The caption under it said, “Tate’s Flame, love her or hate her (and I hate her), she’s got great legs.”
I shot from the chair and squealed, “Oh my God!”
Jonas grinned up at me. “You’re famous, Laurie.”
I didn’t hear him. I was too focused on my horrified panic.
I tore my eyes from the screen, reached out to where my cell phone was on top of a pile of scattered papers on Tate’s desk, snatched it up and called Tate.
“Laurie, it’s cool. Loretta’s awesome. She went to school with Dad at Penn State. They had some class together. He knew her. Dad says she’s harmless,” Jonas, reading the atmosphere, assured me.
I looked down at him and didn’t answer because Tate said into my ear, “Everything okay, babe?”
“You’ve got a stalker!” I shouted into the phone.
“She found Loretta’s page, Dad!” Jonas yelled to be heard by his father.
“Ace –” I heard Tate say in my ear.
I interrupted him. “There’s a picture of me.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “There is?”
“She said she hated me!” My voice got shrill on the last two words.
“Honey –”
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
“Babe, calm down and listen to me. I’ll talk to Loretta –”
“No,” I cut him off. “I can’t deal with this. Too much. I have officially had too much. There’s a serial killer on the loose! I don’t need to deal with your stalker!”
“Lauren, quiet down and listen, all right? There’s bad stalkers and then there’s stalkers like Loretta.”
“She’s taking pictures of me! And saying she hates me! On the internet!” I screeched.
“She would say that ‘cause you’re with me. She hated Neeta too.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered and then looked down at Jonas. “Jonas, go to the alarm panel and activate it,” I ordered, too frenzied to notice Jonas didn’t move a muscle and I said into the phone, “Where do you keep your guns?”
“Babe –”
“What if she’s out there?”
“Lauren –”
“What if Loretta and her camera are out there?”
“Laurie, Loretta and I have a deal. She doesn’t come to the house.”
I didn’t hear him. I kept panicking.
“What if she snaps? What if she snaps when Jonas is here? Oh my God!”
“Lauren, shut it, take a deep breath and fuckin’ listen to me.” Tate’s voice was firm and unyielding in my ear. “Loretta is harmless.”
“Right,” I snapped.
“She lives in Pennsylvania. She works there too. She’s married and has three kids. She takes her vacations in Carnal or wherever she finds out I’m gonna be. Sometimes, she even brings her husband and kids with her.”
“That’s crazy,” I breathed.
“I’m her hobby,” he told me.
“That’s crazy,” I repeated.
“Some women get hung up on movie stars, some on sports stars, Loretta’s stuck on me. She lives her life normal. I’ve met her husband and her fuckin’ kids. She’s completely harmless.”
“She tracks you down!”
“She likes me.”
“She’s devoted a website to you and she says on it she hates me!” I reminded him.
“She doesn’t mean it. Other people devote websites and blogs to shit they get off on. She started puttin’ pictures of Jonas on there, I called her and told her I didn’t like that, they were gone in an hour. She’s got a good life but that don’t mean she can’t fantasize and she does, usin’ me. There’s nothin’ wrong with that.”
“I fantasize too, Tate, but I don’t stalk hot guys, take pictures of them when they don’t know I’m around and spend my free time building websites devoted to them.”
“You fantasize?”
Uh-oh.
I had the feeling from his tone that our conversation just took a drastic turn.
“Tate –”
“Who do you fantasize about?”
“It doesn’t matter. This matters. This freaks me out.”
“Who do you fantasize about, Lauren?”
“It doesn’t matter!” I shouted.
“I got shit to do and I know Loretta’s website matters to you so I’m takin’ my time talkin’ to you about it. I’ll call her, tell her to knock it off with pictures of you and comments about you. She’ll probably call you and apologize, that’s the kind of person she is. Now, who you fantasize about matters to me so you’re talkin’ to me about it.”
I looked down at Jonas and informed Tate, “Jonas is in the room.”
“Tell him to get out, close the fuckin’ door then you answer my question.”
“I’m not going to tell Jonas to get out!” I snapped.
“I’m gone, Dad!” Jonas, the little traitor, yelled into the room, smiled at me and then left, closing the door loudly behind him.
Tate heard the door close, I knew this because he ordered instantly, “Answer my question.”
“Why does this matter to you?”
“I got my cock in you, Ace, you’re moanin’ sweet for me, you close your eyes, I still wanna know I’m all you see.”
“Are you nuts?” I asked.
“Answer my fuckin’ question.”
Oh no. He was mad. Really mad. I knew it and I also knew I had to stop it before it got out of hand.
Therefore, I whispered, “You.”
“Come again?”
“You. I fantasize about you.”
Silence.
For some stupid reason, I kept talking, “Before we were together and um… when I… when you’re gone, I…”
He cut me off, muttering, “Fuck me.”
“Though I wouldn’t build a website devoted to you,” I added idiotically.
“Our nighttime telephone conversations just changed,” he announced.
“Sorry?”
