With his free arm, he caught one leg, drew it up. “There. Stay right there,” he muttered, right there as he pressed it to his hip, opening her. Her lips parted as she stared at him, soft, broken little pants coming from her. Then he reached between them and grabbed his cock, grimacing as even that touch sent a jolt racing through him. He was ready to come, right there. The heated kiss of her wet pussy against his head was a damn near brutal sensation.
Ali gasped as he pressed against her. Slowly, oh, so slowly, she yielded. Her breasts rose, fell against his chest in a rapid rhythm, her gaze all but blind as she stared at him.
She was burning him. Burning him alive.
“Burn for me,” he whispered against her mouth. “I want to feel you burn for me.”
The silken, tight grasp of her pussy closed around him, the tissues clinging to him as he withdrew and then surged back in. Her head fell back, throat arched, the line, delicate line exposed. He skimmed it with his lips. “I love you.”
A soft, broken cry escaped her lips.
Why did this feel different?
Bewildered, Ali stared into his eyes but even as she tried to understand everything shaking and rolling through her, he surged against her again. His swollen flesh rasped over sensitized tissues and he retreated, slow, almost too slow, so that she was painfully aware of the void he left behind. His gaze caught hers, held hers as he poised there, right there at her entrance.
Then he started it all over again, a slow, deep possession, until she was full with him, stretched tight around him. The pleasure battered at her and she whimpered, twisted in his arms in a desperate attempt to get closer.
“Burn for me,” he whispered against her mouth again, releasing her wrists and sliding his hand down to cup her cheek.
She clutched at his shoulders, her nails biting into his flesh as she clenched down around him, already feeling the orgasm gathering deep inside her. So easily. He had her so easily.
He worked a hand between them and she keened out his name as he flicked his thumb over her clitoris. There …
She caught her breath but then he changed his rhythm, going to shallow, teasing thrusts as he toyed with the hard little nub of flesh. “Not so fast, Ali-girl.”
She glared at him.
He stared back at her. The naked need, the hunger, the love she saw in his eyes left her breathless.
Desperate, she reached for him and he came to her, his mouth slanting over hers. Sinking her teeth into his lower lip, stroking her tongue against his mouth until he opened for her, she tried to gorge on him, feast. Lose herself.
His rhythm turned hard again, hard, heavy, driving. She arched to meet each thrust, gasping out his name and then he tensed against her.
“Tate!”
Abruptly, he moved—harder, faster, working one arm around her to hold her steady as he drove into her like he was trying to imprint himself on her very flesh. She loved it.
A shriek ripped from her as the climax slammed into her. Ali hadn’t even caught her breath before his cock jerked and she felt him start to come. Moaning, she quivered around him, shaking at each rhythmic jerk of his heated length.
“Ali…”
Her name was a dazed, raspy murmur on his lips.
Because she could actually say it this time without him tensing up, she turned her face into his neck. “I love you.”
Chapter Five
The sun came up over them as he made love to her again.
She’d lost track of how many times they’d turned to each other during the night. This might have been the sixth—she had fuzzy recollections of it happening sometime in the dark, but that might have been a blissed-out dream.
Now, with her face pressed against the pillow and him stretched out, half-lying on top of her, half alongside, she tried to steady out her breathing.
Her heart beat like mad and she had a feeling if she looked in the mirror, she’d see a goofy grin spreading across her face.
It wasn’t a bad day, she decided.
Not a bad day at all.
She didn’t have to work.
The kids wouldn’t be home for a while and best of all …
“What’s the smile for?”
That was the best of all. Tate was here.
She cracked one eye open and saw him peering down at her. “I dunno. I’m suffering from oxygen deprivation so I’m probably delusional.”
“Uh-huh.” He dipped his head, kissing her behind the ear and then he rolled off, settling on the bed just a few inches away.
In the soft, golden glow of the early morning sun, he looked too beautiful. He was here. In bed with her.
