Talking After Midnight

by Dakota Cassidy

  “It wasn’t a rule....” Her throat tried to close up on her.

  “Was so. It might not have been a written one, but it was one you’d made up in your head. Doesn’t make a difference. Tonight, rules go out the window and we walk on the edge. So you get the pizza and some plates and napkins and I’ll get the DVD player ready. Any thoughts on what you’d like to watch first?”

  She grabbed the pizza box and the plates and napkins. “I’m a little at a loss. What’s your suggestion, Disney princess guru?”

  Tag dug out the DVDs from the bag. “You know, I’d say we go straight for Mulan, because if we were to compare you to a Disney princess, my bet’s on her. But let’s ease you into this slowly and save the impact watching for later.”

  Placing the pizza on the coffee table, she was careful not to disturb the bowl of balls she’d so carefully placed there. “What’s your favorite one?”

  Tag scooped the bowl of balls up and set them on the floor. “I gotta confess, I really like Aladdin. Robin Williams cracked me up.”

  She ignored the bowl of decorative balls. Because they were breaking rules tonight. “Then Aladdin it is.”

  Putting the DVD in the player, he clicked it on and then dropped down beside her and opened the pizza box, grabbing a slice and putting it on a paper plate. “Now, come sit next to me, and I’ll show you all the pros to eating pizza on the couch with your date. Grab one of those perfectly folded throw blankets and cuddle up right here.” He pointed to his side and grinned.

  She pulled the throw off the back of the couch and sat next to him, picking up the napkins to hold under his plate.

  Tag pushed them away and held the slice of pizza to her mouth. “Bite. I’ll press Play.”

  The intimate gesture, one she’d seen a hundred times before between Dixie and Caine, or Jax and Em, was so easy for him, and with each bite he fed her, while the swells of a Disney musical score played in the background, it became easier for her, too.

  “Wait! Press Pause,” he ordered, a mouthful of pizza. “I almost forgot. How could I forget? We’d get kicked out of the Disney princess school for forgetting if Maizy knew.” He reached behind the sofa and got the plastic bag, rooting around in it. “Close your eyes.”

  “No,” she said around a gooey bite of pepperoni and cheese and a laugh.

  “If you don’t, our date will have to be over.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  He put his fingers over her eyelids. “Close your eyes, Marybell. Be a good dater. Why is everything with you like pulling teeth?”

  She chuckled, closing her eyes to the tune of the rustle of the bag and something thrown around her neck.

  “Okay, open.”

  When Tag came into focus, Marybell giggled. Again. So much giggling when he was around. “Pink’s your color.”

  He chuckled, easy and deep. “Ya think?”

  She threaded her fingers through the feathers around her neck. “You brought me a boa. That’s...” Out of nowhere, she was choking up, her words running out.

  Tag leaned in and kissed her with soft lips. “All princesses should have one when they watch princess movies.” Pulling her tight to his side, he sat back and pressed Play.

  * * *

  Marybell blinked back the threat of a tear. How had she missed all these incredible movies? Tag held her hand, snuggling under the blanket with her, feeding her popcorn while they’d watched Aladdin. But Mulan had become serious. The movie brought up all sorts of feelings, all sorts of questions.

  Why had Tag compared her to Mulan? Did he think she was hiding like Mulan because of her makeup and hair? A small tingle of fear crept into her thoughts. She forced them to calm. He couldn’t know her motivation for the people shield or he wouldn’t be still sitting right next to her. His comparisons likely lay in her flippant attitude and outspokenness.

  She took one last breath before she banished those thoughts.

  Sitting on the couch with Tag, his arm around her, sometimes his head somehow among all her spikes, resting on top of hers as she burrowed down next to him, had been magical.

  If he could only know just how magical something as simple as this was to someone like her.

  He gave her a nudge as the credits rolled. “Hey, you awake down there?”

  She nodded, still wondering at his comparisons.

  “I think I got some pepperoni on the couch.”

  “It’s okay,” she murmured against his chest, pulling her boa tighter around her neck.

