“Laurie, baby, wake up. You’re gonna fry out here.”
Tate’s lips moved along the lacy edge of my bra.
“You were sleepin’ in the sun, babe, not goin’ to the mall to get a phone. So I got you a phone.”
I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes tighter trying to focus on what his mouth was doing and block out his voice in my head.
“Yeah, Ace, fucked you so hard you couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but sleep. Exhausted you. You were in my bed, couldn’t sleep, that’s what I’d do.”
I bit my lip and felt the tears sting my nose.
“I get back, Lauren, you’re on the back of my bike.”
My hands lifted and slid into his hair.
“Sucks, but fuck Laurie, it’s good to be home.”
My fingers curled into his hair.
“Then you shouldn’t have thrown her away when she was your wife. Now she ain’t. Now she’s somethin’ to me and I don’t let men I don’t like get close to her and I gotta tell you, man, I do not like you.”
Tate’s head came up.
“No way you can look like all the rest.”
“Laurie,” Tate called.
“Pure class.”
“Lauren,” he called again, his body moving up, his hand coming to my jaw.
“Two kinds of women get under your skin. The ones who do damage, they don’t feel good there but once you’re fuckin’ stupid enough to let them in you got no choice but to take the time it takes to work them out. Then there are the ones who don’t do damage, who feel good there, feed the muscle, the bone, the soul, not rip it or break it or burn it. The ones you don’t wanna work out.”
I righted my head, opened my eyes and looked in his handsome face.
It was then my mind filled with him, with Tate, all things Tate. It filled so full, it felt like my head would explode.
“Never had better.”
“That’s how I know you didn’t give it to that asshole the way you give it me. You did, no way in hell he’d ever…”
“Three weeks, after fuckin’ you, knowin’ what you taste like, what you feel like, the sounds you make when you come, three weeks I’m on the road and all I got is a couple minutes of your voice on the phone every night. Fuckin’ you, that’s all I can think about, like a teenager, at night in the dark, it’s the only thing in my goddamned head. So I jack off, hopin’ to cut through it, but nothin’ compares to you. Then I know you can’t sleep so I can’t fuckin’ sleep wonderin’ if you’re sleepin’. That shit’s whacked and I come home, fuckin’ beside myself it’s over.
“But Neeta, she’s not like you. She isn’t smart. She doesn’t work hard.”
“So I find this woman, see. High-class, great fuckin’ hair, legs that go forever…”
“So we find out about each other and who we are together. I’m gonna piss you off ‘cause I can be a dick. That’s who I am. And you’re gonna piss me off ‘cause, babe, you got attitude. That’s who you are. And that’s who we’re comin’ out to be together. And I’m all right with that because, with what I had before, even when you’re a bitch, I like it. But when you’re not, it’s a sweetness the like I’ve never tasted.”
“You said you were waitin’ for something special and he took away your chance to figure out that you were carryin’ it with you all this time. You are special, Laurie.”
“… they did it because you go all out to protect beauty like that.”
And last, “Sweet dreams, baby.”
“Jesus, Lauren, baby, what the fuck?” Tate whispered and I realized tears had pooled in my eyes and were sliding down the sides into my hair.
“You like me,” I whispered back and his head gave a small jerk.
“What?” he asked.
“You were right.” I was still whispering, a sob moved up my throat, I swallowed it down but my voice was thick when I kept whispering. “You were right.” I gulped back another sob as I felt more wet trail from my eyes. “I… I’m lost.”
I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I burst into tears and tried to slide out from under him but he held strong.
“Baby,” he muttered.
Without any other way to escape him, I lifted my head and shoved my face into his neck as my arms wrapped around him and I held on tight.
“I’m l… l… lost,” I choked as my body bucked when a powerful sob tore through me.
Suddenly Tate rolled off and I was moving. He went up the bed, pulling me with him, arranging the pillows behind his back and he rested against them, settling me tight to his side. I wrapped an arm around his abs, pressed my forehead into his neck and held on as my body shook with my tears.
