This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  Kemble nodded. “Tremaine Enterprises does what it can to stop the schemes or mitigate the effects….”

  No wonder Kemble looked exhausted.

  “Enough of this depressing talk,” Brina interrupted. “Everybody eat up. Especially you two.” She placed a hand over Thomas’s and her wise eyes included Tammy. “You’ve had a rough couple of days, and I have a feeling you are going to need your strength.” She cast a glance around the table before she landed back on Thomas’s pained expression. “How did your control exercises go today?”

  Thomas shook his head, his expression suffused with shame.

  “He’s better,” Lan said, trying to keep it positive.

  “I lost control twenty-nine times today,” Thomas said. “You can count the black smudges in your driveway. Lan and Tris tried to help me, and Michael has a plan, but what if I…?”

  Tammy blinked. God. She had to stop herself from making love to Thomas if she wanted to live. How awful was that?

  “Aww, honey, you just need to keep Calm,” Maggie said. “Betcha I can give you a tip or two on that.” She gave a wink and a grin at Thomas, but her eyes were on Tammy. “Tammy knows I’m good at that, right?”

  OMG. Her family was taking over. This was just why she hadn’t wanted to come home at all. She stood up, her taco half-eaten. Her chair screeched back across the old tile floor. “You will not put anyone to sleep, Maggie,” she said, through clenched jaws.

  “Honey, I’m better at aiming these days. Damn accurate, in fact,” Maggie protested.

  “Ugggghhhh!” Tammy clenched her fists and looked around at faces shocked by her outburst. “And no guard duty, all right? Can’t you just…just let us work this out on our own? I’m not a baby anymore, in case any of you haven’t noticed.”

  It took Daddy’s hesitant smile to break her façade of invincibility. “We know that, Tamsen. Families just get protective of their own, that’s all.”

  “And he does start fires,” Tris muttered.

  Tammy glanced to Thomas, who looked concerned for her and a little confused. He took her hand, with predictable results. “What is upsetting you, Tammy?” he asked.

  All the fight went out of her. She didn’t even know how to explain it.

  “Sit down, Tamsen,” her mother said kindly. To Thomas, she said, “Families can be difficult.” She gave a rueful chuckle. “Ours more than most.”

  Reluctantly, Tammy sat.

  Thomas glanced around the table. “I’ve never had a family. But it appears to me that you have only care and concern for one another, even though these times are so difficult. That is a precious gift. I wish I could have that.”

  Wow. That put it all in perspective. Around the table the guys, except for Daddy, stared at their plates. Drew and Kee frowned in concern. Maggie and Greta, who had such horrible family lives before they became Tremaines, actually teared up.

  It was Mom who reached out to Thomas, though, and took his other hand. She smiled. “You can,” she said softly. “You do. You belong here with us now, Thomas. Whatever else happens, you’re part of the family.”

  “You say this, even though you don’t know me,” he said, almost to himself. “You ask nothing of me, yet offer me a home.” He looked guilty.

  “Oh, don’t say we ask nothing, young man.” Daddy belied his stern tone with twinkling eyes. Tammy hoped Thomas knew Daddy didn’t mean to be severe. “We’re a lot to put up with.”

  Distress crossed Thomas’s face. “But am I enough? So ignorant. So small of spirit…” He drew himself up to sit even straighter. “I can only promise that I will strive to be more. I will work to be worthy of this family, if you will allow it, Sir. You have helped me escape Morgan. You have tried to show me how to…to go on. I will find a way to help you in return.”

  Tammy’s eyes widened as murmurs of approval circled the table. It was like he was making a monk’s vow to her family. She began to panic. She’d been worried that they wouldn’t approve of Thomas, but that wasn’t the problem at all! He had just committed to them and they accepted him. This was all moving way too fast.

  “We all work to be worthy,” Tris snorted. “And I tell you, it’s a pain in the ass sometimes.” He squeezed Maggie’s hand, even as she swatted his shoulder.

