It was a heat that echoed deep inside her, down low in her belly and every beat of her heart sent that heat pulsing through her until she thought she might explode.
The seconds drew out and she took a slow, deep breath. His gaze dropped to her mouth and she had to bite back a moan.
“Tate, stop,” she whispered, forcing the words out. That hunger continued to pang inside her, making her skin feel tight, hot. She had to curl her fingers into a fist to keep from reaching for him. “I’m tired of only having part of you. I told you. It’s all or nothing and you won’t give me everything—”
He lifted her hand to his mouth, pressed a kiss to her inner wrist. That gentle caress sent shivers racing through her. Blood started to roar in her ears, so loud it took her a minute to realize he had started to speak.
“All my life, even from the time I was a kid,” he murmured, his voice slow, smooth as silk. He let go of her wrist, placing both hands on her knees as he continued to speak. “Everybody told me how much I was like my father. His parents, before they died. My mom. Even my sisters saw it.”
Her heart stuttered.
Tate rarely spoke of his father, but when he did, there was always a burn of rage in his voice. That wasn’t there now.
There was only sadness.
“After Mom disappeared, part of me wanted to believe he hadn’t done it.” He flicked a glance at her. “I really did want to believe it, you know. But I understood that gut-wrenching rage. Because there were things he’d said that made me so angry that I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to go after him and beat the shit out of him. I didn’t. Because of my sisters. When they were fighting, out in the living room, I was trying to keep Chrissie calm.” His voice skipped, almost broke and he looked down. “She was nine, scared. Confused. Upset. Clinging to me like a monkey. She … hell. You remember how she was? The teachers thought she might be kind of slow, how much trouble she had with school and everything. She did just fine as long as Mom was there. Mom could always calm her down, get her focused and everything. But…” He blew out a breath. “But she didn’t have Mom to calm her down that night. It was just me. We’d been out there, at first, when they started fighting. I don’t even remember what started it, not really. We were watching a movie. Mom got on me about something … and then … bam. It was like a nuclear explosion. They started fighting and I ended up picking up Chrissie, dragging Jensen along with me into my room.”
Memories clouded his eyes and his voice was soft, almost too soft to hear over the rain. He still had his hands on her knees and he rubbed them up and down, slowly, like he needed the touch, that light, physical contact to stay grounded.
“Chrissie was shivering, shaking so bad. Every time I went to put her down and go out there, tell them to shut up or chill out, she just squeezed me tighter. I figured I’d let them fight it out. Chrissie needed me and they wouldn’t listen to me anyway. So while my dad was being ugly as hell, I just stayed in the room with the girls and listened. He said the worst things. I’d never heard him talk like that. I hated it.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but she didn’t know what.
Tate reached up to brush her hair back. “He didn’t touch her. Dad never lifted a hand to any of us, not even to spank us. Well, except Chrissie. She got her butt swatted more than once. But she was Chrissie. Mom was more likely to do it than Dad, though. With all of us. He always said she was too strict, yelled too much, demanded too much…” He lowered his head, shoulders slumped.
Unable to stay still, she reached up and pushed her hand through his wet hair. Tate caught her wrist and turned his face into her hand. Her skin shivered as he pressed a soft, gentle kiss to her palm.
He never stopped speaking.
It was like the words had been trapped inside, behind a flood wall. That wall had broken and they were spilling out of him now.
“She yelled. But she loved us. A lot. Dad only yelled when things were really bad.” A scowl twisted his face as he looked away. “If Dad started to yell, we were ready to run for cover. Dad was always the scariest when he was mad. That night…” He stopped, his throat working.
She could see him fighting with the words.
“Tate, you don’t have to tell me this,” she said gently.
“You wanted everything. You wanted all of me. This…” He paused, shifted his gaze to hers, and she saw the hell that lay within. “This is me. All of it.”
He slid his hands up her thighs, absently kneading her hips. “That fight was a bad one, but I wasn’t really worried, exactly. Not about Mom, not even when she left. She was … tough. If that makes sense. She could look at a person and make them back down. Even that old bastard Theo Miller wouldn’t mouth off long when she told him to shove it. I wasn’t worried when she left. Not at first. But I was pissed at Dad because he made her feel like that. Made her feel so bad she had to leave, even for a while. What he’d said. How he’d said it. He was so fucking ugly and every time I saw him, I wanted to punch him. Chrissie couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get her some warm milk—it always helped when Mom gave it to her, so I figured I’d try. I saw him in the living room. He was getting his keys and I just wanted to hit him. Hurt him for saying the shit he’d said. He wouldn’t even look at me. Just left. Didn’t say a word. He came back a little later. Mom hadn’t come home.”
He closed his eyes and dropped his head to her knee. She reached up and pushed her fingers through his hair.
“Hours go by. She’s not home. I realize something is wrong. I’m scared, and I’m mad, and getting madder. I could almost understand, then, the things he’d said, how ugly he’d gotten, because I wanted to do the same thing, only to him. I wanted to hurt my father, Ali.”