He hadn’t up and left in the middle of the night. He didn’t look like he was going to take off running right now, either.
Swallowing, she laid a hand on his cheek. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
He covered her hand with his. “Ali.”
“Don’t.” She shook her head, wiggling closer and tucking her head against his chest. “I just. Hell. I thought about this. I wanted this. Didn’t think it would happen and I was ready to just…”
“You got tired of waiting.”
He stroked his hand up her back, his touch light and gentle, but she felt the tension mounting inside him.
“Not because I wanted to.” She rubbed her thumb across his skin and felt his chest rise, expanding on a sigh. “I just realized that waiting around and hoping things would change wasn’t going to make them change.”
“So we talk now.” He rolled her onto her back and stared down at her. “What do you need me to do? What can I do?”
“You already did a lot of it, Tate.” Studying his face, she shrugged. “You let me in. All you ever did was keep me on the outside, sharing nothing but … this. It was just sex. I know that’s all we talked about in the beginning, but I think we both know things changed for us along the way.”
He pressed his thumb against her lips. “I always wanted more than just this. I just didn’t think…”
His voice trailed off and the thick black fringe of his lashes drooped, shielding his eyes. She kissed his thumb and then squirmed, pushing against his shoulders until he let her up. Dragging the sheet up over her shoulders, she settled on the mattress with her legs crossed. “I know. I get it. You’re wrong.” She narrowed her eyes as he slid a look at her. “But I can understand why you never wanted to trust yourself. As long as you’re willing to stop. Okay?”
“It’s not going to be just as easy as flipping a switch.” He climbed out of bed and she watched him disappear through the door. Something kept her from getting up and a minute later, he reappeared, pulling his jeans up over naked hips. She watched his hands as he zipped them up, left them unbuttoned over the lean, tanned line of his belly.
Dragging her gaze away, she looked back at his face, but he was focused on the floor. One hand closed into a fist. “I know I’ve fucked up, Ali. I am fucked up. I know that, I get that, and I’m going to fix this. Fix me. But I also know it’s not going to be an overnight thing.”
She waited a beat and then shrugged. “Well, we’ll take it in bits and pieces.” He flickered her a look and she smiled at him. “Besides, you might be wrong. Overnight things might just be the answer to getting you on track. Last night was pretty damn good, right?”
The grin he gave her was just a flash on his face and it barely showed in his eyes. Shoving away from the wall, he moved to stare out the window. “Just tell me you’re not giving up on me.”
“Tate.” She slid out of the bed and moved to stand behind him. Wrapping her arms around his back, she pressed her lips to his spine. “Baby, I didn’t give up the past three years while you had your head up your ass. You’re just now starting to show some sign of intelligence. Why would I walk now?”
“You’re a smart ass.” He covered her hands with his.
“Yeah. So are you. I think that makes us a matched set.”
They stood there a minute and then he slowly turned around, leani
ng back against the wall and drawing her into the cradle of his hips, one arm wrapped around her waist. “I keep thinking about the past fifteen years. About my dad. About me.” Misery was written across his face, naked and plain. “What in the hell am I supposed to say to him?”
Her heart twisted in her chest. The storm in his eyes, the pain she could see him trying to hide, was enough to break her. Reaching up, she cupped his face in her hands, pressed a soft, gentle kiss to his mouth.
Then, easing back down, she held his gaze. “Just go to him. Tate, that man loves you. All he wants is to have his son back.”
* * *
“I ain’t got time for you today.”
“Wow. Nice to see you, too, sis.” He stood in the doorway, watching Chrissie … no. Chris. She hated it when he called her Chrissie. Sometimes he looked at her and saw the little girl who’d clung to him that awful night. For a little while, after Mom died, he’d been her world.
Unlike him, she’d looked at their father and maybe it was the eyes of a child that had let her do it, he didn’t know, but she’d looked at her father and just saw the man who’d tucked her into bed. The man who’d told their mom to ease up when he thought she pushed them too hard.
They hadn’t been perfect parents, Tate thought.
