Tommy’s Baby

by Rose, Annie J.

  “I wouldn’t say there’s nothing at all at stake here. Come back to the party. I’d saved you a seat.”

  That was not at all what I’d hoped he’d say. I was hoping for something more along the lines of, there’s an empty room at this resort I’d like to show you, no one will miss us for a while or let me take you back to your only marginally gross motel and spend the night with you there. I wasn’t here for romance or a relationship necessarily. I wanted him kissing me and making me forget, making me feel alive again and not think about the ten years in between this kiss and our last one, and everything that had gone wrong since we said goodbye.

  Chapter 17

  Tommy

  I had to get her back to the party. There was no way in hell I was going to give in to my baser instincts and take her up against the wall. This was no low-stakes fantasy to jerk off to. This was real life and she’d come walking back into my real life after a decade of absence. It wouldn’t take a lot to screw that up. Like the less talk and more action approach I usually took with women since Liza.

  When Brendan said we needed to clear the air, he was right. And that didn’t translate to take all her clothes off ten seconds after the first civil conversation we’ve had in ten years. So the patience I’d honed on SEAL missions, the silence of the stakeout, the lying in wait, came in handy when I pulled back from her. When I took her back to the fire, I got her a drink and sat beside her.

  Karin and Morgan came back to talk more with her, and they were thick as thieves in no time. Brandi joined in on that conversation, but I eventually shooed them off so I could have her to myself.

  “What’ve you been up to? I mean, it’s been a while. Have you had a good life?”

  “It’s had it’s ups and downs like everybody’s, I guess,” she said.

  I was a little put off by her vague answer, since she used to tell me every detail of her classes and her friend Sam’s fights with her boyfriend. That was a level of familiarity we weren’t at anymore, I reminded myself. So I went to more general topics.

  “How’s your mom?” I asked.

  “She passed away,” she said softly. “Four years ago.”

  “God, I’m so sorry, Liza.”

  I leaned in closer and gave her a hug. She accepted the hug but didn’t hold on tight like I expected. Every gesture told me she was holding back. Whether that meant keeping secrets or that she just didn’t trust herself, I wasn’t sure. But I hated it either way. She’d been ready to give me her body. I had known every symptom of her surrender in that kiss. Giving me access to her thoughts though—that was a different battle.

  “It was rough,” she said. “So how do you like it down here?”

  “I love it. I wouldn’t live here otherwise. No lake effect snow,” I said, trying to make light of it.

  “You’re too young to retire from the Navy aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, technically I am. But it wasn’t a traditional retirement. I was given the option of an early discharge with full honors and retirement benefits.”

  “You were a hero. They rewarded you.”

  “It’s very hush-hush,” I said. “Part of the deal is I’m not allowed to speak of it.”

  “Was it what you wanted? The SEAL team?”

  “Yeah. It was. In a lot of ways it was everything I’d worked for and trained for. In other ways, it was a lot worse, a lot heavier than I expected. And it cost me a lot.”

  “Everything has a cost. We were just learning that,” she said.

  “Did you get to be head chef? Make your own menu and everything?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  “No. You?”

  “I’m not sure. Part of me says yes because it got me here. I’m living in paradise, no stress, no one trying to kill me all the time.”

  “So you like being out of the service.”

  “I like where I ended up.”

  “If you had it to do over again, would you?” she said.

  “Would you?” I countered.

  “Never,” she said without hesitating.

  “Neither would I,” I said, relieved that she said it first.

  I covered her hand with mine, knowing we’d gone too deep too fast like always. I needed to change the subject, ease up on her a little. I wasn’t trying to drive her away.

  “So,” I said, “if we’re pretending to be strangers, how’d you like the nacho bar?”

  “The food is directly on the table,” she said, wrinkling her nose a little.

  “We covered it with foil.”

  “Foil is not a dish. It’s a—barrier, I guess. I didn’t go to culinary school to dump my food out right on the table. But it’s fun. I mean—people like it, I guess.”

