by Tessa Bailey
Noticing Marcy had dozed off in her car seat, River leaned her head against the passenger side window and closed her eyes. Last night had been…odd. Her father had shown up on her doorstep out of the blue, holding a present for Marcy. A fishing trip to upstate New York with his old buddies had been his explanation for showing up in Hook. But showing up without warning and without her mother in tow? It was strange, to say the least. And she’d gotten the distinct impression the full picture wasn’t clear yet.
When she’d explained where they were going the following morning—with Vaughn—he hadn’t bothered to disguise his displeasure, his silence on the matter speaking volumes. Without a word, he’d taken River’s set of spare house keys and gone to bed down in the guest room, saying only that he would see her when she got home. Growing up, her family had learned to do things on her father’s time. He rarely explained himself or worried about inconveniencing others. But his sudden arrival at her house seemed to go further than inconsiderate behavior.
River could still recall how uneasy Vaughn had been on those rare occasions when he and her father were in the same place at the same time, while he waited on the porch for her, or they passed her father in town. It was almost like an invisible hostility settled over everything. The timing of his arrival made her nervous, much as she told herself to stop worrying. She and Vaughn were adults now. They made their own decisions, and nothing could affect the new start they were allowing themselves.
Vowing to worry about her father when she got home, River focused on Marcy and Vaughn. The honor he would receive that night. How much it meant to him.
They arrived at the hotel arranged for them through the army administration—far fancier than she’d expected—and found a loaned dress uniform waiting for Vaughn at the front desk, which he’d taken with a smirk. They’d boarded the elevator with Marcy on Vaughn’s shoulders, making it necessary for her to duck down, little arms wrapped around his face. The combination of masculine laughter and little girl giggling floated through River’s mind now as she took her seat with Marcy, in the third row of the ceremony hall.
“Mommy, where’s Vaughn?”
“I don’t know,” River said softly, smoothing her touch down the back of Marcy’s hair. There had been a last minute rehearsal when Vaughn agreed to attend the honoring ceremony, so he’d been forced to jet, garment bag thrown over his shoulder, as soon as they reached the hotel. But she hadn’t missed his reaction to the suite…the second room with the separating door. Or the promise in his eyes as the hotel room door closed behind him.
The answering flutters in River’s stomach still hadn’t subsided…but when Vaughn walked out onto the stage and took a seat, breathing became a laughable aspiration. No way. No way that was the same guy who wore ripped jeans and threadbare T-shirts even in the dead of winter. There was no way to describe him, apart from…heroic. Gorgeous. Male. Slightly agitated by the crowd’s presence, sure, but that only endeared him more to River. Because she could see the taciturn young Vaughn underneath the uniform, and she could see the man he didn’t even yet realize he’d become. And they were both incredible.
Vaughn’s gaze ran over the crowd, hand tugging on the stiff collar of his shirt, the restless movements stilling when their eyes locked. “There’s your daddy,” River whispered to Marcy, without thinking. She didn’t have to think. The words just rolled out, sounding perfect and right and maybe even overdue to her ears.
Marcy tilted her head, bumping cheeks with River. “Daddy.” She whispered the word, smiling wider than River had ever seen. “He’s going to stay a long time?”
River sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. He’s staying.”
Chapter Seventeen
Until he’d met River, there had been very few moments Vaughn wanted to remember—to freeze in time and carry around, thawing them out when he needed a fix of something good. Since the moments from his first eighteen years were shitty, he’d been determined to make even worse ones. Block out the pain of being left behind by his parents, by garnering new clips of memorized time. Ones he could control. Getting into fights, stealing cars, drinking. If good moments wouldn’t be forthcoming, he would prove he didn’t need them.
And then he’d seen River in the parking lot outside Hook High, and the memory had frozen itself, without his consent, crystalized in all its perfection, never to be chipped or fogged. Another one had immortalized itself when she’d set her books down on the back bumper of his truck, wet her lips nervously, and kissed him…on the cheek. The way she’d pulled back with brave eyes and hard nipples. Two very different sides of a shiny, new coin he didn’t deserve to have in his pocket, but one that wouldn’t stop turning up, making him wish, making him hope.