  But Tammy didn’t smile. Her family had each found love and settled into a relationship. They had time to do that. But the Pentacle would form in only three nights. Who knew what would happen then? If Morgan and the Clan grew exponentially in power, how long would she allow the Tremaines to live? And for all the talk of how fruitless it would be to attack the Clan compound if they found it, it wasn’t lost on her that the men were still trying to find it, and she could practically see Michael calculating explosive requirements behind his eyes.

  Maybe her relationship with Thomas wasn’t moving fast enough.

  She looked over at him. She might have only known him three days, yet she wanted forever with him. She wanted to know what he thought, his favorite color, whether he woke up slowly in the morning, whether he liked anchovies on his pizza.

  His eyes turned up toward her. There was heat in those eyes. Had he been as aroused by her proximity as she was by his?

  God, how she wanted him! But the whole estate wasn’t safe if he got too excited or anxious, including her family, and she didn’t trust Maggie not to just put him to sleep with her Calm. Plus, she didn’t want the whole family finding ways to “help” them. What to do?

  The one thing she was sure of was that she couldn’t sit here anymore. They didn’t have to make love. Maybe they could just talk. Try to figure out how to proceed. She tore her eyes away from his. Everyone else was studiously ignoring them.

  Good. She rose. “Uh, excuse us.” She turned to Thomas. “I have something I want to show you.” The family all thought they knew what would happen. But they’d be wrong.

  Maggie started to get up.

  “You stay where you are,” Tammy ordered. “I mean, thank you for your concern, but Thomas and I are just going to talk and get to know each other, and we don’t need any help.”

  Maggie sat, reluctantly. Drew waved an insouciant hand, dismissing them, and continued talking to Kemble, almost like the old Drew. So why did Tammy have the feeling she was pretending? “Can you draw the slab you saw? Did you see the channels clearly? I saw it in a vision but not from a good angle. Its origin might tell us something about the ceremony.”

  Something niggled at Tammy’s mind as she drew Thomas out into the living room. Where to go? She wasn’t taking him to her room—or his. The family would be clustered outside the door with Maggie cascading Calm all over the entire house in no time. Kemble had installed cameras in the gazebo after Lan and Greta made love there and then slipped out the back and down to the beach, worrying everyone to death. Where weren’t there security cameras? Kemble could see everywhere.

  Except the barn.

  He’d see them going in and there were cameras over the arena. But not in the hayloft.

  Perfect.

  “Come on. I know where we can talk.” She led him out through the Bay of Pigs, down the path and around the dressage ring to the stables. His callused hand was warm in hers even as it sent shocks of sensation to her female parts. It felt as though she’d always held it. Thomas followed her wordlessly as they went down to the barn. The smell of hay and wood shavings, oiled leather and manure always felt like coming home. Calley and Gwen and the goats, Napoleon and Josephine all rustled in their stalls. She rubbed a few noses on her way by, but she couldn’t stop for an extended visit. She was a woman on a mission. When she came to the ladder at the far end, she motioned Thomas up it.

  “No, you first, Tammy. I will be below you in case you fall.”

  Sweet. Unnecessary, but sweet.

  Lance gamboled through the door, tail waving. “You,” Tammy said. “Guard.” Lance practically stood to attention. As a sheepdog, he loved to have a job, and he knew that command. He lay down, facing the barn doors.

/>   Thomas looked around and grabbed a serape she sometimes folded and used as an extra cushion for Cally under the saddle pad. Tammy climbed. The smell of hay surrounded her, baled in neat stacks by the huge open door at the end of the loft. Piles of shavings for the stalls were heaped everywhere. It smelled of summer. The light was dim—just the lights from the house above them drifting in from the loft door. She scraped big armfuls of shavings from the pile and Thomas joined her, until they had a soft place to sit. He flapped out the serape.

  What am I thinking? “Thomas, you have to keep calm. A loft filled with hay and wood shavings is a super bad place for a Firestarter, but it’s the only place we can be private.”

  “Michael told me how to keep calm. His ideas might work, even though I failed in the driveway.” Thomas pulled her down beside him. The heat was still in his eyes.

  “We can’t do it, Thomas,” she said severely. “Especially not here.”

  “Do what?”

  Tammy rolled her eyes. “Have sex. It’s too dangerous.”