One of his arms was wrapped around my waist, the other came across his chest to sift through my hair and he was quiet while he held me as I wept.
This lasted awhile and when it subsided I tilted my head down so my temple was at his collarbone and I saw my bare, tanned legs tangled with his long, jeans-clad ones.
It came to me again. “You said you were waitin’ for something special and he took away your chance to figure out that you were carryin’ it with you all this time. You are special, Laurie.”
“Talk to me,” Tate urged gently.
It was time, it was time to let him in but more, it was time to let me out.
I took in a shuddering breath and my arm gave him a squeeze.
“My first was my college boyfriend,” I whispered. “His name was Matt. He was lovely. When we did it, he took me to a fancy hotel and he’d arranged it so there was a bouquet of red roses by the bed when we got to the room. After he made love to me, he told me he’d love me forever. A year later, he got a job where he had to move to Tennessee and he asked me to go with him. I was young and I couldn’t even think of leaving Indiana, leaving my family. It scared me so I let him go. We tried the long distance thing but it didn’t work. He’s married now to a nice woman named Ellen. They have three kids. He calls me every year on my birthday, though. He never forgets. I call him on his. We talk forever and we laugh like crazy.”
My breath hitched as new tears threatened but I gulped them down and held Tate tighter. In return his arm pulled me closer but he didn’t speak.
“He loved me,” I said softly.
“Yeah,” Tate agreed.
“I think, in a way, he still does,” I went on.
“Yeah,” Tate repeated.
“I don’t know when it happened,” I whispered.
When I said no more, Tate prompted, “What, honey?”
“When he took me away. How he got me. How he did it,” I answered, referring to Brad and when I did Tate’s arm squeezed tight. I shook my head against his chest. “I didn’t even feel it happen. I didn’t know it. I don’t know…” My voice broke, I swallowed again and Tate’s hand still sifting through my hair dropped to my neck and his fingers curled there, giving me a squeeze and I forged on, “I don’t know why I let him.”
“He say shit?” Tate asked and I shook my head against his chest again.
“No, it was just that… just that… he was so convinced he was all that, somehow he convinced me and for him to be all that, I had to be less, not me having to be less, Brad needing to make me less and he just… just… made me feel that way and I just… I…” I pulled in breath and finished, “I just faded away.”
Tate didn’t respond and I lifted up, taking my arm from around his stomach and swiping at my face. Then I turned to him and looked in his eyes.
“I wasn’t running from him hurting me with Hayley,” I told him softly. “That’s not why I got out of Horizon Summit, why I fled my life.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I lied to Krystal when I asked for that job but I didn’t know it then. I know it now. She was right. I got lost and I was trying to find me.”
His hand slid up my neck to my jaw and his thumb glided along my lower lip.
“You just find you, baby?” Tate asked.
“Not exactly,” I answered.
“Then w
hat exactly?” he pressed.
“I…” My teeth bit my lip, tagging the pad of his thumb which he didn’t move so I released it. “My brain just suddenly started paying attention.”
“To what?”
“To you.”
His brows went up and his thumb swept along my cheekbone. “Wanna explain that?”
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered and watched his face change, surprise was there but it was soft, not astonished… moved.
“Ace,” he whispered back.
“I saw you,” I kept whispering, “at the hotel, meeting Neeta –”
Tate cut me off. “Know that, babe.”
“I know,” I replied. “But you don’t know that I hated Neeta instantly when I saw her throw herself in your arms. Pure jealousy. I didn’t know you, I didn’t know her. I just took one look at you and I…” I stopped speaking, suddenly embarrassed and more than a little scared and my eyes slid away. I would have moved my face but his hand tensed against my jaw.
“Keep talkin’,” he urged.
“I can’t,” I said softly.