Before tonight, he’d seen pride in River’s eyes, but it had always been unfounded. Undeserved. Had something changed? Yeah. Maybe he’d finally started to wonder if River was right and he could be worth a damn. The two most beautiful faces he’d ever seen were in the audience…for him. River and Marcy were there tonight because he meant something to them. Didn’t he owe it to them to think better of himself? Otherwise he did them a disservice—and he couldn’t abide that.
Oh God, how long did he have to sit there? Colonel Moriarty had started talking, but Vaughn only wanted to hear River’s voice in his ear. Needed it like a parched wasteland needed rain. Marcy waved at him from their place in the third row, and Vaughn very nearly jumped off the stage, ready to take his two girls home. Ready to feed them and put them to sleep and be responsible for them. Forever.
When Vaughn heard his name called, he stood, moving to the podium, saluting as the medal was pinned to his chest. Hell, until that moment, none of this formal shit had meant a thing to Vaughn, but knowing his daughter—and the woman he loved—were watching him receive an honor…that would go with him to his grave as the most unexpected of frozen, perfect moments, even as he remembered the men whose lives were responsible for him being there. For his being alive to remember them at all. Without them, he might have died in that nighttime fight and never returned to River. Never conceived Marcy.
With a silent prayer of thanksgiving, Vaughn took his seat again, trading a look of gravity with River. A look he knew she would interpret correctly to mean, if I don’t get you in my arms soon, doll, I’m going to fade the fuck away. He knew because she nodded, maybe even feeling the same exact way. One week. In less than a week, his life had become worth living, and he wouldn’t take that gift for granted. Never again.
Half an hour later, the ceremony ended with the sound of thundering applause. While the other honorees filed backstage, Vaughn jumped off the front of the elevated area, going straight to River and Marcy, kissing them both on the forehead and hustling them out the back door. By the time they reached the hotel, Marcy’s head was lolling to one side in the backseat. After leaving the Pontiac with the valet, they moved in a quiet huddle upstairs to their room, River performing some kind of modern day miracle, unpacking a healthy dinner of roasted turkey and mashed potatoes for Marcy from her overnight bag, heating it in the microwave located in the small kitchenette.
Without prompting, the sleepy child crawled up on Vaughn’s lap and ate the meal, her forehead drooping as she chewed. Employing the easiest solution he could muster, Vaughn braced a palm against Marcy’s tiny forehead to keep it from landing in the mashed potatoes, sending River into a quiet round of laughter where she observed from one of the double beds.
“What?” He could feel his lopsided grin and didn’t care. “It’s working.”
River acknowledged that with a nod. “So far your list of potential inventions includes a steel cage car seat and forehead strap.”
“Just see if I don’t follow through, doll,” he murmured. “I guess I better get started soon, because if everything goes right, I should be working at the factory starting next week.”
River’s wide smile wavered. “On the assembly line?”
Vaughn shook his head, trying not to scrutinize
her reactions too closely. Was she happy? Disappointed? There was time to figure it out. They had time. At least, he was doing his damnedest to hold onto that belief. To say he’d been thrown off by the arrival of River’s father was an understatement. But no. No, he wouldn’t let anyone take away his family again. Never again. Hell, he couldn’t live without them now. Couldn’t even fathom it. “Uh…not on the line, no. Security.” He stabbed a piece of turkey with Marcy’s miniature fork, handing it to her. “I went down and spoke to the new owner. He’s kind of a dick—” Vaughn winced at his own language, sending River an apologetic look. “But he agreed to meet with me on Monday. I’ll be ready. I’m ready now.”
Without responding, River stood and moved around the room, hips swaying gently in her modest blue dress, readying one of the beds for Marcy, laying out pajamas that she tugged over the little girl’s head a moment later. After suffering through her teeth being brushed, Marcy fell asleep on her stomach, arms and legs sprawled out in four different directions. Vaughn eased the fluffy white comforter over her sleeping form and turned off the light. Then he simply stood there, a mountain range shifting inside his rib cage, the landscape changing forever.
