Chapter Text
Beth loaded up her car with containers full of baked goods that she had spent days making. She put everything into making them, trying so hard to get her head back into being Beth Boland, Mom of four, wife of Dean Boland, not because she wanted to, but she had too. Dean took their kids and nothing hit her harder than coming home to an empty house. What were her options anyways? Things were complicated with her and Rio, they were always at odds with each other and they always had issues when they were working together.
She went to see him one last time and did not plan on taking him back home from the bar, it just happened. She just couldn’t not do it, she just couldn’t let him go without being with him again because he did something to her, something she didn’t understand.
She also wasn’t naive either, she saw him with that woman the day she dropped off the car to him. She was everything that she wasn’t. Younger, thinner, beautiful. She herself, was long past being thin after carrying four babies. Pregnancy changes your body and there was no going back from that.
She wasn’t stupid, he was far too good-looking not to have women around him, however the words he told her that afternoon in the bar, when she told him Dean took the kids, kept echoing in her head. “It’s lonely at the top.” So that left her with one question. What was she to him, just someone to fill the void? She didn’t know and she wasn’t going to put herself out there to find out because she wasn’t sure she would like the answer.
So many things had gone down between them and their relationship which simply confused her.
She just knew that night when she was at dinner with Dean after selling all the cars from his lot, that the only man who did know her, was the man who had told her earlier that day that she could be something. He knew her, he saw her, he heard her, he acknowledged her even if they were battling each other….he also listened to her despite the agitation between the two of them.
Something happened to her at that moment, and she found herself walking to the washroom in his bar, knowing he would follow her. The look on his face as he leaned against the door made her feel things she never had before. God, all he had to do was touch her and she was his. All the pent-up feelings, all the emotions that were about him, came pouring out of her. She needed him to take her to that place, a place that she never knew existed. She had never felt anything remotely close to what he did to her, rocking into her, fucking her into such an intense orgasm she came totally undone.
Why did he always seem to know her so well, and know exactly what to do?
Beth was angry and so hurt after what those fucking PTA Moms had done to her. These women treated her like shit and here she was driving back home, angry, hurt, and very humiliated.
She pulled into her driveway, and loaded up the containers in her arms.
She didn’t see Rio behind her, down the street. He watched her, she looked upset and angry by the way she grabbed the containers and marched up to her front door. They were the same containers she had loaded up in the car earlier and they were still full of baked goods. She unlocked her front door and picked them back up, then slammed the door shut with her foot.
Rio had left her house the other day after she dismissed him from her bed. She just flipped a switch on him, ending things, ending everything. He headed to his gym after he left and he pummelled the punching bag at the gym. He didn’t stop until he was exhausted. He headed home afterwards, showered, and had several drinks. It was dirty what she had done to him after the afternoon they had spent in her bed. She was passionate, and as the afternoon went on, he peeled back her layers, the layers that were between them. They connected in a way he never expected. Then…she shut it all down. The woman became an ice queen sitting on her bed, telling him to leave. It hurt and it hit him hard. But there had to be a reason why. He knew she had not planned it because she had his money with her.
He thought about the look on her face in the bar before going to her place, the long gaze they had with each other. Something had to have happened. He went over their conversations. She told him days earlier that Dean had taken her kids and she was so down about it, but she came back that afternoon and told him Dean was bringing the kids back..then she took him home. There was a softness in her gaze, something different. He already knew she liked working with him, that she thrived off it. He also knew she needed the money so her sudden change of heart to end things didn’t make much sense.
Rio decided that she ended it because either she was screwing him over in business or Dean threatened her with the kids. It was the only two explanations that made sense and he knew that Dean was a fucking asshole.
He remembered the look on her face when she took him into the bathroom. The way she looked at him as she moved towards him was forever ingrained in his head. She was nervous for a moment but reached around and locked the door behind him. He knew that was the moment she was letting him in a little bit.
There was no denying that it stung and hurt like hell telling him it was over, but he decided to give her a few days, to see what she did, to see if this was truly what she wanted. He had to make sure she wasn’t pulling something on him but he suspected that she wasn’t. She was doing all mom things, driving the kids to school, picking them up, shopping.
She even took the kids to the park but she looked miserable. She didn’t engage with the other parents and since she wasn’t doing any funny business behind his back either, that narrowed it down. She looked sad, she looked unhappy.
He had decided to go talk to her about it, get to the bottom of it. The one thing she could never do was lie to him, he could see right through her.
Beth marched into the kitchen and dropped the containers on the counter. She was angry. She opened the garbage and dumped some into it.
Rio headed to the back door. Something was very wrong. Her demeanor told him everything.
She had dumped some of the food into the sink and had started the garburator. She was flooded with all kinds of emotions.
