by T. S. Joyce
She came through the tree line into the mountainside clearing first. The stars were just as stunning tonight as they were last night. The wind was harsher here, and she rubbed the sleeves of her jacket to conjure warmth back into her arms.
“You’re right,” he said. “You told me everything, and I haven’t shared much with you. It’s not fair. Ask me something.”
She wasn’t brave enough to turn around. Not yet. Instead, she gave her question to the wind. “What does Meredith mean to you guys? Every time I’ve mentioned her, there is a reaction, but for the life of me, I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. I want to know why she sent me here. The real reason, not just the bull caka excuse she gave me over the phone.”
His hands slid up her arms and rested on her shoulders where he gently squeezed. “Meredith is my mother.”
“What?” she said, spinning. “Your mom? Meredith James is your mother?” She couldn’t help the disbelief in her voice. She tried to find any similarity between the tall, stoic, gray-haired beauty and Tagan. “But you don’t look anything like her.”
He laughed a surprised sound, and it echoed off the mountains. “I took after my father.” He shrugged his shoulders, as if his jacket had grown too tight. “My mom says I’m the spitting image of him.”
“Where is your father? I’ve never seen Meredith…I mean, your mom with anyone.”
“He died when I was a kid. I don’t remember him.”
“Oh.”
Hurt slashed through his eyes in the moonlight before he composed his face again.
“Listen,” she said, feeling like grit. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know. I don’t remember much about my dad, either.” God, she was rambling, and she definitely hadn’t meant to let that little jewel slip out. “I mean, he isn’t dead or anything. He’s just a prick.” She scrunched her nose up. “But at least I got to know him well enough when I was younger to know he’s a prick. What I’m trying to say is I was raised by my step-dad. My mom married a nice man, who took me in when my mom decided to make like my real dad and bail on parenting. I’m going to stop talking now.”
“I think it’s cute when you get all chatty like this. I learn a lot about you. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry your real parents were pricks. Where does your step-dad live?”
“In Denver where I grew up, but sometimes when I have a show, he drives to boulder to see it.”
“He sounds like a good man. A good dad.”
“He’s the best.” Just thinking about him spiked Brooke’s emotions. If he hadn’t taken her in, she didn’t know where she would’ve ended up. Probably nowhere good. “Dad was working full-time, trying to make a life for us, and he still found time to take me to art classes after school. It’s all I wanted to do was paint. He even paid my tuition to get a fine arts degree in college, even though he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. And never once did he tell me I should be a doctor or lawyer or anything. He always told me I was good enough to make a career in painting if I put my heart into it. Why did Connor call you Second?” She sat on a giant, gnarled pine tree root and waited.
“Because that’s what I am to our crew. Second in command.”
“Who’s first?”
“Jedediah Mosley. You’ll meet him. We all call him Jed.”
“And Connor wants to challenge you for second in the crew. What do you have to do to win?”
“Beat the shit out of him. Sorry, Brooke, but you don’t want to hear about that part. Best you stay far away from that chaos when it goes down.”
“What did he mean, you can’t touch me?”
Tagan sat down and leaned up against the towering pine beside her. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I’ve been saving them up.”
“Neither Connor nor I can touch you until the challenge is through. And that challenge can’t happen without Jed present.”
“And what if I touched you?” Her mouth had gone off on its own and gotten entirely too bold. The lingering buzz from the boxed wine was probably to blame, but tonight, she wanted to be reckless and break stupid rules made up by silly boys.
He drew his gaze slowly to her. He looked troubled and inhaled a long breath. “If you touch me, the rules go out the window for me. Know that before you start teasing, woman.” His voice had gone gruff and gravelly, and she closed her eyes to fully enjoy the sound of him.
She scooted closer and poked his leg with an extended finger. “Touch.” Sliding a little closer, she bumped the side of his arm with hers and said again, “Touch.”
A deep chuckle rattled from his throat as he leaned his head back against the tree and stared at the starry sky above them. “Come here.” He lifted his arm over his head and drew her against his side.
Brooke hadn’t realized how cold she was until his warmth blanketed her. Reveling in the feeling of utter safety, she snuggled in close.
“Touch,” he whispered, looking down at her. His smile faded from his face as he watched her.
A low, vibrating sound rattled from his chest as she wrapped her arms around his taut waist. She pressed the palm of her hand against his breastbone. The sound stopped, and she frowned. “Why do you do that?”
He looked at her for a long time, as if he was debating telling her everything he’d ever known. He was right there, on the edge of admitting something important—she could feel it.
When he drew away from her touch, it cut straight to her middle. A flare of anger expanded in her chest, and she threw a leg over him and straddled him, insuring he couldn’t escape.
“Brooke,” Tagan said, his voice deep with warning.
“Tell me why? What does that noise mean?” She grabbed his hands and pulled them against her hips under the waist of her jacket.
The sound rattled for a moment before he jerked his head to the side and cut it off.
She rocked closer to his hips, closer to his warmth. “Tell me what it means, and I’ll let you run away from me again.”
