by BWWM Crew
There weren’t a lot of men I could say that about. Not even Dean, and he was pretty well known for being a regular pain in the ass.
I dropped Keisha off at the Play Center and drove through to the café. I turned off the ignition and listened to the car tick slower and slower until it was quiet. I had to unlock, but I didn’t get out of the car. I sat there staring at the café. It was weird that one little narrow shop, squashed nearly out of existence by two other shops, could be the sum total of my life. I suddenly wondered what it was all about. What was I doing this for?
I started the car again, and pulled a couple of blocks down, stopping in front of the Lazy Eye hotel. I got out and greeted Barbara who was reading a magazine behind the reception desk.
“Do you know where I can find Tanner Williams?” I asked. Barbara eyed me.
“Do you have an appointment?” I asked.
“Cut the crap, Barb. Three star hotels don’t do appointment calls to their patrons.”
She made a face at me. “Room 302,” she said and slid her eyes back to the magazine on her lap. I thanked her and got into the rickety elevator.
When I knocked on the door there was no answer. I was scared he would be out. I turned to leave just as the door opened. Tanner looked at me, his mouth half-open in the middle of forming a sentence. He’d just gotten out of the shower. His skin still had water drops on it and his sandy hair was wet, dripping onto his shoulders. He closed his mouth and looked me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that said ‘Last Clean Shirt’ on it, and I felt suddenly self-conscious.
He was wearing only a towel round his waist and I followed the V-line down with my eyes until it disappeared underneath the white of the towel. I knew what was under there, and I swallowed, forcing my eyes back up to his face.
“You’re not room service,” he said.
“I’m not,” I answered. He hesitated long enough for me to think he was going to tell me to go away. Instead he stepped to the side so I could enter the room.
“You wouldn’t happen to have brought the clean towels with you?” he asked. His face was serious but his eyes were smiling again, and I realized he was joking.
“Sorry,” I said, and I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. Being a disappointment because I didn’t have the towels, or being a disappointment because I was… well...
Tanner sat down on the bed. The mattresses dipped under his weight. I stood awkwardly close to the door, feeling somehow like I was imposing.
“I wanted to apologize,” I said because I didn’t know how I was going to manage small talk when he was sitting in front of me wearing just a towel. His face was clean and open, and his eyes were blue. Inviting. Smiling.
“I was wrong. I was drunk. You’d left and I felt like my world was coming to an end. Dean had walked in there, drunker than me, and he’d been an idiot.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Jada,” Tanner said in a gentle voice.
I shook my head, holding up my hand. “I want to,” I said. Because if I stopped talking now I might just cry. “He’d been an idiot, but that was no excuse for me to be one too.” I took a deep breath. “I was wrong.”
He nodded slowly.
“But so were you,” I added, and Tanner’s expression turned to stone. I ignored it. I already lost him, what was the worst that could happen? I tried not to answer that for myself. “You should have told me earlier. About you and Dean being related. Brothers. I kind of needed to know that.”
“Would it have changed the decisions you made? Changed what we’d become?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. What we’d become…
I opened them again and looked down at my hand. “It doesn’t matter what I would or wouldn’t have done,” I said. “The point is you lied to me.”
“I didn’t deny he was my brother,” he said.
“And you didn’t tell me, either. You just left that bit out. That’s still lying, you know.”
Tanner nodded, and when I looked at him he was also staring down at his hands. “You would give me a hell of a run in court,” he said softly. When he looked up at me his eyes were a shocking blue, and they were full of emotion I couldn’t read. He got up and walked to me. I stood rooted to the spot even though I knew I should have backed away. He slid his hands behind my neck, and kissed me.
I kissed him back. I couldn’t not do it. It was Tanner, and being with him felt natural. Like breathing.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against my lips. I nodded my head, feeling his hands move at the back of my neck. I sighed, and it felt amazing being this close to him. His skin smelled clean, like soap, and his skin was cool to the touch. I pushed my hand into his wet hair. My other hand traced lines over his shoulder, back and forth. His skin was smooth and I could feel the muscle underneath it, rippling when he moved his arm. He brought his hands around and pulled the shirt over my head. It was a question. A bold one, but a question. I nodded slightly, and he unclipped my bra. My breasts sprang free, and he looked at me, tracing the contours of my body with his fingertips. I undid my own jeans and slid them down, stepping free of them. I was naked in front of him.
His hands slid over my body. I tugged once on his towel and it fell in a heap around his feet. He was hard, and he leaned against me. The length of him pressed against my hip and pre-cum trailed on my skin. He stopped kissing me and took my hand, leading me to the bed. I kissed him when we were at the bed’s edge, and pressed lightly on his chest so he would sit down. When he complied I pushed against him a little harder, making him lie back.
