Today, Tomorrow and Always

by Bailey, Tessa

  “What?” she prompted him when he didn’t continue.

  “I came home from work and he was painting numbers on the roof of our house. Some kind of radio frequency. Giving these supposed extra-terrestrials a way to reach him? I don’t know, but it was the final straw. I said…things that weren’t kind. I told him she was never coming back and he was in denial. Nothing I said ever seemed to break through to him. I’d try and talk to him about baseball or town gossip and he’d just stare back with this blank look, always running numbers in his head. Tuning me right out. But this time…when I said she wasn’t coming back, he yelled back. Called me a son of a bitch. I was almost relieved, you know? I should have stuck around and seen that fight through to the end, but I had the race to get to.”

  “You couldn’t have known it would be the last time you saw him.” Mary said, her sympathetic heart stuck between beats. “But ending on bad terms, words spoken in anger…those are all reasons to make it right now. And Tucker, no one who knows you would believe you’re capable of murdering those people, especially your father.”

  They fell silent.

  Mary could still hear vague rustling noises out in the hallway and after a while, her curiosity started to get the better of her. Using the edge of the tub for balance, she stood, remaining hunched over and gripping the porcelain. She tried to remember if Tucker had said anything about a bar to aid her in stepping out of the bath. Or a mat so she wouldn’t slip.

  No. Neither.

  She took a deep breath, made sure her hold on the tub was secure, and lifted her left foot over the rim, settling it on the floor. Tile. It would grow slick easily and she was already dripping all over it. The smart thing to do would be to call Tucker into the bathroom and ask for help, but she was already relying on him for so much. She should be able to get out of a bathtub by herself, shouldn’t she? It was just so unfamiliar. Nothing like her tub at home, which had been equipped with hand holds and a low height to accommodate Mary.

  You can do this.

  Mary put the majority of her weight on the left foot and swung her right one out, but the left lost traction almost immediately, the sole of her foot skating sideways on the wet tile—and she went down, landing hard on her right knee.

  Behind her, the bathroom door flew open, bashing off the wall.

  “Mary,” Tucker shouted hoarsely. “Jesus, what happened?”

  Her knee was throbbing and her pride was wounded, but neither one ranked higher in importance than her nudity. Truthfully, she wasn’t terribly upset about Tucker seeing her in the nude, but if it was going to happen, why did she have to be sprawled out on the floor with her limbs pointing in opposite directions?

  With a squeak, Mary reached for the towel—which direction am I facing?—but Tucker was already wrapping it around her body and hauling her off the floor into his arms.

  “What was I thinking? I didn’t even put a goddamn towel on the floor.” The poor vampire sounded like the world was crumbling around him, but wouldn’t stop talking long enough for Mary to reassure him she was fine. “I’m not taking care of you well enough. You could have hit your head. Jesus Christ. What do I do? Where should I take you?”

  “Nowhere!” Mary grabbed the sides of Tucker’s head, turning it in her direction and letting him see her smile. “I just banged my knee a little bit. It’s fine. Blind people fall once in a while. People with eyesight fall once in a while. It just happens.”

  Tucker was carrying her somewhere. She couldn’t be sure where, but she didn’t care. He’d take her to the right place. “I should have thought all of it through, honey. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

  “You’re lying to make me feel better.”

  “Maybe a little.” She laid a hand on his chest, eager to feel the reassuring weight of his chains, but her fingertips encountered something else entirely. Soft in some places, flexible in others. Whatever the object, it was crushed between them. “Tucker, what is this?”

  He paced back and forth a moment. “It’s a daisy crown,” he muttered. “Earlier it sounded like maybe you wanted one. It was a stupid thing to do. It distracted me and you almost got hurt—”

  “It’s not stupid,” she whispered, emotion cresting in her throat. That’s what she’d heard him doing in the hallway. “I love it. I love it. Will you put it on my head?”