“That’s not what I want.” Tagan’s voice sounded uncertain and lost. “I don’t want to run away.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
The cords of muscle in his throat were straining with his attempt to look away from her. “Because this is a bad idea.” His lips said the words, but his hands drew her waist closer, right over his rigid erection under his jeans.
“Fine,” she whispered, pulling him close so that her chin rested on his shoulders. “Don’t look at me, but tell me what the noise you make means when we touch.”
His hands went around her, and he hugged her tightly. With a trembling sigh, he said, “The sound means I like you. It means something inside of me approves of whatever you’re doing when I make it. It means I’m content and happy…with you.”
“I like you,” she murmured, squeezing her eyes tightly closed. If he could be brave enough to tell her such things, she could share her honest feelings as a reward for him.
Tagan eased back and held the sides of her face, then leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. His breathing was ragged, unsteady. Leaning forward, he brushed his lips against hers, once, twice. Two little plucks on her lips that said he was still trying to talk himself out of going any deeper with her.
He was scared. The realization rocked her. He was just as scared of her as she was of him—of how deeply she felt for him. This was big. Important. Meredith had always said the things that scared her the most were always worth the risk.
God, she hoped she was right.
Angling her chin, she kissed him just as gently as he’d done to her. Lips moving slowly against his, she rolled her hips until she sat right in the apex he’d created by drawing his knees up behind her back.
The sound came back, throaty, content, practically a purr against the palms of her hands as she slid them down to feel. “I like that sound,” she whispered, pulling away slightly. “Don’t hide it from me anymore.”
The noise, a low growl now that grew louder as he grippe
d her hips and rocked her against his erection. He opened her mouth and brushed his tongue against hers. One of his hands rubbed up her back and entwined in her hair as he pulled her closer and thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth.
Holy hell balls. She’d thought Tagan was sexy before, but this? Her insides were on fire.
He adjusted the angle of her hips, and the man hit right where her oversensitive clit was pressed against her pants. Her college boyfriend hadn’t managed to find that spot in the two years they’d dated, but Tagan pressed his hand against it, as if he knew exactly what would make her come.
Tagan trailed kisses from her mouth, down her jaw, to her collarbone he exposed as he pressed her jacket and sweater to the side. “I’ll keep you warm,” he promised as he pushed her coat from her shoulders.
The butterflies in her stomach turned to dragons as he ran his fingertips under the hem of her shirt and up her ribcage. Up and down and back up again until a shiver of pleasure trembled up her spine.
And for some strange reason, despite the stiff wind, she was warm. Tagan was growing hotter by the minute, and now, when she pulled his sweater off and pressed her hands over his rigid pecs, he felt like a furnace.
“Told you,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting in a teasing smile.
Feeling braver than she had in months, she pulled her own sweater off and unhooked her bra. She wanted nothing more than to touch his skin with hers. She wanted to feel that burning warmth against her sensitive nipples. She wanted to burrow against him until she was part of him.
She wanted to feel safe.
Tagan’s eyes went wide as she shrugged out of her bra. When he slowly lifted his hands and cupped the fullness of her breasts, she rolled her eyes back at how good his touch felt. His hands were calloused from the hard labor he did to earn his living, and it contrasted against the smoothness of her skin.
Tagan eased her forward, dipped his head, then drew her nipple into his mouth. She arched against him and cupped the back of his head. His tongue lapped at her, and she imagined what he would feel like with his head between her legs. Brooke’s panties were wet by the time he moved to the next to pay her other breast the same attention.
He rolled his hips in rhythm to his sucking and she bowed against him. She’d only come with a man twice, but Tagan was about to pull an orgasm from her with his jeans on.
“Oh,” she said softly as he nipped her breast gently. Her breath became ragged as tingling pressure built between her thighs. “Oh!” she said louder as the pressure threatened to spill over the edge.
Tagan yanked the button of her jeans. The zipper sounded loud against the quiet night. His hand was warm as he slid it under her panties and cupped her sex. “I wanna feel,” he said in a gruff voice.
Each time she moved her hips, whimpering noises wrenched from her throat. Tagan slid his finger into her and let out a long, shuddering sigh as she bucked against his hand.
“Tagan, Tagan,” she moaned. “I’m going to…” All thought left her as he pressed harder onto her clit and detonated her. The orgasm rocketed through her body, making everything clench up. Her hands in his hair. Her knees around his ribs. Her insides against his finger. He pressed his thumb to her sensitive spot, rubbed it gently, prolonging her release, as if he knew exactly what her body needed.
She kissed him while her aftershocks subsided. Kissed him until they were long gone. Kissed him until her body wanted again. “I’m on birth control,” she said.
“Brooke,” Tagan said, shaking his head. “It’s not a good idea for me to bond to you any more than I already have.”
What a strange way of putting it. Bond to her. Well, she felt bonded to him, so she understood the sentiment. “You also said it wasn’t a good idea to touch you, but I have no regrets,” she said through a grin as she combed her fingers through his short hair. “Besides,” she said, arching her eyebrow at the long, hard, roll of his shaft pressed against the fabric of his jeans. “That looks uncomfortable, and I know what can fix it.”
He searched her face. Uncertainty clouded the clear blue of his eyes, so she stood.