But they’d balanced each other.
Tate hadn’t come to grips with how he felt about that final night, but he was going to do it in bits and pieces, just like Ali had suggested.
Starting here.
Chris stood at a table and for the life of him, all he could think was that she looked like a gothic Tinker Bell. Short punkish haircut in shades of white-blond, black, and pink, incongruous as hell, but it suited her. She wore a shirt with a ragged hem that bared her belly and left the stone in her navel flashing in the light as she reached for another blossom. Tattoos twined around both of her arms, sleeves that she had started working on as soon as she turned eighteen. For her eighteenth birthday, she’d gotten her first tattoo and Dad had paid for it.
That was what she’d wanted and Dad had never been able to tell Chrissie no.
It wasn’t a surprise.
She was the only one who’d believed in him, Tate realized. From the beginning.
The tattoos were a garden, blooming there on her skin, roses and daisies, climbing and vining around her arms before disappearing under the cotton of her shirt.
He thought there was a new one around her left wrist, but he wasn’t sure.
She shot him a look, her green eyes unreadable.
For the most part, he was close to his sisters, but this time of year was hard … on all of them. He tended to withdraw. Jensen all but worked herself into the ground, picking up extra hours at the station whenever she could. Chris centered herself around Dad. The baby tiger, there to guard the old man from anybody who might hurt him.
Namely, his son.
Swallowing, he closed his eyes and lifted his head, staring up at the sky as he tried to figure out the easier way to go about this. There wasn’t one, though.
What the hell.
He’d managed to bare himself to Ali. He could handle Tinker Bell over there.
“I talked to Dad.”
Her hands stilled over the blossoms—bad-ass, gothic Tink loved nothing more than working with flowers. There wasn’t a week that went by that their mother’s grave didn’t have a beautiful display on it. By night, she tended bar over at Shakers and during the day, she had a mini florist’s shop bustling in the garage tacked onto her house. Her dream was to expand it out of her house, but it hadn’t happened yet.
Her lips flattened out. “Leave him alone, Tate. You’ve caused him enough grief, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, fuck. You try the same thing, without fail, every year—”
She stopped. Without looking at him, she put down the stems she was working with and then reached for the rag in her back pocket, wiping her hands off. She gazed out the window, her hands clutching at the edge of her worktable. “What did you say?”
“I believe him.”
She turned her head and stared at him.
Two seconds later, he had to dodge the roses as they came flying at him.
“Sorry.”
Tate slid Chris a look as she settled down next to him. “Are you?”
A grimace twisted her face. “Well. Technically, I probably should be. In all honesty, no. I wish I had a bucket of dirty water or something to dump over your head.” She sighed and leaned back, bracing her weight on her hands and stretching her legs out. “You’re such a stubborn ass, you know that?”
“Yeah.”
“You are so like him.” Her voice was husky and when he glanced over at her, he saw the misery in her eyes. She sniffled and averted her face.
Reaching out, he slid his arm around her shoulders. For a minute, she held herself rigidly. Then she sank against him, her voice cracking as she whispered, “I miss her, Tate. Sometimes I wake up, thinking she’ll come home. I can barely remember what she looked like, but I remember her voice, and how she smelled and how we danced around the kitchen some nights. I think … maybe she’s out there. Maybe she’ll come home.”
“I know.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I know, Chrissie.”
A minute passed and she sucked in a breath, then pulled back, swiping the back of her hand over her eyes.
He pretended not to notice.
“She looked like you.”
He watched as she turned her head and stared at him. He smiled at her and shrugged. “You want to know what she looked like. Just see yourself. Without the crazy rainbow hair and all.” He smiled, pushed a hot-pink section of her bangs back. “But she looked like you. She was pretty. Funny. She yelled a lot and she drove me crazy and she made us work too hard.”
“She was a good mom.”
“Yeah.” He caught her hand in his and squeezed. “She was a good mom.”
