by Jamie Pope
“Do you think we would be here if I weren’t ready for this?” She cupped his face and kissed him, but the kiss only lasted a second before he pulled away.
“I know how lucky I am to be here with you right now. Don’t think I’m taking you or this day for granted.”
His words did something to her chest again, to her heart. She felt it crack. She hated the feeling, but it wasn’t going away, and with every beautiful thing he said to her, the crack grew deeper. “No more talking. We’ve got some work to do.”
She rose slightly and Tanner grabbed her hips, guiding her down on him. She couldn’t stop the noise that escaped her lips. He filled her up with his thickness and she had to clench every muscle in her body to stop herself from coming right then. There was only one shot at a first time with someone. This time had to be good for both of them.
“You’re going to kill me,” he said to her. “You feel too damn good.”
She moved on him, slowly at first, finding her rhythm. It had been so long. She wasn’t sure if she was any good; she wasn’t sure she would be able to please him. But she looked up into his eyes. He was staring at her with such intensity, such passion. No one had ever looked at her like that before.
“I’m not going to be able to last long.” His words came out choked, as he placed his hands on her hips. He moved her on him, pumping into her at the same time. She felt each slide of him throughout her entire body.
She couldn’t prolong this, even though she wanted to. She wanted the feeling to last for hours but her climax was building so fast and every little pleasured groan that escaped Tanner’s lips brought her that much closer.
And then Tanner placed one hand between her legs to rub her while he pumped into her and took her mouth in a scorching hot kiss.
She was a goner and he went over the edge with her, pumping harder and faster until they both exploded with loud cries. She had never had an orgasm like that. She didn’t think orgasms like that were possible.
They stayed joined for a few long moments. She felt as if all her bones had liquefied. She rested her head on his shoulder. Loving his clean, but slightly musky smell.
“Get in that bed. I wanted to have you in one since we’ve met, but the first time I’m with you and we wind up in a chair.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.” He lifted her off him. “Bed. Climb in. I’m not letting you out for a long time.”
She did as he asked. The bed was large and luxurious; the sheets had more threads than she had hair on her head. He got in beside her, and pulling her close, he kissed her shoulders and down her neck.
“You like to be close after sex?”
“You don’t?”
“I do.” She touched his face.
“Good. Because I don’t give a damn if you don’t. I need to be near you.”
“My ex-scumbag never liked to be touched after he finished with me. I’m just not used to it.”
“He was an asshole. I’m not him. If I don’t want to touch you then I need to be taken out to pasture and shot.”
“That’s a little rough.” She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed the back of it. “How are you feeling?”
“I just had very hot sex with a woman that every man in my town has dreamt about being with. I feel pretty damn good.”
“How do you feel really?” She knew sex wasn’t the cure-all, but she wanted to bring some comfort to him. She wanted to be closer to him today.
“Fucking miserable,” he admitted and his voice was so raw in that moment, filled with such undisguised pain, that she wanted to cry. “And stupid. The thought had never crossed my mind. He was my father. That was that, but I walked in there today and took one look at him and knew that couldn’t be right. There’s no way I could have come from him. I’m too big. I’m too dark. I’m too different from his entire side of the family, and no one said a word.”
She touched his hair that she knew was prone to curl. He was different from the man they saw today. August Brennan was the definition of WASP. Tanner wasn’t. “They couldn’t very well tell you that your father wasn’t your father.”
“They could have told me. They should have. Especially my grandfather. He knew how bad things were between my parents. I trusted him. He was the only person I trusted.”
“Your mother should have told you. Not your grandfather. Not even your father. He was the one who was betrayed. Maybe it would have seemed callous to sit you down without your mother while they were married and tell you that you didn’t come from him.”
“Are you telling me that I shouldn’t be mad at him?”
“Oh, no. I’m mad at everyone. I’m even mad at you right now. I would never tell you not to be angry, but you shouldn’t be the most angry with your grandfather or even your father.”
“Do you believe that he really doesn’t know who she was having an affair with?”
“What’s the point of lying to you? I know liars. I was married to one. I don’t think your father was lying. I also think he’s telling the truth when he says he loves you.”
“I doubt that. How could he love another man’s child?”
“You could love another man’s child.” She knew it was possible. She saw him with Teo. How kind he was. How caring. He had a lot of love inside of him.
“You didn’t grow up with my father. There was no love there.”
“Did he ever say anything mean to you? Try to purposefully hurt you?”
He was quiet, obviously thinking back to his past. “No. He didn’t say anything at all. He was away on business.”
“He never did anything with you?”
“Baseball. Once a year we went to a Red Sox game. Nine incredibly quiet innings of baseball witnessed from a suite.”
“That sounds like an attempt at a relationship.”
“Not really. I’m a Yankees fan.”
“What! That’s blasphemy in these parts. You might be skinned alive.”
