched. His groan was one of those damn-I’m-sore groans. “All right. I’ll bring you back a burger.”
Wes nodded absently just as Rubi’s message came through.
RUBI: You’re on, but I need that baby in my hands to program it properly.
Wes’s face broke out into a full grin as Keaton turned for the trailer. Current sizzled through his body at Rubi’s flirty innuendo. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have made much out of the comment. But after last night, the fact that she was still flirting with him was another great sign.
WES: Holy shit. My rig’s circuit just blew. You know I can’t work when it’s jacked. Come and fix me up, baby.