by Unknown
“Fuck you,” Taryn says. “This was supposed to be casual.”
“And now it’s not?” One final step and he’s close enough to touch her, but she’s folded into herself like origami, all angles and elbows. Nick wants to pry apart her crossed arms and open her back up, smooth her out again the way he would a piece of paper. “Is that what I did? Because you could have ended it at any time, sweetheart.” Nick doesn’t know why he keeps dangling that particular option in front of her. A dare, maybe. “That’s on you too.”
“No, it’s not!” Taryn shouts, hands flying open of their own accord. “Christ, that’s what I’m saying. I couldn’t just break up with you, Nick! You told me all this stuff about your wife and you made me like your stupid dog and freaking got me invested and then—”
“Made you like my dog?” Nick laughs, he can’t help it, even though the bit about Maddie stings. “Taryn, come on, let’s not—”
“—and then it was too late, and now I’m like, in love with you or whatever, and I didn’t want any of this.”
The silence after she cuts herself off is astonishing. Nick can’t think of a single useful thing to say.
Taryn seems to run out of steam then too, arms dropping down to hang at her sides. The dish towel she’s been clinging to all this time droops like a flag at half-mast. “Anyway. Emily called, and my mom’s going to be okay, probably. No brain damage.” Her stare is as hollow as Caitlin’s. “You said you’d go as soon as we knew.”
Nick can feel his heartbeat everywhere in his body at once, as sudden as if he’d injected himself with epinephrine from the back of the rig. “I don’t think that’s what I said, actually,” he tells her, reaching out and hanging up the dish towel. “Taryn.”
“Shut up,” she hisses. She’s curled into herself again, arms wrapped around her midsection like a stabbing victim. But then just as suddenly she’s uncurled, hands sneaking up inside his uniform shirt with a purpose. “Let’s just—shut up.” Her lips are cold and dry on his, and when she wrenches her mouth open Nick tastes salt.
Christ. At this point he’d be willing to give her whatever she wants, wherever she wants, even if the answer to both is—and yes, it looks like it definitely is, because there’s her chapped hand slipping down to close around his dick. Jacking him hard, in front of God and the fluorescent microwave clock and— Nick hisses against her mouth. Taryn wiggles away long enough to get her jeans and underwear around her ankles and then she’s back on him, pulling out his cock and opening up her hips. She’s too short by a mile, so Nick boosts her to the countertop and drops to his knees. When he licks a stripe up the center of her cunt, she’s as dry as the desert. And that’s—huh.
That reminds Nick of something.
“Taryn.” He leans his head against her warm, pale inner thigh. “Talk to me for a sec.”
“No.” She wiggles, one hand coming down to clutch at his hair. “Go.”
But Nick can’t go. The night of the fire was like this, exactly like this, only Nick was on his knees in his own kitchen. They hadn’t stopped to talk that time either. It was the worst call he’d ever gotten on the job, the two of them busting into a smoked-out housing complex along with the fire department. The ignition point turned out to be some idiot trying to heat an electric kettle on the stove, but at the time all Nick knew was that the smoke was thick and chemical. It was nearly impossible to see their patients through it, a young mom and her two babies. The woman smelled like booze and had probably passed out before the fire even began. The kids, though—the older one lost two fingernails and all the skin off his knuckles clawing at the locked front door. He was too short to reach the latch. Falvey tried to resuscitate him for half an hour, tiny compressions on his toddler body. Nick finally had to pull her off.
They’d needed three body bags in the end.
When it first happened, Nick thought it was about the baby, that Taryn was reacting to the senselessness the same way he was. Now, here in her home with her younger siblings asleep upstairs, he finally understands it was about the booze.
“Did you mean it?” he asks her, cupping one cold foot. He thumbs along her instep, presses harder. “Huh?” he prods when she doesn’t answer right away. “Falvey.”
“Nick—” Taryn squeezes her eyes shut, tossing her head like a horse. She’s still got those chilly fingers twisted in his hair. “Let it go, okay?”
She barely said two words to him for months after the fire. Turned that pale, pretty face into a mask. Nick was surprised by how much that burned him, like he’d let her under his skin without ever meaning to do it. This was supposed to be casual, she said.