“Baby, I think you don’t get this but you’re safe here.” His hand left my jaw and both arms wrapped tight around me, giving me a squeeze at the same time pulling me up so my face was level with his. “You’re safe, Lauren,” he murmured and my eyes came back to his. “You weren’t safe with him but, honey, swear to God, you’re safe with me.”
I felt the tears smart in my eyes and my lower lip quivered so I pressed them together.
“Keep talkin’,” he repeated, I took a breath in through my nose and nodded.
“You were far away,” I whispered, “it was night, I could barely see you…” I hesitated. “But you still took my breath away.”
His eyes closed and his hand slid up my neck into my hair and he put pressure there so our foreheads were touching.
“Christ, Laurie,” he muttered.
“The next day,” I went on, “I saw you walk into the bar and you were so beautiful…”
His eyes opened and his fingers tensed against my scalp. “All right, maybe you can quit talking.”
I ignored him.
“That’s why it hurt so much.” My voice was so quiet it was barely audible. “What you said. You being you, looking like you, breathtaking…”
“Stop, Lauren.” His voice was a growl.
“I’m not throwing it in your face, I’m just saying –”
He interrupted me again. “I know what you’re sayin’.”
I put my hand on his chest and told him softly, “Tate, you’re all that.”
“Baby –”
“And you like me.”
“Shut it, Laurie.”
I moved my head, sliding my cheek against his beard so my lips were at his ear, my arms went around him and I whispered, “So maybe I’m a little bit of all that too.”
I found myself moved suddenly, landing on my back with Tate’s body covering mine, his head up and his hand back at my jaw.
“You were all that before me,” he declared, his voice again a growl.
“Tate –”
“My guess? You been all that for awhile.”
“Captain –”
“Shitty luck, stupid decisions… I lost a lot in my life. My Mom left when I was a kid. Thought I’d live life high, playin’ football and that dream was dead almost the second it began. Then my Dad died. Mixed up with Neeta, with Bethany, havin’ Jonas and thinkin’ I finally got a hint of sweet only to have it come along with a lot of fightin’ and headache and broken promises I was fuckin’ stupid enough to believe. I haven’t had much of all that. All I ever had I had to fight for, pay for or do penance for because I jacked up. Then you walk into my goddamned bar lookin’ for a job.”
“Tate –”
His thumb came to my lips and put pressure on.
“Shut it,” he whispered.
“Okay,” I said against his thumb.
“I don’t define you,” he told me.
“I know, but I –” I started and his thumb, still against my lips, pressed gently so I shut up.
“You’re not found because you found me,” he went on. “You think that you’re still lost.”
I didn’t speak.
Tate did. “I wasn’t here, you cuttin’ ties and gettin’ out from under him, you woulda found your way.”
He stopped talking so I chanced speaking.
“Can I say something now?” I asked against his thumb and he moved it away, rolled to his side and brought me to facing him.
Then he said, “Yeah.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “But –”
“No buts about it, Ace.”
I put my fingers to his lips and asked quietly, “Can I say what I need to say, Tate?”
He didn’t speak or nod, he just waited.
So I spoke. “I would have come back to me, eventually. It’s just that, it so happens I found myself with you leading the way.”
“Laurie –”
I moved my hand and replaced it with my lips.
“Thank you,” I whispered and then I kissed him, doing it hard and putting feeling into it, a lot of it, as much as I felt for him and what he’d given me. And what he’d given me was huge.
He’d given me me.
I pushed him to his back, slid on top and kept kissing him with Tate kissing me back.
Eventually, I lifted my head to look at him and Tate’s hands slid into my hair, pulling it away from my face and holding it behind my head.
His eyes were on the fall of hair that escaped his hands and curtained my left eye then they came to mine.
“You got great hair, babe,” he muttered.
I lifted a hand so my finger could slide along his hairline then all of them glided in.
“You do too,” I replied.
