Rubi tried to hold her emotions down, but her gut felt tight, like a growing fireball had lodged beneath her belly button. Her eyes watered and her throat thickened. She struggled to internalize the words—not believing. Not trusting. No one had ever seen her this way. Many men had seen her as a toy, had looked at her with lust. But even Wes’s most heated gaze always held deep affection—which was what had kept her at arm’s length so long.

The whirlwind of emotions embarrassed her until her face, neck, and chest felt as if they were on fire. She wanted to look into his eyes for the answer to her next question but couldn’t stand the intensity of the connection and lowered her lashes as she glanced down at his chest. “Women like Melissa.”

Wes didn’t immediately answer. He reached up and stroked a hand over her hair. “I grew up with strict, God-fearing parents in a small Southern town, Rubi. Every moment of every day, I was being molded into a socially acceptable Southern boy—whether that was by my parents, my teacher, or the storekeeper on the corner. You can probably already see that I’ve had a habit of either falling a little short of that standard or simply veering off on my own path. By Hollywood standards, I’m as vanilla as they come. But by Missouri standards, I was trouble waiting for the wrong place at the wrong time.

“But I love my parents. I love my sister and my brother. And I’m the middle child—a peacemaker. So I found small ways to stay within the boundaries to make a portion of the population—and more importantly, my parents—happy. That involved choosing acceptable women to date.

“Melissa’s father had been a bit of a rebel in his younger days as well and saw it as a benefit, not a curse. Melissa and I dated from our sophomore year in high school through my junior year of college. I—obviously—never quite broke out of that mindset for how I chose my girlfriends.”

Rubi waited, a million questions swirling in her head, in her heart. She knew she wasn’t up to either asking most of them or receiving the answers. But she really did need one answer now; otherwise, her mind would churn and churn and she’d never get to sleep. “And why did you two break up?”

“She wanted me to be someone I wasn’t.” His answer came so quickly, with such surety and conviction, Rubi tensed, trying to take in the information. “After graduation, she and her father wanted me to join her father’s engineering firm. Her father generously offered to put me on a track to make partner in several years. But the thought made me claustrophobic. I couldn’t imagine living in a gray cubicle for the next thirty years.”

Rubi winced. Wes in a cubicle? He’d have been happier in prison.

“When I declined,” he said, “Melissa broke off our engagement.”

Rubi gasped and glanced up. “Engagement?”

“We were going to get married after we graduated. But I wasn’t willing to fulfill her image of who I should be. And without that position with her father’s firm, I didn’t amount to someone she believed could support her financially. At least not the way she’d been supported all her life.”

Rubi read the darkness of his gaze, the hurt pulling his mouth. And their argument at Dolph’s office echoed in her head.

“I’m talking millions. Many millions. I’m talking about you being able to buy houses like Jax’s any time you wanted. I’m talking about never worrying about money for the rest of your life.”

“Oh my God,” she murmured.

“It was a long time ago.” But his voice still held some element of darkness. “I’m only telling you all this so you can understand—”

“I didn’t mean—” She lifted her gaze to his again, reached up, and covered his hand. “Wes, what I said about the rig, about selling it, that wasn’t because I wanted you to be someone different. It was because I want you to always be able to do just what you’re doing. To be able to be just as happy and complete as you are now. I’m worried about you being able to do what you love if something unfortunate happened and you couldn’t physically do the stunts. Selling the rig only gives you the money to ensure you’ll have that opportunity.”

He fingered back a piece of hair on her forehead, his gaze a little distant but soft. “You really don’t care if I can buy houses like Jax’s?”

“No.” She laughed the word, but it was filled with pain and regret. “It makes absolutely no difference to me. I’ve always had money, Wes, but I’ve never had the more important things that money took from me. I’d give up everything I had then, everything I have now for a childhood—and a family—like yours.”

His lids closed, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “I know it kinda freaks you out, but…fuck…I love you so much.”

Rubi winced at the sting of fear. But at the same time, her heart was doing somersaults. The clash felt excruciating. “Wes…”

He exhaled loudly. “I know. Dammit, I’m sorry. I just…you just… Fuck it.” He hooked his arm around her waist and pulled a pillow underneath his head. “I’d better go to sleep before I get myself in any more trouble.”

Rubi slid her hand up his arm and over his shoulder. “Sleep isn’t what I had in mind. Trouble was.”

A smile curved his mouth, but he covered her hand with his and pulled it between them, then threaded her fingers. He laid his chin on the top of her head and pulled her close, until their chests and bellies pressed, until his thick, muscled legs were tangled with hers. “Close your eyes, precious. I want to fall asleep with you.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

He tilted his head down for a quick kiss. “Try it and see. And if you’re a really good girl, I might wake you up sometime tonight in a very creative way.”

