It took a minute for the meaning of his words to sink in. “What?” I finally shouted, “Rex…me?” I couldn’t put together a coherent sentence.
“Calm down, babe. I overheard a man offer Rex a buttload of cash to abduct and eventually do away with you. Those were his words. Rex refused, and after some tension, the mysterious man left. I, of course, remembered you from years ago—I had a crush on you, but also—just felt we’d someday cross paths. Rex turned the job down, but there are plenty of others I knew would accept. I tricked Rex into going with me to Vegas—I told him I wanted to see my father—but instead I captured you.”
My mind was reeling. “Rex kills people?”
“Not anymore,” Nate answered defensively, “and certainly not for hire.”
“Who would want me…why?” It made no sense. I meant very little to anybody between the time my mother died and when I fell into these two men in Colombia.
“I don’t know, but I knew I had to protect you. That night on the plane—Rex watched us…I knew then that you might be the connection we needed to make us complete. Rex loves me…he says I captured him, but the truth is he saved me in so many ways. We pulled each other away from destruction—together, we are so much better. But something was missing—he was never going to be able to allow the sort of relationship I craved. But you, Penny—you’ve awakened him. And, he’s done the same for you. You are so much stronger, so different after being out in the jungle with him.”
“I killed a snake!” I gloated.
He smiled wide. “I heard! You are so much more than you think you are. I’m so…I’m falling hard for you, Penelope Sedgewick.” He kissed me, the bubbles crinkling between us in the cooling bathwater.
We dried off, and Nate carried me to bed in his arms. His room was elegant, expensive—his style, recreated in Rex’s utilitarian compound in the middle of the rainforest. In the silky Italian sheets, he hovered over my naked body, still dewy from the long bath, and drew my face to his. “I-I’m falling for you, Pen, I can’t help it.” I pressed my lips to his, inhaling him, before pulling back to answer, “I’ve already fallen, Nathaniel.”
Nate was tireless—he could come hard and unrelenting, then go again without even withdrawing from me. His desire to please me, to make me shake with pleasure, fed his own arousal. I’d never known a man like him. That night, we made love for hours until eventually we collapsed wrapped in each other, the howling of the creatures of the night lulling us to sleep.
Sometime before dawn, we stirred, our bodies joining one more time in a sleepy embrace. Afterward, the dark morning was quiet and still. “Why does Rex control your money?” I asked with a yawn.
“To protect me. I’ve recovered, Penny, I’m clean—thanks to Rex. But, like any addict, I’ve had setbacks. After the last time, I turned over control of my finances to keep from ever buying again.”
“So all of this is yours?”
“No,” he yawned. “The plane is, but Rex had this place before we met, and he does very well from his business.”
“How much does he make killing people,” I asked without thinking.
“Pen, he doesn’t…I know he did some classified shit in the military and after, but that’s all. People like me pay a lot of money for his guidance—don’t be surprised when you get his bill for your time in the jungle,” he said, kissing my shoulder as I drifted off to sleep.
Nate and I scurried around the next day, watching the rain pour down and anxiously awaiting the return of the larger-than-life Rex Renton. There was one text from him saying that the heavy rain was slowing them down on their journey back. Nate tried to call, but couldn’t get through to Rex’s Blackberry. We went to sleep that night, curled together in Nate’s bed in post-coital bliss.
“Move over.” The gruff whisper in my ear roused me in the wee hours of the morning. It took me a moment to process that Rex was really there, damp and smelling of soap. I slid into Nate, making room for the boxer-brief clad Rex to lie down behind me. Nate was sound asleep, barely responding when I nudged him over. I rolled toward Rex.
“You’re home!”
“Uh huh,” he muttered. “Tired,” he said, his eyes closing as he wrapped his powerful arms around me. I fell back to sleep in the warm embrace of the two most fascinating men I’d ever known.
When I woke up, Rex was still in a deep sleep behind me, his arms and legs entwined with mine as if he were making sure I didn’t leave. He’d shaven after his middle of the night shower, his skin smoother than I’d ever seen it. I planted a kiss on his cheek as Nate opened his bedroom door carrying a tray. “You made breakfast?” I whispered, trying to let Rex sleep. “Maria,” he whispered as he set the tray down at the end of the wide bed. I untangled from Rex’s vine-like embrace and scooted toward Nate, who handed me a cup of coffee. “He looks so innocent when he sleeps,” I joked, picking at a fluffy croissant. “Sleeping lion, maybe,” Nate said, munching on a sugary donut.