She tangled her fingers in his hair. “You were mad, Tate. He’d been unkind to a woman you loved. That’s just how you are.”
“That’s part of the problem. That’s how I am.” Slowly, he lifted his head and the look in his eyes made her heart skitter in her chest. Burning, full of an intensity that all but stole her breath. “I’m thinking, all this time, that he killed her. Not on purpose maybe. He just caught up with her, or ran into her somewhere. He lost his temper … he was angry, like I was. I’ve always believed that he killed her.”
His dark eyes bored into hers and he covered her cheek with his hand. “Ali, I’m just like my father. I’ve always worried … if he could do that…”
Confusion danced across her face and then abruptly, comprehension dawned.
“Tate.”
She cupped his face in her hands and leaned in, pressing her lips to his. That soft, light kiss somehow was a balm to the bleeding, gaping hole that was his heart.
“You stupid, stupid man,” she murmured against his mouth. Then she sighed and pressed her brow to his, slipping from the porch swing to kneel in front of him.
He curved his arms around her waist. The feel of her was both comfort and torment. Turning his face into her hair, he breathed in the scent of her. Let me fix this …
“You honestly think that you could hurt me. Is that why you try so hard to keep a distance?”
Why did he feel so foolish about this now? Foolish, and oddly relieved, as he felt her heart beat against his own. A weight had been lifted off him some time in the past few hours. A weight he’d been carrying around for too long. Maybe even for fifteen years.
He kept his face buried against her neck. “Intentionally, no. I don’t think I ever would … but a huge part of me…”
She eased back and covered his cheek with her hand. “Tate. Don’t take this wrong. Because I love you, dearly. But you’re an idiot.” Temper flashed in her eyes and she surged upward so suddenly, she knocked him off balance. He ended up sitting on his ass while she started to pace.
He shifted around to keep her in his sight as she moved.
“All this time.” She glared at him as she reached the end of the porch and wheeled around. “For three years, we played friends, all because you’re afraid you’re go
ing to pull some weird Jekyll and Hyde bit?”
“Jekyll and Hyde?” He climbed to his feet, staring at her while his temper started to kick up inside. Okay, he could take feeling like an idiot, but he’d held back because he wouldn’t risk hurting somebody—hurting her. “You know, this might sound like a fucking joke to you, and maybe I’m being stupid, but I lost my mother. She was our world. Our dad was our rock. And for the longest time, I looked at him and saw only the man who I thought killed her. I saw a man who is just like me.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you were wrong?” she shouted. “About any of it?”
“Yes!” He spun away and sucked in a breath, closing his eyes. He moved to the edge of the porch and leaned against it, his weight braced on his hands. Heedless of the pouring rain and the wind, he closed his eyes. “But … shit. I didn’t let myself think about it. Until today.”
He hadn’t let anger get a foothold in his life, not since he’d lost his mom. He’d blamed her death on anger, after all. When he felt too angry, or too close to slipping there, he funneled all those frustrations into his art, into a hard, driving run … or sometimes, into sex.
Right then, though, he was caught, hovering between anger, self-disgust, and other emotions he couldn’t name. When Ali came near, he caught her arm and she crashed into his chest, glaring up at him.
This. He closed his eyes, let himself revel in the feel of her pressed against him.
Just … this.
He hadn’t felt whole since she’d walked away.
And even when they’d been together, he’d held back. Always.
This was probably the closest to whole he’d ever been. Slowly, he twined her hair around his fist, holding her gaze with his. “I know it might not make sense,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t let myself think it, because I couldn’t. Even if I was wrong, at least it was an answer. Can you understand that? Do you understand what it’s like … living with that? Not having any answer?”
Something flickered in her eyes and the tension that had held her rigid drained away. The hands that had been pushing him away curled into the fabric of his shirt and she sighed, gazing up at him. “Yeah. I think I do. You lost your mom—the answer, right or wrong, was something you needed. I get that. But you spent fifteen years blaming the wrong man. You spent fifteen years putting yourself in a box, only letting bits and pieces of yourself out because you were afraid you’d be just like him. You are like him, Tate. He isn’t a killer. He’s just a stubborn, headstrong man.”
“But that’s part of the problem.” He pressed his brow to hers. “I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to be the kind of man who’d say things that sent a woman running out in the middle of the night. I don’t…”
“Tate.” A soft sigh escaped her, ghosting over his lips. “You can have some traits without being him made over. You decide the kind of man you’re going to be. You’re more likely to hurt me by closing me out than by anything you say.”
Stroking his thumb across her temple, he closed his eyes.
She smoothed her hands down his shirt and then turned her face into his neck. “You’ve had a rough day. Why don’t you come inside for a while? You can dry off and wait until the storm passes.”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
“Then go home?” he murmured.
Go home …
Those words sent her heart to racing. No. She didn’t want him going home, not at all.
But she wasn’t throwing herself back out there again unless she knew he was going to be with her.