  He sighed. “Your father would not forgive me for defiling you and taking your virginity.”

  At the word “virginity” the thought that had been niggling at her jumped out. The tiles started dropping into place like the Tetris game she’d played so obsessively as a child.

  Morgan groomed Thomas for a purpose that had to do with the ceremony. She made sure he was a virgin. She brought a stone to be the altar for the ceremony that had channels cut in it.

  Shock suffused her as she realized what all that meant.

  Why had she thought Morgan wanted Thomas a virgin just so she could deflower him? Morgan meant to sacrifice Thomas as part of the ceremony at the time of the Pentacle.

  Her eyes filled. And her family knew. That’s why Tris said she and Thomas couldn’t go along if the family went to the compound. Because she was a virgin too. Her blood could also serve Morgan’s purpose.

  “What?” Thomas asked, concerned. When she didn’t answer he took her by the shoulders. “Are you not well, Tammy?”

  Tammy’s brain churned. She blinked twice. There was only one way to protect him.

  It didn’t matter how dangerous it was. She’d try to help him keep some control. Go slow. Have him breathe, and pray that was enough to keep him from burning down the barn.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‡

  “You’re not leaving here a virgin,” she whispered. “And neither am I.”

  Thomas looked worried. He shook his head. “Your father will not forgive me.”

  That made Tammy mad. “Well, forget Daddy. It’s not his life. This is what I want.” Her eyes got big. “I mean…if it’s what you want.”

  Thomas heaved a sigh. “I want this more than anything.”

  “We just have to find a way to do it without starting any fires.”

  “This is truly what you want? In spite of what your family will think?”

  She nodded, sure of herself now.

  Thomas looked wistful then he smiled. It was so tender, so…so pure it almost broke Tammy’s heart. “This is what Michael talked about. I can do what you want without fires, because you want it. Be not afraid, Tammy. Michael told me the secret.”

  “What’s the secret?” God, but she hoped there was a secret.

  “To think about what you want and what you need, not what worries me. That will be easy for me. I think about you all the time.”

  “Michael told you that?” This was suspicious.

  “He told me all the secrets.” Thomas cupped her face, tenderly. “He said my problem is that I grow anxious because I am afraid I will not be good for you. But that will not be a problem now that I know how to do sex so you will like it.”

  Dear God. Michael had given him “the talk.”

  But she didn’t have time to think more because Thomas leaned in and swept his soft, full lips over hers, so gently, like a whisper of what would come. It made the tightness in her loins ramp up. She was sure her panties were already soaked.

  Then he put out the tip of his tongue and licked her lips, teasing her to open. When she did, he slid his tongue inside, along her teeth, around the inside of her lips. She breathed in his breath, and it seemed like all the sustenance she would ever need. If her panties weren’t soaked before, they sure were now.

  Thomas pulled back. “Was that all right, Tammy?”

  She couldn’t speak. His heat, the musk of his lust, the feel of his biceps under her hands—it was all too much for her. But she made her nod as definitive as she could. If he didn’t kiss her again right this minute, she would go up in flames without him.

  He leaned in again and this time the kiss was gentle but thorough, his tongue exploring her mouth, sliding along hers. Tammy hadn’t been kissed since she was in sixth grade, back when she could go to public school, and Davie Kirby, the popular guy in class, kissed her out behind the building where they kept the sports equipment. It had felt…slimy. This was way different, and not just because Davie had braces. Davie had been a groping boy and Thomas was a man. Dear God, was he a man. The touch of tongues was moist and incredibly intimate. She ran her hands up over his shoulders and in under his hair to cup his neck. His neck was strong like the rest of him, and yet it seemed so vulnerable, the skin so soft. She tangled her tongue with his. She suddenly didn’t resent the kisses she’d never had, or being confined to the estate for her teenage years. She’d been waiting for this kiss. This moment. This man.

  Thomas deepened the kiss and she pressed herself to his chest. She felt breathless, but it wasn’t because she couldn’t get air. It was she who broke the kiss before she lost her mind.

  “Didn’t you like that?” Thomas asked. A little anxiety had crept into his voice.