  “You aren’t into scooping beans up with your hands and slopping it on your plate?” I said with a laugh.

  “Don’t tell Brandi. She’s sweet, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

  “Look, tell her now or you’ll end up eating your birthday cake out of a repurposed urinal.”

  “What?” she said, eyebrows going up. I laughed.

  “I’m kidding. I’ve never seen her use plumbing fixtures to serve food, but you should see your face!”

  “Look, I can’t help it. I’m a food snob, okay? I paid tens of thousands of dollars to learn how to cook and plate correctly. Cheese oozing out onto foil doesn’t do it for me.”

  “You’re too fancy,” I said, “You and your Lexus you wanted to drive and the Tiffany ring you wanted.”

  She shook her head, “We’re strangers, remember? No reminding me of horrible things I said.”

  “Nothing horrible about having goals. Do you at least have a Lexus?”

  “I had a Toyota. I sold it.”

  “That’s a good, reliable vehicle,” I said, hedging. What had gone wrong for her? She was so talented and on the fast track to being a buzzy young restaurateur. Now she was slinging fried appetizers in a bar. I wanted to ask. I knew I didn’t have any right to ask.

  “Things went wrong. Mistakes were made,” she cleared her throat and left it at that, “So did you save the President or something to get let out of the SEALS early?”

  “Let’s just say that I was in the right place at the right time,” I said, and I couldn’t help notice that I was holding back from her, too.

  “You were always good at that. Being there when you were needed,” she said, “And you’re not hard on the eyes either.” She was teasing me. I felt like a million bucks, flirting with Liza again.

  “You look pretty damn good too, but then you always did,” I said, watching her cheeks flush at the compliment. “And at the risk of sounding like I’ve lost my mind, you had that top. The first time you made me go to yoga with you, you had on that purple top with the squiggly thing on it.”

  “You asked if it was supposed to be a teacup,” she said with a far-off smile.

  “It’s the same one.”

  “I can’t believe you remember that.”

  “You hummed at me, like you were opening your third eye or some shit with your chakras, all showing off.”

  “It was the om symbol. I was doing the mantra.”

  “Like I said. Show off,” I said fondly. She grinned at me.

  “That’s me. I show off my kickass onion rings now. And I made dipping gravy for the fries. My James Beard Award winning professor would crap himself if he knew.”

  “Stuck up loser, it’d serve him right. Thinks he’s too good for gravy,” I said with a laugh.

  “How do you do that? You always make me feel better,” she said out of nowhere. I took her hand in mine.

  “I want to make you feel better.”

  “Well, on that note, I should get going. Because we keep falling off a cliff into the deep stuff. Let’s just—be happy we had this evening together and that we can still be friends.”

  “Are you blowing me off, Liza?” I said archly.

  “I’ve learned a thing or two. Like how
to quit when I’m ahead, be grateful for what I have.”

  “You stopped wanting more. Stopped being ambitious.”

  “No, I learned my lesson. You talking to me, being nice to me is more than I had any right to hope for. So let me tell you goodnight, and that this was probably the best night of my life in longer than I care to admit, honestly.”

  “That was the best kiss I’ve had since the last time I kissed you,” I said, filling the awkward silence with too much honesty, too vulnerable, too soon. But I’d never been a coward. “Let me give you a ride home.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, faltering.

  “I know you are. You were always fine on your own. But since we’ve been pretending to be strangers, let me pretend like you need me. To give you a ride,” I added. She had never really needed me, and I had wanted her to. I shook it off.

  “It would be nice if you would give me a ride back to my motel. I took a rideshare here.”

  “I’d love to. A motel, you say? I thought you were living here. No permanent address yet?”

  “Nothing permanent yet,” she said. I didn’t know if she meant where she was staying or the job she’d taken at the pub or what. I had a sneaking feeling that she wanted to keep me guessing.