“I don’t want to let it go.” Nick rocks to his feet then, slides his hands behind her knees and tugs until she’s right on the edge of the counter. Gets his face down close to hers. “Did you mean it or not?”
“Yes.” Taryn huffs a noisy breath, looking everywhere but at him. She sounds so, so pissed. “Yeah, I meant it, okay? Is that what you want to hear? But it doesn’t change the fact that—”
“I love you too.” Nick cups her angry face in two hands that aren’t quite shaking. He hadn’t realized how bad he wanted to say it until now, how it’s been getting bigger and more uncomfortable inside him, taking up space next to his heart and lungs. He loves the shit out of her, is the truth. Has been the truth for a while. “Taryn. Hey. I’m in love with you too.”
Taryn drops her head back in disgust like she just found out they need to work a double on the snowiest day of the year, and plus she has a headache and somebody left old McDonald’s in the ambo, and maybe her socks are wet on top of it. “Ugh,” she whines, really and truly put out by the idea. “Seriously?”
Nick laughs out loud. “You’re a brat, you know that?” he asks.
“You’re a brat,” she counters. Then, in a different voice altogether, “I’m a disaster.”
“You’re not,” Nick says, almost before she’s even got the words out. “You’re perfect.” He gets his mouth on hers then, warm and damp. “You hear me?” he murmurs. “I know you, and I love you, and you’re perfect.”
Taryn shakes her head. “You can’t say stuff like that to me,” she tells him, squirming. He can feel her getting wet though, pressed together so close like they are. He nudges her thighs wider apart, rocks himself against her. Taryn gasps. “Nick. You can’t—”
“Yeah I can.” He does it again to make the point, pulling her forward even more so that she has to shift her weight to him, those wiry arms wound tight around his neck. “See?” he says, up against her soft, pink tongue. “Love you.”
Taryn whines in response—a different kind of whine this time, sharp and needy, kicking her jeans all the way off and wrapping her legs around his waist. She lifts herself, like she’s looking to line them up, then feints at the last possible second. “Say it again,” she orders.
“Brat,” Nick murmurs against her flushed cheek. He threads his hand through the base of her ponytail and pulls, exposing her white neck. “Love you.” Taryn hmms, then hmms again when he sucks. Her skin is warm and powdery. Nick feels dizzy with relief. “Love you. Love you so much.”
“Oh my God,” Taryn gasps, sounding for all the world like a teenager whose mom is embarrassing her at the mall. Down between them though, she’s as wet as anything. Nick slides a hand up her thigh and cups her, pressing the other one against her lower back until she gives in and grinds messily into his palm. “This is such a bad idea,” she whimpers. Nick is pulling back to have a discussion about exactly why it isn’t—he loves her, she makes him happy, he’s not scared of her fucked-up family—when she continues. “What if someone comes down?”
That makes him grin. “Okay, yeah. Where are the light switches?”
Chapter Fifteen
They end up teetering on the back of the couch because they can’t wait another second, Nick thrusting gently so as not to tip Taryn off her perch. It’s pitch-dark now, at least, every single light in the house turned off. The whole
process took ten minutes because Nick refused to set her down even once, her legs around his waist and all this maddening friction with every step. “This would be so much faster if you let me walk,” she pointed out.
“No.” Nick slammed her up against the wall underneath the dimmed hall light and fit himself inside, quick thrusts and a possessive mouth. He only let up when Taryn started to make some serious noise. “Behave,” he murmured, slipping out of her again. “Or I’ll make you.”
“Harder,” she gasps now, remembering. It’s a good height, him standing and her balanced on the couch back, but Taryn is feeling wound up and greedy. “Come on, I want—”
“Uh-uh.” Nick hardly ever uses his size against her but he’s doing it now, bending her knees up while he supports her back. It’s possible the show of control is doing it for Taryn more than anything else. “Say it first.”
Also, that.