“I used to hate what I looked like without clothes,” she admitted. It was her deepest insecurity, and she was trusting him with it. She was giving him the power to hurt her now, to reject her, and hoping that he wouldn’t. “I’ve only slept with boys when it was completely dark.” Shame heated her cheeks as she kicked her shoes off and pushed her jeans to her ankles, then stepped out of them. “I guess right now it’s still dark, but I feel stronger with you. Better with you.” She pushed her panties down her legs and straightened her spine, completely vulnerable before him.
Tagan raked his hungry eyes slowly over every inch of her body. He didn’t have to say a word, but the enamored way he gazed at her body was enough.
“Shit, woman. You don’t play fair. We’re going to hurt each other on the way out of this.” He lifted his gaze to hers. His eyes were serious and hard. “Are you sure you want this? Want me?”
It sounded like he was asking so much more than just to have sex with her, and her stomach churned with the rightness of what was happening between them. She wasn’t just some one night stand to him.
“I want you.” She ducked her head and scrunched her nose, embarrassed at being so exposed in front of another person.
Tagan stood and shucked his pants. “Come here,” he murmured. “Let me hold you.”
With a conscious effort, Brooke kept her mouth from hanging open at the sight of his gloriously naked body. Adonis didn’t even cut it. The man was a demigod. Muscles bulging, shaft long and thick, and that alluring tattoo dark against his pale skin. His erection stood rigid in between them, and as she stepped closer, she ran her finger down the silken skin there. His hips jerked at her touch, and a helpless-sounding noise came from him as she grabbed him at the base and pulled upward.
She felt like a goddess with him. He was strong and capable. His entire crew looked to him for leadership, and he always answered with levelheaded answers, as if nothing ever got to him. And with her, he’d been tender and caring. He hadn’t run away when he found out what had scared her into the person she was now. He’d done the opposite of what she expected and soothed the fire in her blood.
Tagan was unlike any man she’d ever known.
He turned them slowly as she stroked him, until her back was pressed on the smooth bark of a towering ash tree. He scooped up his jacket and pulled it around her shoulders. “Don’t want that pretty back of yours torn up,” he rumbled in a soft stroke against her ear. Pressing against her, he pulled her hand over his shoulder and around his neck, then did the same with the other. His intense gaze was different now. His eyes looked a strange color in the shadow of the tree. A trick of the night, surely.
His eyes dipped to her breasts, then back up again. “Whatever hang-ups you have with your body, you don’t need them with me. You’re perfect. I wouldn’t change a single thing about you.”
“So you aren’t just dressing me in your jacket to hide me away?”
He laughed and shook his head slowly. “No.” He touched her sex, sliding his fingers back and forth through the moisture he’d conjured there. “I’m saving the skin on your back. But I must admit, I like the sight of you in my clothes, so anytime you want to borrow my jacket, just ask. I’ll think about this, what you’re letting me do to you, anytime you wear it. Fuck, you smell good.”
“I smell?”
“Yeah, good. I can tell how aroused you are by your scent. I like that I do that do you.”
The rumbling sound was almost constant in his throat now, barely audible, but there. He nipped her lip, then ducked and grazed his teeth over her neck. A delicious shiver shook her shoulders.
A smile in his voice, Tagan said, “I like when I do that to you, too.” He pressed his finger inside of her, then touched her clit until she sighed a little whimper. “And that, too. You’re a noisy little thing. I like you telling me what you like. What you want.”
“I want you,” she said on a breath, tired of the games.
She was ready to be filled.
Ready to feel him.
Ready to be even closer to the man she was falling hard for.
“Say it again,” he said, smile dipping from his face as he watched her lips.
“I want you.”
His breath became uneven. Behind her knee, he lifted her leg until her hips were angled where he wanted them. “I want you, too,” he whispered, teasing her opening with the head of his cock. One shallow dip, and he pulled back.
God, she was so ready for him. Stretching up, she kissed him, brushing her tongue against his in a tease of her own. The growling sound in his throat grew louder as she pressed her hips forward. His shaft sank halfway inside of her, and she moaned at how good the stretch felt.
He kissed her long and deep, massaging the back of her neck as he rocked his shaft in and out of her.
Desperate for all of him, she begged, “Please, Tagan, more.”
His arms were shaking, his breath ragged, his kiss more demanding, and she could almost see his reserve dissolving. Whatever he was waiting for, she didn’t need it. She didn’t need a gentle man. She needed Tagan, and all the pent up desire she’d seen in his eyes all night.
“More?” he asked, bucking into, filling her completely.
“Harder,” she said. Pressure, pressure, pressure, and how could a man feel this good? How could anything feel so good?
Tagan drew out slowly, then thrust into her again. He dropped her leg, gripped her hips, and drew out again. His pace picked up, and Brooke gripped his back, pulling him closer. It still wasn’t enough, couldn’t ever be enough. His powerful hips bucked as he pushed into her harder and faster.
The pleasure was so potent, it consumed her. She closed her eyes against the intensity. She yelled his name as her orgasm pounded through her. Tagan growled out as his warmth splashed into her, and his thrusting became erratic. He slowed and then stopped, just held her. Rocking back and forth, he kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, her nose.
