His plan was still to drive her the remaining miles to Hadrian tonight.
That hadn’t changed, even if everything else had.
The unknown made him anxious. Fraught.
If he made love to her again in this state, he worried what he might say to keep her. What he might do. How his desperation might translate into him being too aggressive.
“It’s not your job to fix me,” he said gruffly, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear. “To feed me and keep me satisfied. Your only obligation is to yourself.”
Her brow furrowed. “It doesn’t feel like an obligation. More like an…honor.”
Tucker laid his mouth across her much softer one, unable to resist tasting her with a slow sweep of his tongue. “I’m the one who is honored.”
The smile that crossed her face him caused such a devastating twist in his chest, he had to set her down, back away and gather himself, otherwise risk taking her too roughly on the closest piece of dusty furniture.
He ran a hand through his hair, pulling hard enough on the strands to divert the pain from his groin. “I, uh…” He cleared his throat hard. “I found this shoebox of notes from my mother. Pops must have saved them.”
Mary gave him an odd look at the abrupt change of subject. “Oh.” She rubbed her lips together, as if checking their kiss for clues about his weird behavior. “What do they say?”
“Nothing important.” Tucker stooped down and picked up two yellow notes, both of which were covered in his mother’s big, loopy handwriting. “This one says, Tip the garbage man at Christmas. Then, board games shelf.” A few seconds tucked by. “My father was always a little scatterbrained. Misplacing things, forgetting to perform the daily tasks. Weekly and yearly, too.” He started picking up the notes, taking better care of them this time around. “She was helping him get organized.”
Mary nodded. “I see.”
Tucker alerted to her hesitant tone. “What is it?”
“Nothing. It’s just…” She paused. “Maybe she knew she’d be leaving.”
He glanced back at the notes, seeing them through different eyes, a string pulling taut in his gut. All at once, the dream he’d had back at the safe house came back to him in fragments, like voices whispering into a tunnel.
So your father won’t forget where things are.
Will you remember how to bake his favorite cake? Should I write it down?
Thing was, Farah was always around to remind him right up until she left. She didn’t have a job. Her hours were spent in the house or close by. She’d been a self-proclaimed homebody, come to think of it. Tucker had already suspected she planned to leave, that she’d grown tired of their life and moved on to a place with more suited to her than Buckhannon. And this was just further proof. She’d been planning ahead. A thoughtful deserter.
A wrinkle had appeared in Mary’s forehead. “Tucker, when did you say your mother left? What year was it?”
“Ninety-seven.”
The furrow of her brow deepened. “That was the year my parents were abandoned here. An Exodus year.” Biting her lip thoughtfully, she eventually shook herself and turned away. “What else is down here?”
Something about Mary’s revelation niggled at the back of Tucker’s mind, but he chose to ignore the inconvenient pull. Chose to distract himself from what could only be a complication to a problem that couldn’t be solved. His mother was gone and it didn’t matter how or why she’d left. Not all these years later. “There’s, uh…stacked boxes, a furnace. Some mouse traps I’d rather not think about. No sunlight, though. That’s the main thing.”
“Your father is upstairs nailing cardboard over the windows,” she said softly. “I think he’s hoping we’ll stay longer.”
An unspoken question hung in the air. Was she leaving or staying?
Just like not wanting to know the reasons for his mother bailing on their family, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear Mary tell him why she had to leave. Not yet. So he hurried to fill the silence before she could. “There are a lot of board games down here, too. Scrabble, Candy Land. Jenga.”
“What’s Jenga?”
“You stack a bunch of wooden blocks into a tower and try to pull them out, one by one, without knocking over the whole thing.”
“Can we play?”
“Of course. Hold on.” He rearranged some boxes to create a low table out of one, two chairs with some others. In the center of the table, he slowly emptied the tower of smooth wooden pieces and went to bring Mary over. But when he guided her to one of the makeshift seats, she pushed him down onto it and settled into his lap, her tight rump pressed right up against his stiffness. “Unfair advantage,” he managed, barely resisting the urge to clutch her hips and drag her butt up and back. Once or twice was probably all he would need.
“Okay, just bring my hand to the tower once and I’ll know where it is.”
“Roger that.” He took her small hand in his and brought it forward. “Another half inch and you’ll be there. Come to think of it, this might be the perfect game for you. It’s all about feeling and balance.”
Mary ran her fingertips down the side of the stacked wood, finding one in the middle that stuck out ever so slightly. She traveled around to the other side to make sure nothing was blocking its exit, then started to tap the coarse end gently, sliding out her first piece without disturbing the tower even slightly. “I like Jenga,” she murmured happily, leaning back against Tucker’s chest. “You better not let me win.”
He took a long smell of her hair, her soft feminine aroma scrambling his senses and dropping his eyelids to half-mast. “I’m sensing a competitive streak.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“To me, it depends what a person is competitive about. If they’re always in competition with someone over looks or having the best lawn, or some pointless shit like that, it’s a bad thing. Wanting to beat someone at a board game is the good kind of competitive. Healthy.”
“Oh good, because I really want to beat you.”