  “This from the woman who couldn’t even eat on the couch a few short hours ago. It’s the magic of a Disney princess movie. Told you.”

  No. It was the magic of Tag. The easy comfort he brought. The laughter. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He tipped her chin up. “For?”

  She had to gulp. For not caring about my Mohawk or my silver lipstick or the fact that I’ve never watched a princess movie. That all the things that make a person whole, all the memories, all the special cheese sandwiches cut into triangles, all the marks on the wall to measure your height, birthday parties and proms, are devoid in my life. For not making me feel half of something, instead of all of something. Instead, she just said, “For princess night.”

  “You make an amazing princess.”

  Now she rolled her eyes, the lump in her throat easing. “Princesses don’t look like me. Maybe princesses of darkness,” she joked, referring back to their banter. Banter was easier than all these feelings.

  He leaned down, letting his nose brush hers. “You’re the hottest damn princess of darkness ever, then,” he said before capturing her lips.

  Everything welled up in her at once. Their rule breaking, cuddling on the couch, popcorn and princesses and boas, making her reach up and wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him tight to her.

  Tag reacted by closing his arms around her and pulling her into his lap. He rocked her, and the tired Marybell, the one who always had her guard up, rested for just a little bit.

  * * *

  Tag carried her into her bedroom, dragging the fluffy comforter down along the bed and setting her carefully on it.

  When she’d climbed into his lap tonight, as if he were all there was left in the world, something inside him cracked. If he knew anything, he knew for sure Marybell had lacked so many of the things he took for granted in his life.

  He didn’t know what she’d missed, maybe more than even he suspected. He didn’t know how much she’d tell him about her life in the foster care system, but he wanted to be the one she told.

  He wanted to protect her. Fix whatever was broken, even when he knew you couldn’t fix anyone. They had to fix themselves.

  He wanted to give her princess movies by the dozen. Dinner on the couch. More pink boas than she knew what to do with.

  That meant getting his life in shape. Like real shape. Starting with Gage’s offer.

  Marybell stirred, rolling to her side. Her eyes popped open, the pretty hazel of them no less beautiful with the makeup surrounding them. “What time is it?”

  He brushed one of her fallen spikes off her cheek. “Almost two. I’d better go. You’re tired, and we don’t want Blanche to talk.”

  She grabbed his hand and said, “She won’t start talking until at least five.... That gives you two hours to wow me.”

  He grew hard as a damn rock just hearing the words. But he wasn’t up to light banter right now. Now he wanted to bury himself deep inside her and never leave. He wanted to show her that Taggart Hawthorne wasn’t just in this for the laughs.

  Rather than answer her, he began pulling his clothes off while she watched from the bed, until he was naked, and then he slipped his hands under her cute T-shirt with the slashes in it and cupped her breasts.

  Her moan made his cock stand at attention, hard and ready for her. But tonight, he wanted to savor her—savor the taste of her on his tongue, the feel of her silky flesh against his.

  When he bent his head down to capture a pink nippl
e, he loved the way she raised her arms above her head and arched her back. Open, willing, so different from the way she communicated her thoughts. He licked at the tight buds, blowing on them, nipping them, running his tongue over and over them until she hissed and lifted her hips.

  She pulled him onto the bed, her fingers clutching at his hair, her hands following the path of his belly until she grasped his shaft and began to stroke it, long and firm.

  Tag wrapped his hand over hers, thwarting her motion. His teeth clenched tight, but he managed to find words. “Pull those hot leggings off so I can get my tongue between your legs or I’ll rip them off you.”

  She shuddered against him, whimpered in his ear as she wiggled her way out of them.

  Tag clamped his mouth over hers, slipping his tongue between her lips, tasting all the things that made up Marybell while his fingers found her wet flesh. He spread her without hesitation, and she let her legs fall open wide, her hand at his wrist, her lower torso lifting up.

  He loved kissing her almost as much as he loved licking her, and that was the thought that made him pull away and nibble a trail over her collarbone, along the soft swell of her belly, along each silky thigh.

