Talking After Midnight

by Dakota Cassidy

  Tag settled at the throb between her legs, slipping the head of his cock into her folds with a low groan. “I do. I have an amazing one. And right now they’re all up in my attempts to get busy. I’ll tell you all about them after,” he grunted when she reached between them and stroked his long length.

  Tugging at her lips, he slipped his tongue between them, cupping her breasts and tweaking her nipples until she moaned.

  She was slick, wet and so ready when he trailed kisses along her neck and down to her collarbone. The heat of his mouth, the friction of their skin throbbed in her veins with a need long unfulfilled.

  She wanted him in her, hard and thick—now. Until his lips surrounded her nipple, then she wanted him in her doing that thing with his tongue, flicking over the hard peak until sizzling heat thrummed through her veins.

  Bright colors flashed behind her eyes when he wrapped an arm around her leg and lifted it higher, poised at her entrance. She was greedy. She wanted this. Wanted it so much.

  “This is bigger than kissing,” he husked against her heated flesh. “Much bigger.”

  Marybell lifted her hips and reached between them in answer. She didn’t care what it was. She only knew, if she didn’t have it, she’d probably die. Or something equally as dramatic. Twining her fingers around his cock, she savored the hard length for only a moment before she thrust downward.

  Tag’s grunt rang out in her small bedroom, raw and husky, his hands sank into the flesh of her hip, his lips sought hers, kissing her hard, sliding his tongue into her mouth with hot spears that tasted of mint and man.

  It took a moment to adjust. Her body pulling back signaled Tag. He stared down at her, the heat in his eyes turning her on. “It’s been a while?”

  A long, long while. “Yes.”

  He gritted his perfect white teeth. “Then don’t move much or we’re goners. I’ll try to go slow.”

  She didn’t acknowledge it when she’d met him and he’d kissed her the first time. She’d tried to ignore it, fought to keep it at bay, but Tag inside her was what she wanted. The rest be damned right now. All there was was him, shifting his hips in a slow circle, cupping her butt, holding her close.

  Their bodies gyrated together, blended, fused in a measured grind, letting Marybell adjust until she couldn’t take it anymore. Until she thought the sensations coursing through her would set off the ticking time bomb of hormones locked inside her.

  Burrowing into his body, she pushed her hands up under his upper arms and clung to him, rolling against his lower body until he picked up the pace.

  Tag nurtured the hot burn of orgasm building in her belly. He stroked her back, ran the heels of his hands over her shoulders, let his smooth chest create a delicious friction of skin on skin.

  The wet ache between her legs throbbed, begging for release, and when he slipped a finger between them and stroked her clit, it happened.

  A low humming noise sounded in her ears. Her thoughts got all jumbled and twisted until everything was blocked out but the delicious pulse of Tag in her—deep. So deep she lost her breath.

  Her hands went to his hair, clutching the dark strands as she came, biting her lip to keep from screaming what felt like victory.

  Tag’s breathing became harsh and raspy, his thrusts wild and fast until he whispered her name against her lips and jutted his hips upward one last time before he came, too.

  The room came back into focus for her in a vivid rush of dim lights and whitewashed walls. But when her guilt returned, it was in black, angry slashes and red, remorseful hues.

  Her brain began to compartmentalize. Tag goes here—under “never again.” Lies go there—under “will have to be told if you allow this to go any further.”

  Get out now while the gettin’s good, Marybell. Say something rude, do something awful, but ship him off while you still can without getting any deeper. Tag isn’t the kind of man you can toy with.

  But Tag sensed she was pulling away—whether she was physically, she didn’t know. So he pulled her closer. “Are you going to spoil the afterglow with all sorts of protests?”

  She looked over his shoulder at the picture on her wall. A painting of a beach with bright whitecaps and vanilla-colored sand. “I shouldn’t have done this.”

  “I think we should do it again,” he growled in her ear.

  She shoved the fresh wave of excitement he stoked in her aside and focused. “You have to go home now.”