His focus turned on a goddamn dime, though, when River slid her hand into his, tugging him toward the adjoining sitting room. She had to be exaggerating that seductive walk, because God, if her ass moved with any more intention, he’d straight up cry like a baby. His tongue felt thick and useless inside his mouth, his gut tightening as he closed the sliding door behind them.
The room was dark, making the situation illicit as he came up behind River, framing her throat with a hand, riding his other one up her right thigh. “Waiting to have you alone is going to be the hardest part, isn’t it?” He lapped at the side of her neck with a starved tongue, needing some of her taste, her scent, her texture. All of it. “Being around you is a hard-on while wearing handcuffs.”
“Vaughn…you went and got a job at the factory,” she breathed, even as her head tilted to the side. “Why wouldn’t you tell me something so important?”
He released an open-mouthed sigh against the flesh he’d dampened. “Maybe I should have.” Searching for the right words wasn’t easy when he finally had his woman alone. “I want it to be a given that I’m going to bust my ass for us, Riv. But I know it’s not a given yet. I shouldn’t expect that. But I won’t stop until it is.”
River turned into his hold, gasping as he walked them backward and wedged her up against the far wall. That press of curves and muscle drew strangled groans from both of them, and a distinct resentment for clothing from Vaughn. “Oh my God,” River said, a tremor passing through her voice. “It’s never going to be any other way, is it? Every single time you touch me…”
“What?” He slanted his mouth over River’s in a thoroughly filthy kiss that ended in her thighs trying to climb up his hips. “What’s it like? Like you’re twice as sensitive than you’ve ever been? Like every part of you is full and ready to bust the fuck open?”
“Yes.” She pushed her tits up like a birthday gift. “Just like that.”
“Yeah. We’re going to need to work something out, doll. A place to meet on our lunch break. Something. You understand?” He slid his left hand up to capture her jaw. “I’m ready to get you back in the habit of three orgasms a day. Morning, afternoon, and night. I’m your fucking meal plan, Riv.”
“I’m yours, too.” She turned her face, capturing his thumb between her lips, sucking like his digit was providing life-giving sustenance.
With a guttural sound that couldn’t be contained, Vaughn rolled his hips against River, giving her a preview of what she had in store—a hungry man who relied on her for survival…and that survival included pleasure only she knew how to give. “Is sucking my thumb your way of saying you’d like to have me for lunch some time?” He coasted one hand down her collarbone, massaging each of her tits in turn, without gentleness, savoring the abrasion of her nipples against his palm. “You want me to send you back to work licking those fuck-me-Vaughn lips?”
She nodded, sliding her mouth up to the tip of his thumb, teasing it with a flickering tongue. “There’s another way you want to send me back to work,” she whispered, and—son of a bitch—his cock stiffened to the point of agony.
“Oh yeah, doll?” Vaughn rubbed his wet thumb along her full upper lip. “How’s that?”
“Sore,” she said softly, her eyelids drooping, breath coming faster. “You used to send me to school that way, so sitting down would make me think of you.”
Christ. How had that memory been shuffled to the back? He recalled it now and reveled in the fresh surge of lust it inspired. Lust and…a tinge of self-hatred. “Ah, Riv. I’m sorry.” He lifted desperate fingers to her dress, undoing the buttons fast as he could move them, sliding hands inside the material to grip her tits. “I shouldn’t have taken it so hard on you. I just…I couldn’t see inside those brick walls and fuck, I couldn’t lose you, even though I deserved to. That was the only way I could think to stay with you during the day.”
“You did.” Her touch landed on his belt buckle, tugging leather through pant loops with a sensual, slithering sound. “You’re forgetting how much I begged for it. I needed you with me, too.” Soul-punching eyes lifted to his. “I still do.”
