Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HAZEL
At his words, I whimpered, soft and stunned, while he slowly kissed his way up my throat. I cupped his face to hold him close, heart pounding, thrilled at the rough stubble beneath my palms.
Tucker lifted his head, eyes dark, looking hard and dangerous.
But I wasn’t afraid of him. Never had been. Never would be. “I’ve got you,” I whispered so softly that I wasn’t sure he heard me.
But he made a low, rough noise deep in his throat and pressed his forehead to mine. “Fuck, Haze… Tell me to keep my hands to myself.”
I gave him a single headshake. “I can’t do that.”
His grip tightened on my hips like he was fighting restraint. “We said never again.”
“We did.” But I hadn’t meant it. Never again? Who was I kidding? I couldn’t keep my hands off him even if I wanted to. “When we said never again, we were on your porch…”
He pulled back, those hazel eyes burning into mine. “And…” An almost smile hit his mouth. “We’re not on my porch.”
“We are not.”
He drew a deep breath. “I’m going to need you to spell this out for me. What are we doing?”
“Ideally? Each other.” I bit my lip. “Just a onetime pass, and that’s it. No more.”
“A onetime pass,” he echoed, possibly fighting a smile.
“I mean, we’ve both probably got new moves to show off…” Look at me, body in control, mouth fully hijacked.
His arms tightened. “Do you want to show me yours right now?”
“I do.” I slid my hand down his chest to the hard length straining beneath denim.
His eyes went molten as he caught my wrist. “Here?”
“Here.” I quivered at the way he looked at me—like he was starving. “Can you turn down the lantern?”
“Not a chance.” That slow heated look as he took me in from head to toe and back again made me ache in places that hadn’t ached in years.
“I’m not going to miss a single second of this,” he said so low, it was almost a growl.
I breathed him in like oxygen, a citrusy, sandalwood scent clinging to his skin, making me want to eat him up. “Kiss me, Tucker. Please.”
“Hmm, love the ‘please.’” His fingers tangled in my hair, angling my head the way he wanted. He kissed me then. Deep. Soul stealing. He tasted like whiskey and heat and something heartbreakingly familiar, and I clung to him. Losing myself.
He slid a warm callused palm to the nape of my neck as our eyes locked, a question lingering in his: You still with me?
I melted into a puddle.
His slow smile was cocky as hell. So I nipped his bottom lip, tugging just enough to make him groan.
That sound? Dirty as hell. I desperately needed him inside me, but we were still fully dressed. “Tucker,” I moaned. It was all I had.
He stood in one smooth move, lifting me, then dropped into the beanbag chair with me sprawled on top of him. He didn’t speak. Just pushed my hair from my face, looking at me like he needed to memorize every detail.
“Don’t even think about stopping,” I whispered.
His eyes darkened. “I won’t.” His voice dropped to smoke and gravel, and suddenly breathing felt like too much effort.
He nipped my earlobe, giving it a little tug, and I shuddered, grinding down on him. His hands clamped onto my hips, not to hold them still, but helping me keep a rhythm that had us both gasping.
“You’re fucking dangerous,” he murmured.
Already breathless, I trembled in his arms. “You love that about me.”
“I do.” He yanked me down for another kiss that left me feeling wild and desperate when he pulled back. He stared up at me like he was memorizing every inch, like he couldn’t quite believe we were here, like this.
“More.” I tugged at his shirt, and he grabbed the hem of mine and slowly lifted it up and over my head. The heat in his gaze as he took in the sight of me in nothing but boxer shorts rolled low could’ve powered the grid for all of Sonoma County.
“Fuck, Hazel…” He shook his head. “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Mew.”
We both froze.
Her Fluffiness sat watching us like we’d interrupted her during an episode of Love Island.
“Close your eyes,” Tucker told the cat, gaze locked on mine.
I laughed and rocked my hips again. He groaned, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head.
“You’re overdressed,” I pointed out, reaching for the button on his jeans.
He stripped down to skin in a blink, and I made a sound of deep pleasure, reaching out to wrap my fingers around his.
He caught my hand mid-motion, then reversed our positions like it was nothing.
“What—”
He nipped at my bottom lip. “I’m slowing this down,” he murmured. “You deserve that.”
I could feel exactly how ready I was and rocked up into him to prove it.
“You’re not going to rush me. Not on this.”
“But I was about to have my way with you,” I complained.
One knee pressed into the beanbag at my hip, forearms braced around my head, he gripped my wrists. “Hold that thought.”
His mouth made its way down my throat, across my collarbone…
Breathing became optional. My eyes drifted shut.
“Open your eyes,” he said softly.
I did because he was right—I didn’t want to miss a thing. I also wriggled my wrists.
He just tightened his grip on them as he slid down my body, those big hands everywhere at once, dragging helpless moans and yes please sighs from my throat. Kissing, nibbling, and sucking every single inch of skin he passed, he slowed to tease my nipples into hard pebbled peaks.
Eventually, the sounds I couldn’t contain spurred him into more southern territory, a hot kiss pressed to my stomach, hip…
He nudged my legs apart, wide enough for his stupidly broad shoulders, and when I tried to shift, he nipped my inner thigh.
I almost came.
“Be still.”