  Hovering for a moment, he slid her to him, hooking her ankles at his neck before he dipped into the sweet core of her, slow at first. A lazy stroke of his tongue here, a wet kiss there.

  Marybell moaned low from above him when he broadened his strokes, driving deeper, going longer, circling her clit, thrusting a finger into her, then two. She contracted around his digits when he flattened his tongue and made her come.

  Her body heaved beneath him, her knees tightening against his head. When she bucked upward, Tag smiled against her, trailed his fingers in the wet heat of her until she gasped for breath.

  Marybell’s hands reached down, pulling at his shoulders, threading her fingers through his hair, clutching it, redirecting him upward until their lips met again. Her arms were strong when she wrapped them around him and rolled him to his back and settled herself on his hips.

  Tag kept his eyes open when she reached over him to the nightstand drawer to grab a condom. He watched her lithe form move, the skin along her sides stretch until he could count every bone in her ribs. The swell of her hip, the indent of her waist, her breasts, full and so perfect for his hands. He ate her up with his eyes, drank in her hands slipping the condom over him, stroking it downward over his cock, her hazel eyes gleaming.

  Leaning forward, she kissed him, long and slow, using her tongue to tease, letting his hard shaft slip in and out of her wet flesh, rolling against him until he reached around her and sank his fingers into her ass as he slipped inside her.

  Tight, she was so tight and slick it made his mouth water and his head reel. It was almost impossible to gather his senses and focus on her when she was so damn delicious.

  But Marybell clearly wanted some control. Pushing herself off with the heels of her hands on his chest, she sat up and leaned back, bracing herself on his thighs. Her head fell back on her shoulders, exposing the long column of her neck, fair and so different from the heavy foundation she wore on her face.

  He heard her whimper at his stroke upward, make another small sound when his fingers delved between her folds. She stiffened, her muscles flexed, her hips rolled in a slow rhythm, her nipples became hard points he needed his mouth on.

  Reaching up, he slipped his arms under hers and pulled her to him, taking a nipple in his mouth and sipping at it until she hissed in his ear, gasped for breath, drove her lower body against his in a hard grind.

  The rhythm they’d found grew impatient, demanding, the heat of their skin leaving a fine sheen of sweat that glued them together.

  And then he was lost, lost to her wetness, lost deep inside her, lost to that hot wave of the climb toward release. Their chests crashed against each other’s, their hands explored in smooth glides and clenches of flesh, their lips found each other’s again, their tongues lashed.

  Tag couldn’t breathe from the explosive rush of his blood, pushing through his veins, couldn’t hear anything but his own growl when he came, pumping into her until he was drained and Marybell shuddered.

  She curled into him, fisting her hands under her chin and firing up his protective instincts again. He tightened his hold on her, listening to the sound of his heartbeat slow in his ears, thinking about how much he wanted to wake up next to her tomorrow morning.

  As if she read his mind, she mumbled, “Don’t let me fall asleep. We don’t want to get in trouble with Blanche.”

  Tag smiled. “I promise to be out of here in plenty of time to keep the Mags from wagging their tongues.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want you to stay....”

  Now, that was certainly progress from a week ago when all she wanted to do was get rid of him. “I get it. No hard feelings.”

  “Don’t let me fall asleep...” she muttered again before she fell asleep. Her chest rose and fell against his, slow and steady.

  Tag lay there for a little while, holding her close to him, knowing something had happened tonight—something inside him. Knowing this was bigger than he’d first thought.

  Simply knowing.

  Twelve

  She read the text from Tag and smiled, scrolling through it to read it again. He’d left her last night on time as promised, though, she didn’t remember when. He’d cleaned up their dishes and tucked her in, and written her a note on the counter with a strict warning not to watch any more princess movies without him.

  Just those small acts left her so warm on the inside and at the same time, so afraid. Yet she found the warm was outweighing the fear. Warm might win if not for this thing between them that could ruin everything.

