She smiled, slowly swinging her head from side to side. “Why am I not surprised?”
“There. That’s what I’ve been looking for.” He angled her chin up and kissed her lightly. “I wanted to see that pretty smile. Ready to go?”
“I want to see him first.”
An ICU nurse accompanied Brandy to the expansive room housing several beds, most of them filled. Tucker waited against the wall, sneaking a peek through the wide open doorway. He was able to see Brandy sit in the chair provided, reach over, and take her father’s hand. She spoke to him, but too softly for him to make out. A few minutes later, with a gentle pat on her shoulder, she was ushered out.
“How’s he look?” he asked her.
“He actually looks comfortable, but the nurse told me they’d be on high alert all night in case something happened. It’s amazing he didn’t break his arm or one of his legs, the way he must have fallen.”
“Someone definitely looking out for him,” Tucker answered back. “Let’s go.”
He drove in complete silence the short ten blocks before he arrived at the gates to his complex. He was grateful he didn’t have to ruminate any longer than five minutes over his choice to bring her to his place. He’d have been a nervous wreck. Putting it all out of his mind, he helped her climb down from his truck, tucked the blanket and pillow under one arm, and took her hand with the other.
The first thing that hit him when he opened his front door was that he’d never before noticed that his room smelled of man sweat. Her room smelled of lavender and other floral fragrances. Before he turned on any lights, he stumbled in the dark, picked up the clothes he’d worn skydiving today under the jumpsuit, and tossed them behind the closet doors. Before he could choose the right lighting, Brandy turned on the bright kitchen lights, exposing the sink full of dishes. It was over three day’s worth, even though he ate mostly frozen dinners on a regular basis.
Why hadn’t he thought about this?
He hung his head sheepishly, hoping it didn’t leave too much of a negative impression. “Between housekeepers,” he mumbled, rolling his neck and left shoulder.
“You already warned me, so no worries. You also mentioned you don’t have a decorator.” She smiled, seemingly to enjoy his squirming. “I wasn’t expecting an extreme makeover,” she said, batting her eyes at him.
Tucker was definitely not feeling the least bit romantic. He was scared out of his gourd. He was on uncharted territory and regretted not paying attention to that little voice that usually gave him pretty good advice.
She wandered around his living room, examining the walls and bare corners. He had one couch, and it conformed perfectly to the contours of his large frame, even if it was ugly as sin. The table in front was a wooden shipping crate. She leaned over it and studied his choice of reading material. Several nudie magazines with specialty titles like I Love Titties and Booty Call were stacked five or six issues deep. All he could do was close his eyes and wait for her reaction. It was too late to whisk them away out of sight.
She picked up one cover and showed him the enormous boobs on the unfortunate girl. “Do mine look anywhere like these?” she asked, her face showing no expression.
“Holy cow, Brandy. No. Fuck no! Yours are…well, they’re just right. A nice, full,” he began to hold out his palms, fingers splayed and pointing up, “handful, just overflowing.”
She had her hands on her waist. It was one of those attitude things women frequently gave him. He knew he was in some trouble, but wasn’t sure how much. With his lack of sleep last night, his radar was not working, and his blood was inconveniently pooling elsewhere. He hoped she didn’t notice. He wished she’d say something.
“But completely inadequate, compared to these.” She held the magazine up, covering her chest.
“God, Brandy, those are unnatural. I mean if I wanted to play with a couple of deflated basketballs, I’d go take a drive to Sports City.”
She flipped the magazine over to examine it again. “They do sort of look like basketballs.”
Since she wasn’t smiling, he carefully waited for the whole scene to pass. He tried to reassure her he liked her just the way she was built.
“And you have lovely curves, sweetheart. She’s like a human tuck and roll. I like nice, curvy hips. I mean look at me. I want a woman I don’t have to worry about breaking her pelvis when I make love. I hate skinny women.”