  “Is it because of your landlord, Blanche? You’re an adult. You can have male visitors.”

  “No. It’s because this shouldn’t have happened.”

  Clearly, he wasn’t getting it. He didn’t move. Instead, he nuzzled her neck. “Okay, I’ll give you it was a whole lot earlier than I anticipated. Yay for surprises, but to say it shouldn’t have happened is kinda harsh.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t be involved with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not available.”

  “You know, you’ve said that once or twice since we met.”

  “Now I’m sayin’ it again.” She gave his rock-hard shoulder a shove.

  “Give me one good reason why you can’t be involved with me. One.”

  Ha. She could give him a hundred. “I’m emotionally unavailable. I have issues I can’t discuss.”

  “Now, this is interesting. Issues you can’t discuss? Physical or mental?”

  “Both.”

  “You look pretty good to me physically,” Tag purred in her ear.

  “Then it’s mental. Mentally, I’m incapable of having a relationship.”

  “So the issues you can’t discuss are mental?”

  “Yes. I’m off my rocker. You do not want a piece of that.”

  “Maybe I like women with off-their-rocker issues.”

  Maybe you should stop being so confident and go home—forever. Her heart didn’t like that, apparently, because it jiggled in her chest. But Marybell ignored it. This couldn’t go on. “You say that now, but that’s what all the boys say in the beginning. Until...”

  He leaned back, tilting her chin to force her gaze to meet his. “Now you’re just trying to scare me off. So let’s knock off the witty banter and get to the real issue. What happened? Did a boyfriend do something shitty to you? Cheat? Lie? Am I getting the backdraft of past failed relationships?”

  She sighed a grating sigh and hardened her eyes for show. “Get dressed. Go home. Forget this ever happened.” Please.

  “Not gonna happen. I mean, I’ll go home now. But I’m not forgetting that.” He swished his finger in a circular motion.

  “Fine. Then don’t forget it, but it’s never happening again.”

  “That’s what you said about us kissing,” he teased.

  “Do you want this to end badly?”

  “End badly how?”

  “With me throwing you and your clothes out the door in front of the whole neighborhood.”

  He frowned. So adorable. “That is bad. Wow. You’re mean.”

  “I can get meaner. Now go home.”

  Tag made a comical face at her, pulling from within her and moving away. He sat up on the edge of the bed. “Fine, but I’m taking my lasagna with me.”

  “That’s fine by me. I have a spare body part in the fridge somewhere I can heat up...” Her voice trailed off when she caught sight of his back, and it wasn’t just the incredible amount of bunched muscle catching her off guard.

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “Now what?”

  She had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “You have a Little Mermaid tattoo on your back,” she said around her fingers.

  He made another face, only this one wasn’t as comical. “It’s only as big as a billboard. Good eyes.”

  “I have to know. Why?”

  “You’re kicking me out of your house, but you want to know something personal like why I have a Little Mermaid tattoo on my back? You are off your rocker.” He didn’t have that t
easing tone to his voice this time as he pulled his shirt from the pile of their clothes on the floor and slipped his arms into it.

  Marybell rolled to the edge of the bed. “That’s fair.”

  “Maizy,” he shot back, stuffing his gorgeous thighs into his jeans and zipping them up.

  Pulling the sheet around her, she frowned when she hopped off the bed. “Maizy wanted you to get a Little Mermaid tattoo?”

  He planted his hands on his hips. “No. Not exactly. Though she likes it. Both she and the Little Mermaid have red hair.”

  “You’re purposely bein’ evasive and obtuse.”

  “Maizy loves the Little Mermaid. She was who I was thinking about when I got it. At least, that’s what I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I was drunk. All-nighter. Hit the tattoo shop and the one friend I had left at the time said I demanded a Little Mermaid tattoo. He’s not my friend anymore.”

  “Because he let you get the tattoo?” she asked, tightening the sheet around her.

  “No. Because I was an asshole to him like I was everyone else, and I wouldn’t listen to him when he told me not to do it.”

