If vampires could sweat, he would have been a human downpour about now.
“Uhh.” He stared down at his phone, as if it had transformed into a shoe horn.
There was only one singer that could capture this mood, but he couldn’t tap the screen to take them there. He’d almost succeeded in lessening the tension between them. It was coming back now in degrees, though, Mary becoming aware of it, her fingers biting into his forearm.
When he continued to hesitate to play the song, Mary walked her fingers along his arm toward the phone and traced them over the curve of his hand. Her middle fingertip tapped on the screen and the strains of Are You Lonesome Tonight? by Elvis turned the room into a honeymoon suite at some fancy hotel. And they the newlyweds.
“I’ve never heard this one,” she whispered. “Will you make me a playlist of these songs? And…any songs you like?”
Break the spell. Cut the romance bullshit out. “I’ll make you anything you want,” he blurted hoarsely. Dumbass.
Mary tilted her face up toward his, so clearly expecting to be kissed with the sound of the King crooning in the palm of his hand, the haven of the bedroom drawing them in. His hard-on was so painful at this point, he was stooped forward slightly, hips drawn back just in case she stepped a few inches closer and encountered the stiffness against her belly. As had become the constant, his throat burned for the taste of her. Yearned.
“Come on, I’ll get the bath going for you,” he rasped, pulling away from her, easing his retreat by squeezing her shoulder. “I’ll get your suitcase out of the car and leave some clothes outside the bathroom door while you’re in there. Unless…you need…do you need help?”
“No. I’ll be fine.”
Her disappointment that he hadn’t kissed her was obvious. It made his fingers bite into the palms of his hands, his chest rebelling in the face of her discontent. If things were different, if fate weren’t such a bitch, they would be in bed right now. He’d have her stripped down to nothing, his mouth between her thighs—
Christ. Time to move.
Back teeth grinding, he led Mary back down the hall to the bathroom, leaving her standing in the doorway while he knelt down and filled the modern, white porcelain bathtub, testing the water several times to make sure it was the right temperature. Then he set to work putting everything in reaching distance.
“There’s a bottle of body wash on the lip of the tub. Shampoo and conditioner. Towel.” Damn, the bathroom was small. They were on opposite sides of the room and still only separated by inches. “Do you need anything else?”
“Mmm.” She reached out, her fingers searching for something in the air. Sensing she wanted his hand, Tucker gave it to her. He watched like a beggar looking through a bakery window as she kissed his knuckles. “Thank you for everything. You already made me feel comfortable here. Everywhere, really.” A sound puffed out of her. “Even when I’m screaming.”
“I’m just happy to be that for you,” he managed, sounding like an idiot. Reluctantly, he took his hand back and slid toward the door. “Enjoy your bath.”
He really shouldn’t have hovered there in the doorway. A matter of seconds made all the difference. Because one moment Mary was fully clothed and the next, she’d stripped the dress over her head, leaving her in nothing but panties. The low-cut band of her peach-colored underwear showed off the dimples at the bottom of her spine and his tongue almost rolled out of his mouth with the need to swipe itself through those twin valleys.
The full side of her left breast, high and plump sent a lustful shudder through him.
My mate is ripe.
Tucker’s fangs ripped their way out of his gums, his hands flying up to grip the doorjamb, the wood creaking in his grip. Mary was fully aware he stood there. She knew exactly what she was doing and that made her all the more tempting.
She is ripe and in need of fucking.
Tucker wondered if he could defy the rules and ejaculate simply from looking at his beautiful mate, without even drinking from her first. He seemed poised on the edge of doing just that, his dick stretching the fly of his jeans, his balls throbbing with weight.
He watched in a trance as Mary tucked her thumbs into the elastic of her panties and peeled them slowly down her legs, leaning forward as she did so, letting him see everything. Everything he couldn’t have. The tender lips of her sex, wet and taut. Dusted with a blush.
“Mary,” he growled, gripping the ridge of his shaft, dragging his palm up and down the length of it. “I can’t get relief from the torture.”
Not unless I drink you first.
Even though he didn’t say the last part out loud, Mary seemed to sense that Tucker had left something unspoken. She turned her head just enough that he could see the line between her brows. And it was so tempting to come clean. To tell her the truth. Keeping important facts from her made him feel ill. Throw in the intimacy of this house, the almost dreamlike sensation of being a married couple, and it made his tongue loose. Too loose.
“I’ll get your things,” he said, stepping into the hallway and closing the door.
But when he would have exited the house to retrieve her suitcase, Tucker went to the fridge instead and threw it open, heaving a sound of relief to find it stocked with blood. Falling to his knees, he gorged himself, bag after bag. And when it was all over, not a single dent had been made in his hunger for Mary.
Chapter 9
Mary sank down into the hot water and tried to feel guilty.
Really, she did.
Causing Tucker pain was the last thing she wanted to do. He was kind and gentle and funny and understanding and wonderful. Why did torturing him make Mary feel…exultant?
As if she was doing something important?