“Shut up,” she whines, sneaking a hand in between them to rub at her clit. It feels so good she gives up on holding out. “Okay, fine, God. I love you, now just—”
Nick lets out a ragged growl and buries himself all-the-way deep, Taryn biting at the hard muscle of his shoulder to keep from crying out. She didn’t realize it could be like this, Jesus, never meant to say anything even close to—
“Love you,” she tells him again, once she’s got her voice back, and the answering thrust has her gasping loud enough she worries the kids will hear. “You’re into that, huh?” she teases. She already knows he is, and she likes it, how powerful it makes her feel. “Hm?”
Nick huffs a laugh into her temple, sheepish. He smells familiar, like his soap and like himself. “Yeah,” he admits, sharp teeth at her earlobe. “I really am.”
Taryn bites back. It never felt anything like this with Pete. “Good,” is all she says. How she got so fast from never wanting to hear it to wanting to hear it more or less constantly is sort of unclear to her, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she’s going to figure out right this particular second. Could be she wanted to hear it all along. “Um. Me too.”
Nick pulls almost all the way out just to sink back inside her, yanking her shirt up and reaching around to pop the hooks on her bra so he can get his hands on her body in the murky dark. She can’t see much of anything, but he pushes the flimsy cups out of the way anyhow like he’s trying to get a look at her, a messy bunch of fabric and his fingers warm and rough at her nipples. His stomach is burning warm against hers. “There,” Taryn mumbles into his mouth, short nails on her free hand digging into the smooth skin of his biceps. “Shit, right there, that’s really—”
“Keep touching yourself,” he orders when he feels her start to ease up for a second, how close to the edge she is already. They’ve done this so much over the past couple months he can basically get her off in thirty seconds if he’s aiming to. Taryn wants to make it last.
“No,” she whines, tugging on his lower lip petulantly. “Longer.”
Nick just laughs and runs a thumbnail across her left nipple. “Yes,” he says, covering her mouth with one big hand as Taryn yelps in surprise, an embarrassing, full-body shiver rolling through her. The way he’s moving has intent now, dragging himself across that spot over and over. “Come on, Falvey, just like this. You’re perfect.” Taryn bites his palm in reply, then licks away the teeth marks. She imagines she can feel his lifeline under her tongue.
“You wanna hear it again?” he asks, shoving deep and then just staying there, thick pressure everywhere. Taryn bears down involuntarily, and both of them groan. “Hear exactly how much? Or do you wanna hear about how long instead, all the days I looked at you and knew?” He’s whispering in her ear, both of them breathing like they’ve been running wind sprints. If he moved even a millimeter, that would be it. “Want me to tell you all of that?”
Taryn nods furiously, hard enough to dislodge his hand. He keeps it close though, and she sucks at his fingers, afraid to speak. She wants to hear all of that and more, is the truth, wants to extract the most ridiculous promises from him. Today shredded her emotions, and now they’ve exploded everywhere like so much paper confetti.
Nick presses his cheek against hers in the dark, pulling out his fingers and fitting in his tongue. Taryn feels like she’s melting between her legs. “Touch yourself,” he insists, ducking back, “and I’ll tell you.”
It’s over at the first flutter of fingers, Taryn’s back arching so sharply it’s difficult to keep balanced on the sofa. She presses down on her clit and wrings it out nice and hard anyway, trying to keep all her greedy noises trapped in her throat. Because of the kids, of course, but also because Nick’s making good on his promise and actually telling her, snatches of words that sound a whole lot like “more than anything” and “Taryn, I swear, I really—” She winds a shaky arm around his neck and clings.
Nick looks at her the whole time, same hungry expression he gets whenever she has an orgasm, like he really, really likes to watch her get off. Taryn angles her hips for more. He starts fucking her again just as she’s finishing, sends her over the edge a second time. She squeezes her eyes shut, the feeling tearing through her like a riptide.
Which—shit. “Love you,” she repeats once she’s able to make words again, her breath warm and humid against his ear. She wants to get him to lose it twice as bad. Her whole body feels rubbery and boneless though, this lame, mostly ineffectual thrusting. Taryn hangs on as hard as she can, lets him curl his hands around her ass and do it for her. “Nick Nick Nick, you hear me? Tried to pretend I didn’t, but I couldn’t talk myself out of it. Almost slipped up and told you way before now, how much I—”
Nick comes on a groan that’s stupidly gratifying in its low, animal intensity, the hot spill of him inside her and one hand fisted tight in her hair. It feels like a good one, how long he goes for, working himself in over and over. Taryn slicks her tongue over the pulse in his neck.
