Their Child? Read online

  Why should he lie awake taunted by memories of that one night so long ago?

  Why deny himself? When he could have her now, when she’d told in no uncertain terms that she wanted him, too? Yes, she’d killed his tender, hopeful dreams of the life they might have shared. He knew now that all that had only been a fool’s fantasy. But his desire for her? It was stronger than ever. Why the hell shouldn’t he have her? Especially considering that denial only seemed to make his hunger for her stronger.

  He watched as she turned in her chair, reached for a drawer in the desk, and spotted him from the corner of her eye. She went very still, slim arm stretched out, silky hair falling forward over her shoulder. He saw her catch her breath.

  Then she straightened and spun the swivel chair around so that she faced him. “Tucker. I didn’t…” Her sweet mouth trembled.

  He studied her unforgettable face, the delicate features, the tempting plump mouth. Her left eye was no longer swollen. The bruises were fading, turning from the vivid purple of those first few days to a pale rainbow of yellows, greens and blues. She’d stopped wearing the bandage. The long cut at her temple, crosshatched with stitches, looked angry and red.

  He demanded softly, “You didn’t what?” And he let his gaze wander lower, down her slim throat, where he could see the tiny pulse beating much too hard, over the snug top she wore and the fine, full breasts beneath it, to the smooth bit of skin that was visible between the top and her pink shorts. He admired the outward curve of her hips and after that, her bare legs, her slim, perfect ankles. He went all the way, to the tips of her pink canvas shoes and then, slowly, he tracked back up the way he had come until he was looking right into those startled blue eyes once again.

  She swallowed. “I didn’t know you were standing there.”

  With a shrug a damn sight lazier than the heat that blazed within him, he stepped across the threshold.

  “Tucker?” she asked, her voice suddenly husky. She rose from the chair. “What are you doing?” He didn’t answer. Not in words, anyway. He pushed the door shut behind him, finding the privacy lock by feel and twisting it. “Oh, Tucker…” She raised a hand, pressed the back of it against her mouth.

  “Do you want me to go?”

  Her hand dropped to her side. She swallowed again. And then, her gaze locked with his, her back straight and her chin high, she shook her head. “No.” It came out in a whisper. “Please. Stay.”

  So he covered the distance between them and took her in his arms.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tucker wrapped those big, strong arms around her and Lori was lost. Gone. Swept deliciously away. The high walls of hurt and anger between them were—at least for that moment—shattered to rubble, toppled by the force of their mutual need.

  He kissed her, a punishing kiss…

  At first.

  But when she opened her mouth with a surrendering sigh, the kiss changed in an instant, grew wet and soft and so erotic. His tongue slid past her lips. Hot and slick, it swept the inside of her mouth, leaving her weak-kneed, clutching his big shoulders just to stay on her feet.

  He lifted his head with a groan—and then slanted it the other way, covering her lips again in a kiss so long and deep and slow that she thought she would die of the sheer pleasure of it. His hands, so warm and strong, roamed her back, sliding up under her little shirt, finding the clasp of her bra, expertly slipping the tiny hooks free. He ran a finger, oh-so-slowly, down the bumps of her spine, the teasing touch setting off hot flares as it went.

  And then, with another low groan, he lifted his mouth from hers again. He looked down at her, dark eyes velvet-soft, face flushed, mouth swollen, as he brought his hands around to the front of her, slipping them up under her unclasped bra. She stared into his eyes and shuddered in delight as he covered her breasts with his two big, cupping hands. Her nipples drew up, hard and tight. He flattened his hands, rubbed his palms against them, until she moaned aloud.

  And then he smiled at her. “Yeah,” he said, and “yeah,” again. His smile changed, became something darker. “I want to see you…I have to see you…”

  He took the hem of her shirt and he pulled it up. She raised her arms and off it went. He hooked his fingers under the satin straps at her shoulders, lingering for a moment, hands stroking the tender skin of her upper arms as he brought those satin straps down. The bra slid low. He whipped it away.