He wasn’t sure it was enough, so he waited, squinting as if bracing for a blow. She tossed the magazine back onto the table, and picked up one of the big butt issues. “Big Book of Booty. Nice.”
Her darting glance at him was painful, but his dick was having great fun at his expense. Luckily, Brandy didn’t look there. Instead, she smiled and asked him, “Does my ass look like this?”
Tucker was stumped. Brandy’s ass did indeed look like the cover model’s. She was round in all the right places. He decided he’d have to live or die, but he’d be honest with her.
“Yes, your butt looks sort of like that, only better. Smooth as silk. I love the way it looks and feels, sweetheart.” He was hoping she didn’t catch on that this was his favorite magazine.
“So why’d you buy this other one if you don’t like basketballs with nipples? Or are you lying to me?”
“Look, Brandy, we’re going places we don’t have to go. But the truth is, there are some nice pictures on the inside. They aren’t all like this. This is shock value, to make men buy the magazine. That’s all. This is like a cartoon, a comic book, something men do to pass the time, like playing a video game or something. It’s all fantasy.”
He carefully maneuvered himself behind her, removing the magazine from her hands and turning her around.
“I don’t need those things anymore. I got the real thing right here. You were created perfect for me. I mean that, Brandy.” He massaged the top of her spine. With the other hand, he slipped it around her waist and slowly pulled her to him. “Perfect, in every way,” he whispered. He let his hands massage her ass, squeezing and pressing her against his hardness.
“Why can’t I be your fantasy, Tucker?”
“You are. You totally are. Men look. That’s what we do. You do it, I’m sure. I mean, I saw all those romance novels overflowing your bookshelf. Some of those guys were naked. I’m sure it’s done to sell those books to women, right?”
He suddenly felt like a louse. Here her father was in ICU, and he was having this discussion about boobs and booty. His lust was driving the conversation, clouding his better judgment. It wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t even fair to himself. He wasn’t acting like a real man. He was acting like a wolf—and everything he didn’t respect. He was disgusted with himself.
He stepped away.
“I’m sorry, Brandy. This isn’t right. I brought you here so you could get a good night’s sleep, to help you rest.” He chanced stepping back to her until he could feel the heat of her body again. “Let’s just keep things simple and do that, okay? Let’s forget about all this crap. I’m beat, and I’ll bet you are, too. Can we call a truce and just sleep? I’ll even keep my clothes on if you like.”
He could feel her soften as she bridged the gap between them, all those lovely curves fitting so nicely, making him come alive. She placed her palms on his chest.
“It was my fault, Tucker. But I think you have a good idea there. Why don’t we just go to bed?”
“You’re on. No objections here,” he lied. He tried to keep his grin from looking too lecherous. He took her hand and gently pulled her to the bedroom. He pretended he didn’t notice the posters of well-oiled ladies on motorcycles, stark naked, or how she was staring at them with interest. She approached the poster with the row of ten perfect asses. He heard her inhale and hoped she wasn’t going to object. If she did, he was going to rip all of them off the wall and toss everything from his balcony to the pool level below.
But what she did next surprised him. She removed her clothes, giving him one of those looks that
made him nervous. It was the thing that scared him most about women. He had no way of knowing what was really going on inside her mind. While she stood in her bra and panties, she undid the center clasp and allowed the magnificence of her breasts to shine in the moonlight, beckoning to him. He was holding his breath, mesmerized.
“I like your idea. Let’s just sleep.” She pulled back the sheets and slid her naked body under them, invading his man bed, defiling his private sanctuary that would forever after smell like her and bring back memories of what it was like to have her there lying next to him.
He hurried to discard his pants and shirt and then his red, white and blue boxers, turning to sit on the edge so she wouldn’t see the enormous hard-on he had for her. She snuggled close, wrapping her arms around his upper torso and squeezing her lovely upper chest against him. She moved her head just enough so her lips touched his ear when she said, “And then maybe tomorrow morning you can fuck my brains out.”