“I need—”
“I’ve got you, Hazel.” He nuzzled my lower belly, finally letting go of my wrists to grip my hips.
“Tucker, I swear—”
His mouth found my center, and I stopped talking. Stopped breathing. Stopped every single thing except feeling his mouth on me.
“God, look at you,” he murmured and teased me with decadently lazy swirls of his tongue, adding his fingers into the mix, indeed taking his time until I was writhing beneath him, fingers fisted in his hair, mindlessly grinding against his face as he slowly, thoroughly took me apart.
And then put me back together again.
When I opened my eyes, he was braced above me, eyes dark with something dangerously close to reverence. His body—God, his body—was taut with tension.
“Hazel.”
“I swear to God, if you’ve changed your mind—”
“I don’t have a condom.”
Oh. Oh… I bit my lip and stared up at him. “Um…”
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I shouldn’t have taken it this far—”
“I’m on the pill,” I whispered. “And safe.”
“Me too. The safe part, not the pill part.” He smiled, slow and sweet. “So…” He nudged the hardest part of him against the softest part of me. “This is okay?”
“It’s so okay, I will cry all over you if you don’t—”
He slid into me, and we both gasped in sublime pleasure.
“Eyes on me, Haze,” he said softly.
When had I closed them? I managed to drag them open and nearly came at the look in his.
“You feel so…fucking…good, Haze.”
“Right back at you,” I whispered. “Now, please. Please, please, please, please can you do me?”
With a husky laugh, he began to move—slow, deep, driving me right to the brink and holding me there, not letting me fall.
“Tucker, I… I need—”
“I know.” He lowered himself so that I could feel every inch of his body against mine and moved faster, his mouth ghosting mine as he whispered, “God, Haze… I can’t get enough of you. I’ll never get enough of you…”
Just words, I tried to tell myself. Words spoken in the heat of the moment. But I wasn’t buying that story. Something had flared to life between us, a well of emotion I’d never, not once, felt before.
I cupped his face, sliding my fingers into his hair as we came together, the world splintering around us in a rush of heat and something that felt dangerously close to more.
We lay breathless and tangled, thundering hearts struggling to slow as dusk surrendered to night. Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke.
Something had cracked wide open between us, and pretending otherwise suddenly felt impossible.
An owl hooted.
A coyote howled.
Tucker shifted. Life coming back online.
We slowly sat up.
Her Fluffiness still sat in the middle of the floor, tail curled, head high, eyes slitted.
Unimpressed.
“Told you not to look,” Tucker muttered. He brushed my damp hair from my cheek and stared into my eyes. “That’s one way to make some new memories.”
“We certainly defiled the old ones.” I smiled. “Good thing that was just a onetime thing…” I’d never survive a repeat.
“Good thing,” he echoed.
And I wondered if either of us believed it.
Tucker
I woke up sprawled across the tree house floor, my cat draped across my ribs like a judgmental paperweight.
The lantern was out. The air had cooled, and a blanket had been pulled up to my stomach. Hazel had covered me.
And then left.
Her Fluffiness lifted her head and gave me a look that could cut steel. She’s scared. You scared her. Now fix it, or I’ll be pooping in your shoes for the rest of my life.
She would too.
I sat up, everything aching, my brain still playing a highlight reel of the night before. My despair, then her showing up. Our insatiable hunger. How we’d turned to each other again and again.
She’d looked at me like I was more than just comfort or nostalgia.
Like I was home.
Which made the empty space where she’d been feel cavernous. No way was she running. I knew that much.
But she was retreating.
And I knew exactly why.
A onetime pass, my ass. Last night hadn’t been just sex, and we both damn well knew it.
Because it had meant something.
My phone buzzed. Kiera. Shit. I’d promised to get the twins and Hank to daycare. Real life waited for no man. Not even one who’d just had the best night of his life and wasn’t sure how to function now.
Twenty minutes later, Abi bounced into her booster seat in the back of my truck with a juice box and a story already loading.
“Unca Tuck Tuck!” she announced. “Guess what?”
“What?” I asked, yawning wide. How much sleep had I gotten? Maybe two hours, max. Even after Hazel and I had worn each other out, neither of us had been able to stop touching. Kissing. Laughing. Tasting. Wash, rinse, repeat.
And I still wanted more.
Abi kept bouncing. “Teacher Miley said, ‘Griffin, put your booty away!’”
I blinked. “His what now?”
“His bum-bum,” Abi confirmed solemnly. “It was out. I saw the whole crack and everything.”
I choked on air.
Hank, riding shotgun, snorted. I blinked and then eyed him. He gave me an innocent look.
Sometimes, like right now, I felt completely ill-equipped to deal with my life.
Some mornings you woke up with a cat on your chest, your pants on the floor, and a hangover of the soul.
Other mornings, your niece casually dropped a butt crack story before breakfast. Sometimes, it was the same morning.
I laughed. What else could I do?
“Why are you laughing?” Alex wanted to know.
“Just tired, baby, that’s all.”
He squinted at me like he didn’t believe a word. “Maybe you need a nap.”
I needed more than a nap.
I needed Hazel.
And the guts to tell her that last night hadn’t been a mistake.
That it had been everything.