  “That was one of the best kisses ever. Not that I’ve had more than one before this one. But still.” Her brows drew together. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?”

  “Michael taught me.”

  “I don’t think so.” She couldn’t imagine Michael kissing Thomas.

  “Well, he told me about it and how you would want to feel. I improvised a little. Did you feel treasured?”

  “Pretty darned treasured.” She cleared her throat. “Could you treasure me some more?”

  He grinned and visibly relaxed. “I can treasure you all night, Tammy.”

  He gathered her into his chest as they kissed again. While she was thinking about the kiss, she realized he was laying her back onto the serape.

  Now his hand caressed her breast through the stretchy black top she wore. She felt her nipples peak. She groaned into his mouth. He smiled against her mouth.

  “What’s funny?” she asked breathlessly, through the kisses, more urgent now.

  “Michael warned me that you would groan, but that it meant you liked what I was doing, not that I was hurting you.”

  Michael is a genius. “Yeah. Don’t stop.”

  “You will like this even better.” He thumbed her nipple and began moving his lips over her cheekbones and chin, feathering small kisses there.

  Yup. Maybe not better, but a lot. Still, she had some obligation here. And she hadn’t had the benefit of coaching from Michael. (Thank goodness! She couldn’t imagine Michael telling her how to have sex.) But she’d read romances. She reached for the front of his jeans and pressed her palm along the thick ridge of his cock under the zipper. She was rewarded with a breath sucked in like it was his last.

  “You let me know if you’re feeling the heat build inside you,” she ordered, breathless.

  “Different kind of heat,” he murmured. “But I will.”

  As he kissed her neck she bared it to him and was surprised to feel her hips rolling restlessly on their makeshift bed. He kissed the notch in her throat, her collarbone. The ache in her loins got almost painful.

  He raised himself above her on his hands. “Do you think it’s time to remove clothing?”

  She grinned, suddenly shy, and nodded.

  “Let me help y
ou.” He took her stretchy black top by the hem and pulled it over her head, turning it inside out. “Oh.” He seemed rather stunned. “Can I look at you?”

  “Only if you take off your shirt so I have something to look at too.” She reached behind herself and unhooked her bra. No sense in making him fumble with that. He ripped his tee shirt off in one move, eyes never leaving her, revealing pale skin, bulging pectorals with soft, flat, pinky-brown nipples, ribbed abdomen, and bulky shoulders. Light chest hair turned into a slender arrow down his abdomen, diving into the front of his jeans. She’d always known the man was beautiful. She could hardly wait to see him naked.

  She felt a little hesitant to shed her bra entirely. But Thomas did exactly the right thing. He stood and unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his jeans while he toed off his boots. In just a few moments, he was naked, again beside her, propped on one elbow, his erect cock stiff and actually pretty intimidating. Was all that going to fit inside her?

  “Sorry,” he said hastily, watching her expression. “I think maybe you don’t like my penis? I meant to be naked so you wouldn’t feel more vulnerable than me.”

  “That was sweet, Thomas.” She swallowed. “Can’t say I’ve seen a, uh, human penis in the flesh before. Just paintings and statues and stuff. And never one with an erection. But I’m getting used to it.”

  “You can touch it if you wish to familiarize yourself with it,” he said, doubtfully. “It’s not very…well…attractive, I know. But I washed it very thoroughly right before dinner.”

  Attractive wasn’t the right word. Fascinating, maybe. Compelling. “Okay.” She slipped out of her bra entirely and reached for his cock.

  “Just, uh, not very much. Because Michael says I have to last no matter what.”

  That made her chuckle. Thank goodness for Michael, for both their sakes. He was giving her directions through Thomas as well.

  Thomas’s cock was silky smooth. She touched it gently. In the semi-darkness she couldn’t really tell the color, but it looked darker than his pale skin, nested in a tangle of hair. The shape of its head while erect was not what she expected. She was used to Cally’s and the goats’ male equipment. Thomas’s was nicer, thank goodness—more compact. Underneath the almost delicate skin, it was hard. Tentatively, she folded her fist around it, just to see how hard it was. It filled her hand, iron and velvet. She almost jumped when it throbbed in her palm.