44. Becca
FORTY-FOUR
BECCA
We wave off the last partygoers at around eleven, and every single room in the cottage is now painted. We got extra lucky, because Tyler’s parents convinced Ellie to stay over at their house for the night.
We stand side by side on the cottage’s porch, watching as our friends’ headlights fade into the dark. I rest my head against his chest, tired but content.
“Baby, I can’t thank you enough,” Tyler says. “No one’s ever done anything like that for me. You even figured out how to get the cottage done before the Pumpkin Smash.”
I grimace. “Yeah. I was afraid you’d think that was tacky, but I also knew otherwise you’d stress out trying to get it done. Now we just have to stage some furniture.”
“No, I thought it was great. And now I get to spend more time with you.”
I grin up at him. “I love spending time with you.”
He dips for a quick peck. “You know, we’ve got the farm to ourselves. And no one’s ever broken in this cottage. And it’s my birthday.”
“Hmm. Feeling entitled to something?” I tease.
We sink into a slow kiss and he steers us inside, kicking the front door closed and hemming me to it with his body.
I let myself relax into him. This man has been in my life as long as I can remember, but there’s nothing quite like having him in my life like this.
It’s starting to get real, to settle in.
This might be forever. I was hopeful on our wedding day, but I didn’t really expect it could come true.
I pull out of our kiss and gaze up at him. “So, you were serious about what you said earlier?”
Tyler’s brow wrinkles. “What do you mean? That I love you?”
“That you love me. I mean, what if we pay off the loan and . . . I don’t want to split up?”
He smiles and shakes his head. “Then I don’t think we’re splitting up. I certainly don’t want to.”
“But what if I want to keep going and you don’t? I can’t make you stay.”
He moves a half-step back from me, swiping his thumb over his lips that I just kissed. “I don’t see that happening.”
“I know I drive you crazy, though.”
“Drive me crazy?” He runs his tongue along his bottom teeth. “Reba, why else would I have bought back the LeBaron? Why do you think I asked you specifically to marry me?”
“I don’t know,” I say mousily. “Because you felt sorry for me and I’m Dusty’s sister. I’m familiar.”
“Yes, you’re Dusty’s sister, and yes, we both had similar problems. But I know somewhere deep inside me, you are what I’ve wanted. Even when I thought it was a bad idea. Even when I had the wrong idea of who you were.”
I swallow hard, because everything feels too close, like seaweed stuck around my ankles at the beach. “But what about when you were with CJ?”
He worries his lower lip. “Someone told me to look after you, and I didn’t want to break his trust.”
“So, what, you were with my best friend? How does that make it any better?”
“I knew I couldn’t have you,” he says more pointedly. “I was too irresponsible. Dusty would have killed me.”
“I was irresponsible too! It’s not like Dusty was a saint.”
“He wasn’t,” Tyler agrees. “But it wouldn’t have been right.”
“You didn’t want me,” I try, a desperate attempt to make this all make sense. “You told CJ we couldn’t share.”
Tyler looks at the ground between us and slowly raises his gaze. “I couldn’t share you.”
My voice is meek. “What does that mean?”
“There’s sharing for a night, but I knew I felt more than that. You were more than somebody I could enjoy and go back to business,” he says. “Being with you would have wrecked me.”
I’m stunned. Everything I’ve believed for the last several years is turned on its head.
“So when you said you always wanted me?”
“I did. I did always want you.” This has turned lung-crushingly intense. I don’t know how to process what he’s saying, but he keeps going. “Do you remember the first night I got together with CJ?”
“We almost kissed. It was almost us.” My lower lip starts to tremble. “You looked at me.”
He pinches his lips together and nods. “I wanted it to be you. But I put all those feelings on hold.”
“But even after she was gone, you . . . you cut me out. You avoided me. You told Dusty not to talk about me.”
“Because of what she told me you said. I thought you didn’t want Ellie. I thought you made CJ doubt herself.”
I shake my head, looking between us. “I didn’t want Ellie to get hurt. I wanted her, and CJ, to have a chance.”
“I know that now,” he says. “It all happened so fast. A few months in, she was pregnant and I just wanted to make sure I was a good dad. Then, you know the rest.”
I flash back to that time I try so often to forget.
CJ and I were both big on partying, but she fell prey to it.