  “Lori,” he whispered, lowering his big golden head. “Lori…” His lips closed over her aching nipple. He drew on it, nipped it with careful teeth, flicked it with his tongue.

  And she surged up against him, clutching his shoulders, wishing in some vague, shattered sort of way that this magic, this pleasure, could bring them closer in the ways that really mattered. That somehow this white-hot delight they found in each other would help him come to trust her again.

  It wouldn’t, not really. And she did know that—in her head. Her heart and her body, though? They had different ideas.

  As he suckled one breast, he took the other in his hand, cradling it, positioning it for his mouth, and then he claimed it. She speared her fingers in his brown-gold hair, let her head drop back and moaned aloud.

  And then his hand moved lower, to the hook at the top of her pink shorts. She knew what he wanted and she helped him, unhooking it for him, sliding the zipper down, slithering out of the shorts as he shoved them over her hips. They dropped around her ankles. She lifted one foot and then the other and kicked the shorts away.

  The panties came next. He pushed at them, slid his fingers beneath the delicate elastic, guiding them down. They caught on her shoes and tangled so tight she couldn’t get free of them.

  He left them there. He was too busy right then, his mouth at her breast, his hand on the curls between her thighs. He petted her, fingers combing, ruffling, and then, very gently, sliding lower, easing her open, dipping one finger into the slick, wet folds of her sex.

  She lifted toward him, bucking her hips, lost now to everything but the feel of his mouth at her breast—and more than that, his hot touch at that hidden, oh-so-sensitive spot.

  She was so wet, dripping. And her legs were shaking. She could feel herself rising, the pleasure spreading, fulfillment blooming, closer…closer. She didn’t know if she could stay on her feet.

  And then she didn’t have to.

  He was lifting her high against his chest. He took her mouth again as he carried her to the bed.

  He set her down, carefully, on the jade-green coverlet, breaking the passionate kiss to tug her gently to the edge, so her legs hung over and her feet touched the floor. She reached for him, holding up yearning arms. But he didn’t go down to her.

  Instead, still fully dressed, he knelt at her feet and gently removed her hobbling, twisted panties. Her shoes were next. He took her right foot in one big hand and untied her shoelace with the other. She canted up on her elbows and looked down her own body, between her bare breasts, past the wet auburn curls at the top of her thighs and into his hot, dark, hungry eyes.

  He slid that shoe off and set it aside and then he lifted her bare foot and kissed it. He nipped her toes, each one in turn, and she thought how truly lovely it was, to be a grown woman with him and not a scared virgin girl.

  He kissed his way upward, teeth scraping against the vulnerable inner curve of her naked foot, his tongue licking, his lips planting little hot, swift kisses—on the muscles of her calf, the inner curve at her knee, the tender insides of her thighs.

  Oh, and then…

  He moved in closer, easing her legs over his shoulders. He spread his big hands on her thighs and with the tips of his fingers he opened her.

  And then his tongue was there, licking, at first, then latching on, sucking so gently, drawing her to him.

  So close, so close…

  She fell back to the bed, moaning, and let her eyelids drift shut as he kissed her and licked her and she felt herself rising, higher and higher. She quivered on the brink.

&
nbsp; And then she broke wide-open in a scatter of stars, a shower of light and sweetness, a taste like champagne on her tongue and the musky scent of her own desire all around her.

  She heard herself crying, “Oh!” and “Yes!” and “Please…”

  When she could think again—when she could move again, she reached down to try and pull him onto the bed with her.

  But he sat back on his heels and shook his head. “I can’t.”

  She pushed herself to a sitting position. “But why not?”

  He reached out, stroked her thighs, brushed the reddish curls, lazily, possessively. “I didn’t stop to get a condom…” His fingers dipped in—one and then another. She gasped as her inner muscles contracted around them. And then, so slowly, he took his hand from her, lifted it to his lips and licked her wetness off his fingers.

  “Tonight,” he said.