Standing naked in front of Tucker didn’t just strike her as an inevitability. It had been almost necessary to go on breathing. When this man did something to push her away, an intuition inside of Mary whispered get closer. A persuasive voice that came from the same place that loved Tucker coming to her defense, guarding her, fighting on her behalf. And that place was only expanding, minute to minute.
She lifted her hand out of the water, pressing warm fingertips to her lips, and remembered the feel of Tucker’s mouth there. How he’d struggled to taste as much of her as possible, while keeping himself restrained, trying to keep his lust at bay but never really succeeding. The way his mouth had traversed hers in awe, his fingers adoring between her thighs.
Mary dropped her hand back into the water now, settling a palm on top of her mound. Pushing down on her sex with the heel of it, the way Tucker had done, her legs opening and creating the sound of water rippling in the quiet bathroom. She ground the back of her skull against the back of the tub and rubbed her fist up and back, biting her lip over the friction. Lord, she was still so sensitive there. More sensitive than she’d ever been—
A door slammed outside the bathroom and she jumped.
Footsteps went past the bathroom door and returned a moment later, pacing.
“That’s enough of that, Mary.”
There was no questioning what Tucker meant. It was right there in the threadbare tone of his voice. Somehow he knew Mary was touching herself and he wanted her to stop. And honestly, he didn’t have the right to dictate when and how she touched her own body, but her hand crept away from her private flesh nonetheless. The tips of her breasts rose out of the water on a deep inhale and her hips shifted.
I don’t understand, but I like this.
Sharing responsibility for her pleasure with this man. It made no sense, but so little of what Tucker inspired in her was familiar. What could she compare it to? These were confusing, yet extremely demanding emotions and physical responses that she couldn’t control.
Swallowing, she rested her culprit hand on the edge of the bath.
Something thumped against the door. His forehead? “Good girl.”
A hot shiver ran through Mary, straight down to her toes. “What clothes did you pick out fo
r me?”
“I thought you might want to sleep soon, so I brought you…” A pause ensued. “I brought you one of my shirts. It’ll swallow you whole, but you didn’t have any pajamas.”
“I didn’t even think of that, actually. I’ve never had to pack.” She struggled against touching herself again. “I’ll like wearing one of your shirts.”
They didn’t speak for a full minute.
There was another thump, this one more muffled. “Are you sitting down?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Guarding me?”
“Yes.”
A surge of need had Mary licking her lips, but she fought against the impulse to tempt him. She wasn’t his mate, so he could have no real relief from the desire between them. Being physical with Tucker would only result in her reaching full enjoyment and that wasn’t right. It wasn’t right no matter how loud the whisper spoke in the back of her mind, urging her to tantalize him into giving in, telling her vampire rules didn’t apply to her.
That was selfish.
Is that how she wanted Tucker to remember her?
A sharp object turned over in Mary’s throat, causing her hunger to dim. She traced the faucet of the bathtub with her big toe and thought of all the things she would remember about Tucker. His cigar and mint scent. The cushion of his body. The metallic taste of his chains, the reassuring pressure of his hand. But she wanted to remember more. She wanted to know everything. That’s when she remembered something he’d said earlier.
I mean, hell, I grew up pudgy with a smart mouth, so I’d been in my share of fist fights. Mostly happened when they’d make fun of my father. A black eye now and again was par for the course.
Mary sat up straighter in the bathtub. “Hey Tucker?”
“Yeah, honey.”
God, that nickname made her feel warmer than this bath. “When we were driving, you said that people used to make fun of your father. Why did they do that?”
His snort was followed by silence. “From the time I was sixteen, he was only interested in one thing. Contacting aliens.”
Mary’s mouth dropped open. “Aliens?”
“That’s right. He put together a satellite in our barn, right there in plain view of the road where everyone could see it. In a small town, that kind of behavior doesn’t just get noticed, it gets the whole place talking. People would come by and watch the crazy man rigging up this monstrosity, muttering numbers and formulas. Running back and forth between the satellite and his magnetic anomalies detector. Making notes that no one could understand…” He trailed off. “And then one day, there was a second satellite. A third. They were on the roof of the barn now, parts scattered all over the lawn. He never came in the house anymore. His life became the barn and waiting for transmissions that obviously never came.”
This was a left turn Mary hadn’t seen coming. She could only move her hand back and forth on the surface of the water, trying to process it all. Her only knowledge of aliens came from War of the Worlds, but that was a fantastical sci-fi creation. It wasn’t real. Sure, some humans purported to have communicated with beings from outer space, but those claims weren’t given much credibility. “This is going to sound silly but…did it work? Or did he ever…believe it to be working?”
“No. At least not while I was still living at home. I haven’t been back in well over a decade.”
“Your father still lives in the same place?”
“As far as I know.”
Mary sat up so quickly, water sloshed over the side of the bathtub. “You mean, you haven’t checked?”
Tucker didn’t respond for a moment. “It occurs to me how selfish that must sound to you. Being that you have no way of getting in contact with your father. You’re going to these great lengths to bring him back and I haven’t even bothered to send mine an email. But, uh…” He cleared his throat. “It’s not that easy.”
Calling herself ten times a fool, Mary shook her head. “Of course it’s not. How would you explain to him you haven’t aged a day since the last time he saw you?”