Beth was furious that Dean had taken the kids and she had to give up what made her feel like somebody. She was humiliated and angry after all her work baking for the school. The women stood there like the idiots they were, the stupid smiles on their faces like what they had done was no big deal. She didn’t want to spend five minutes with them let alone go out with them. She was frustrated because she knew this wasn’t who she was anymore. She was upset because she hated what she did to Rio in her bed and underneath all that, she was hurting because she likely destroyed her relationship with him. It was a relationship she didn’t understand, but now it suddenly seemed clearer to her.
She was jamming the food down in the sink with a wooden spoon. She was crying, sobbing, she was angry and frustrated. She was stabbing away at the food, stabbing at the hurt she had buried for so long. She was stabbing at the anger she had pushed down over Dean’s affairs, Deans lies, Dean trying to take her kids after everything he had done to her.
As he stood at the side door, it wasn't hard for Rio to see what was going on and he could hear her crying. This was a side to Beth he didn't know was in her.
Beth thought about how she went to a damn meeting for addicts, but was she an addict? or did she just love what she was doing? Because she felt alive, like she was someone when she worked with Rio and he saw her as a person even when they were butting heads.
She stole that chapstick because it was better than the boredom she was feeling, watching grown-ass women discussing what paper plates to buy. Fall festival. Book club. Moms night. Wholly fuck it would be better to slam her head into a wall than do those things again.
What made it worse was that Dean was so fucking happy because she was baking, because she was being the wife and mother he wanted her to be. The nobody he saw her as.
She turned around to see all the containers on the kitchen island. She stepped forward and with one swoop of her arm, knocked most of them off the counter. She grabbed onto the edge of the counter, her head down crying and sobbing hard. Rio had seen and heard enough. She was always hiding things and right now, she was just so vulnerable and her emotions were so raw.
He made sure she heard him open the door. She looked up at him, her face was distressed. She was used to him showing up whenever he wanted so she wasn't shocked to see him.
They held each other's gaze for a moment as Beth wiped her eyes. “Are you enjoying this?” she said to him.
She wasn’t sure what he wanted or why he was at her place. Surprisingly he spoke softly. “No Elizabeth.”
At that moment, Beth didn't care about what he saw. She had fucked things up with him so what did it matter. She did something she had never done before in her life, she let everything out that had been buried inside her. She couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her eyes were angry as she unleashed all her feelings.
“You know who the real idiot is here? Not you…ME! I am the fool who is married to a fucking serial cheater, who fucked up our lives. He even cheated on me when I was pregnant with Jane. Beth shoved another container off the counter. “He fucked up our finances so much, I robbed that grocery store! I kicked him out and he lied about cancer to stay! She walked over to Rio and pointed her finger at him. “But you shot him….you fucking shot him.” She took a deep breath. “And I felt sooooo guilty, I let it all go.”
Beth started pacing, because she was seething with anger. “So he stayed, and I let things slip.” She turned to Rio. “I didn’t know what this was between you and me, our working together was problematic so I didn’t feel secure enough to leave him, to find my own way, to rely on myself even though I am the one who has been supporting our family now…and then the bastard took my kids away from me…I had to give up everything if I wanted them BACK.” Beth started to take off her jacket, she was getting hot. She was pulling it off and when it got stuck, she yanked it off and threw it.”
She was telling Rio everything, but what she was actually doing was saying out loud the things she had made herself deaf to.
She looked around the kitchen. “So I went back to Beth Boland, wife and stay-at-home mother. And I hate it. I baked and baked for this fucking fall festival, I pretended to be Suzy fucking homemaker again! Dealing with the other PTA Moms whose biggest decision this week was whether we picked paper plates with corn stalks or turkeys on them! I was them once and I didn’t want to be like that EVER again. I baked my ass off and took all that to the school and….”
Beth put her hands over her face and the tears started to flow. “I thought I had become so much more than just this…that I finally stepped out from being no one…” Beth stopped to take a deep breath because her chest was heaving.
Rio had let her talk, let her get it out but it hurt him seeing her like this. He wanted to hold her, to fix it for her. “Elizabeth…” Rio walked over to her slowly. ‘I don’t like seeing you like this…”
She looked at him suspiciously. “I…I kicked you out of my bed…This serves me right doesn’t it? But I didn’t plan any of it…I just…fucked up again. No, it is even worse, I let him fuck me up again!
She turned and gripped the edge of the counter, as if holding it was helping her keep herself together.
Rio put his hand out to her…she looked down at it…then at his face. He was extending his hand to her. They had never met in the middle, they were always on opposite sides, battling each other. She slowly lifted her hand and slipped it in his. Her life was a mess, she was a mess and she finally admitted it to herself and to him. “I’m a mess.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she lunged at him and he caught her. He wrapped her in his arms as she held onto him. “I am so lost,’ she cried.
Rio held her tight, her hands were gripping his shirt like she was holding on for dear life. He kept holding her until her breathing settled a bit and her chest wasn’t heaving against him. “Nah, you ain’t lost…I think you found yourself, you know what you wanna do Elizabeth, and who you wanna be.”