Tucker knew he was hopelessly flawed. But he also knew he was utterly hooked on this woman. And he’d only known her for less than twenty-four hours. This had never happened to him before. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be taking her to dress fittings and window shopping jewelry shops.
It would be the end of his life as he knew it.
And he’d love every minute of it.
Chapter 8
As the days and weeks flew by, Brandy’s father recovered with only a slight amount of memory loss. He still had headaches that drove him to bed from time to time. He was able to identify his attacker as Jorge, his former employee. Although both the Sheriff and the San Diego PD searched, when they couldn’t find him and he stopped reporting for meetings he was required to attend, it was assumed he had fled to Mexico. With his prior record, when he was apprehended, he’d be going away for a long time, since the assault caused injury that necessitated a hospital stay, and drew blood.
Brandy and Tucker spent time with Dorie and Brawley when they returned from their honeymoon in Hawaii. She also worked longer hours at the grocery, and assisted her father in hiring two more experienced clerks. She hired a professional organizer to work with her dad to get the office looking more like an office than a storage unit.
But Brandy knew she’d have to get another good job like she had with the ad agency. The rents in San Diego weren’t cheap, and with Tucker staying over at her cottage so much of the time, she wanted to get someplace more private and not under her father’s watchful eye. But she was in no hurry. She allowed her relationship with Tucker to take it’s own path. The longer she was around him, the less of a difference their fifteen-year age spread made.
But today was going to be an important test of their relationship. Tucker had worked on her non-stop until she finally relented. She was going to allow him to take her tandem skydiving. Although she’d visited the glider port and watched him jump and land safely a dozen times, it did nothing to remove her fear.
“You just have to ignore it. Just like you did when you learned to ride your first bike,” he’d told her.
“But I wasn’t going to fall thirteen thousand feet if I had a mishap on the bike.” She couldn’t imagine she would enjoy falling through the sky, even with Tucker securely strapped to her back.
“Trust me, it doesn’t feel like you’re falling. It feels like there’s a blast of wind coming straight from the earth, holding you up so you can fly. It really does feel that way, Brandy. You’ll see.”
The old converted bomber with the door removed loaded everyone and their buddies up after some ground instruction. Brandy and Tucker were to be in the middle of the jump, since it was her first one. Several SEALs and former Teammates of Tucker’s jumped solo, doing cartwheels and in-air formations. At last it was their turn. She stood at the edge of the door, barely able to see cars moving below. Houses looked no bigger than her pinkie fingernail. The air that blew back through the jump door was freezing cold.
She wasn’t sure when she was supposed to jump, and worried she’d catch her foot or shoelace on the flange at the opening.
“When do we—” she began to shout, until she felt Tucker’s weight behind her and effortlessly they were out of the plane and freefalling. As her heart rate began to return to normal, she realized he was right. It didn’t feel like she was falling at all. It felt like the earth was slowly moving to reach out and touch her, but very, very slowly. He tapped her arms, signaling her to make a human “W” as she extended them out to the sides and spread her feet.
He kissed the top of her head and shouted, “Close your mouth. I’m getting slimed.”
Her wonderment and awe had caused her to forget that little part of the training. “Sorry,” she shouted back at the top of her lungs.
Tucker handed her the cord to the chute and together they pulled it, which yanked her straight up several hundred feet, or so it seemed. As the glider extended, Tucker steered them around in circles, even driving them through wispy clouds, soaring up and then doing high-banked turns in mid air. As she came closer and closer to the earth, the air began to warm.
He pointed out the border. “That’s Mexico right over there.” He also pointed out several other landmarks. The San Diego Bay appeared like it was a shallow bowl of silver pebbles as it glistened in the morning sun. She took his hand and kissed his palm.
“Thank you,” she said to him in the quiet. It felt like the ride went on for an hour, that they would be suspended all day, but finally the ground began to loom large. She threw her legs out in front of her as they landed on Tucker’s, collapsed and rolled together in the long grass, entangled in the chute.