Vaughn took over the task of unzipping his fly, shoving down his boxers to take out his cock, with a choked curse letting the weight of it bob. “Are you trying to remind me of what I said?” He jerked up the skirt of River’s dress, bunching it around her hips. “Did you think I’d forget my promise—that next time would be a rough fuck from behind?”
River’s stomach hollowed against his knuckles and shuddered back out. “I guess you didn’t.”
“No.” He twisted the front of her panties, tight, tight, tighter. “You see that couch over there?”
Looking so goddamn beautiful with her perked-up tits lifting and falling, his big hand wrestling with her underwear, dress halfway to the ground, River didn’t seem capable of answering, giving a jerky nod instead.
“I’ve been picturing you face down, with your hips braced on the sofa arm. Ankles spread. Been picturing it for hours.” He tugged the panties down, finally giving Vaughn his first sighting of River’s sweet-tasting pussy since yesterday. Hallelujah. “Knowing you’ll be bent over, lifting that ass for me? It had me so hard, my dick kept pushing out through the opening of my shorts, chafing against the inside of my clothes. All motherfucking night. So, no, I didn’t forget. I’ve been trying to calm myself down enough that I don’t break the furniture trying to abuse your G-spot.”
“Stop,” she moaned shakily.
Vaughn leaned down to get in her face, their lips brushing together. “Stop what?”
“Trying to calm down.” Her gaze raked down his body. “This hero gets what he wants tonight.”
“I only care about being your hero,” he rasped.
“You always have been.”
That was the only encouragement Vaughn needed to spur River toward the couch, positioning her body the way he’d been imagining. Ass cheeks, smooth as silk, pushed up like dual hills of hotness, her pussy—shining with moisture—peeking out between them. Her ankles weren’t far enough apart yet, but he knew his woman’s game. Knew she got turned on by the slightest aggression on his part. And he was more than happy to oblige her. Hell, he was ripe and ready. His cock was like a fucking monument against his abdomen, weeping from the tip with the need to push into that tight, clinging business he had the nerve to refer to merely as pussy. Nah, it was life. Relief. Pleasure. Home. His.
“Mine.” The single hoarse word was accompanied by the two fingers he slid inside her, easing them deep, rotating, pulling back out, using the dampness he took away to lubricate the condom he rolled down his swollen inches. “Go ahead. Give me that look over your shoulder. You know the one I want.”
A visible shudder rippled up her back, but she tossed that blonde hair and turned her head, giving him t
hat beautiful profile, complete with puffy, parted lips. And then she turned a few more degrees, hit him with blue eyes, and slowly shifted her bare ass against his lap. “Come and get it,” she whispered.
Vaughn fell over her like a fuck-hungry prison inmate, planting one fist on the couch beside her face, using the other to guide his cock home. A thrust of his hips and he was ensconced in her tight welcome, the hot curve of her ass pressed to his belly. Christ. Jesus Christ. Every time with River felt like his very first sex act, pressure mounting in his balls before he could take a single pump. He could see the shocked O of her open mouth as her face was still turned to the side, cheek pressed to the couch cushion. “Same way for you, isn’t it? It’s like getting your first cock all over again, right, doll?” He tested her heat with a teasing jerk of his hips, forcing a muffled moan from her mouth. “And who was your first?”
“You were.”
Vaughn inserted a foot into the center of River’s splayed stance, pushing her legs wider, allowing his dick to sink even deeper on gusty, simultaneous sighs. “Tight as the day I broke you in,” he whispered into her hair, taking a moment to savor the way their bodies curved over the sofa arm, how much control he had over when and how they moved. How compact and supple she felt beneath him. Trusting him. “I didn’t think you could get any more important…any more fucking precious to me than you were that day. And then I lived forty-nine months without you.”
Eyes clenched shut, Vaughn reared back and drove forward, dropping his face into the crook of River’s neck, barely able to withstand the intensity of being inside her again. Of feeling that severed connection joining, repairing, against odds that had been stacked a mile high. Their fisted hands moved closer, closer, until they were joined together on the cushion, fused as one, same as their lower bodies.