Oh yeah. She loves him, all right.
“So,” she says a minute later, giggling into the warm plane of his chest, the muscles in her thighs still twitching. She can feel his steady heart beating underneath her hands. “That was pretty much the best part of this evening, wouldn’t you say?”
Nick breathes a quiet, shuddery laugh. “It didn’t suck,” he agrees. His face changes then, pulling back to look at her in the shadowy living room. His eyes are like a wolf’s in the dark. “This is serious now, yeah?” he asks her, the tips of his fingers still tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck. “You’re not gonna go bolting on me next time I ask you something you don’t want to answer?”
I hope not, Taryn almost tells him. Shrugs inside his arms instead. “I mean,” she says, tipping her face close so he’ll kiss her. “You know where I live.”
Nick obliges. “I do know that,” he agrees. He reaches down behind her and pulls the threadbare flannel blanket off the couch cushions, wraps it around her chilly shoulders. Stands there for a minute as he softens, letting her lean. Taryn wonders what the woods behind his house might look like in the summer. It’s strange how he makes her think long-term in a way Pete never did.
“This is colossally stupid,” she murmurs. He just feels so good, is the problem, her eyes slipping closed all on their own. Her butt is falling asleep where she’s balanced on the sofa, and she doesn’t even care one bit. “We need to put clothes on, like, stat.”
“Mm-hmm,” Nick says, pressing his lips against her temple. He rubs up and down her naked thighs, thumbing over the ugly scar bisecting her knee. Taryn takes a deep breath.
“The first time she ever went to the hospital to get her stomach pumped,” she says, before she can chicken out and not tell him. “It was right after my and Jesse’s dad left, so I must have been like, four or something? Anyway, I chased the ambulance all the way to the corner before I fell.”
“Ah,” Nick says, worrying the ropey skin like Taryn sometimes does. Just that, just ah. Not pity, but a picture coming together in his mind. “Hurt?”
> “Like a motherfucker.” There were stitches too. In the end, she got sent to the same hospital as Rosemary. It’s sad, but it’s probably one of Taryn’s best memories of her mom, how they got beds right next to each other and camped out eating Jell-O and watching soaps. Rosemary was young at the time, so the nurses were indulgent about the alcohol poisoning. Taryn hadn’t been going to school long enough to know that was weird, that she should be embarrassed. She learned quick. “We’ve got different dads, you know,” she adds. “Me and Jess, then Cait, then Connor and Mike.”
“Yeah?” Nick says, leaning back like maybe they can make eye contact in the dark. “Any of them still in the picture?”
“Cait’s.” He’s okay, a loser but a nice one. He sends Christmas cards every year from Fall River, always remembering to say hi to Taryn and Jess. Mikey and Connor’s dad is in jail, and thank goodness for that. “That’s it though,” Taryn finishes. “I can’t even remember mine.” A paddle pool, someone telling her she’s allowed an extra Popsicle after dinner. Nothing else.
Nick doesn’t press. They’re pulling on their clothing now, underwear back in place and both pairs of pants retrieved from the darkened kitchen. “I’m trying Jesse again,” she tells him, yawning. Nick nods, drifting off to call one of his sisters so they’ll let Atlas out in the morning. For a crazy second, Taryn considers telling him to just bring the dog here—the aftermath of a crisis, maybe, how she feels compelled to gather everyone she loves in one place. Then Jesse’s voicemail says “Yo” in her ear, and she startles.
“Mom’s going to be okay,” she tells him. “But we might have a bigger problem.” Even now, dozy with afterglow, she doesn’t want to mention Mikey’s face out loud to a recording device. Just in case. “A serious one, Jess.” What they’re going to do about Rosemary’s behavior aside, the kids’ March break only lasts a week—that black eye better heal fast, or they’re going to have to keep him home from school. “Please, please call me back.”