I only dabbled in blow and ecstasy now and then.
She started seeking harder stuff. I tried to stop her, but she couldn’t stop.
Then she got pregnant and got clean, but fell right back in again.
Before she left town, I heard she was using heroin.
It’s a common story. Get put on pain pills for something, get taken off them, try to replace them and keep going deeper each time.
It’s a common story. Get put on pain pills for something, get taken off them, try to replace them and keep going deeper each time.
“I hate that she went through that. That you did. That she shut me out when all I wanted was to help.”
Tyler’s jaw jumps. “I hate the time that we lost.”
“I do too. But I can’t think that way. We already lost too much.” I wince. “When did you buy the car back?”
“Not long after she left. I wanted to remember that night, before everything got messed up. I was still pissed at you, but . . . I’ve spent all this time chasing how you made me feel.”
“When you got me from the Denton house? The baseball bat night?”
Tyler nods. “Nothing has ever come close to what I felt for you that night. Like you were this precious thing to protect. Like it was my honor that you called me.”
Tyler’s pinky skims along the outside of mine and I want to cry. He didn’t touch me that night, just a tiny brush of his pinky like this, a brush that somehow held more gravity than sex or drugs or any other high I was after back then.
His voice is all gravel and eggshells. “Why did you call me that night, Becca?”
I taste salt and the crying potential is high. “I felt safe with you. I knew you’d be there.”
His fingers lace with mine and he squeezes, hard. “I still will. I want to, if you’ll let me. I’ll be here for all of it. Just like you’re here for me and Ellie. We’ve got it all now. We can be a family.”
“I want that.” A clog comes loose somewhere in my chest, and I let out the thing I’ve been holding onto for fear I’d scare him off. “I want to be Ellie’s mom.”
Tyler springs forward and wraps me in the tightest hug. “God, Becca, you have no idea what that means to me. I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” I whimper. “I love her. I love how much my life has changed in the last few months.”
“God, has it only been months?” He laughs, holding me back by my shoulders. “It feels like it’s been forever.”
I smile up at him. “Maybe it’s been there all along. It’s just been waiting for the right time.”
We move in unison, falling into each other, clutching whatever we can grab, and kissing like the world’s ending.
In a way, one world is ending. The world that held deep pain and little hope is flaming out, and it’s being replaced by something that burns brighter than any star could.
I love him. He loves me. We both love his daughter. This is it.
We’re clumsy, kissing and shedding clothes as we stumble toward the living room with the picture window and fireplace.
I kept a fire going in here all through the party to add a cozy touch, and now it casts our shadows onto the wall.
Tyler tears my shirt over my head and makes quick work of removing my bra.
He palms my breasts, moving his fingers to flick my pierced nipples.
I make quick work of his belt, button, and zipper but before I go for that part of him, I let my hand roam over his abs while my mouth explores his neck.
Tyler captures my lips again and we tear into each other, greedy sucks and hungry strokes of our tongues.
Before I know it, my jeans surround my ankles and I feel like I don’t have enough time to step out of them.
I shove Tyler’s jeans down and rake my nails over his ass. He hisses with a huge smile.
“Jesus, fuck, Reba.”
He steps back from me long enough to jump out of his pants and pull a dropcloth onto the floor.
“Not the plastic one?” I ask. “For the mess?”
Tyler rolls his eyes with a laugh. I wrestle out of my pants and boots and we find our way to the floor.
We tussle until I’m on my back and he’s diving head first between my legs.
My pointed toes barely graze the floor under his armpits and I let my arms fall over my head, surrendering to the pleasure Tyler gives.
My chest curves toward the ceiling, and I catch sight of our silhouette on the freshly painted wall next to me.
My nipples are visibly peaked, followed by the bowing of my stomach and Tyler’s head working between my thighs, his fingertips on top of them.
Below the mountains of my knees, Tyler’s ass swells.
I reach down to hold his head in one place, the place that feels ridiculously good.
“Please don’t stop.”
Tyler’s an asshole, so he does just that, pushing up on his hands and hovering over me.
“I was right there,” I moan, and he just smirks.
“I waited a long time for you. You can wait for me.”
My jaw drops and fury hits my blood. “This is not tit for tat.”
“No?” he asks before sucking my nipple between his lips. His hand drifts between my legs, teasing just around where I want him.