  Mary sensed his indecisiveness. Maybe even wariness. It lasted a few seconds before Tucker sat down with Mary in his lap, the towel still wrapped securely around her body, and he placed the crown of flowers atop her head. “There you go.” His voice was gruff, his fingers stroking the wet strands of her hair. “I hereby proclaim you queen of the fairies.”

  Her heart lurched in her chest with such ferociousness, she almost gasped.

  With Tucker, every emotion was heightened. Like her consciousness was alerting her of something. Growing louder each time she didn’t acknowledge it. But she had to ignore what it was trying to tell her, didn’t she? The truth, that this man did make her feel like a queen…a queen with her king standing right in front of her…could prove far too problematic.

  Acknowledging that truth would affect more lives than merely her own. It would be selfish. And so she would ignore whatever greedy message her heart was trying to convey.

  But she couldn’t ignore her body’s directives.

  They weren’t merely emotional, they were violently chemical, and the elements took charge now, electrifying every molecule that made her up. She could feel Tucker’s stiff arousal beneath her bottom, the stroke of his fingertips through her hair growing more and more insistent, like he was being compelled to touch her any way possible. What was he looking at? Her mouth? Her breasts? The towel was loosening with every one of her expansive breaths, her nipples peaked, aching for his attention. And when she turned in his lap and he growled, wetness coursed down, down, pooling between her thighs.

  “Were you touching yourself in the bath, Mary?” Tucker breathed against her temple, placing his hand on the knot of her towel. “Were you using those fingers you trace all over my face and chains and rubbing them on your little clit, instead?”

  “Yes.”

  The word whooshed out of her.

  This man speaking to her in such coarse terms was Tucker, but he was a sexually frustrated version of him. And she thrilled to the difference, squirming her backside on his erection when she shouldn’t. Hadn’t he told her that physical contact between them only led to one-sided pleasure? Was she really so self-centered?

  Why couldn’t she stop tempting him, even though it wasn’t fair?

  Because she could sense his want. His need. His desperation for her. Would he be feeling this intense hunger for her if nothing good would come out of it for him?

  It didn’t make sense.

  But sense didn’t matter in that moment, only touching Tucker did.

  Being touched in return. Putting out the fire that built and built inside of her.

  Mary arched her back and twisted, loosening the towel as much as possible without the use of her hands. No, they were busy gripping Tucker’s collar, trying to haul his mouth down for a kiss. Why wouldn’t he kiss her? Couldn’t he tell she would die otherwise?

  “Tucker.” Lust rose like a mallet and landed a sensual blow, her intimate muscles constricting painfully. “Oh please. Please.”

  Finally, their mouths surged together, tongues invading without preamble and she turned in his big lap, yanking off her towel and trying to straddle him. Needing friction between her thighs and needing it now. Now.

  In a blur of motion, she was thrown down onto a soft surface. Face up.

  The bed. Elvis.

  Even without the song playing, she could hear the gentle strains of the melody layered beneath the shallow pulls of her breathing, the knocking of her heart. And then Tucker’s palm scraped down the middle of her nude body, between her breasts, down her stomach, ending up at the juncture of her thighs where he squeez
ed her sex with ownership. “All hot and bothered, aren’t you?” His lips sipped at her nipples, one at a time, sending her nerve endings into a frenzy of delight. “I’ll make it better, Mary. That’s what you need and I’m done fighting. I’ll keep you satisfied on this trip because it’s my fault. Somehow I’m doing this to you and I’ll go insane if you go on needing me without satisfaction. But Jesus, honey, there has to be rules, all right?”

  “Like?”

  His open mouth dragged to her neck and he inhaled roughly. “I can’t drink from you.”

  Drink from you. The mere suggestion sent a wave of longing through Mary, winding her middle up like a cork screw. I can’t satisfy his lust, but I can ease his thirst.

  Without considering the consequences, Mary wrapped her legs around his waist and whispered in his ear. “Why not?”

  Chapter 10

  Why not?

  Why couldn’t he drink from Mary?

  His mate was naked, the most gorgeous creature on the planet with her glowing skin, supple flesh and wet, wonderful womanhood and his thoughts were supposed to make sense?