Rex took a deep breath and rolled over, his washboard-hard abs flexing as he exhaled. “Any other piercings besides that one,” I whispered to Nate, pointing at Rex’s metal-impaled right nipple, “and of course, the peen-jewelry?” Nate’s eyes widened as he attacked a jelly donut.
“What? Rex Junior is pierced? Are you serious?”
I nodded with a giggle.
“Oh holy fuck,” Nate laughed, shoving the last of the sticky donut into his mouth.
On our second cup of coffee, Rex still in deep sleep, I asked, “Has he ever slept in here before?”
Nate shook his head. “Hell no! I’m shocked…and pretty damn over the moon.”
“And I never will again if you two don’t shut the fuck up and let me sleep,” Rex growled from underneath a pillow.
We snickered like kids, shushing each other as we packed up our breakfast in bed.
It was noon before Rex finally emerged from Nate’s bed. He stumbled into the kitchen, still in his underwear, ran a hand through his sexy bedhead, and told Maria to make him steak and eggs. As he sat at the breakfast bar reading a newspaper in Spanish, I spied on him from around the corner. “Come in, Penny,” he eventually said like an exasperated parent.
I came out of hiding from the doorframe and slinked up to sit on a stool next to him. “Why are you hovering?” he asked patiently as Maria placed his plate in front of him. “I missed you, that’s all. You were asleep forever.”
“I’ve been in the jungle for a week, Princess. And, I’m nearly twice your age. I needed a little sleep. Where’s Nate?” He glanced back at his newspaper.
“He said he needed to go into the city to buy supplies. He’ll be back this afternoon.”
“He go alone?” Rex flipped a page in his paper.
“No, he went with one of the drivers.”
Rex nodded, not looking up, before shoveling eggs into his mouth.
When he’d finished eating, he folded his paper and leaned back with a mug of black coffee. I was nervous, unsure of what to do next, and felt out of place in his house. “Okay, Penny, you’re not a prisoner here,” he said with a sigh. “I feel it’s dangerous for you to leave, and I’d like you to stay with us until it’s safe for you to go back. Can you do that?” He looked pointedly at me. “Yes,” I answered heartily. “Good then,” he smiled, “let’s get to know each other.” I sat across from him, waiting. “When did you get your last birth control shot? Was it Depo-Provera?” he asked gruffly. “I-uh, I’m not sure…” I felt like I was sitting in the gynecologist’s office all of a sudden. “Do you need to look at a calendar?” he snapped. “No, uh, it was...May fifth.” He nodded, satisfied that I wouldn’t need another dose anytime soon. “Your turn, what do you want to know?” I smiled, surprised he was willing to open up with me. “Uh, okay, who hired you to kill me?” His expression never changed, but he slid his plate toward Maria and said, “No comment. Discussion over.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized as I followed him from the kitchen.
“It’s fine,” he shot back. “I have work to do. You can move into that room,” he pointed across a long hallway, “where you’ll be more comfortable.”
“I liked us all together,” I argued, still chasing after him as he turned a corner and headed into a room. “Penny, we’ll see on that, okay? I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”
Rex closed the door and didn’t come back, and Maria pretended not to speak much English when I tried to ask questions about the compound. I walked back to the room where I’d stayed before escaping into the jungle. It wasn’t locked anymore. I packed the borrowed things and the toiletries from the small bathroom and wandered back into the main house and down a long hallway to the room Rex indicated I was to use. The room was elegant, and the same richness that decorated Nate’s room flowed through this one, but this room was feminine. The four-poster bed was covered in sheer canopy draping, and the bed was stacked high with plush silk throw pillows. I set down the duffle bag of clothing, and turned a corner toward a spacious marble bathroom. A vanity table sat in the corner, a velvet bench sat elegantly in front of it. A woman lived here… To my disappointment, there was no makeup in the bathroom—I missed my eyeliner. On the side of the bathroom, an enormous walk-in closet sat empty. A few hangers hung on the wood rails, but other than that it was stripped bare.