“Are we wagering anything on the outcome of this no-holds-barred Jenga match, Wanna Win Wendy?” he drawled.
Her giggle warmed the entire basement. “Oooh. Like betting?” In her enthusiasm, she wiggled a little in his lap and his eyeballs almost bugged out of his fucking head. “Let’s do it. If I win, I want to drive your Impala.”
“Jesus, that really rolled off the tongue.” Tucker barked a laugh. “How long have you been holding on to this secret wish?”
“Since the first time you turned on the ignition.” A wistful sigh. “It purrs like a lion.”
“Can I be frank with you?”
“Always.”
“You sitting in my lap complimenting my car is murder on my dick, honey.”
Her radiance pulsed, pink rising on the back of her neck. Tucker watched the progress of her flush the way a man with a million-dollar bet on the line watches a horse race. “Well maybe you should do something about it,” she breathed.
Tucker wrapped her long red hair in a fist, winding until her head tipped back to face the ceiling. “Are you backing out of the game?”
“No.” She let a stuttered breath in and out. “What do you want if you win?”
He was hard pressed to think of a single thing he wanted and didn’t already have at that exact moment. “How about a slow dance?”
“A slow dance,” she repeated, as if saying the words for the very first time. “I don’t know how.”
“Neither do I.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “We’ll just keep dancing until we get it right, I guess.”
She wrinkled her nose. “No fair. Now I kind of want you to win.”
“My evil plan is working.”
Tucker didn’t know how long they stayed in the basement, in the glow of the candle, playing Jenga. Time didn’t exist. There was only the quiet taps and slides of the wooden pieces, Mary’s exhales of relief when another rectangle had been successfully freed. The erratic beating of both their h
earts. Not that he’d read the directions for Jenga in at least two decades, but he was damn certain the game wasn’t supposed to be erotic. And yet, the gentle movements of his mate’s graceful fingers made his briefs feel like a prison.
The tower started to teeter, sections of the stacked wood twisting precariously, but on they played, neither one of them seeming to notice how close they were to destruction. It was hard to think of anything but the restless shifts of Mary’s bottom in his lap, the glide of his lips up the side of her neck, the length of red hair he kept tightly fisted.
“Who is distracting who?” Mary moaned quietly, tilting her head to allow an open-mouthed skate of Tucker’s lips that finished at her ear.
“You are distracting me,” he insisted.
Her laugh came out sounding dazed, her hips tweaking back. “No. It’s definitely the other way around. I’m sure of it.”
“You must really want to drive my Impala.”
She turned slightly so Tucker could see her face, sinking her teeth into the soft pillow of her bottom lip. In an innocently seductive voice, she said, “Did I mention it purrs like a lion?”
They knocked the remaining Jenga pieces over in their haste to get at one another’s mouths. Tucker surged forward with a growl at the same time Mary tried to face him, sending them falling onto the temporary cardboard table. Laughter and gasps made up the soundtrack to hands racing to sweep wooden blocks onto the floor, mouths colliding, female legs locking around bulky male hips. Panties were ripped free and discarded on the floor, nimble fingers tugging impatiently on the drawstring of his sweatpants.
“I guess neither one of us wins,” Mary sobbed against his mouth.
“Are you sure about that?” Foreheads pressed together, he looked Mary in the eye and filled her with his cock, stamping his mouth down on top of hers to catch the resulting cry. “Feels like I definitely won,” he grated, pulling back and taking a second mind bending thrust.
Mary tensed around him so suddenly, he thought she was already having an orgasm, until she tapped her row of fingers against his face. “I-I think I left the door open at the top of the stairs.”
And his father was home.
Jesus, how could he forget they weren’t alone in the house?
Stopping mid-frenzy resulted in a painful clench in his lower body, but he managed to stand while still inside his mate, sweatpants around his ankles, and stumble to the part of the basement that wasn’t visible from the top of the stairs. A shadowed corner. Allowing himself deep, greedy kisses from her soft mouth, Tucker propped a hand on the cinderblock wall, the other supporting her backside and pumped into the excessively tight warmth between Mary’s legs, bouncing her with quick upward drives. Bringing her up and slapping her down, their tongues twined together, her nipples cutting a delicious path through his chest hair with each of the frantic movements.
“Goddammit, you sweet little fairy. My fairy. Did you enjoy teasing me with that lap dance? Did you feel how thick it was getting and wet right up?” He peeled back his lips, and even though she couldn’t see his fangs, she must have sensed they were now filling his mouth, because her pussy constricted around him, a whimper of eagerness filling the darkness. “Knowing how bad you want it pumping inside you makes me so fucking hot.”
“I need it. I needed it before I even knew how good it could feel.” Her thighs writhed on his hip bones, flesh on bare flesh, rough against smooth. “Bite my neck,” she ordered in a grinding sob, teeth clenched. “Take my neck.”
Tucker could no more deny her request than he could turn himself back into a human.
Now that he’d sampled her unbelievable flavor, he couldn’t survive without it.