  In my truck, she cranked up the radio, finding some old Radiohead song she liked and singing along. She directed me to one of the shadier parts of the city. I didn’t like what I saw, the place where she was staying. I walked her to the door of her room.

  “You know,” I said. “We have cabins sitting empty at our place. At the O’Shea Compound, as Connor likes to call it. Anyway, you could stay there. It would be better than being here alone. It’s not the best neighborhood. And at the cabin, you could hear the ocean.” I wanted her to say yes.

  “I’m paid up here for another week, and I don’t want to put you out. Your family’s been nothing but good to me since I’ve been here in spite of everything. I—"

  “Just say you’ll think about it,” I said, cutting her off. I knew not to keep pushing her, not when she was resistant. She’d dig in her stubborn heels and sleep under a bridge before she gave in if I pushed her.

  She nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open, flicked on a light. I looked at her, part of her face hidden in shadow, and was struck again with the force of how much I’d missed her.

  “I’m glad you came to the bonfire,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  I dipped my head until my mouth found hers. The light peck I meant to give her, the sweet goodnight kiss for old times’ sake, turned into a lot more instantly. The touch of her soft lips under mine, the way she opened for me and sucked my tongue, her arms circling my waist—that made my heart thunder against my rib cage. I slid my mouth to her jaw, her neck. She held on to me, tipped her head to give me a more satisfying angle as I sucked her throat and made her moan.

  I staggered back, trying against my instincts to be respectful and give her space.

  “Good night, Liza,” I choked out.

  “Who are you kidding?” she said with a wry laugh. “Get in here.”

  Chapter 18

  Liza

  There was a zero percent chance of my letting Tommy drive away and leave me there alone all night wishing he was there. I had learned to be grateful for what I could get. This was something I could get. One more night with the only lover I’d ever really loved. One more night with the best I’d ever had. It would take a dumber woman than me to turn that away from her door.

  He had followed me into my room. I realized how crappy it was, how humid and mediocre, and I felt self-conscious for a minute.

  “I know it’s not much.”

  “I’m not here to invest in real estate,” he said, his voice husky.

  “Damn. I was gonna sell you a timeshare,” I joked as he backed me up toward the bed. My thighs hit the mattress and I sank down, sitting on the edge of it. Hopefully he didn’t notice the thud when I flopped down because my knees gave way. It wasn’t exactly graceful. I forgot my embarrassment, let it burn to embers when I saw him lower himself to the floor before me.

  Tommy was on his knees, his hands on my bare thighs. I shivered at the contact, at how much I already wanted him. I knew he could scent my arousal, because he always could. He sensed my yearning, and he always gave me exactly what I wanted. He never held out on me, never teased me about it.

  “God, I missed this, Liza,” he breathed, his lips hot on my bare thigh, “how ready you are for me, how responsive you always were. I knew I could touch you right here,” he looked up at me.

  Tommy tucked my hair behind my ear and trailed his fingers down the curve of my neck. He made me shudder as pleasure rolled through me thick and harsh. I sucked in my breath and he gave a self-satisfied half-smile.

  “I’ve still got it,” he said, smirking at me.

  “Did you think you lost it?” I tried to tease, my voice too ragged to be casual.

  “I lost you.”

  His voice was so raw, so vulnerable when he said it that it hurt me deep in my chest.

  “No,” I said. I slid off the bed and onto my knees with him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “You didn’t do anything except what you said you’d do—join the Navy, make the SEAL team. I gave up on us. I’ve regretted it every day since then. You never lost me Tommy. I never stopped being yours.”

  I choked back a sob. I wasn’t going to pout over my bad decision. I had no one to blame but myself, and I wasn’t about to cry in front of him. Not about this.

  “We were kids, Liza. We didn’t know what we were doing, what we were throwing away. I have you now, so let’s make this night count for something.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard. When the choice was wallow in self-pity or spend the night with Tommy pleasuring each other six ways to Sunday, that was a no-brainer.

  “Yeah,” I said, “you’ve always been the best. Let’s see if you can hold on to that title.”