Looking up to the sky, it appeared twice as big as before, and twice as blue. A gentle breeze rearranged her hair when her cap fell to the side. Tucker’s face and beard was pressed to her cheek. “I knew you could do it,” he whispered. But even that whisper had the deep raspy tones that made her whole body vibrate.
“Amazing,” was all she could think to say in return, as she continued searching the blue spans above her. “It wasn’t anything at all what I imagined.”
“It’s like a lot of things. Scarier to think about than to do. We do thousands of these jumps on the Teams. Twice as high. At midnight when you only have your night vision specs on. You see oceans of glittering lights and hope that they’re harmless animals, not the eyeballs of the enemy.”
“I could never do that,” she answered. “But I can see you doing it. Must have been fun.”
Tucker hesitated before he said anything at all, and then she couldn’t make out the words. She left him to his private thoughts. She knew he missed the life, and would ask him sometime how he replaced the adrenaline he used to have coursing through his veins. She wondered if being a farmer, or a father or husband would ever be really enough.
“Come on, we gotta get up before we get overrun with the newbies.” He pulled her up by the straps, unhooked her from him and from the chute and began gathering the colorful fabric, shaking out the blades of grass and small rocks. She noted how happy he looked, with the sun shining behind him, greying hair blowing in the breeze.
She touched his cheek, making him stop, his hand wrapped around her wrist.
“I mean it. Thank you, Tucker.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him until he swept her up and carried her off the field, the lightweight nylon chute tucked under his arm.
Afterwards, they went for a seafood lunch down by the marina. She scanned the million dollar vessels and the people out walking their dogs or jogging on this sunny Sunday. Every day was sunny here.
“See, you wouldn’t have this in Oregon,” she chided him.
“That’s very true. This suits me.”
“Me too.”
Over their soup he asked her, “Where do you want to go for Valentine’s Day?”
That sent a zinger up the back of her legs. She recovered quickly, but couldn’t make a decision. “Anywhere. You just name it.”
“How about we go up north? Several of the guys and some of th
e wives are doing a road trip to Sonoma. Can you get a couple of extra days off? It takes a day up and a day down. Gotta stay and do some wine tasting. And I understand you’re proficient at grape stomping.”
“In February? You know anyone who has grapes this time of year?” She wrinkled up her nose and then winked at him.
“I love that picture with you and Dorie.”
“Ah, the good old days, when I thought I had a job.” She allowed her voice to wander off.
“You want me to move in? I could help with the rent.”
Brandy’s pulse quickened as her stomach turned. “I was thinking I’d move someplace else.” She drank her water and didn’t look at him for a couple long seconds, not sure she understood how he’d take it. “And no, your apartment is completely out of the question.”
“Why would you ever want to move? Your place is perfect.”
“And it’s right behind my father’s house.”
“So? You don’t think he understands what we do all night long, Brandy? Come on. He knows his little girl is all grown up, with grown up appetites. Besides, I think he’d be relieved you had someone to watch over you when he wasn’t there to protect you himself. Give him a break. Let him relax. I’ll do the heavy lifting for awhile.”
The “for awhile” stuck in her chest. But, she had it coming. The conversation had come to the edge of their limit on what was safe to discuss. They never talked about long-term futures. It was way too soon.
“I think dad likes having me around, but it’s hard to make ends meet with what he pays me. It’s like my life’s on hold each week I stay there.”
Tucker was quiet, and then he spoke down to the tabletop. “Why not look at it like you don’t have to decide right now. If you stay there you’ll probably make him happy. He gets to see more of you than most fathers get. You’re not pressured to go knock yourself out trying to swim upstream with all the other people clamoring for a fat paycheck.”
She knew there was more he wanted to say, but was finding the choice of words difficult. She reached out and took one of his hands. “And I’m hoping you wouldn’t mind, right?”
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