“I think you need to look at all of this, and make sure you know what you want,” she said haltingly, staring at the column of his throat. Much safer territory than his eyes. She felt lost every time she did that and if she looked there now and saw the heat and the hunger and the confusion and the love …
“I know what I want.” He tugged her head back and dipped his own, pressed his brow to hers. His free hand fisted the back of her shirt and it left her feeling surrounded by him. “I want you. I’m scared to death and you’ll have to kick my ass along the way, but I want you, and everything that comes with it.”
Oh. Well. Hell.
Now she was really lost.
For a long, long moment, he stared at her and then, slowly, he slanted his mouth over hers. He pressed her back against the wall of the house, the strength of his body pinning her to it as her muscles went lax. His tongue toyed, tangled with hers. Her heart slammed against her ribs as he slid his hands up her sides, danced the tips of his fingers along her neck before plunging them into her hair to arch her face to his.
“Ali-girl.” He rubbed his lips against hers before pressing a hot, burning line of kisses down her neck. “My girl.”
She twisted her hands in his shirt, sucking in a desperate breath. He shifted against her and her pussy clenched when she felt the hard, heavy ridge of his cock. Hunger and need ripped through her.
Lost … yes. She was lost. She didn’t care.
* * *
He barely had the brainpower to realize they were on the porch.
Her lit porch.
Groaning, he managed to stumble inside and kick the door shut and that was where his control ended.
Spinning around, he put her against the door and leaned back, grabbing the hem of her shirt. It was wet now, thanks to his own sodden clothes and he ran his fingers down the transparent cloth. Through it, he could see the outline of her bra, the soft swell of her breasts, the elegant line of her torso. He wanted to go to his knees before her and worship her, wanted to press his lips to every damn inch of her. Slowly, he lifted his gaze up to meet hers. “I got you all wet.”
“So you did.” She licked her lips.
“Should I do something about it?” He made himself hold back. He’d been so fucking unfair to her, holding back from everything they both wanted, both needed. He needed this … now. With her. She wanted it. But if he’d pushed her so far away that she wasn’t ready for this …
A slow smiled curled her lips. “Well, you’re a big boy, Tate. It’s time you start taking more responsibility for things,” she teased. “You got me all wet. Now take care of it.”
As she spoke, she curled her legs around his hips and arched against him.
The contact was a jolt, straight down his spine, hitting him square in the balls. “Yes, I should absolutely take care of that.”
Reaching for the hem of her shirt, he slowly peeled it up, watching as he bared each inch. Goose bumps broke out along her skin and once the shirt had cleared her head, he dropped it to the ground and leaned forward, pressed his mouth to the delicate line of her collarbone.
She shivered and he looked up, stared into her eyes. “Are you cold?”
“Umm.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a yes or no.” He nibbled his way along her shoulder, felt another shiver race through her. “I’ll take it as a yes. I should warm you up. Get rid of these wet clothes.”
He kissed his way up her throat and reached behind him to unhook her feet, guiding her legs down so he could deal with her jeans. “These should go, too, right?”
“Yeah.” She smiled against his lips as he went to take her mouth. Her kisses—he could gorge on them. Every day for the rest of his life and never be satisfied. That was what he wanted. What he’d wanted for a long, long time; maybe he’d even let himself think about having it. “I think everything should go.”
“Good idea.” He undid her bra, slipped the straps slowly down, watching as her breasts swung free. The deep rose of her nipples begged for him and he paused to catch one in his mouth, plumping her breasts together as he did so. “So soft. So sweet.”
She arched against him, a movement guaranteed to distract him. He wasn’t about to get distracted, though, and he straightened, focusing his attention on the thin cotton yoga pants. They were gone in seconds and he boosted her back up, pressed her back to the door.
A random thought fired—we can go to her room—
but he didn’t want to be away from her, didn’t want to try and navigate the house when he could be inside her.
She hissed, shivering. “You’re getting me wet all over again.”
“That’s the idea.” He slid a hand down between them, pushed a finger inside her and yes, she was very, very wet.
She gasped as he stroked her, her muscles clenching around him. Then she reached for him, yanking at his shirt. “Take this off.”
He leaned back just enough, gripping the firm curve of her ass. “You take it off instead.”
Their gazes locked and held as she dragged the shirt up. It caught around his shoulders and he let go just enough to finish stripping the wet mess off as she clutched at his hips with her knees.
It was absolutely insane that his hands were shaking.
He’d made love to Ali a hundred times. More.
Yet each time was a new experience.
This time, I don’t have to hide—
He stilled, slowly lifting his eyes to stare at her.
“Tate?”
His heart thudded in his chest and he tried to breathe around the massive ache centered there but it was almost impossible.
An uncertain look crossed her features.
“No more holding back?”
A breath shuddered out of her. “Please don’t.”
Gazing at her, he eased the zipper of his jeans down, his cock pulsating, the need inside him swelling, rippling through him. His blood burned. Nerve endings seemed to sizzle and scream inside.
She reached down and stroked one finger along his length and he caught her wrist, stretched it up over her head and pressed it to the door, still watching her. He caught her other wrist as well, holding them both pinned in one hand, high over her head.
It arched her back, lifted her breasts, a position that seared itself on the back of his mind.
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