by Willa Okati
Tuck gave it his best. He did. Helped when he watched Cade instead of paying attention to his feet. He loved that little line between Cade’s eyebrows and the way Cade caught his lip between his teeth. And so what if he’d been assigned to dance the woman’s role? He could sacrifice a little machismo to make Cade happy.
Besides, there was something to this, Cade’s arms sure and strong where Cade guided him. Something good to hold on to, warm beneath his light shirt and close enough to breathe in the scent of him, sunlight and salt, soap and coffee.
Huh. When he let Cade direct him, they didn’t have nearly as many bumps and thumps and stubbed toes.
Cade’s cheeks pinked. “I know what you’re thinking right now.”
Tuck’s ears warmed. Well, this close to one another, not so easy to hide. “You know how I am, how I feel about you. I’m not apologizing.”
Cade took them in through another three circles before the music stopped and a brief hiss cued up the next song on the disc. “I’m not asking you to,” he said, soft as the wind through the trees.
“Thought you were pissed at me,” Tuck chanced, not letting go now. “And am I doing this waltz thing at all right?”
“You’re decent enough for a beginner. And I was. Pissed, that is.” Cade didn’t guide Tuck quite so firmly now, but well enough. Tuck could take more of the lead and bear him up now that he knew how.
Jeez, would that the rest of the tangle they’d gotten themselves wound up in be half so simple to unspool. “You’re not now?”
“I don’t know,” Cade said after a pause.
Tuck shifted the balance. He mirrored the stance Cade had taken when the music started, asking permission with one eyebrow, and turned the tide. God help him, Cade didn’t miss a beat when he slid into the lady’s part. So to speak.
“Let me guess. It’s not that easy?” Tuck asked, guiding Cade in the dance. “However did I know?”
Cade’s lips twitched. “I never got that about you. How you could still joke no matter what.”
“You need more laughter in your life, idiot. You always have. Don’t tell me that’s not so.”
Silence. Tuck thought maybe, maybe he’d gone too far. He expelled his breath in a whoosh when Cade said, sotto voce, “Maybe you’re right.”
He drew them to a stop, graceful as a swan. Tuck, not so much. He stumbled and bumped forward; if Cade hadn’t been resilient, he’d have fallen. Even so, he had to sternum-slap Cade to keep from tripping over his stocking feet.
“If you loved me, you’d make this easier,” Cade said.
From zero to serious in point-six seconds. Tuck coped and kept pace. “It’s because I love you that I can’t. You know me well enough to know that by heart.”
Cade shook his head. Tuck could almost see the thoughts whizzing through there.
He had a bad feeling about those thoughts. Reaching for any straw, Cade was, and if he got hold of the truly sharp and spiky one…
“Hannah sent us off quick, like we were to go to bed without supper in an old story,” Cade said slowly. “I keep thinking about that.”
Tuck stalled. “She’s busy, you know that.”
“But she’s still Hannah. No. She was angry, I think.” Cade covered Tuck’s hand. His was cold, and he wasn’t looking at anything less than a thousand yards away. “You’re lying to me about something. Aren’t you?”
Fuck!
Tuck dropped Cade’s hand hot-potato style before Cade could do it for him. “Well, you told me not to make you laugh.”
“Nothing’s funny right now.”
“You went looking for something to turn it that way, and don’t tell me any different.”
“Trust me, I’m not.”
“About which, point A or point B?”
Cade ground his teeth together. “Tell me the truth,” he said, clear and distinct. “Now. Or I walk out this door, and I don’t look back.”
“You wouldn’t do that to them.”
“I won’t stay and have you patronize me either.”
He meant it. No doubt. That couldn’t happen. Maybe being with Cade was like a roller coaster, sure, but be damned if Tuck wanted the ride to stop to let the passengers off. He did Cade the respect of looking him in the eye and standing tall to get the slap he deserved. “She knows the truth.”
Y’know, it would have been easier if Cade had yelled. Thrown things. Maybe even taken a swing. But Cade? No. He stood as if he’d been planted on the spot and grown up through the marble floor, stiller than if he’d been carved, everything he might have thought or felt locked so tightly away that Tuck knew it as if he’d spelled out every word.