  She nodded, mentally ticking off the hours until their son would go to bed. “Oh, yes.”

  He bent close again, put his mouth against her. His silky head pressed into her belly. She felt his tongue as it traced the slick groove, found that swollen nub, and flicked it maddeningly. She cupped the back of his head with her hand, groaning, pressing him even closer.

  And then she couldn’t stay sitting up for one more second. With a long sigh, she fell back across the bed. She clutched the coverlet in her two fists, and let out a cry of sudden, sharp wonder as she slammed against the peak again, crested it, went tumbling over. The world burst wide-open, and her body turned inside-out.

  She felt the bed shift and opened her eyes.

  Tucker was bending over her, one knee braced on the mattress. She reached for him again. He shook his head, whispered, once more, “Tonight…”

  He lowered his head—keeping his body carefully away from her—and kissed her lips. She tasted herself on his tongue, for a too-brief moment, only. Too soon, he was lifting his mouth from hers, pausing to kiss the long, ugly scar on her temple…

  And then he was pulling away, rising to stand by the side of the bed. He looked down at her. He still had all his clothes on.

  And she? Except for one pink canvas shoe, she was naked, flung out across the bed, with not a shred of modesty. His eyes gleamed as his gaze swept over her. She felt no urge to cover herself, only a deeper kind of pleasure still—at the hot look of pure lust on his face, at the knowledge that tonight, there would be more.

  Oh, yes. So much more…

  It wasn’t until several minutes later, as she stood in the shower washing the scent of her own arousal from her body, that she realized she’d let him get away without so much as a mention of the ever-present question: when was he going to be ready to tell their son what Brody needed to know?

  But then, as the warm water poured over her, she smiled a woman’s knowing smile. Tonight, he had said.

  Once Brody was safely in bed, she would go to him.

  Or he would come to her.

  Whichever. It didn’t matter. The point was, they’d be together. They would make long, slow, tender love.

  She would be with him, in his arms. And that meant she’d have ample opportunity to ask the question gently, and to get the answer she sought.

  And there was more than that. Oh, yes, there truly was. There was that little flare of hope inside her, the one that had refused to die.

  That tiny flare was a bright flame now.

  Maybe. Just maybe, she and Tucker could find their way to each other, in the truest sense, after all.

  For the first time since he’d learned that Brody was his son, Tucker Bravo was an inattentive father. A man is only human, after all. He only has so much attention to give at any specific time. And since those moments up in Lori’s bedroom, all his attention was hard-wired directly on to the night to come. Remembered images kept flashing through his brain: Lori, naked on the bed, a rosy flush on her pale skin, that long red hair of hers spilled out across the green bedspread, those silky curls between her legs wet and glistening from his kisses.

  He was useless. Hopelessly distracted. Waiting only for the hour when Brody climbed into his bed and Lori—and the night to come—were his to take.

  Getting through dinner. Now there was a challenge. He forked up food he hardly tasted and tried his damnedest not to let his gaze linger too long on the redhaired woman who sat across from him, looking so sweet and serene. She smiled indulgently at their son as Brody chattered away about his friends from San Antonio and his new buddies from town. Peter, one of the town kids, had invited him and the other two town boys to a sleepover tomorrow night.

  “Can I go, Mom?”

  She sent Tucker a look then, slightly questioning, including him in the decision. He shook himself and nodded and tried not to look at her mouth, not to think of her kisses and the way her body had moved under his hands, the way she had sighed and shuddered and pressed herself closer…

  “Yes,” she said to his son. “You can go.”

  Brody beamed. “Sweet. We’ll sleep out, like we did when everyone was here. And Peter’s dad will cook cheeseburgers and we’ll tell scary stories and not freak out when we hear strange noises, not go running inside in the middle of the night like a bunch of big babies…”

  Brody chattered on.

  Tucker poked food into his mouth and nodded at what he hoped were the right places and counted the hours, the minutes, the seconds until bedtime—which was much too long in coming.