  These were unfamiliar waters—sometimes calm, sometimes choppy. All these feelings all at once should have left her on overload. But she was finding it was getting easier—if she let it. If she soothed herself with the plan she intended to execute, it made her moral dilemma with Tag less frightening.

  She read his text again, smiling at his promise to meet her for a late lunch as she sipped her coffee on the bench in the square.

  “What are you doin’ out here in this chill, Marybell Lyman? It’s almost sundown and you have that flimsy jacket on. Don’t I pay you enough to buy yourself something warmer?”

  Marybell smiled up at Dixie and her mothering. “You and Caine better procreate soon so you’ll stop nagging me.”

  Dixie nudged her over on the bench and set a greasy white paper bag on her lap. “I’m wedding-planning eating. Have some of this enormous doughnut with me so I’m not in it alone.” She dug the doughnut out and waved it under her nose.

  “Wedding-plannin’ eating?”

  Dixie nodded. “It’s like stress-eating but with gowns and doves and matching cocktail napkins.”

  “You’re going to have doves?”

  “Over my dead body. I know Caine wants all the fuss because of his mama, but—”

  “There’s all those bad memories associated with the first time around?”

  Dixie stabbed the air with a pink-gloved finger. “Yes! Oh, Marybell, it was dreadful. I think I have post-traumatic-wedding disorder because of it.”

  A snicker slipped from her lips. “Landon told us.” She remembered his face distinctly as he’d given them all the gory details. He’d been smiling, now leading her to believe he’d been cooking up that contest between Dixie and Caine even then.

  “Oh, that man! I bet he was laughing at us.”

  Marybell nodded. “There was laughter. But it’s all going to be okay. You do know that, right? Caine loves you something fierce. Not even the plannin’ of a wedding could change that.”

  She turned to look at Marybell, a question on her face. “You know, I don’t think you’ve ever told us how you met Landon.”

  Don’t clam up. This is the part where you begin to let everyone in. Dixie’s one of the best people to start with. “Landon was the kindest soul ever. I don’t kn
ow what kind of luck was shinin’ down on me that day, or why I got so fortunate, but just when I didn’t think I could take another step, go on a single second more, Landon showed up out of the blue.” She didn’t know it at the time, but he’d turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to her.

  A tear slipped from Dixie’s eye. “Sounds like my best friend. You don’t have to tell me about what happened that day, but I’d love it if you would. Hearing stories about him always make me feel like he’s right here with me.” She patted the place on the cold bench next to her and stuck her arm through Marybell’s.

  Marybell let her head hang low, her throat so tight it was almost impossible to speak. “I was living on the streets, making a couple of bucks here and there by cocktail waitressing in some underground clubs.”

  Dixie tilted her head and patted Marybell’s hand for reassurance. “Goth clubs, I take it?”

  Marybell’s laugh was dry and full of sarcasm. “Well, it wasn’t at the country club, that’s for sure. So, yes, goth clubs. I was workin’ for a man who was pretty shady, but I needed the money, and he needed a waitress because one had just quit. I did a twelve-hour shift in that disgusting dive, and he tried to stiff me out of my pay. I got angry.” Because she hadn’t eaten in two days. Because that promised money had been like a ticket to the Fountain of Youth.

  “So I have to ask, what was Landon doing at a seedy goth bar? You do know he was far more Liberace than he was goth.”

  That wrung a smile out of her. “Oh, I remember. He wasn’t at the bar, he was driving by, I was bleedin’. Good Samaritan type stuff.”

  Dixie gasped. “Is that what the scar is above your eyebrow? That man hit you?”

  “Well, to be fair, when he said he wasn’t going to pay me, I popped open the cash register and just took it. He chased me down and gave me a real shiner. Landon drivin’ up scared him off—or so that’s what Landon says. I was a little out of it until I woke up in the hospital.”

  Never, in all her life, would she ever forget Landon’s smiling face, staring down at her as though she mattered. As though a couple of stitches and a fat lip were reason to call in the brain surgeons. He’d had nurses and doctors flying around that hospital room with nothing more than a twitch of his finger.