“You’ve been holdin’ out on me. You touch yourself thinkin’ about me when I’m gone, babe, you’re not so high-class and too good a girl not to let me listen.”
Pretty much every erogenous zone in my body started to hum.
“Tate –” I breathed.
“Startin’ tonight.”
Oh my God.
“Tate, I’m not –”
“And you’re gonna describe to me everything you’re seein’ in your head.”
Oh my God.
“Captain –”
“In detail.”
“Tate –”
“While I listen to you makin’ yourself come.”
“Um…”
“I’ll call Loretta, tell her to get in touch with you, she’ll apologize. You call me tonight I want you ready to put your hand between your legs.”
“Uh…”
“We done?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We’re done.”
Then he hung up.
I stared blankly at nothing. Then I stared at my photo on the screen of his computer. Then I took my phone from my ear and dropped it on the desk.
An hour later, Loretta called and apologized. I checked the website as she invited me to do and saw my photo was gone. She chattered to me for another twenty minutes about life in general, hers, mine and a little bit of Tate’s. Not in a stalker-esque way, in a normal-esque way. I’d long since realized she was nice when she said she’d call next time she was in Carnal and we’d have coffee “at that place where that hippie makes great lemon poppy seed bread”. I got the courage to ask if she would e-mail me the photo she’d taken of Tate and me. She agreed, sounding delighted to do so. Then she rang off.
An hour after that, I checked my e-mail to see that Loretta not only sent me the picture of Tate and I on his bike, she sent me another one of us standing by his bike, his hand to my jaw, my hands were at his waist and we were kissing. Her hilarious commentary was, “Girl, you are so lucky! Isn’t he hot?”
She’d never kno
w just how hot he was.
Poor Loretta.
A number of hours after that, part anxious, part scared and part turned on, I climbed into bed, called Tate and five seconds later I had my hand between my legs.
The anxiety and fear melted a second after that.
I melted ten minutes later.
* * * * *
Four days after that, I was dead asleep when Tate came home.
He woke me and this was the first part of the first fantasy I described to him over the phone.
He then proceeded to help me live out the rest of it.
In detail.
After we were both done, Tate pressed his hips into mine, I came off my knees, he came off his, I went down to my belly, his body covered my back and he rested his forearms in the bed on either side of me.
“You like that, baby?” he whispered in my ear.
“Yeah, Captain,” I whispered my understatement back.
He kissed my shoulder and muttered against my skin, “Fuck, it’s good to be home.”
I didn’t get a chance to reply, he righted us in bed, pulled the covers over us and tucked me close.
“Go back to sleep, Laurie,” he murmured.
“Okay, honey.”
His arms gave me a squeeze. “Sweet dreams, baby.”
“You too, Captain.”
I settled into him and fell asleep before he did.
I didn’t wake up once.
* * * * *
It wouldn’t be for weeks when I would realize I’d stopped waking up at all when Tate was home with me. It was only when he was away that I was restless.
It was Tate who made me realize this and he did it when he walked into the bathroom one morning while I was brushing my teeth wearing nothing but my undies. He stopped behind me, slid an arm around my stomach and pressed into my back.
My eyes went to his in the mirror and I noted instantly he had something on his mind.
He didn’t make me wait.
“You keepin’ somethin’ from me?” he asked.
I blinked, pulled the toothbrush out of my mouth then answered, “No.”
His arm gave me a squeeze, a physical warning, and he gave me a verbal warning through the way he said, “Babe.”
I stared in his eyes, finished brushing, spit, rinsed, wiped and tried to turn but Tate kept me where I was, facing the mirror with his arm wrapped around my waist.
“Tate –” I said into the mirror.
“I don’t like you doin’ it alone.”
“What?”
“The night.”
I shook my head and asked, “Sorry?”
“I don’t like you facin’ the night alone. You wake up, I don’t, I’m tellin you now, babe, you wake me.”
That was when it hit me and I stared at him in the mirror, silently.
I did this for awhile, long enough for him to get impatient, give me a squeeze and prompt, “Got me?”
“I’m not waking up,” I whispered, stunned, still staring at him.
There hadn’t been a time I could remember when I didn’t wake up, not since I was a kid. Maybe for a night or two but not regularly. My mind had tortured me, and my sleep, since forever.
“Come again?” he asked.
My hands went to the basin and I held on.
“I’m not…” I shook my head in disbelief. “Tate, baby,” I was still whispering, “when you’re here, I don’t wake up.” I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and kept whispering. “It’s only when you’re gone that I –”
His arm went loose, his hands came to my hips, he stepped back and turned me to face him then stepped back in, his arm going back around me, his other hand coming to my jaw.
I tipped my head back to look at him.
“Honey –” he started and a tear slid down my cheek.
“All my life,” I interrupted him, “since I could remember. And now I’m not. Not while you’re around.”
“Laurie –” he whispered, his thumb moving to wipe away my tear.
“You’re…” I swallowed, “you’re it.”
“I know, baby,” he murmured, his forehead dropping to mine. “You’re it for me too.”