He still would’ve rather had a shout or two.
God knew he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “I didn’t tell her,” Tuck said. “She guessed.”
Chapter Twelve
They’d ended up near enough the rolltop desk to let Tuck cross his arms and lean against it. Wasn’t as sturdy as it looked and it wobbled on one short leg.
“What do you want me to say, Cade?”
Nothing.
Then—“How did she guess?”
Tuck sighed. No use fighting this. He guessed there hadn’t been all along. Might as well have saved them the trouble.
Might as well let the inevitable happen.
Sometimes. Not in all things.
“Bits of this and that, she said. She’s got a sharp eye. I’d forgotten how sharp, or maybe she grew into one as she got older. She—”
“Tuck.”
One word, softly spoken but laced with warning as a field with mines.
Tuck tried to keep it concise, he really did. He just hadn’t been built that way. Cade used to be okay with it. “Little stuff,” he said again. “When she walked up on us at the tail end of all that…” He waved a hand. “The way we were last night on the veranda. This morning when you were out of bed before me and out running. It’s not all my fault. None of this is, come to think about it.”
Cade’s jaw worked, but in silence.
Tuck couldn’t seem to stop now that he’d started, only he wasn’t going in the direction he’d intended. Unfortunately. “Then…this morning. We slipped up, scrapping like that outside.” Tuck scratched the back of his head. “Then Thomas walked through. That didn’t help.”
“Why?”
Tuck blinked. “Come again?”
“I asked you why.”
Tuck’s temper rose a notch higher. “The guy’s a dick.”
Now Cade was pissed off too. Might be they’d have some yelling after all. Good. “What’s he ever done to you?”
He bit back, just barely, the he pays too much attention to you that wanted to come out and let fly with a different truth. “He bothers me. Always has. So damn peaceful and quiet. Stick a robe on him and cut off a circle of hair on the top of his head and he’d fit right in with a crowd of monks. Not down in the dirt with the rest of us. He never wondered where his next meal was coming from or what he’d have to do to earn it. He isn’t like you. Or me.”
Now why the fuck did that make Cade go a whiter shade of pale? It made the silence between his finish and Cade’s start prickly hot with the kind of tension Tuck hated.
“I wondered,” Cade said. “I always wondered. You hate him because he’s a decent man. God, Tuck.”
“What good would it have done if I’d dragged it up before? He was out of our lives for ten years.”
“Gone, but for you, not forgotten. Was he?” Cade was withdrawing, inch by inch and breath by breath. Going so far away.
“Yes,” Tuck said, coming pretty damn close to the tail end of the fire himself. Cade exhausted him sometimes. Most times, lately. “And no. I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“You make me talk about things I’d rather leave behind.”
“For God’s sake!” Tuck rubbed his forehead, kneading back the ache that’d sprung up. “Save it for later, then. How did we even get to Thomas, anyway? We’re talking about Hannah now.”
“Hannah, who knows,” Cade said slowly. He’d retreated behind his wall, where Tuck couldn’t reach him. “What do we do about it?”
At least he hadn’t said “you.” Small comfort, that. Not enough for Tuck to content himself with.
“Any suggestions? I’m open. What do you want to do about it? Tell Megan as well? ‘Hey, Sis, got a funny story to tell you, but don’t let it fuck up your dissertation. No, seriously.’” He scoffed.
Cade turned from Tuck to grip the back of a chair that looked far too frail for his tight hold. “What does Hannah want?”
Tuck’s lip curled. It felt sour and bitchy, even to him. “She’s not sure. It’s not that easy.”
That got a reaction. Cade ground his teeth. “You’re a real jackass sometimes, Tuck.”
“So I’ve been told. About Megan, I don’t know. I’ll do what Hannah says. When she says. Until then, I keep my mouth shut.” Tuck lifted his chin in challenge. “What about you?”
Cade didn’t answer that question. He straightened up the way he might when he was eighty and sore in every joint. “And after the wedding? Is it over, the way we said, or are you going to keep chasing me until the day we both die?”