  After the meal, Brody whipped Tucker’s butt at the space-invader game. The fact that Tucker lost was nothing new. Brody usually beat him; a grown man didn’t have a prayer against a kid when it came to a video game. But most times, Tucker could at least hold his own.

  Not that night.

  In his ten-year-old way, Brody was polite about cleaning Tucker’s clock. “It’s all right, Tucker. Maybe Sunday night, after I’m back from Peter’s, we can play again. You might even get past level one before you totally wipe out. I could give you a few hints on strategy. But you would have to really listen, because you seem kind of, like, out of it tonight. You just can’t be out of it when you play Alien Aggression—Tucker? D’ja hear me?”

  He blinked a certain graphic erotic image of Lori from his mind and grinned at his son. “I heard you. Every word.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Right…” Brody waved a hand and flattened his lips—and something about the gesture and his expression reminded Tucker of Tate.

  Mine, Tucker thought again, love and pride arrowing through him; love and pride and a fierce determination to be the kind of father he and Tate had never had: a real father, one who was there, every day, one who showed how much he cared. A dad a kid could turn to when things got tough.

  Brody shook his head. “I’ve tried to be nice about it. But you got to face it, Tucker. You really sucked tonight.”

  “Hey!” Tucker assumed an expression of mock-out-rage. “Don’t be dissing me, man…”

  Brody snorted. “It’s not dissing you. It’s just the truth.”

  “That does it.” Tucker reached out, grabbed Brody and started tickling him.

  Brody shouted—in laughter and surprise. They rolled together on the game room rug, Brody squirming, laughing, shouting, “No, stop, argh!” as Fargo ran around them in a circle, barking and wagging his long, wiry-haired tail.

  When they rolled apart, panting, both of them laughing by then, Tucker looked up to find Lori standing over them. She braced her hands on her hips. “Having a good time, boys?”

  Fargo plunked his skinny butt down and let out a final, gleeful bark. And Tucker and Brody looked at each other and laughed some more.

  Brody went upstairs to take his bedtime shower at nine. As a rule, when he was ready for bed, he’d wander out of his room in his pajamas, sleepy-eyed, smelling of soap and toothpaste, his cowlick standing straight up at the back of his head. He’d say goodnight—usually to Tucker first and then to his mother.

  That evening, Tucker waited in his study for Brody to come and find him. He spent the tim
e staring blindly at his computer screen, pretending to play Spider Solitaire, but really long gone in fantasies of the night to come. Twenty-five minutes crawled by.

  How damn long did a kid’s shower take?

  After thirty-one minutes, Tucker decided to find out why the hell Brody had chosen that night to be the cleanest kid in Texas. He shut down the computer and headed for the main stairs.

  He found Lori in the upstairs hallway. She stood in the doorway to her room, leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed beneath those breasts he intended to be kissing soon—and one foot crossed over the other, toe to the hardwood floor.

  He wanted to grab her and haul her close, but somehow he restrained himself and muttered darkly, “He drown?”

  Her eyes made promises he intended to see that she kept and one side of that soft mouth lifted in a teasing grin. “I knocked on his bathroom door a few minutes ago. He’s still breathing, believe me. He’s doing just fine.”

  “Doing what?”

  “He’s having a bath.”

  “But he likes a shower…”

  “Every once in a while, he wants a bath. He’ll sit in there for up to an hour sometimes, floating Lego boats, relaxing. He even sings while he’s in there…” She cocked her head. “Listen…”

  He strained to hear. His son’s voice came to him—so young, slightly off-key. He recognized the song. “Yellow Submarine?” She nodded. “There’s an oldie for you. Way before my time.” He listened some more. “Sounds like he knows all the words.”

  “Henry taught it to him.” She looked at him levelly, as if she dared him to say a word against her precious dead husband.

  He tamped down his bitterness that she’d let some other man teach his son bathtub songs. As he’d already told her, whatever he thought of Henry Taylor personally, he was willing to admit that the man had done well by Brody.