“I’ll never drink from anyone else,” he rasped, kissing her hard, pulling back just enough to keep their lips meshed. The truth burned in his throat. Having a secret standing between him and his mate was unacceptable, made him feel volatile and raw. Enough that he almost told her that he would literally die without her to nourish him. But he managed to stop just short of a full confession, taking the frustration it caused out on her body. “You are the first and last. The only one I’ll ever want or need or lust for. You’re mine, Mary. No matter what, you are mine.”
“Yes.”
He flattened Mary against the wall of the basement, buried himself balls deep and slid his teeth into the most succulent part of her neck, her moan of satisfaction and the rippling jolt between her thighs almost pushing him over the edge. His mouth flooded with a flavor so beloved, warm moisture pressed in behind his eyes. He closed them and drank deeply, slapping her ass off the wall with every grunting spike of his hips, until she grabbed a fistful of his hair and started to tremble, dampness spreading like wildfire where their bodies met.
Tucker followed her in an uproar of lust, the pyre climbing so high, he thought it must be real. That everything was up in flames around them. His loins squeezed so roughly that he was forced to retract his fangs and grit his teeth through the perfect agony, pumping, pumping, Mary’s hand clapped over her own mouth to keep herself quiet, though her body wasn’t. It clamored around him in a second climax, brought on by the prolonged length of his own.
Minutes, maybe eternities passed before Tucker dragged her off the wall into a bear hug, determined to include every inch of her skin in his embrace, his mouth leaving kisses on her hairline, cheeks and temple. “Mary,” he choked out. “Mary.”
She looked up at him with so much emotion on her beautiful face, the punch of it forced him to lean back against the wall. “I’m staying with you,” she whispered. “You’re keeping me and I’m keeping you, okay? I came down here to tell you that. I’d decided.”
Tucker made a ragged sound, positive the heart she’d only just resuscitated was already going to meet its doom thanks to the way it filled and filled, to the bursting point. Could he let her do this? Could he ask it of her? To give up so much?
No. No way. He would worry she regretted it every day for the rest of his life.
Her lips trembled. “If you try and talk me out of my decision, you will rip my heart out, Tucker. Do you understand me?”
The blood is his veins dropped several degrees. Rip her heart out?
Unfathomable. He’d tear the one from his chest without question if it would benefit Mary in any way, but her heart? Precious beyond even his own understanding.
“Yes,” he pushed past stiff lips.
Relief visibly coursed through Mary, her body turning limp in his arms. With a cry of happiness, she threw her arms around his neck and held him tight. “Let’s go drive your Impala.”
He blew an unnecessary and inaudible breath up at the ceiling, no idea what to do. How to do what was best for his mate. The unknown, the possibility of failing her was torturous. “Honey, you lost.”
“No,” she explained with a smile in her voice. “I was the last to take a turn before it fell. I won.”
Tucker turned his head and inhaled her scent, allowing it to calm him for now. “Pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
“We were playing with immortal rules.”
“Is that right?” He chuckled. “That’s so creative, I’m going to let you get away with it.”
“Thank you,” she said primly, allowing Tucker to set her down and fix her clothing, as well as his own. A minute later, they stepped into the kitchen hand in hand to find Carl staring at his flickering light bulbs and shattered drinking glasses in consternation.
“Whoops,” Tucker and Mary whispered to each other.
Chapter 19
“When you’re ready, move the gear shift down. The fourth click will be drive.”
Tucker settled his hand over Mary’s, sending a flurry of tingles all the way to her shoulder. It was after sunset and Tucker was making good on his promise to let her drive the Impala, even if the official winner of their wager was debatable. Carl was in the backseat, chuckling good-naturedly every so often as Tucker explained the mechanics of his beloved car.
The
warm buzz of happiness among the three of them made it impossible to keep the smile off of her face. She had some recollections of being younger, having both of her parents in the same place, laughter, a sense of security. But this was different. There was calm. No storm ready to break under the surface that lent a layer of tension. That angst she’d always associated with her family and thought was normal. Maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe every family was different.
But she liked this.
Liked sitting on Tucker’s lap at the kitchen table and listening to the crackle of chicken being fried on the stove. The groan of a window being opened, breeze meandering in and carrying out the smell of cooking. Static threading in through music on the radio. The dueling baritones of male voices, split by the occasional rumble of laughter. Human stuff.
There was fulfilment in the lack of action. The feeling that they were all in the exact right place, because they were in one another’s company. What could be better? Her decision to stay with Tucker came part and parcel with a lot of guilt…but the realization that she’d never been truly happy until now made her wonder why. If her father truly left her and Tilda behind because of her blindness, should the fault be Mary’s? Or should the fault be his lack of compassion and responsibility?
She couldn’t help but compare Carl to her own father. Would this man who’d been searching for his wife in the cosmos for decades desert his own wife and child?
No. She couldn’t imagine it.
She could imagine staying here, though. Or somewhere like this.
Just being content with the passage of time. With happiness. With the good and bad that came with a normal life. She suddenly wanted that—a place to belong—so badly she could taste it on the tip of her tongue. Like a bottomless milkshake.
Today, Tomorrow and Always Page 19