  With her sweet thighs perched on his hips, the cushion of her pussy welcoming his hardness like a long-lost lover, he couldn’t readily remember the answer to her question. Not right away, at least. But it came screaming back when he felt the telltale tingle in his gums that let him know his fangs were about to come firing out. Ready to imbibe what had to be the sweetest blood on this earth.

  He’d already decided he couldn’t tell Mary the truth. To drink from his mate would either equal servitude for her or certain death for him. What to tell her instead, though?

  A partial truth would have to do.

  “I don’t drink from living beings,” he said raggedly. “Never have. I’m not starting now.”

  She seemed to accept that, even if it disappointed her—and fucking hell, that disappointment burned him alive. Mary wanted it to happen and that made him twice as ravenous. “You don’t w-want to get the taste for it,” she stammered.

  Ah, honey, you have no idea.

  “That’s right.”

  Her small hands twisted in his chains and they’d never felt like an extension of him before, but they did now. The gold digging into the back of his neck, combined with the eagerness on her face and the flex of lithe female thighs was the equivalent of a pumping fist around Tucker’s cock. And they fell into a hot, seeking kiss that accelerated like a fire doused with gasoline.

  She purred every time their tongues brushed, the sparks of her radiance ramming into each other drunkenly, her hips lifting to entice him, fingers clawing. They rocked and rubbed against each other with no plan in sight, only to get as close as possible, feel everything—but that was dangerous. With no rules, no plan, Tucker was going to pull down his zipper and fuck this beautiful girl who called to him on an otherworldly level. Who pulled his pitiful soul behind her like it was attached by a leash.

  Every time he rocked into her, his cock stiffening with more and more urgency, taking his mate became a real possibility. But he couldn’t do that. Could not. He didn’t have the kind of willpower he’d need to take Mary’s virginity, to make a home inside her body…and stop himself from tasting her blood.

  Tasting. Right.

  He ran the risk of draining her.

  Tucker sank himself into that addicting purr of her mouth, stroking their tongues together hungrily, surprised to find Mary pulling on the hem of his shirt. Trying to get it off?

  His self-consciousness led them to a tug-of-war, Mary doing her damnedest to rid him off the garment and Tucker trying to keep his belly covered.

  “I want to feel you against me,” she complained breathily against his mouth.

  Off went the shirt. Because if Mary wanted something, she got it. Despite him hating his body or wishing his physique was less David Harbour circa Stranger Things and more Ryan Reynolds circa anything. “I know what you’re thinking with all this man meat at your disposal. You’ve never wished so hard for eyesight. Let me tell you, I’m a feast to behold—”

  Mary pressed a finger over his mouth, shutting him up. “Trust me to know what I want. Every inch of you. On every inch of me.”

  Having Mary address his insecurities out loud stripped away yet another barrier between them and there he was, exposed. A man wanting nothing more than to worship a woman. The fact that this blind fairy saw him better than anyone with eyes made him quake all the more. With hunger, with homage and lust and gratitude.

  “Mary,” he groaned, licking into her mouth, pulling away with a hiss when her fingernails speared into his chest hair and raked down to his belly, a whimper kindling in her throat as she struggled to unfasten his jeans. “No, no. Those have to stay on.”

  Faint glimmers appeared in her eyes and he recognized the warning. It was the same thing that happened right before she screamed in the woods, only this time she wanted his pants off and was ready to shatter the sound barrier over it. Which was pretty fucking hot, but that was totally beside the point. He needed to distract Mary before she got too fixated on wrenching his zipper down.

  Tucker kept their lips loosely interlocked. “You loved being fingered, didn’t you, honey?” He dropped his lower body and thrust into the gap of her thighs, dislodging her hand even while sending a bolt of need to his loins. “Yeah, I remember you bucking those hips and begging. Remember you so wet and tight around my finger.”

  She exhaled shakily, but the glimmer in her eyes remained.

  “Can I taste you down there?” He ground his bulge down on top of her sex, their moans colliding between them, her knees flying up to dig into his sides. “Please?”