Chris closed her eyes. “Dad…”
He sighed and lifted her hand, pressed a kiss to the back of it. Then, unable to sit still, he rose from the porch and started to pace. “I’m going to talk to him later. I’m trying to work things through in my head. But I needed a resolution, Chris. It’s not fair—it wasn’t fair to him, to you—”
“Or you.”
He shot her a look.
She sat on the porch, her elbows braced on her knees. She stared at him, her green eyes vivid. “It wasn’t fair to you, either. I know why you did it. Hell, Dad knows why. He’s the one who’s been telling me and Jensen all this time to leave you alone with it.”
He didn’t want to hear this. Turning away, he jammed his hands in his pockets, he braced himself because he also knew, as much as he didn’t want to hear, Chris was going to say it anyway.
“You needed to have some kind of answer—something in your head that made sense,” Chris said. “This was the only one you could come up with. So you focused on it. Because you did, you lost your father and your mother.”
Tate closed his eyes.
Behind him, he could hear her coming toward him, but he didn’t move. Didn’t turn to face her. When she circled around to face him, he had a hard time meeting those sharp green eyes. “Are you done punishing yourself now?”
“I’m not—”
“Oh, bullshit.” She shook her head. “You spent fifteen years telling yourself that you should have gone out there, said something, done something … stopped her from leaving. You were fourteen. You were just a kid. So was I. So was Jensen. Yeah, they had a fight. Dad shouldn’t have said the shit he did. He didn’t make Mom leave and no matter what…” Her voice tripped, then steadied. “No matter what happened to her, she didn’t ask for it. The only person to blame in any of this is the son of a bitch who took her from us.”
“We’ll never know who that is.”
She looked away. “No. We’re never going to know. We’ll never know what happened, where she is. Not after all this time. But I’m not goin
g to let my life stop because of that. She would have wanted us to be happy—all of us.”
* * *
This would be the easier one, Tate told himself. Jensen wasn’t going to make it hard on him and hey, he even got a smile out of it, just sitting there and waiting for her.
Feet propped on the edge of her desk, he had the pleasure of watching his sister threaten to throw a mouthy bitch in jail, after said mouthy bitch shoved Jensen.
Granted, Jensen had all but taunted her into it, chin up, eyes glinting with an I dare you smirk in them.
But Leslie Mayer had gone into the station looking for trouble, and she’d found it in the form of Detective Jensen Bell.
Jensen had grown up to be a cop. Out of all of them, she was the most solid, something that had baffled Tate for only a very short while. She’d lost her mother but that hadn’t sent her down a spiral. It might have done that to Tate and Chris, but it had centered Jensen.
She’d lost her mother and she’d do everything she could to keep another child from suffering the same, another family from going through the misery the Bell family had suffered all these years.
As Leslie Mayer was led out of there by two uniformed cops, still screeching at Jensen, his sister headed over to her desk, pausing only a second when she saw him waiting there.
“You had way too much fun with that,” he said.
“Hey, a girl’s gotta get her kicks somehow, right?” She knocked his feet off her desk and dropped into the seat. “Why are you here? It’s awful early for you. You usually skulk in your den until the day is half done.”
“I don’t skulk.”
“Brood. Whatever.” She shrugged. “You made up with Ali yet?”
He felt the hot, red crawl of blood creeping up his neck. Half the damn town, he mused. From the corner of his eye, he saw the grin on her face and the way trouble glinted in her gaze.
“People sure are interested in my love life.” He turned back to face her. Leaning in, he studied her closely, more closely than he usually let himself.
If Chris was a gothic Tinker Bell—attitude and chaos in one tiny little package—then Jensen was her polar opposite. Every bit as slim and slight as the youngest Bell sibling, yes, and there were physical similarities, but while Chris was all clashing colors and short temperament, Jensen was order. She wore her dark hair in a neat, chin-length cut and she probably spent five minutes on it a day—including washing. Her makeup bordered on the nonexistent and her clothes were just like her, efficient and simple.
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