She felt his hand rub her shoulder affectionately. “Yeah. Dig you.”
It was at that moment that there was a loud crashing sound, and glass sprayed over them from behind.
Flynn screamed and the truck careened as the wheel flew from side to side under her hands. “Oh, shit! What’d I do wrong? What’d I do wrong?”
A pair of bright high-beam headlights came on behind them.
“I don’t think it’s you,” Tucker said calmly.
“Who is that?”
There was a popping sound, and the driver’s side-view mirror jerked violently and flew off the cab, banging into the truck before bouncing down the road behind them.
“Um, Tucker,” Flynn said, trying to maintain as much calm as she could muster. “Is someone trying to kill us?”
“That’s my guess,” Tucker said. “Turn left and punch it.”
The last fragment of calm left her.
“Are you kidding me?” she screamed, but before she had finished the sentence, Tucker had taken the wheel and stamped his foot down over hers.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
They lurched off the road and down a mild slope into what was thankfully a sparsely wooded area. Flynn pulled her foot out from under Tucker’s and glanced behind them through the blown-out back window. The lights hadn’t followed them. That was good. Flynn was sure that was good. That had to be—
Another popping sound came from behind them, and the truck jerked to the left.
“Oh, holy Christ!” Flynn yelled.
“It’s okay,” Tucker said, seeming oddly calm as he turned the wheel to the left, going with the momentum of the truck. They slid to the side, and Flynn screamed again.
“I need you to stop doing that,” Tucker said.
“I need you to stop getting me killed!”
They skidded sideways for a bit, then the wheels gained traction. Tucker pulled the wheel to the right and they swerved between two trees, then bounced upward.
And then they were on the dirt road again, skidding to a stop in front of a cabin, with just enough room for the passenger side door to open. Tucker slammed the truck into park and grabbed Flynn.
“Time to go,” he said, yanking her out with him. A moment later they were in the cabin and he was setting her down on what felt like a couch, but between the dark of the cabin and the blind panic, Flynn couldn’t see anything. Her breathing came hard and shallow as Tucker’s hands floated over her, touching her ankles, her legs, her arms, her face. It took her a moment to realize he was talking, too.
“. . . okay? Does that hurt?”
She knew she should answer him. She wanted to answer him. She just couldn’t.
“Flynn!” He grabbed her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his eyes. “Are you okay?”
She snapped back into the moment, and found her voice. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I mean, someone’s trying to kill us, but other than that . . .”
Tucker’s hands grasped her upper arms tightly, and she thought she heard him release a heavy breath. “You’re okay? You’re sure?”
Flynn concentrated. She couldn’t really feel anything, but on the bright side, nothing hurt. “I think so.”
Her eyes began to adjust and she could see the faint outlines of his eyes, his mouth, his hair. Everything came to her in bits and pieces, but it was Tucker, and he was okay.
They were alive.
Yay.
“Why would someone want to kill us?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m a good person. I did jury duty. Twice. I give blood every six weeks. I don’t kick puppies.”
“Try not to take it personally,” he said.
“And you seem like a fairly decent person yourself. Why would someone want to kill us?”
“Flynn, look, I need to go out there and see if they’re still around. I need you to stay here and—”
“No!” She flailed, grabbing at his arm. “Let’s just call 911 and—”
“My cell doesn’t get service out here, and there’s no phone in the cabin. I have to go—”
“You are not going out there. There is someone with a gun out there, and they don’t like you.”
“I’m gonna lock the door and take the key. If anyone knocks, don’t answer.”
People with guns knock? Who knew? Flynn shivered.
“If they’re not gone already, I’m gonna draw them out. You need to stay here and be still and quiet, okay? You stay here.”
She gripped his shirt with every bit of strength she had. “Don’t you leave me!”
He gently pried her hands loose and held them in his. “Flynn, I have to. I’ll be back. Two minutes, I’ll be back. Count.”
She gazed at him as her mind whirled. “What?”
“Count. You stay here, and you count to yourself, quietly. Two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds. Count. I will be back.”
Flynn wanted to ask him if he was insane, but that would be a waste of time because obviously he was. His tone of authority calmed her though, and she did as he asked.
“One. Two. Three. Four . . .”
And he was gone. She heard him start up the truck and go back in the direction they’d come. She breathed slowly, deeply, her thoughts coming at her like sharpened spears.
Someone shot at us.
“Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three.”
We drove where there was no road. We could have crashed into a tree. I could be dead right now. Tucker could be dead.
It was right about then that she started to cry. Her hands shook violently, and she didn’t even try to wipe at her face, taking odd comfort in the predictability of the pat-pat-pat as the tears fell into her lap. She counted.
“Fifty-nine. Sixty.”
Where is Tucker?
She listened. There was nothing to break the silence but the sound of her own shaky breath. Tucker said he’d be back by one hundred and twenty. It wasn’t that far away. She closed her eyes.
“Seventy-six. Seventy-seven. Seventy-eight.”