  Mary blinked, her breath stopping. “I didn’t know you could.”

  “Oh I can.” To demonstrate, Tucker sank his tongue into her mouth, flickering it and listening to her heart rate skip, skip, then race. “I’m going to lick you, clit to asshole.”

  With a shaky gasp, the approaching need to scream faded from her eyes fast and she gripped the sheets on either side of her hips, those white teeth burying in the rosy pillow of her bottom lip. “O-okay.”

  Tucker grinned against her mouth, kissed her one final time and walked backwards on his knees. On his way down Mary’s body, he couldn’t help but stop and bathe her rapid-fire pulse with his tongue, desperate for the aroma of her blood, but well appeased knowing he’d be tasting her pussy soon. And fuck, she was excited for it, too, her stomach rising, falling, shuddering, hands ripping at the comforter. Tucker ran his open mouth over her belly button, clasping her hips in his hands, massaging, memorizing the grooves and curves, scooped his palms beneath her ass cheeks and lifting until she was flush to his face, inhaling her with a groan.

  Bracing himself for the impact of her taste, Tucker dragged his tongue through the valley of her sex, so warm and soft from her bath. But nothing could have prepared him for the flavor of Mary. It had nothing to do with the body wash. It was all her. All cinnamon and sugar and arousal. The combination coated his tongue and steam shot from his nose like a bull about to attack. His cock was distended and aching between his thighs. He could do nothing but helplessly fuck the bedclothes while he raked his tongue up and back in her damp flesh, seeking out that pearl and polishing it eagerly, listening to her cry out above him, seeing her thighs warm to a glowing honey color in his periphery.

  Damn, the clit wasn’t that hard to find after all.

  Were fae females built differently or were males just lazy?

  He was doing this to her.

  For her.

  His mate.

  He could say it in his mind, when no one could hear.

  Could let that powerful word boom in his mind and fill his hollow chest.

  Mate, mate, mate.

  I’ll lick my mate until she comes. I’ll lick her day and night.

  Tucker closed his lips around her clit and savored the slope and texture, rubbing it adoringly with his tongue, sucking it lightly, then using his thumb to stroke it unt
il her greedy fingers were twisting in his hair, her lower body rolling, voice turning hoarse.

  She was close.

  “Goddamn, honey. Look at you move. I could have you pinned in a hot second, though, couldn’t I? Squirming underneath me. Such a wet little thing.”

  His hips slammed into the mattress, which in turn thumped the headboard into the wall. Her pussy started to tug against his tongue. A sign of what was happening inside of her? And he increased the pace of his strokes, his palms scraping up the softness of her stomach to test the ripeness of her breasts, to worry her stiff nipples between his knuckles—pinching harder when she seemed to love it and earning a whimper of his name.

  Tucker closed his eyes, anticipating the flood against his lips, but it never came. Instead, Mary used her fingers in his hair to drag him up her body. There was no choice but to go. Not because she outmatched him in strength, because if she wanted something bad enough to drag him, he better get moving. Her face was dewy and beautiful, awash in awe, but he was only given a scant moment to marvel before she rolled Tucker onto his back.

  Straddled him.

  Melded their mouths together and kissed him like she’d die without his taste.

  And her fingers went back to work on his zipper.

  “Mary,” he growled, panic ripping up his spine. This girl, she wanted him. Badly. And it fucking astounded him, but he couldn’t allow this to happen. She didn’t understand the consequences, but he did. He did. “No, honey, no.”

  “Please.” She kissed him from above, her belly flush with his much bigger one—and his extra girth didn’t appear to turn her off. The opposite, actually. She writhed against it, dragging her tits side to side on top of his thick chest. “I just want to feel you between my legs.”

  Jesus H. Christ. One of his hands flew to the headboard and gripped, the other found her buttocks and kneaded. A study in contradictions. Right and wrong. “Rub yourself on me,” he rasped against her mouth. “Ride it however you want, but don’t put me in.”