She sobbed and Rio rubbed her back. She spoke in broken breaths. “Yes I do, but it’s not that simple.”
“But it is Elizabeth.”
She stood back. “No, it’s not.” Beth turned away from him. It wasn’t that simple because she knew deep down inside what else she wanted. It was hidden below the surface in a safe place so she could protect herself. It was part of the reason she stayed with Dean. It protected her from exposing her feelings, from exposing her heart. She wanted what she thought couldn’t have. Him.
She started to clean up the mess in the sink when Rio touched her arm and turned her around. “Don’t do that.”
Beth couldn’t look him in the eyes. “I need to clean up.”
Rio moved to stand in front of her. “You know that ain’t what I meant.”
Another tear fell down her face. Rio reached over for a clean towel. He wet it slightly and lifted her face up to his. Beth didn’t want to look at him. She was sure he would be able to read her because he always could. With the cool cloth he wiped the tears from her face. She knew she was a mess. “I look awful.”
Rio shook his head. “Nah. You look upset, you look afraid.” Rio took a strand of her hair and pushed it back behind her shoulder and like he always did, he swept her bangs from her face. “Can you look at me please?”
She finally looked up at him. Their eyes searched each other for a moment before he spoke again. “Don’t shut down on me again. I can’t deal with that no more. This ain’t complicated Darlin’. I just need to hear you say it. It’s gotta come from you. You know what else you want.”
Beth stepped back and looked at Rio unsure. “But I don’t know what you want…I saw you with that woman.”
Rio shook his head. “You saw me with nobody, she ain’t nothin’ to me. You are.”
Beth paused before she asked him the question that she needed the answer to. "What do you want with someone like me?”
She saw a look in Rio's eyes she had never seen before. “Everything.”
Beth bit on her lip, closing her eyes for a moment. That one single word was echoing in her head and in her heart…”everything.” She opened her eyes. They were soft now, not fearful, there was no anger, no hesitation from her. “I want you.”
The moment between them was suspended in time. It was out there now, and there was no going back from it for either of them. Rio kissed her and Beth wrapped her arms around his neck. The passion had been sitting just below the surface and it was pouring out of both of them. Rio’s hands landed on her waist as he pulled her with him towards her bedroom, their mouths still locked on each others. They only got past the staircase, because Rio had managed to undo her pants, and quickly yanked them off, her panties with it. Beth had started to unbutton her blouse, trying to get it off when Rio ripped it open, exposing her breasts that were spilling out the lace of her bra. In turn, she grabbed the waistband of his pants and yanked him back into her, her breasts pressed up against him. Rio couldn’t keep his hands off her, undoing the back of her bra in one swift motion exposing her luscious tits. One filled his hand, the other filling his mouth as he sucked on her nipple. Beth’s head fell back with a moan as a strike of heat shot through her body.
She reached down to his pants, desperately trying to undo them. His cock was hard as she freed it from his boxers. She moaned even louder when she took him in her hand.
They were as desperate for each other as they were the night he followed her into the bathroom, but it was mixed with the same passion and need for one another like the afternoon in her bedroom when they both had opened themselves up to each other. The warmth, the need for one another was undeniable but this time they desperately needed their bodies to meld together as one, as a couple with no walls between them. It was different this time.
Beth lifted his head right to her face. Their mouths were a fraction apart. The way they looked at each other was intense, and full of emotions.
Rios hands were splayed across her ass. He needed more of it and she instinctively turned around to face the wall, his hands caressing her ass, sliding up over her waist, then around her. He buried his face into her neck his beard brushing across her soft pale skin sending waves of pleasure through her. She let out a loud moan when his fingers slipped down between her legs finding her swollen clit. He moaned in her ear, her slick wetness just waiting for him.
In that one afternoon in her bed, he had explored her body, and he knew exactly what she liked and how she liked it.
She slid her hands up the wall, panting and moaning. He encouraged her, whispering in her ear, telling her how much he wanted her and only her. It was like an explosion when she came. But she wanted more of him and he wanted more of her. He pulled her hips out so she was bent over enough to slip his cock inside her. It caught both their breaths hard.
There was no separation between them, his body was on hers, his cock inside her. He had one hand around her waist tight, and the other was holding hers, their fingers locked together against the wall. Their hips moved in perfect rhythm.
Rio’s words were broken between his moans as he went deeper and faster. “You're my girl Elizabeth.”
Her fingers curled tighter as the waves of her orgasm were hitting stronger with each thrust. The sounds of her coming always spurred on the intensity of his own orgasm, both lost in the ecstasy of each other when he released himself inside her.
Beth had barely caught her breath when she turned around to him wanting to be wrapped up in his arms again. Rio knew the moment she let him hold her today, that she was letting go of her old life and letting him in.