Where was he? Was he dead? Had the maniac killed him? Was the maniac coming for her now? Why oh why oh why had she watched all those Friday the 13th movies? The chick in the cabin always got it.
Always.
“One hundred and three. One hundred and four.”
She swallowed and stopped counting. She didn’t want to get to one hundred and twenty, because if she got to one hundred and twenty and he wasn’t back, that meant something bad had happened. So if she just never got to one hundred and twenty, that meant he was fine and would be back soon. She knew there was a hole in that logic somewhere, but she wasn’t particularly anxious to find it.
The door opened and even though Flynn could see it was Tucker, she screamed anyway. She was finding it an oddly difficult habit to break.
“It’s okay,” Tucker said, sitting on the couch next to her. “They’re gone. Whoever it was, they’re gone. You’re safe. It’s okay.”
She threw herself into his arms. “I’m gonna kill you for that later.”
His hand cradled the back of her head and held her so close that his chuckle rumbled through her chest. “That’s fine.”
Her heart pounded, and she willed it to calm, but it didn’t. “I think I’m freaking out. My heart is racing.”
He pulled back and put one hand on her face. “It’s okay. You’re fine now. Just breathe.”
“Okay.” She gulped air frantically, tried to slow her breathing down, but couldn’t. “Except I think I’m hyperventilating.”
“What do you need for that? A paper bag, right?”
He started to get up, but she grabbed his shirt sleeve in a death grip and pulled him back down next to her.
“I think I’m hysterical. I always thought hysteria was bullshit, you know, because hyster is the Latin root for ‘uterus.’ Like women are the only people who ever freak out, but I don’t care if it’s sexis
t.” She took another gulping breath and turned to him. “Tucker, I’m hysterical. And not in the fun way.”
He put both his hands on the side of her face. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it might help if you stopped talking.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I want to, trust me, but I can’t seem to shut up.” She turned to him, put one hand on his shoulder. “I think you’re going to have to slap me, Tucker. That’s what they do in the movies, right? They slap the woman who won’t stop talking because she’s hysterical. I think you need to slap me.”
“I’m not going to slap you,” he said.
“Then do something because I’m freaking out here!”
And he did. He pulled her to him and placed his lips on hers so forcefully that everything else went out of her head. Suddenly her whole world was him. He was everything she needed, more than air, more than light.
He was everything.
She took in breath through her nose and calmed as her heart fell into a reasonable rhythm. She dove into the kisses, tasting him with a desperate and overwhelming need that might have been frightening if she didn’t have getting shot at to compare it to. Instead, she gave in to him, allowing the want and need to well up within her as she pulled his shirt up over his head.
For his part, Tucker kept pace, his hands flowing over her, finding her hips and her thighs and then starting again with her hair, moving down her body, his fingers running over her as though he was trying to commit the feel of her to sense memory. He pulled her shirt off and sent it flying across the room, and Flynn had the vague impression that it knocked something over, but they dove back into each other so fast that it was hard to comprehend anything except Tucker, the feel of him, the taste of him, the smell of him. He made it easy to block everything else out, to take comfort in him. It wasn’t until she’d undone the top button on his jeans that he put his hand over hers, his breath sending her hair flying away from her face in ragged huffs.
“Flynn,” he said, “maybe we need to slow it down.”
Flynn shook her head. “It’s life-affirming. Go with it.”
He pulled her to him for another plummeting kiss, and she lowered his zipper. He groaned as she slid her hand along the hard length of him, and then he grasped her wrist.
“I’m not gonna try to stop you again,” he said. “This is as gentlemanly as I’m gonna get.”
“Good,” she said, sliding his jeans and boxers off his hips. “Because it’s getting on my nerves.”
And once again, they rolled into it. She lowered herself down and took him in her mouth, letting her tongue curve around him, and he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up.
“I thought you said you were gonna stop with that gentlemanly crap,” she said.
“I am. But if you do that it’ll be a short show. Trust me.” He kissed her deeply, then, in as deft a motion as Flynn had ever witnessed, her jeans were off and he had her completely naked before him.
“Wow,” she said.
“Thank you.” On his knees before her, he rose up and kissed her gently, then lowered his mouth down to her breasts. She gasped at the sensation as it snapped through her like a live electrical wire, then tapped him on the shoulder.
“Look, that’s a great idea for next time, but I’m really ready, like, you know, now,” she said, not caring if the desperation showed in her voice.
“You sure?” he whispered gruffly.
In answer, she pushed him gently back by the shoulders until he landed on the knotted rag rug on the floor. She fell down on top of him, adjusted her position quickly, and sank him into her as forcefully as she could without hurting either of them. She released a groan as he filled her, moving herself up and over him, slamming against him repeatedly until all the fear and panic was gone, until there was nothing in her but him, until she screamed and fell on top of him, her body shuddering through the initial quake and all the aftershocks. She breathed heavily, her face against his chest, and for the first moment wondered what the hell she was doing. Vaguely, in the back of her head, she had the feeling that she’d done something wrong, but she pushed it away. She didn’t want her presence of mind back, she just wanted to lie there forever, feeling his hands trailing over her back, playing with her hair, sweeping away the jagged edges that were trying to weasel their way back into her.