  “I won’t disappoint,” he said, arching an eyebrow at me that might as well have been fingers sliding inside me from the way it affected me, a gush of slickness coating my sex in response to his words.

  “Mmm,” he said, nuzzling my neck and sucking it. My hands in his hair felt perfect, the silky hair, the slight tug I gave it, the stubble of his chin on my throat as he kissed my neck.

  He lifted his head and with a tilt of his chin, ordered me back up onto the bed. I practically scrambled up there, resuming my seat on the edge of the mattress.

  “Now, where was I?” he asked, tracing the inside of my thigh, kissing the sensitive flesh there. I gasped at the powerful sensation of heat rolling through me.

  Tommy reached for my shorts and I lifted my hips obediently. He jerked my shorts and panties down, dragged them off my legs and tossed them. With one big hand on my belly, he pressed me back on the bed. My knees fell open, feet still on the floor. He positioned himself between my thighs and dipped his head to kiss my pussy. He nipped at first one of my tender outer lips and then the other, coaxing and teasing until his tongue breached me and I moaned. A shiver started in me, the tight quivering in my stomach charging up. My body was a riot of sensations and emotions ripped through me in a firestorm because Tommy fucking O’Shea had his head between my legs for the first time in a decade. I wanted it to last forever, wanted to hold off the orgasm I felt barreling toward me. Because I’d been waiting ten years for it, for anything to feel this wild and real and delicious.

  I could hardly stand it. I fisted the sheets, my head tossing back and forth on the bed. Finally, I ran my hands down my belly, curled my fingers in his hair and pressed his face into me harder. I bucked my hips, the desire to hold out destroyed by the shock of pleasure I got when he slid a long finger inside me and then another. Two of his fingers felt big inside me, the pressure building. I could take it, and knew I’d have to take more than that when his pants came off. I had wondered at times how I surv
ived giving my virginity to a man that size.

  His tongue flicked my swollen clit. I keened and wailed as he lapped at the underside of that tender nub. Electricity rolled through me, jolt after jolt of sinful pleasure that made my legs jerk. Tommy grabbed my flailing legs and draped them over his shoulders, his smile decadent as he looked up to meet my eyes.

  “I’m just getting warmed up, gorgeous,” he said.

  Then he tucked two fingers inside me and started sucking my clit again. I begged him to quit, shoved at his broad shoulders ineffectually. I couldn’t take that kind of pleasure after I’d already been consumed by it. I was too sensitive, shaking and almost terrified. I was on the brink already.

  “Stop—I can’t!” I whimpered.

  He raised his face reluctantly, withdrew his fingers. I wanted to cry when he pulled those long fingers out of me, thick and coated with my wetness.

  “It’s okay. I’ve got you, baby,” he said.

  He climbed up on the bed beside me and pulled me into his lap. He caressed my back and kissed my hair, comforting me, loving me. I clung to him.

  “It was just too much. I wasn’t saying no to you. I just mean not yet. Don’t—rush this with me. I haven’t had this, not anything like it, in years. I don’t want it to be over yet, and I can’t take it like I used to when I was seventeen and you would make me come three or four times before you were even inside me—" I broke off.

  “Now you’re just challenging me,” he said mischievously. But he kissed my cheek so sweetly, “I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want. You know that.”

  “I know. I trust you, Tommy. I always have. And you just proved why all over again.”

  I wound my arms around him and held on tight. He kissed me softly, a sweetheart’s kiss.

  “Are you ready?” he said after my heart had slowed down a little. I nodded.

  Tommy peeled off the rest of my clothes, the old purple top and my bra. His mouth fastened on my nipple, working me like he’d never left, licking and sucking my nipple to the point I thought I’d lose my mind. I made unholy sounds, and my nails dug into his shoulders through his shirt. His fingers toyed with my other nipple, rolling it, pinching it until it was hard as a pebble, my breasts heavy and aching with need. He stroked my stomach and then tucked his fingers back inside me.