I crawled over his body. His eyes were dark and hungry, and he held his hands against my skin so they dragged down my body as I moved up him. I sat on top of him, just above his hips, and kissed him.
I was taking charge. I wanted him to know what I felt for him. I wanted to make up for what I’d done. I licked his lips, tracing them with my tongue, and then I kissed him long and deep. Sensual.
He sighed into my mouth. His hand slid around my hips and between my legs. I was suspended above him, and his fingers felt my clit. A shudder rippled through my body. I kept kissing him, but his fingers worked magic on my clit, rubbing in circles over and around it. My body burned hotter and hotter, and I could feel an orgasm build inside of me. I made small whimpering sounds into his mouth, and he responded with his fingers, working me into a frenzy.
It was turning him on, too. I felt his cock behind me stiffen and grow, pressing against the swell of one of my ass cheeks. He led me to the edge quickly, and then he helped me over. The orgasm was intense and unexpected, and it ripped through my body. I went numb and stopped kissing him so I could cry out. I collapsed on top of him and breathed hard for a few moments.
He wrapped his arms around me and held me there, straddling his torso.
When I finally managed to pull all the pieces together I pushed up. He looked at me with so much love and affection when I did, it almost hurt. I positioned myself over him, feeling a little shaky, and lowered myself onto his cock. He pushed into me and I moaned. He was bigger this way, and I shifted my hips a little to get used to his size.
Then I started moving backward and forward, bucking my hips against him. I could feel myself clamp down around him, still riding out the orgasm, but I wanted him inside me, so I kept going. I rocked back and forth, and his face changed from loving to pure ecstasy. I showed him what I felt, what he meant, what I couldn’t put into words. His hands were on my hips, helping me push backward and forward, and my breasts swayed in front of his face as I rode him.
He grunted and groaned in time with the movements. From time to time his hands left my hips and grabbed onto my breasts, groping them, pulling at my nipples and massaging my breasts, while I rocked back on forth on him. His breathing changed, his pupils dilated even more, and I could feel him swell more inside of me until he curled around me like a question mark, heaving and panting and jerking, pumping into me. His release was complete, and he shuddered against me, holding my body
against his until his orgasm slowed down.
I lay on top of his chest with him still inside of me, listening to the hammering of his heart, until I felt him soften up. I lifted so he slipped out of me, and I climbed off him, lying next to him.
He turned his face to me, his eyes droopy and a lazy smile on his face.
“I know it had just been one night, but I missed you,” he said.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered softly. He looked troubled for a moment, but then he gathered me into his arms and pulled me against his chest. Just a little longer, right here in his arms where I was safe, and I could keep going.
Chapter 10 - Tanner
I sat on the bed with my head in my hands, trying to figure out how I was going to tell Jada I was leaving. We’d spent the morning in bed, tracing the contours of each other’s body and relearning the few things we already knew about each other. Whenever I was with her it felt like the rest of the world fell away, and nothing else mattered.
After we parted it always came crashing down on me. When she’d left earlier it had been no different. She had the café to check on, and then she had to pick up Keisha and go back to work. And I was left in the hotel room feeling like my other half had just walked out the door and my time with her was running out.
The receptionist had called minutes after she’d left and told me the car had been booked for this evening. That meant that I had time only to say goodbye. To see my brother one last time, for what it was worth. To see Jada. To peel myself away from the life here that had somehow managed to suck me back in.
I got in the rental car and I drove toward Cosmos Valley again. Why did I keep coming back here? Because when a place had shaped so much of who you were, leaving it behind was like dropping pieces of yourself along the way like a trail of breadcrumbs that led back home. And you could never really get those back.
It looked even more dilapidated than the last time. I hadn’t gotten the horse again, mainly because I couldn’t keep looking back. It hurt too much to be the person I was once upon a time. Horses and wilderness and farm life. That was me.
I also didn’t expect the owner to give me another horse after the state I’d returned the first one in.
I turned and faced an empty field across from the land that my parents used to own. It was wide and open and free, with wheat-colored grass almost hip-high, and the wind running through it like water.
I could come back here. I could start a life here, have a ranch, be the old me again. A cowboy. The person I hadn’t really forgotten.
I shook my head. What was I thinking? I had a life in Houston. I couldn’t stay here for her. I couldn’t leave everything and come back to a woman who already had a man that was insisting on staying in her life. Even though Dean wasn’t her husband, he was Keisha’s father, and he supported them. He did most of the things a husband should. If I stayed I might get in the way.