This was cruel, and Tuck knew it. He said it anyway. “Are you the one who’s going to keep running away?”
If he’d thought Cade was pale before, it was nothing compared to him right now. White dents at either side of his nose and white lines carved at the side of his mouth. “That’s how it is, then,” Cade said. “That’s what you’re laying on me.”
“I guess I am.” Tuck stood his ground. “Tell me no. That offer’s still open.”
“As if you’d listen? You never have.”
“You never really wanted me to.”
Cade laughed, and it was as absolutely far from humor as a laugh could get, caustic as lye. “God, Tuck. You’ll never—I won’t—” He tried to collect himself. Didn’t work, not in Tuck’s eyes. “It’s Hannah’s choice now. I’ll pretend as long as she asks us to. If she asks us to. But every second that you can otherwise, keep your distance.”
“So you can spend your time with Thomas?”
“What would you do if I said, ‘Yes, I will’?” When Cade finally did look back at Tuck, Tuck wished like hell that he hadn’t. “You made your bed,” he said. “Lie in it, and leave Thomas alone.”
“Give me one good reason why.”
Cade’s jaw worked. “One reason? Fine. As much as you hate him, did it ever occur to you that maybe he was as lonely as we were?”
It never had. Not once, and thinking of it now yanked the rug out from beneath Tuck’s feet. Knocked him square on his ass.
“Don’t—don’t apologize. I can see it on your lips before you say a word. And it’s just a word. ‘Sorry’ stopped being good enough for both of us.” Cade rubbed his face. “That and other words.”
“Cade…”
“‘I love you’ doesn’t fix everything, Tuck. It doesn’t.”
“I’m starting to see that.”
“I keep asking you why you can’t let it go,” Cade said. “You answer me with what you want to hear. You keep telling me I don’t mean what I say. Why don’t you believe me?”
Tuck had wondered, but now he knew. Clear and bright as a flash of faceted crystal. He crossed his arms and said quietly, “Because two people who aren’t still in love with each other can’t tear each other apart the way we do.”
Cade’s knuckles went white. Tuck figured Cade was just about ready to pop him one. Let him take his best shot. I deserve that too.
But what happened, that was something else altogether.
Chapter Thirteen
Tuck knew what was coming only half a second before it happened, when Cade lost control, body yielding to his broken thoughts, and pinned Tuck to the wall. No finesse here. Nothing gentle about it. Just Cade’s breath rasping hot in his ear, stubble rasping his face, and shoving one leg between Tuck’s and grinding. Had to hurt him, the rough steel of a zipper scraping against his dick.
Didn’t stop Tuck from wanting more. He shoved Cade and took the second that cost Cade to figure out what was going on to hitch his leg around the back of Cade’s, knee hooked over his hip.
“God, you make me crazy,” he said, groaning before and after the words. “Every time, it’s not enough. Need all of you. Every bit.” He slid his hands roughly down Cade’s sides and around to his ass, kneading the tight muscle. “And I know you need me the same.”
“Fuck.” Cade lost the last thread he had left to him. His mouth crashed into Tuck’s, and then he took back the reins Tuck offered him freely. He crushed Tuck between himself and the wall, grinding and swallowing Tuck’s hiss in his groan.
Tuck arched when Cade thrust a hand down the front of his jeans and took him in one hard hand. Stripping him without mercy. It would have been too much, too rough, if Cade hadn’t buried his face against Tuck’s shoulder and spoken without sound, words that weren’t quite words, only what pure thought would have felt like breaking across a man’s lips.
Tuck loved it, this time and place where both of them were too worked up to talk. Half-formed scraps of want and need and take it, take all of it breathed hot on one another.
Even better, love. Tuck knew how that word felt spoken on his skin, and he recognized it now as Cade settled into a chant that sped in time with his hand. Love, love, love…
He spoke it back as best as he could this way, aloud, chin atop Cade’s head and hands gripping Cade’s ass, thrusting back as best as he could. Cade’s hand became trapped between them, stroking himself off as much as he did Tuck.