  “And the artist gave it to you, anyway? When you were drunk? Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Artist is a subjective word. He wasn’t exactly totally on the up-and-up. Plus, I did have cash.”

  “So now you have to live with a tatt of the Little Mermaid almost as big as Maizy on your back forever?”

  He turned his back on her and grabbed his boots, shoving his feet into them. “Now, don’t exaggerate. She’s almost two inches shorter than Maizy. And that’s the price you pay for being a drunk. Sometimes your choices last a lifetime.” Tag strode out of her bedroom and toward the living room.

  She followed, fascinated by how open he was about something so personal. “So it’s a form of punishment?”

  “No. It’s a reminder of how one drink can turn your life into a nightmare of Disney princesses.” Jamming his arms into his jacket, he grabbed his knit cap and headed for the door.

  He was going to leave angry. He should leave angry. She was sending him packing as if he was meaningless. But she hated to do it. Wanted to apologize for it. Explain it. Yet she knew she couldn’t. “The lasagna.”

  Tag paused by the door, all bulky and angry. But then, out of the blue, he smiled. As if he had some secret. “Keep it. It’s better for you than spare body parts.”

  He popped the door wide-open, letting his image, bathed in the moonlight, be her last visual of him.

  Eight

  Damn it all. He should have waited. They should have waited until he was sure Marybell wouldn’t throw up one of her walls.

  That’s what she did. Every time he thought she was letting him open the door a crack, she got out her trowel and her plaster and built another wall—higher than the last. They’d had four conversations to date, and in each one, she’d added more bricks.

  Now she’d booted his ass out of her apartment as if he were some cheap thrill. But he knew it wasn’t because she was into casual sex.

  Really, Tag? And how do you know that? What are you all of a sudden—a mind reader? Stop applying all your AA theories to Marybell’s life. That was your life. Not everyone was as screwed up as you.

  No. For all her bluster and glib remarks, she was a lot deeper than she let on.

  There was pain there. He knew that kind of pain. He was finding his way to the end of that kind of pain right now, and Marybell was like this bright light of challenge at the end of a tunnel he wanted to get to the end of.

  That made no damn sense. He only knew he liked her. He liked her screw-the-conservatives attitude. He liked her smart-ass comebacks. He liked that she’d been the first woman he’d made love to after a long period of celibacy and it had been as sweet as anything he’d ever experienced.

  He liked that they’d made love. He liked her soft skin, her full hips, the cinnamony taste of her. He liked that she had little to no inhibitions about her delectable body—he even liked her practical white underwear.

  But he’d still moved too fast.

  He’d hoped his sharing about his alcoholism would garner one from her. Instead, she’d clammed up tighter than ever before.

  What would it take to get Marybell to go deeper with him? Why did he care? Why did he want to draw her out? She played tough, but there were glimpses of vulnerability. Moments when he wanted to gather her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. But then she tucked back into that turtle shell and hid whatever it was she was hiding.

  Was it shame? Was it fear? What made Marybell tick? Being around her was like playing a game of Ping-Pong. They went back and forth, back and forth until they wore each other down.

  “What is that shit all over your face?” Gage asked.

  He was in no mood for Gage and his jokes tonight, but his brother’s words stopped him at the mirror in the entryway.

  He grimaced. The mark of Marybell Lyman. A battle hard won. A war still raging. “Makeup.”

  Gage looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Yeah. So, something you want to share with me—or is this our little secret? Because if that’s your new thing, I’m tentatively supportive.”

  “Tentatively?” he asked, digging in his coat pocket for a napkin to wipe his face.

  Gage grinned, flashing his teeth. “You’d have to be a whole lot better at applying makeup than that before I could jump in with both feet.”

  Tag hardened is jaw. “Not in the mood.”

  Gage, the prettiest of the three of them, rolled his eyes. “Are we back to brooding again? Just when I thought you were getting it together, too.”

  “Bad night.”

  “With a door-to-door cosmetics saleslady?”