“I know.” He grinned at her. He climbed on top of her, his heavy body feeling delicious on hers. The kiss he gave her was deep and so hot she started to feel the burn all throughout her body. “I promised you that I would feed you. What do you want? I can have room service send up whatever you want.”
“I can’t think about food when there is six and a half feet of hard man settled between my thighs.”
“You want to be with me again so soon?”
“It’s the only thing I want at the moment.”
“Well”—he kissed the soft spot beneath her chin—“it’s my goal in life to make sure that you get everything that you want.”
Chapter 8
Tanner didn’t think to get in his SUV and head home when he finished work the next day. He drove right to the sports fields where he knew Nova and Teo would be.
Yesterday had been one hell of a day. None of it had been planned. He started his day with her naked in her bedroom, and ended it with her naked in a waterfront hotel suite. It would have been a fantastic day if weren’t for the unpleasantness in between. His biological father was a stranger. Some man his mother had an affair with. He tried not to think about the gaping hole that knowledge had left him with. He didn’t know who half of him was. And maybe it wouldn’t have been such a big deal if he found out he was adopted.
He knew the kind of man he had grown up to be. He was happy with the decision his grandfather forced upon him. Proud he could cobble together this existence when before he thought he had no future. It was the fact that the others around him knew and didn’t bother to tell him. That was the thing that was eating at him. It tore up his gut last night and made it impossible for him to sleep. He thought about calling his grandfather, but he knew the old man would keep his lips sealed. If there was one thing his family excelled in, it was secrecy. So he sought out Nova instead.
His body had craved to be near hers last night, and when he wasn’t thinking about the showdown with his father yesterday, he had been thin
king of her. He wanted to have her again. Three times yesterday hadn’t been enough, but it was more than that. He just liked her. He had stayed with her as long as he could until Teo had come home from his friend’s house. He only left her because he knew if he stayed any longer, he would want to take her to bed again. And that was just being greedy. He was the first man to have her in so many years. She gifted him her body. He better damn well be grateful for the experience.
He spotted her sitting on the visitor side of the field again. Today was much warmer than yesterday. She must have changed when she got home from work. She was wearing a soft pink sweater. It clung to her body, forming to her breasts like a second skin. It was impossibly sexy. But it was sweet, too.
The world had so harshly misjudged her. Nova had seen a lot in her short lifetime, but there was some innocence there. He could tell by the way she made love to him. And she had made love to him, even though she would probably punch his teeth out if he accused of her of it. It wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t the hard quick pounding of two bodies. It was unlike any sexual experience he had had when he was in the military.
When he was younger, it was a one-night hook-up with a foreign girl who didn’t speak English. Or a female officer who wanted no part of any relationship, just a release and a way of reducing some of the stress of the environment. They were never experiences he craved. But Nova was one that he could see himself repeating for a lifetime.
“Daddy Long Legs,” she greeted him. “I’m beginning to think you are obsessed with me or something. You keep showing up.”
“I keep showing up.” He nodded. Maybe he was a little obsessed with her. His days seemed emptier when she wasn’t in them. “It’s your big mouth. I’ve grown accustomed to your flapping gums. It’s too quiet without them. I can only equate it to being at war, and after being shot at and nearly being blown up every day, when the silence does come, it is deafening.”
The sassiness dropped from her expression and she looked up at him with concern. She reached for his hand and tugged him down on the stands next to her. “Why the hell do you have to say stuff like that, Brennan? It makes it hard for me to insult you.”
“Sorry. I thought I came out relatively unscathed, but sometimes things sneak up on me. Right after I got out I realized I had been walking into places and surveying everyone in there to see who might have a gun, or a bomb hidden in a backpack. My grandfather suggested I see someone. It was the first time I took his advice with no argument.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s no worse than what you went through.”
He saw her guard fly up immediately, and he knew there was something big there, some deep dark secret that had changed her. “How do you know what I went through?”
“I don’t.” He smoothed his hand down her back to calm her. “Not for sure, but I’m hoping you’ll tell me one day.”
“What makes you think you deserve to know?”
“You know my deepest darkest secret,” he countered.
“I didn’t weasel it out of you. I just happened to be there when the shit hit the fan.” He grinned at her and leaned over to kiss her face and then the side of her neck. At first she relaxed into his kisses, but her entire body grew tight and she pulled away from him, smacking his chest in the process. “Don’t kiss me.” Her brow creased into a deep frown.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want people thinking we’re together.” She looked across the field to where the other parents stood.
“They already think we’re together. Why else would I show up to a kid’s soccer practice if I wasn’t seriously interested in one of the mothers?”
“Because you’re a weirdo. We’re not together, Brennan. Get that through your thick skull right now.”
“What was yesterday then?”
“Sex,” she said as she looked away from him.
“Just sex?” He wasn’t buying her bullshit. Nobody could classify what they went through yesterday as just sex.
“Okay. It was damn good sex. I might even let you have it with me again, but don’t go around thinking this is something it isn’t. Don’t go around thinking I’m your woman and don’t you dare fall in love with me.”