One of his hands left my hair and became an arm wrapped around my upper back, his other hand cupping my head and both brought me back down to him.
“I have to frost the cake,” I whispered.
“In a little while,” he whispered back.
“And make dinner,” I continued.
“Later.”
“Captain –”
He cut me off with, “Ace.”
I studied his beautiful face.
“She’s mine,” he’d said to Wood.
I was his. And he was mine.
I smiled and my mouth went to his. “All right, honey. Later.”
His head slanted one way, mine tilted the other and it was a lot later when I was able to get up, frost the cake and make dinner.
* * * * *
We had pork tenderloin with Gramps’s famous glaze, boiled new potatoes, salad and delicious rolls with sunflower seeds crusting the top, eating it at the wrought iron table on Tate’s back patio.
My eyes were on his terraced yard and my mind was filled. It was filled with what it would say to Tate if I spent a day weeding the plants and adding more. It was filled with if I cared anymore about Tate reading what that said (and I figured I didn’t). It was filled with Tate telling me his Mom left and his Dad was dead and how little I knew about him. It was filled with how strong the feeling was that I wanted to know more and the fact the power behind that feeling didn’t scare me. It was filled with the knowledge that Wood “killed” Tate’s Dad in a car accident; with Stella telling Tate to cut Wood slack; with Stella saying, if Tate let it go, Wood would be able to; and with Wood telling me they once were brothers. It was filled with Wood coming to take my back when Neeta was in town, for me but also for Tate, even after what passed between the three of us. And it was filled with Wood telling Tate he’d do anything he could to help Tate get Jonas from Wood’s sister.
Wood missed Tate and you only hold onto anger that long if the person you’re angry at meant something to you so I was guessing Tate missed Wood too.
“Ace,” Tate called and I looked from his plants to him. “You lied.”
Taken from my thoughts and surprised at his words
, I felt my eyebrows draw together. “Sorry?”
He slid his fork on his plate and his brows went up. “Passable?”
I looked at his clean plate then back to him. “My cooking’s okay, not much to write home about. This was good because of my grandfather’s famous mustard sauce, not me.”
“Your grandfather come for a visit while I was puttin’ up the curtain rods?” he asked.
“No, he’s dead,” I answered.
“Babe,” Tate replied on a grin.
I felt the sudden, intense need for Tate to know about me. I’d let him in, I’d let me out. I wanted this and I wanted him and I wanted him to have me.
Therefore, I shared, “All my grandparents are dead.”
He sat back in his chair, his eyes never leaving mine. “Yeah?”
“Gramps, that’s Mom’s father, he’s the mustard glaze guru,” I informed him, Tate didn’t reply so I went on. “It was his farm that became Dad’s. He had only girls. Three of them. Dad studied agriculture at school. His folks owned a farm too but it was smaller and he was the second of two sons. My Uncle George got that farm.” Tate remained silent so I went on. “Dad took over Gramps’s farm. We all lived there together, all my life, until I left and, after that, Grams and Gramps passed away. It was okay though, us being together, because it was a big house and it made us a big family.”
Tate still didn’t speak, didn’t start sharing his own stories so I continued.
“Mom’s Mom, Grams, she made great chocolate chip cookies. The best,” I stated. “She used to refrigerate the dough between making it and baking it. I don’t know what this did but it made her cookies killer.”
Tate watched me and made not a noise.
“Dad’s Dad, he was a master at the grill. He could grill an amazing steak,” I continued.
Tate’s lips twitched but he remained quiet.
“Dad’s Mom,” I blathered on. “She was Polish and she could cook. I mean she could cook. She made these cookies, like crescent rolls but in cookie form with lots of cinnamon and sugar and butter and the dough was made with sour cream so they were rich and she sifted powdered sugar on them. She made them every Christmas and I always went over to help. She let me brush the melted butter on the rolled out dough and sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar on and she let me sift the powdered sugar on top.”
Sweet Dreams Page 35