  Finally Tag laughed, too, pulling off his jacket and hanging it up on the rack by the door. “Something like that.” He padded into the kitchen, fighting the urge for a beer and grabbing a bottled water instead.

  A beer would go down really sweet right now.

  Almost a year and a half sober, buddy. Don’t blow it. He tightened his grip around the bottle.

  Gage followed behind, hopping up onto the counter. “You wanna talk?”

  “Not yet. It’s still too much to process.”

  “One more thing before I leave you to your brood.”

  “I’m not brooding. I’m just thinking. Anyway, shoot.”

  Gage made direct eye contact with him. “You hear old man Falsom’s selling his mill?”

  Tag’s ears pricked in interest. “I heard.”

  “I think I might want to buy it from him.”

  “So you wanna stay here in Plum Orchard?”

  Gage’s eyes had that look they used to have when they’d bid on a new project together. He grinned. “I think I do. I like having Jax and Maizy here, but it won’t be long now before Em and Jax get married. I don’t want to intrude on that. Plus, I’d like a place of my own. You know, some privacy. It’s time. Question is, do you want to stay?”

  Tag nodded. It was definitely getting to be about that time. “I’m not sure yet.” He sure didn’t want to go back to Atlanta. He’d burned a lot of bridges there.

  “Well, give it some more thought, and let me know. Because it’d be great if you went in on it with me.”

  He took a swig of his water before replying, “I don’t have the money to go in on anything, Gage. That plays a big role in this.” Tag was just barely making ends meet at the moment with the odd jobs he did around town. Buying into another business was the last thing he could afford to do.

  Gage waved a dismissive hand at him. “Look, I’m tired of your pride. You keep going on and on about how you don’t have any money, but I still do.”

  Tag was damn tired of his brothers offering to dig him out of this hole. “You were smart, kiddo, socking it away like you did.”

  “You paid me well. But that’s not my point. My point is, you got screwed, and it sucked.”

  “Yep. I got tras
hed and then—even after I was trashed, I spent what I had socked away on booze and bullshit. I could’ve survived a decent amount of time until I found another job to keep me afloat.”

  “So you don’t deserve another chance now that you’re clean? You’d deny yourself the opportunity to stay here near Maizy and Jax and the kids and Em and do something that you love just because you still want to punish yourself?”

  “It’s not a punishment.” But it is, Tag. Being poor is your reminder. It’s the bookmark in your life, the folded edge of the paper where you left off and your life went to shit.

  “Whatever you’re calling it, it’s keeping you from getting off your ass and doing something. Do something with me. Just like we used to. Remember when we built houses together?”

  “You mean before Leon Kazinski stole every penny I invested?”

  Gage’s eyes narrowed. “Here we go with the I’m-such-an-idiot thing again. We had a nice long reprieve from that for a while, but look, it’s back with a vengeance. Yes, Tag, before that. Before you got caught up in a Ponzi scheme and lost Hawthorne Brothers, twenty employees and a dozen or so subcontractors. Does my saying it out loud make it better or worse? Does it drive the knife of punishment as deep as you want it to go? Or do you want me to go deeper? Maybe bring up Alison?”

  Tag’s brother’s anger with him was justified. He’d milked this long road back from perdition for a long time. Maybe it was rubbing him especially raw today because he wanted to date Marybell, and dating cost money, something he didn’t have a lot of.

  His personal anger only came in flashes lately, but it came hot and hard when it did, especially when the mention of the people he’d had to let go came up.

  That was worse than losing his own money. “Sorry. Sometimes it still crops up. But that’s not all of it, Gage. What if the mill didn’t work out? I don’t want you going down again because of me.”

  “I didn’t go down the first time because of you. I wish like hell you’d separate those two issues in your head. Not. Your. Fault. Either way, we were a good team, bud. A really good team, which is why I have so much money in the bank. You’d do the same for me if our roles were reversed. So because I don’t want to rile your crabby ass up, I’ll leave it at that for now, but Falsom’s gonna put it on the market soon, and I want in before anyone else. So make it quick with all that brooding you’re so good at and make a decision.”