He chuckles low in his throat as I struggle to open my eyes. Holy fucking shit. What did he do to me?
He drops to the couch, bringing me down on top of him, and I pant for air, sounding like a damn dog right now as he strokes my back. His motions are tender, exactly the opposite from the window/wall sex we just had.
I think he kisses my forehead, but I’m too overwhelmed by sensation to be sure.
“That was… um… yeah,” I mumble, giving up on finding words.
He laughs lightly before his fingers start strumming through my hair. I’m not sure how long we lie this way, but it has to be at least a couple of hours, because the sun is slowly starting to fade from sight. We’re both going to need showers now, but it’s worth it.
I could stay like this all night, but I know he probably has more in mind.
“Can I ask you some questions?”
He doesn’t respond immediately, but he doesn’t tense either. Finally, he says, “Sure.”
“What happened to your mother?”
I don’t know if she ran off or if she’s dead, because he’s never spoken about her.
“You want to know this right now?” he asks, sounding somewhat amused.
I look up from my comfortable placement on his chest, and he grins down at me.
“You ruined me. I literally can’t move very many things on my body, so yes. I want to talk right now.”
He laughs while rolling his eyes, but I see the gentle Drex in this moment—the one no one else ever gets to see.
After a minute, his smile falls, and he blows out a breath. “She died when I was little.” My heart breaks for him, but he immediately shakes his head when he sees my eyes. “Don’t give me that look. I can’t even remember much about her, so I’m over it. Have been for years. I don’t need pity.”
It’s impossible not to feel sympathy. It’s not pity.
I reach up, stroking the side of his jaw. His eyes dart back to mine, as though he’s gauging me and my intentions. Sheesh. It’s just a show of affection.
“What happened?” I ask, still stroking his jaw.
I lean up, propping against the couch back a little so I can see him without getting a kink in my neck. My hand lazily drifts up to his hair, and despite the gelled tips, I start working my fingers through the strands.
He relaxes under my touch as though he enjoys it, and his arms loosely wrap around my middle, holding me to him.
“She overdosed.”
My ministrations pause, and I suck in a surprised breath. Something I haven’t seen inside the Death Dealers club is drug use. I didn’t give it much thought until now, but it’s surprising there isn’t any of that going on.
“We don’t do business with junkies,” he continues, even though the conversation seems to veer off course. “Junkies are unpredictable and can’t be trusted in business. But sometimes, in our work, the ones on the sidelines end up getting messed up along the way. Mom was a casualty. She couldn’t deal with the life without the help of drugs. The addiction grew until it killed her.”
He says it flatly, without any emotion. It’s as though he’s somehow put up a stone wall around this section of his life, not allowing the memories to penetrate his emotions.
It’s like Drex is an island no one can touch, even if he’s right in front of you.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, resuming my strokes through his hair.
He leans into my touch, and a small, peaceful breath leaves his lips.
“What about your sister?” he asks. “Marks worked for us for a while, and I never knew he had a family. I also didn’t know he had a daughter who died.”
I’m not detached from my emotions the way he is, so the mention of Isabelle is like a knife slicing through me. My chest gets heavy, and the tears teeter on the edge. I fight hard to answer him without crying.
“I was an uh-oh child,” I tell him, which causes his eyebrows to arch. Shrugging, I continue. “Mom got pregnant with me when she was sixteen. Dad was eighteen. They got married immediately, because, well, they were young and thought that’s what you had to do.”
It’s not what he asked, but he lies under me, patiently waiting for me to elaborate. My hand slides down from his hair, and I start tracing the hard lines of his chest, moving down the flow of his golden tanned abs and back up again.
“It was rough on them. But they survived the struggle. Mom thought it made them stronger, but I think my dad just got weaker. My sister was the next uh-oh. The doctors had told my mother that it’d be almost impossible for her to get pregnant again. They were wrong. She was pregnant within two months of getting off her birth control.”