He would have argued with her but he saw Teo running across the field toward them. Tanner would be lying to himself if he didn’t come here for Teo, too. Teo was a cool little kid.
“Mr. Tanner!” He leapt into his arms when he reached him. Tanner hugged him back. He had never seriously thought about becoming a father until recently. He knew it was hard work. He knew he couldn’t pull good experiences from his own childhood with his father to model, but he was beginning to think he would like the chance. Because having a child love you, and giving unconditional love to a child, seemed like the kind of thing that would give his sometimes miserable life meaning.
“Hey, buddy. I think it would be okay, if you dropped the ‘mister’ and just called me Tanner.”
Teo looked up at him, his face solemn. “Oh, no. Uncle Wylie said kids don’t call adults by their first names because it’s disrespectful.”
“Your uncle is from the South and they really don’t like it down there. But I think you can call me by my first name because I said it’s okay, and if your uncle has a problem with it, he can take it up with me.”
Teo’s eyes widened. “Do you think you could beat Uncle Wylie up?”
“Teo!” his mother hissed.
“What?” He turned to look at her. “Mr. Tanner is a giant, but Uncle Wylie said marines can kick anybody’s behind. Especially army guys.”
“Your uncle is talking trash, huh? Marines always think they’re the strongest, but army men are the smartest and you can tell him I said that.”
“I don’t want you to fight. Mommy said that men shouldn’t hit, even if they don’t really mean it.”
He looked at Nova. She told her son these things almost as a kind of warning. She wanted him to avoid the things she had faced. Tanner disagreed with her. Sometimes there were good reasons to hit and he would beat the hell out of anyone who touched her. She might want to deny that they were an item, and maybe they weren’t. Maybe she wasn’t ready for that kind of step, but she had given a piece of herself to him yesterday and he wasn’t ready to give her up yet.
He ruffled Teo’s jet black ringlets. “Where should we go for dinner tonight?”
“I want steak.”
“You want steak?” his mother asked.
“I like steak. You made it for me that time. London boil.”
“London broil, you mean.”
“I liked that. I want to eat that.”
“Then steak we’ll have.” He stood up, holding Teo with one arm as he reached for Nova with the other. “Come on, Mommy. Let’s go eat steak.”
* * *
Nova snuck out of her apartment and made her way to the diner where she still worked an occasional shift. She probably didn’t have to sneak. Elijah was a lot of things, but he didn’t seem to care where she spent her time during the day. But this time she left the house as quietly as possible while he lay passed out in their bedroom. She knew he wasn’t going to like what she was about to do. He didn’t want her working. He said that it was a husband’s job to take care of his wife, and when they first started dating the idea of that sounded nice. She had this crazy vision of herself being a homemaker, taking care of a cute home, cooking and cleaning and being normal. Her childhood had been so nomadic that the thought of staying in one place for over a year seemed heavenly. While she was dreaming about that version of heaven, she had forgotten about her original dream. She had wanted to go to college. She wanted to be something. Yes, she had been in the same spot for over a year now. Yes, she never had to worry about where her next meal would come from, but that was it. She had nothing to do. Nothing to look forward to. She felt like she had failed. Thrown away everything she had worked so hard for her last year in school.
> But what was her other option? Staying behind in Texas? She had stabbed Archie. Left him on the floor there to die. Abandoned her mama when she was at her sickest. And it made her feel lower than shit.
She walked into the diner where she had met Elijah over a year ago, dressed in her uniform. She picked up shifts sometimes when they needed her, and even though she was just serving people greasy hamburgers and wiping down tables, she enjoyed it. Getting out of the house. Earning something.
And today she had arrived at work extra early for a special reason. She said her hellos and walked into the break room, heading straight for the phone. Calling collect, she prayed the charges would be accepted.
“Nova?” Mansi answered the phone and Nova could hear the worry in her voice. “Is that really you?”
“Yes.” The tears immediately came to her eyes. It was so good to hear her grandmother’s voice. Mansi was her safe place. She was the only person who had loved her the way she needed to be loved. “How are you, Mansi?”
“I’m still in the same place I’ve always been. Where are you? I haven’t been able to find you in three years. Do you need me to come get you?”
She wanted to say yes, but the word stuck in her throat. “I’m fine. I left Texas about fifteen months ago. I got married. To a Native man,” she added, hoping that would fool her grandmother into thinking she had made the right choices in her life.
“I know you had to leave your mother. I know how bad she was. Wylie tracked her down and dragged her to rehab. But he couldn’t find you.”
“Wylie came? What did he find out? What did he say?” Did he know about the thing she had done? Had Mama told him why she ran?
“He called here looking for you a few times. He’s worried about you.”
“Tell him I’m fine. Tell him I got married.”
“You’re so young.” The disappointment was clear in Mansi’s voice. “Is he a good man?”
“The best,” she lied, but the words nearly choked her. “He has a good job. He makes sure I have everything I need. He cares for me.”