“It’s not that, Mary,” Tucker said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him through the door. “Remember what I told you? About those kids who were killed the night I was Silenced? Well…me disappearing after three murders didn’t look so great.”
Her breath came faster. “They think it was you?”
He confirmed with a sound.
“But what about the two drivers who lived? They didn’t tell the police what really happened?”
“The vamps who turned me must have doubled back and erased any memory of them. In their statements to the cops—at least according to the articles I read—the last thing they remember is their cars spinning out of control and colliding.” He paused. “Over fifty witnesses put me there that night and like I said, the way I left was suspicious. I don’t blame them for thinking I’m a murderer. It’s just…” His voice turned thick. “I hate my dad thinking that about me. Especially when we weren’t getting along in the first place.” A sigh left him. “I just couldn’t understand why he insisted on being a laughingstock, you know?”
“Yes,” she whispered, understanding his meaning more than he could ever know. “All you want at that age is to be accepted. To blend in until you figure out…”
“How to feel normal.”
“Yeah,” she breathed, resting her chin on her raised knees. “Exactly.”
“I figured there was no sense in trying to be normal. Not with the alien guy as my father. I kind of leaned hard the other way, wanting to make sure they all knew I didn’t care. Dressed flashy. Played my music loud. Starting smoking my sophomore year of high school.” There was the sound of metal clinking layered over the sound of his quiet laugh. “These stupid chains.”
“I like the chains.” When he didn’t respond to that, she raised her head. “Why did this all start when you were sixteen? Did something happen?”
“My mother left. Right out of the blue. We woke up one morning and she was just…gone. Her side of the bed had been slept in, all of her things were still there. We filed a missing person’s report and there was no trail. Nothing to go on.” A few beats passed. “My father sat me down about a week later and told me he’d seen something the night she left. Bright lights in the sky. A feeling of being…subdued, but alert. He’d chalked it up to a dream, but he was starting to believe it had been real. That my mother was abducted. By aliens.”
A hand crept to Mary’s rapidly bearing heart and rubbed. “So all of his efforts were to find out what happened to your mother? To bring her back?”
“Don’t tell me you think it’s romantic, Mary.”
“How can you not think it’s romantic, Tucker?” She swallowed. “That’s not to say it wasn’t unfair to you, the way he handled everything. I’m sorry for that.”
“Nothing to be sorry for, honey,” he muttered.
“I like honey much better than kid, incidentally.”
“It’s a lot less helpful. In terms of reminding me…where we’re headed.”
She blew out a breath and whispered, “As if a reminder is necessary.”
They fell into a companionable silence, though she could hear faint movements on the other side of the door. She picked up the bottle of shampoo and lathered her wet hair, scrubbing her scalp with her fingernails, then leaning back to rinse away the suds. She did the same with the conditioner, before picking up the rose-scented soap and rubbing it between her hands.
Tucker said she had nothing to feel sorry for, but she couldn’t help the hollow sort of sensation in her middle. “Tucker?”
“Huh?”
“I know what it’s like to have your father out there, thinking badly about you. It’s not as easy as you’re making it out to be.”
Seconds ticked by. “No. I guess it’s not. But suspected murder is a good reason to think badly about somebody. Blindness sure as shit isn’t.”
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, the gratitude was so heavy in her breast
.
No one had ever said something like that to her. In her defense.
In defense of her capabilities as a blind woman.
That simple, profanity-laced statement was a layer of armor she never knew was missing.
“No, i-it’s not,” she said in a rush after a too-long pause. “Sometimes I wonder if the slayers and vampires would even refer to me as Mary the Mad…if I could see. I’m a little unusual, but I’m no crazier than anyone else, am I?”
“You’re not crazy at all, Mary. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry they call you that. That I ever referred to you by that name, even if it was just in my head. Before we met.” He paused. “If anything, your lack of sight seems to make you more…thoughtful. More present in your head. Because you can’t rely on your eyes to make judgments for you.”
Mary sank down into the bath and let a tear leak silently into the water.
In that moment, she truly understood Tucker yearning to be human. To feel human. In the underworld, power was the currency. But humans just wanted to be accepted. Acknowledged. And she couldn’t think of a single thing better than this feeling. Human gratitude. Connection with the man on the other side of the door. What was power or immortality compared to that?
Was there a way to give him what he’d given to her? Maybe. Just maybe.
“I was thinking, you know, if your father is the type to believe in aliens, he might not find it so odd if his son showed up, just happening to be a vampire. And on top of that, and this is terrible, but…” She chewed on her lip. “No one would believe him if he couldn’t keep the secret.”
“You think I should go see him?” Mary sensed his disbelief through the door. “No way. Not happening.”
“Don’t you think he would love to see you? Don’t you think it would mean so much to him if you explained that you didn’t leave him too?”
“Let’s say he didn’t suspect me of murder. We still didn’t end on good terms. I…he embarrassed me.” Tucker’s voice dropped and she let her energy reach out, could feel the shame and frustration radiating from him. “The night everything happened…”
Today, Tomorrow and Always Page 10