I was more afraid that I might end up punching him in the face on a regular basis. I didn’t like who he’d become, and I didn’t like that he was around them all the time.
I walked to the car, glancing back at the open plot of land once more before I got in and started the engine.
I pulled up in front of Casa Bonita and walked in. The waitress , whose name I’d found out from Jada was Christine, looked up at me from behind the counter and grinned.
“Coffee and a sandwich?” she offered. I had a ‘usual’ at a place I’ve only been at for a few weeks. I shook my head.
“Not today, thank you. I’m looking for Jada.”
Christine looked at her wristwatch. “She’s not back from picking Keisha up yet,” she said. “Try the house.” She flashed a brilliant smile at me. I walked out of the café again and around the house to the front door. Jada’s car was parked outside. When I knocked on the front door an old woman answered.
“Hi,” I said. It had caught me off guard. “Is Jada here?”
Jada appeared behind her.
“It’s fine, Mrs. Cole. I’m heading out now anyway. There’s food in the fridge so you don’t have to worry.”
Jada stepped round the older woman who closed the front door behind her.
“My babysitter,” she said, nodding at the closed door.
I took a deep breath. My hands were trembling and my stomach felt hollow. Jada frowned.
“Why does it feel like we’ve done this before?” she asked. I swallowed hard and my throat was tight. “You look like you have something important to say to me.”
I did. It was very important.
“I’m leaving tonight,” I said. Easier just to throw it out there than torture myself with small talk. She narrowed her eyes at me, and it suddenly got a whole lot harder.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“My work. It’s finished now, and I’m going back to Houston. My boss wants me in the office before the weekend.”
“So you’re just leaving? How long have you known about this?”
“Since last night, but..."
I didn’t get a chance to explain. She changed from sunshine skies to stormy clouds in the blink of an eye.
“You didn’t think to tell me this before we did it?”
The way she said it made me flinch.
“It wasn’t just a good lay, if that’s what you’re implying. It meant much more to me,” I snapped, and it was totally not the point. Her face closed and I hated that I’d lost her already, before I’d come to ask her what I’d had in mind. I took a deep breath.
“Look, I only knew what time I was leaving after you left.”
“But you knew you were leaving.”
I opened my mouth to argue, and closed it again. She was right. I had known. When I didn’t answer she turned and stormed toward the café.
“Jada, wait,” I said and I grabbed her arm. She glared at me and I dropped it immediately. “I’m not finished.”
She turned to me and pursed her lips. Looking at me with raised eyebrows that told me to get on with it. I took a deep breath and forced the words out before I had a chance to be a coward and not say them.
“Come with me,” I said. She blinked at me, processing my words. “You can open up a place in Houston. There are great schools around, and I’ll make sure you’re both okay. I can…” The words stuck in my throat. I was jumping with my eyes closed here. “I can take care of you. Both of you.”
She looked around herself like the road, the side of the house, would help her find the answers.
“And what about Dean?” she asked. I hadn’t thought about Dean for one second, if I had to be honest. And I really didn’t want to. I rolled my eyes and caught myself too late.
“Surely you can work something out?” I finally said. I didn’t want Dean in the picture, truth be told. I wanted him out, away from Jada. He wasn’t doing her much good anyway, and the things that he did offer her I could easily make up for. And I could give her more.
“He’s Keisha’s father,” she said. “I can’t take her away from him. That would be cruel.”
“And what he’s been doing to you hasn’t been cruel?” I asked and my voice was raised.
“He’s not a bad man, Tanner. You of all people should know that.”
“He has problems!”
“Don’t we all?” she asked and I suddenly felt like a heartless idiot. But I wanted her to have a better life. I wanted her to be able to not worry about money, and have the time to spend with Keisha, and sleep in when she wanted to. She was too beautiful, too perfect to live a life like this.
“I want to be with you,” I said. “I want you to come with me so we can be together.”
“Why can’t you stay here, then? Keisha is six, I can’t uproot her now and take her away from everything she knows and loves. She has a life here too. Both of us have. I won’t be the only one that will be leaving that behind.”
“I can’t stay here,” I said, feeling numb.
“Why not? Isn’t this home?”
; I breathed in deeply and blew it out again. Slowly.
“There are too many things here I can’t live with,” I said. “And Dean and I… we don’t get along. I don’t know how that would work.”
“So you’d rather leave, even if it means that it will be without me?”
I looked at her for a long time, tracing the shape of her face with my eyes. Her full lips, her smooth skin, her braids. Her drowning deep eyes that made me feel like the world was an okay place as long as I was staring into them.