Tuck dragged his nails from the curve of Cade’s ass up his back and sank them too deep when Cade gasped, swore, and came with what sounded almost like a sob expelled at the base of Tuck’s throat. He held Cade through it, staving off his own climax with gritted teeth.
But when Cade pressed his lips clumsily to Tuck’s and dragged the pad of his thumb over Tuck’s cock, Tuck couldn’t hold off. He arched his neck and let his mouth fall open in a silent shout that still seemed somehow to echo.
The room smelled of sex now. The good professor would get back from Europe someday, and even if that were years in the future, she’d stand in the middle of this room, sniff, and wonder in wide-eyed alarm what kind of licentious orgies they’d had here.
That thought made Tuck laugh. He smoothed the rumble out on the top of Cade’s head, kissing him, holding Cade as if he’d never let go—and like always, he never wanted to.
Cade shivered and pressed himself as hard against Tuck as if they were fucking—no, making love—still on the edge of coming and not catching their breath.
“All I want to do is help.” Tuck lifted Cade’s chin and brushed his mouth over Cade’s. “Let me in, babe. Or tell me why you won’t. Maybe I’ll break a thumb with a hammer, but I can fix you, if you let me. Stop running.”
He’d thought Cade might shake his head. Hoped Cade wouldn’t lock up and go silent.
Cade did neither. “This can’t keep happening.” He scrubbed uselessly at the stain on his cargos. Good luck with that. He’d come hard and long and looked just as he was in truth: fucked out, wrung dry, and loved, even if he wouldn’t admit it and wouldn’t say why not.
Even if he brought his head up as stubborn and implacable as a statue with ice-chip eyes and said, “This isn’t happening again. Once trust is broken, it’s broken, and that’s all there is to it. No going back.”
“Bullshit, and you know it.” Like he’d said before, mad got things done. Moping didn’t. Tuck was almost there. Almost through the cracks in the walls erected around his man’s heart. “Let me in, Cade. Let me in.”
“No.” Cade gave up on his pants and thrust one arm out to ward Tuck away. “No more, Tuck.”
“Why?” Tuck pushed himself off the wall. “As good as it can be between us, and if that’s what you want, then you tell me why you won’t let us have it. Give me that much, at least.”<
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Cade stopped, paling. “I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Flaring red spots filled in the white hollows beneath Cade’s cheekbones. “You want the truth? You break my heart. Every time I’m with you, another piece crumbles off, and I can’t—” He backed off, hard as stone, and no sculptor’s chisel could get near him now. “Get away from me. If you won’t leave, I will.”
Tuck shook his head. “No. It’s like I said before. Sort of. I couldn’t break your heart if you didn’t give a damn and if all you wanted from me was for me to be gone.”
“That’s what you think, and you go ahead and think it if it helps you sleep at night.”
Before Tuck could stop Cade, he was out the door, slamming it behind him. Leaving Tuck with a cooling mess of cum drying sticky on his thighs and wondering what he’d done wrong this time.
Loving Cade? No one could ever say it was easy. Not in the past, not in the present.
But be damned if they wouldn’t have a future. Tuck hadn’t given up so far, and so help him, whatever it took, he wasn’t giving up now.
See, he’d caught one last thing as Cade left. Cade, glancing back over his shoulder. A yearning that tore Cade to pieces.
Stubborn ass. Stubborn, stubborn ass. Why say no when his heart said yes?
Chapter Fourteen
It took Tuck a good twenty minutes to make his way back to the lived-in part of the house. Would have taken five at the most, only he waited five to give Cade time to get far enough ahead. Who knew what he’d say if they collided now? Five more to stare at an old painting on the wall and wonder why the artist had given whoever this was a sorrowful, faraway look. She made him think of the Mary icons back at St. Pius. He never had understood why someone supposed to be the most blessed of all women always looked like her heart was halfway to breaking.
Five and five made ten.
And then.
Then were was the five lost when Tuck looked away from the painting, down the hall in the opposite direction they’d used as an approach, and seen, of all the fucking people, Thomas. Thomas, fresh from a shower and watching him, his shirt slung over one sturdy, steady shoulder made broad from hard work.