“No,” I told him. “You don’t get it. You’re the something special I’ve been looking for. And what I was looking for was what I needed to put my mind at ease.”
“Ace –” he started but I fitted myself to him and slid my arms tight around him.
“I knew it but I didn’t know it. Now I know it.”
For some reason, suddenly his head came up and he stared down at me with such concentration and for so long, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What?” I asked.
“You aren’t goin’ anywhere,” he stated and I blinked again.
“What?”
“This is good enough for you.”
I shook my head and squeezed him with my arms. “Tate, you aren’t making –”
“You don’t just believe I can do anything, I can do anything, for you.”
I stopped breathing.
“Fix your sleep,” he stated.
I stared.
“Fucked up my whole life, made shitty decisions, almost fucked up my son’s life, but not you. I can do anything when I’m with you.”
“You could before,” I told him.
“Not until you.”
“Tate, you –”
“The day you rolled into town, babe, you saw me with Neeta. The next day, the day I met you, that’s when it began.”
“It isn’t.”
“Fuck,” he hissed, his voice so intense it was nearly physical, “wish Dad coulda met you.”
I stared at him, stunned speechless when it hit me my beautiful, badass biker had been broken.
And I’d fixed him too.
“It broke you,” I whispered.
“What?”
“When you lost the game, it broke you. You were on your way to self-fulfilled prophesies too.”
He stared down at me and I held my breath for his reaction.
Then he said softly, “Yeah.”
“You didn’t think, without the game defining you, that you could find a good life.”
“No.”
“And, for whatever reason, I didn’t think I was worthy of something special so I never found it, until you.”
His bizarre response to that admission was, “Thank Christ.”
“Sorry?”
“Babe, you let your college boyfriend show you you were somethin’ special all along, right about now, I wouldn’t be standin’ in my bathroom with you in my arms. I’d be fucked.”
“Well –”
“Jonas would too.”
“Um…”
His forehead came back to mine but his chin moved down half an inch so his nose was alongside mine. “Makes me a dick, you lived with it for so long, but I don’t care, you still gotta know, I’m pleased as fuck I’m the only one can give you sweet dreams.”
The tears came back and instantly spilled over.
“Me too, Tate,” I whispered.
“Waited a long time to be somethin’ special again, baby,” he whispered back.
“I’m glad it’s me who gets it.”
I watched through wet eyes as his smiled.
“All right, Ace, this is done,” he announced quietly.
“What?”
“These heart to hearts.”
“Oh,” I whispered, disappointed because I kind of liked them. “Okay.”
“We get it now,” he explained. “We don’t need ‘em.”
“Oh,” I repeated, not disappointed anymore because he was right. “Okay.” Then I asked, “Is Jonas still asleep?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
My hand trailed to his abs.
“Good,” I murmured.
“Baby?”
The fingers of my other hand slid into his hair as my hand at his stomach dipped down to cup his crotch.
“Feel like playing,” I whispered.
&nbs
p; He grinned.
“Can I?” I asked.
“I’m ready for you to stop playin’ and get serious, I tell you, you get serious.”
“Deal,” I agreed and his eyes grew dark.
“On your knees, Ace,” he growled.
That was when I grinned.
Then I got down on my knees.
* * * * *
Life got pretty sweet after Tate and my final heart to heart in the bathroom that ended in him getting a blowjob from me followed by me getting an orgasm sitting with my behind on the edge of the basin, my legs wrapped around his shoulders and his mouth between my legs.
This didn’t mean we didn’t have dramas.
But all of our dramas revolved around Jonas.
One included Jonas having a ten year old boy fit at the mall, a fit which was backed up by Tate when Tate and I took him back to school clothes shopping. I felt his closet and drawers should be far fuller. Tate and Jonas didn’t agree and felt after we bought two pairs of jeans, a few t-shirts and a pair of gym shoes that cost nearly as much as the picture I bought Tate (slight exaggeration), it was time to go see a movie.
I gave in and, since I knew his sizes, I took Amber, Betty and Wendy to the mall the next day and we augmented Jonas’s wardrobe.
We also augmented Tate’s.
We also augmented Amber, Betty, Wendy and mine.
We also visited Wanda at the home store because Jonas got new towels for his bathroom and Tate and I got a new soap dispenser and toothbrush holder for ours.
We also got new canisters for the kitchen and a new set of earthenware bowls that were heavy, gorgeous, fit snug in each other for easy storage but since they were painted a muted, dusty green, pink and blue, I set them out on the island because they looked cool there.
Jonas, on the other hand, thought they looked girlie.
Tate just looked at them, looked at me, his lips twitched then he walked away so I decided to take that as approval, or at least not objection.
The other drama included Tate registering Jonas for junior league football, something he excelled at and something Tate tried very hard not to miss, either practices or games. However, seeing as fugitives didn’t take your call and wait for you to meet them at the local police station so you could turn them in, this didn’t happen as much as Tate or Jonas would like (I, however, didn’t miss a game, though if Tate was home to pick him up for practice, I let them have their boy time and only picked him up when Tate as gone).
Sweet Dreams Page 51