Bloody hell.
I tipped my head into him, feeling his fingers stretch to span the side of my neck in a possessive grip. "You ready to get outta there?"
Uh, heck yeah.
"Let me get out from the stairs," I told him, tipping my head in the direction where I'd come from.
Dex frowned. "Just get out from here."
"I can't really..." I sighed, thinking of the hundreds of times I’d gotten out at the YMCA. "Because of my arm."
The frown that had been on his face was wiped clean off. Dex got into a crouch, slipping his hands under my arm pits. "I've got you, babe."
He had me up and out of the water before I could argue with him about it, both of us on our knees for a moment before he was helping me to my feet. Dex grabbed my hand and led us toward where he'd been sitting before. There were less Widows in the circle by then, a few of them drifting around the yard with their families or eating.
He must have grabbed my bag at some point when I was with Dean because he bent down to pull out my towel. "Gotta get dried off before you get sick," Dex said in a deceptively soft voice.
I looked at the sky. "It's sunny."
He stood up, holding the pale gray towel wide. "Humor me, babe."
It wasn't like I was planning on getting back into the water anyway, so I nodded and let him wrap the towel around my shoulders so tightly it made me feel like a human burrito.
In the blink of an eye, he'd snatched me up before settling onto the chair he'd been sitting in before. Dex nestled me sideways onto his lap, his arms circling me tightly. His lips pressed into my temple. It seemed normal enough to anyone looking at us, but not me. I knew Dex too well. I recognized the possessiveness of his gesture and it'd be a lie if I said that I didn't get a thrill from it.
Luther was sitting in his chair, looking around the yard. Alone.
I let my head rest against Dex's shoulder. "Sorry about earlier."
He hummed, his strong arms tightening. "I get it."
"You do?"
"Oh yeah," he said in what sounded like a growl. Was it a growl? I kind of hoped so. Rawr. “Those boys better pray I never seen ‘em in the flesh.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad.” I snickered. "I didn't sleep with either one of them, Dex."
His breath hitched at the same time his grip jerked. "The thought of you...you with...holy fuck, I can't...I can't say it."
Dex was jealous? Jealous? Holy crap, I think my ovaries started going into overdrive as he stuttered.
"Thinkin' about you..." he cleared his throat roughly. "You don't gotta worry. I don't like shittin' where I eat."
The blank look I gave him must have been enough for him to understand that I didn't get what exactly he meant.
"Becky was a mistake, Ritz."
I watched him out of the corner of my eye. "Right."
He sighed, his hold becoming more possessive. "You were there that mornin', babe. I had too much to drink the night before."
I had been there the day afterward. The words just kind of flowed out before I could catch them. "Yeah, and you slapped her ass like it wasn't that big of a mistake."
Dex had the decency to wince. "Can't say I don't wish I could take it back. What's done is done, Ritz. I don't get shit-faced often for that reason, babe. Learned my lesson with my pa."
Uh huh. I knew he had a point though. In all the time that I'd known him, and all the nights we'd spent together, he rarely drank more than a few beers. It was definitely never enough that I thought for a second he wasn't completely in total control. The guy was usually more sober than me.
And he was right about his dad. From what I figured, the older Locke was an alcoholic and if Dex knew that... well, he wouldn't want to go down that same road. At all. For a man that seemed to value his control, falling for that stuff must have been hard to swallow.
"And that redhead? Sky?"
He groaned, bouncing his legs beneath me. Dex nipped at my earlobe. “Nothin’ happened with her that night you’re thinkin’ about, babe. Or any other night since you walked into my shop with your sorority girl clothes.”
The question that came out of my mouth wasn’t intentional. I swear, but all these fears that lurked in the recesses of my brain hadn’t gone off to die overnight. A part of me still needed their protection, I guess. “So why did she bring your cut to the shop and say you left it with her?”
“Who the hell knows. My best guess, she was just tryin’ to be a bitch and wanted an excuse to check you out since you were stayin’ with me.”
This sneaky, creepy sensation flooded my stomach with some form of dread…
“You’re the only girl I’ve ever taken home, Ritz. Guess she was jealous I shot her down the times she brought it up.”
I was going to throw up and Dex’s face was my target.
That's it? That's what I was going to get? A stinking confirmation of the times in his past that she’d wanted him to take her to his place but he hadn’t?
I guess that's all I genuinely needed and wanted. Did I want details? Hell no.
Hell. No.
Okay, maybe a tiny, sadistic part of me wanted something but that was stupid. Whatever I learned could not be unlearned. No thanks.
I was strong enough to accept the role Dex had carved out for me. He'd told me more than enough times his feelings in a vague but powerful way. I needed to quit being a baby and embrace that. Accept that I knew him better than any other person. Could that be enough for me?
It had to be.
He squeezed me to him, tight. “But you don’t gotta worry about anything. There’s only a few things I’ve ever given a shit about. Everything else...is seasonal, as Ma would say.” He pressed his mouth to my temple, whispering, “Then there’s you.”
Swallow, Iris. Breathe, Iris.
I was swallowed whole by emotion. By this terrifying thing that had to be love because it hurt as much as it soothed.
Lifting my knees up higher, I shifted on his lap until I could look him in the face better. His expression was tight. Wary. Maybe even a little worried? So, he wasn't a virgin. Not anywhere close to it, but that was a fact. Dex was who he was and I got a small part of him just for me. I wasn’t going to ruin this by hanging on to the past. I didn’t want it to win.
I bet no one else got to see his spare bedroom of comic stuff. Iris 1, Hookers Pre-Iris 0.
I bopped the tip of his nose with my finger. "Okay."
He blinked those dark gem colored eyes. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
The grin that crept up over his mouth was better than Christmas morning, and the kiss he gave me afterward somehow topped that.
“I guess I should be grateful you don’t have three ex-wives running around trying to take you back, huh?”
He rolled his eyes, the creases in the corners of his eyes getting more pronounced as he smiled wider. “Ya think?”
“Yeah, I don’t know how to fight. If it came down to it, I’d have to use my keys on their faces or bite off a chunk of somebody’s ear,” I told him with a grimace.
The laugh that erupted out of him had the remaining Widows turning around to look at us like the sight of Dex laughing so loud was a UFO sighting. I swear one of the younger ones, a prospect, looked a strange mixture of scared and baffled. But I was so amused by Dex’s response, I just sat there watching him with a huge, stupid smile on my face. What else would I want to look at?
Once he finally got himself under control, Dex pulled back just enough to roam his gaze over my face. I probably looked like a wet rat taco but I didn’t care when the expression on his face was so calm and focused. And when the corner of his mouth did that sneaky little tip up. “You’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, you know that?”