He cleared her hair away from her cheek and kissed it softly.
“Flynn,” he murmured into her ear. “Sweetheart, I need to get up.”
She held him tighter to her and closed her eyes. “No. Not yet. We’re not done.”
“You need a blanket,” he said. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m not cold,” she said, pushing herself up to look into his eyes. “And we’re not done.”
He smiled and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, we are.”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “We are? But you didn’t . . . Did you?”
He kissed the tip of her nose, then gently lifted her off of him.
Nope. He sure didn’t.
“Wait.” She sat up as he pulled on his jeans, adjusting himself as well as he could under the circumstances. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting a blanket.” In the dim moonlight streaming through the window, she watched as he walked across the room, opened a closet, and filled his arms with blankets. He walked back, flicked one out, and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Now, how about a fire?”
She shook her head. “How about you get those pants off? We’re not done here.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “And you’re still shaking. I think you’re in shock.”
He dumped the other blanket at her feet and went to the woodstove, in which wood had already been piled. One match later, it was beginning to blaze, and Tucker settled himself next to Flynn.
“We’re not done,” she said again over the lump in her throat as a tear tracked down her cheek. “We’re not done.”
“Not forever,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “For now. What just happened was amazing, and wonderful, and something we both needed, and whether I came or not doesn’t change that.”
“But—”
“Shhhh,” he said, hugging her tighter. “You’re freaked out, and you’re scared, and neither of us is thinking clearly. Let’s just calm down for a minute, okay?”
Flynn leaned her head against his chest, but the raw edges were working their way back into her, and she felt more than restless. She felt wrong. She felt like she’d done something horribly wrong and she had to try and make it right, except she wasn’t sure exactly how to do that. She raised up again to look him in the eye.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” Her heart felt as though it was outside her body, raw and cold and beating despite itself. She shook convulsively in his arms, and it occurred to her that he might be right. She might be in shock. Emotions ran over her, bumping into her at every point, and she felt a tear fall down one cheek as she realized what she’d done wrong. “I wasn’t using you, Tucker.”
He guided her head back to lean on his chest. “Hey. You’ve got nothing to worry about, okay?” He ran his hands over her arms. “Just let me get you warm, okay?”
“But I wasn’t . . .” Her teeth chattered. “I wasn’t using you. You mean something to me. You—”
He wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders and leaned his face down in front of hers. “I know. Now for God’s sake, shut up and let me get you warmed up, okay?”
It wasn’t until that moment that she realized that she wasn’t the only one who was on the edge here. In the firelight, she could see the desperation in his eyes, and she understood. All he wanted to do was take care of her. He needed it the way she’d needed him earlier.
She closed her eyes and leaned against him, allowing herself to sink into his arms and let him carry her for a while. She listened to his heartbeat, still and strong and perpetual, telling her that as long as she could hear it, everything was okay. Her body relaxed,
the shaking stopped, and after a short while, she fell asleep.
The first thing Flynn noticed when her consciousness returned was that it was dark; glancing at the clock on the wall, she guessed she’d been asleep for about an hour. Next, she took in the smell of the fire; deep, earthy, woodsy. Comforting. She took her time waking up, snuggling into the old couch, curling the blankets that had been placed over her into her fist that she tucked under her chin. When she finally opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Tucker’s back as he sat by the fire. His muscles moved softly under his shirt as he intermittently jabbed at the logs in the woodstove, and she could tell his mind wasn’t on the fire. She stilled and watched him, content just to take in his movements and his existence in the same space with her.
Then, in a rush, the events of the evening came back to her.
The driving lesson, which had been sweet.
The being shot at, which hadn’t.
And then of course there was the rampaging, desperate sex on the cabin floor.
Oh, God. Mortification stabbed through her, and she moved her hands under the blankets and confirmed her suspicion; yep, she was still naked. Trying to make as little noise as possible, she moved her hands around under the blankets, hoping to every force in heaven and earth that her underwear was caught up under the blankets with her somewhere.
Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case. She lifted her head slowly, trying to be deathly silent as she shifted one leg to the floor and fished for her clothes with her big toe.
“Everything’s folded up on the other side of the couch,” Tucker said, surprising her. “I’ll keep my eyes on the fire until you’re ready.”
“Oh. Okay.” Flynn held the blankets to her as she sat up and reached for her clothes. “Meaning, ‘Okay, I’m putting my clothes on,’ not that it’s okay to turn around. I mean, not that it matters much now, I guess, considering . . . you know. The thing.”
There was a slight pause, then he said, “What thing?”
She hooked her bra. “Stop it. You know what thing.”
“Oh, that thing?” He jabbed at the fire, his head turned slightly toward her, but not so far that he could see her. “Don’t worry about it. Never happened.”
Crazy in Love Page 18