Twenty-Four

Rubi stretched awake without opening her eyes. She rolled under the covers and pulled a pillow to her chest, sighing with comfort. She felt cocooned. Warm and safe and happy. Her mind drifted toward her day ahead. She needed to check e-mail. Contact a couple of different clients to help her decide which project to start on next. She wanted to go for a run. Maybe she’d do that first thing. The beach was always beautiful and quiet in the morning—

Muffled laughter sounded somewhere nearby. A split second of alarm flashed through her before she opened her eyes—and recognized nothing. Which then pumped a much longer, much stronger flash of panic through her. She pushed up in bed at the same instant her location and situation registered.

Wes. Missouri.

Panic seeped through her chest.

Rolling toward the nightstand, she picked up her phone. Checking her messages, she found two pictures of Rodie from the sitter and one text from Wes.

WES: Good morning, beautiful.

Rubi smiled. A sliver of her sudden panic ebbed. After all, she did have the hottest Renegade of them all under the same roof. And he had followed through on his promise of waking her in the middle of the night in a creative way. She warmed at the thought, and aches she hadn’t been aware of upon waking snuck in.

She clicked into the other messages and looked at pictures of Rodie—passed out in his dog bed, his favorite toy nearby. Playing tug-of-war with his buddy, Titan, a Golden Retriever.

Her heart tugged.

The door inched open, followed by Wes, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and what looked like a yogurt parfait in the other. “Hey.”

He was barefoot, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. It was really a sin how good he looked in the simple clothes. And how amazing it was to have his handsome face greet her first thing in the morning. “I was hoping you were awake.”

Rubi sat up, set her phone aside, and ran both hands through her hair, pulling it off her face. She smiled and took the coffee he held out with a gratitude-filled “Thank you.”

She took a sip, closed her eyes and settled. It was just the way she liked it—hazelnut creamer and plenty of sugar. She hummed in pleasure. And she was touched he would remember how she liked her coffee from the few times she’d gone to the set early to watch crash stunts. “You’re a god.”

When she opened her eyes, he was grinning—a soft smile filled with his “I love you” from the night before shining in those pretty eyes. “Christ, you’re even more beautiful in the morning.”

“I was thinking the same thing about you.” As soon as she said it, she wasn’t sure if she’d meant matching that look in his eye or what a beautiful man he was—even more so on the inside, which was saying a lot considering his outer wrapping was utterly sinful.

He offered her a clear plastic cup layered with colorful alternating stripes of yogurt and fruit. “Your typical breakfast. Or we can go out. Or I can cook you what I cooked everyone else—eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, taters.”

“Taters.” She laughed at the word and reached for the parfait as she set her coffee down. “You cook too? My God, you might just be the perfect man, Lawson.”

“All I care about is being perfect for you.” He sat on the bed facing her, one leg bent under him. “Oh my God.” He clasped her jaw and turned her face toward him. His gaze scanned her face with an expression she couldn’t quite read. “You have freckles?” The tension seemed to leave his body, followed by a pained “Fuck, that is just too adorable.”

Then his lips kissed a path from one cheek to the other across her nose.

A fist squeezed her heart, pumping unexpected emotions deep into her body. She’d showered before she’d fallen into bed the night before, and scrubbed her face clean. She’d never been self-conscious in or out of makeup, but she realized this was the first time he’d seen her without any. Heat expanded in her chest until she ached. She had the nearly uncontrollable need to lay her head on his shoulder and curl into his lap. None of which she understood.

She tilted her head and kissed his lips. It was sweet and slow and only intensified the unbearable pressure in her chest now pushing tears to her eyes. Sweet tears.

She pulled out of the kiss and looked down at her breakfast, blinking the sting away. “Mango?” The cup was topped with a layer of granola beneath bright blueberries, strawberries, and mango pieces. “Really?”

“I thought it was your favorite. You always got the one with mangos from the breakfast cart on the set. You can take it off—”

“It is my favorite. I just…didn’t know you knew.”

“Of course I know.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Along with your favorite coffee, your favorite appetizer, your favorite entrée, and your favorite dessert. I thought I knew your favorite drink too, until that whole Sexy Bitch thing threw me for a loop. Hell, I even know your favorite color.”

The sting in her eyes was back, and her throat felt thick. Trying to ignore the discomfort, she scooped up a spoonful of yogurt, fruit, and granola, her brows drawing together. “My favorite color? I don’t even think I know my favorite color.” She thought of the clothes hanging in her closet and frowned up at him with a confused smirk. “Black?”