“Tyler, please.”
He looks like I’m torturing him by asking, gently working himself in his hand.
“Do you have a condom?”
His hand slows even more and he considers me. “I don’t.”
I sit up and take over for his hand, repositioning myself so I can take him in my mouth.
“But,” he says.
I cock my head. “But?”
“I’ve been thinking and . . . I know we’re both all clear and you’re protected.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“And even if you weren’t . . . “
“Yes?”
His eyes peer down at me hopefully. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we had a baby.”
“Yeah?”
Tyler nods. “Probably not today. It could be down the road. Or we could go for it sooner.” He stares at me, gauging my reaction. “What do you think of that?”
I heave a breath. “I need to make up my mind.”
“Okay. Of course. We can do other stuff—”
“No. I don’t know whether to suck you dry for wanting me to have your babies or whether I ride you until you can’t take it anymore.”
He beams and slips his hands under my arms, helping me kneel between his spread legs. With a grin, I shove his shoulder to push him to the floor and climb on top of him. I slow down before I make the next move. “You’re sure? I know this is hard for you. I promise I’m protected.”
He nods. “I know. I trust you. I want you like this.”
I’m ready to reach between us, but Tyler pulls me down to him for a tender kiss. He holds my hips and encourages me to grind on him. He says the words I’ve heard dozens of times from other people, but never from him. “Fuck me.”
I line us up and slide down, my eyes locked on Tyler’s.
We start off slow, and I take a moment to absorb the details.
My lips feel full and plush from all our kissing.
His hands impart an all-consuming reverence, a security that this is it and we’re not going anywhere.
His gaze travels all over my skin, always returning to my eyes.
I have my hands beside his head at first, but once we’re good and warmed up, I want to savor this.
I sit back on his thighs and alternate between rolling my hips and bouncing on him. Tyler lifts his head to watch.
“You ride me so fucking well.”
I wink at him while I grope my breasts. “I know.”
“Slow down, I’m too close,” he warns, so I do. At one point his hands lift my hips up and off of him. “Too close. Sit on my face.”
Do my knees hurt from riding him on a hard floor with only a dropcloth to protect them? Yes. Am I going to push through it? Also yes.
I climb forward and put my knees on either side of his face.
“That’s it, baby. Now ride me again.”
His beard is soft against me, and I get lost in the way his hands cup my ass, the way his tongue seeks me if I’m not close enough, the way his cock is still extremely erect with precum trailing all down the sides of it.
His thumbs spread me wider, his tongue laser-focused on my sensitive bud that is so aroused it might explode.
“I love this, but I want you inside me. I want to come on your cock.”
Tyler presses up on his hands to help me off his face, the evidence of my arousal all down his neck and dripping onto his chest. He shifts me onto my back, raising my ass off the ground and balancing me on top of his thighs.
He spreads my legs wide, holding one in each hand, and rocks forward on his knees to thrust into me.
“Oh, fuck, Ty.”
His eyes watch where he slowly pushes in and out of me. “You’re so wet, baby. I love seeing you all over me like this.”
I lower my hand to my clit, feeling the wetness but still craving more. “Please don’t pull out.” I fear that will scare him off, make him remember all the things he’s afraid of, but it just makes him go faster. “I want to feel it all.”
He grits out his next words. “I’m going to make you so fucking full, Becca. I’m going to give you everything.”
I nod and swallow, my throat getting dry. I know how to dirty talk, how to say the things that get people going. But I fucking mean it when I say, “I want to be full of you.”
“That what you want?” His fingertips sink deeper into my thighs, pulling me even farther apart as his cock glides into me, over and over. My fingers move faster over my clit and even the air from his labored breathing across my nipples is close to sending me over the edge. “You ready, baby?”
I’m trying to tell him yes, but I’m too busy shattering around him, watching him watch me, hearing his sweet grunt and gasp when he joins me, threading his hand with mine while he comes undone.
I smile at him as I’m coming off my high and that single-dimpled grin comes right back at me. “You really want that with me? To stay with me? To build a family with me?”
Tyler’s still inside me, but he takes my messy fingers in his hand and kisses them. “Yeah. I really do.”
I lift a shoulder. “So much for taking it slow.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You know what? I think we put in the time.”