Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I felt my pillow moving under my head as I swam up from sleep. Too warm and comfortable, I fought against waking. I wanted nothing more than to sleep for a year. That was, until my pillow shifted and I felt a feather-light touch on my lower back. The barest hint of fingertips brushed along the elastic of my undies.
Undies.
I moved my legs. One encountered a hard, warm limb that was not mine and the other the smooth cotton of a sheet.
Where were my sweats?
“Gotta get up, Lizzy.” I felt the words rumble through the pillow under my cheek.
Not a pillow. Tucker’s chest.
His bare chest.
I shifted my leg again. Not just a limb, Tucker’s hard, tree trunk leg. A hand wrapped around my thigh, halting my movement.
“Easy, baby.”
Nope.
Not a leg.
An erection.
At some point during the night I’d wrapped myself around Tucker. Cheek to chest. Leg hitched over his hips. Thigh resting on morning wood.
“Um…sorry,” I croaked.
“I’m not.”
And he didn’t sound sorry if his delicious, gravelly morning voice was to be believed. The erection would’ve been another indicator but…morning wood. So maybe the hard-on wasn’t for me and more just the natural state of things.
It became apparent my mouth had a mind of its own when, without thought, I asked, “Why are my pants off?”
I felt his body shake in silent laughter and I squeezed my eyes closed tighter, not wanting anything to encroach while I soaked it in. Soaked him in.
“Don’t know for certain but I think it has something to do with me being hot.”
That had my eyes popping open, and upon seeing the dusting of dark hair on Tucker’s wide chest and a perfectly shaped nipple that I knew from experience was extremely sensitive—if I flicked my tongue over it, Tucker would grace me with a sexy growl—I was no longer sleepy. I was perfectly happy being awake and I’d be more than happy to turn on the lights to get a better look at all that was Tucker Mitchell. I mean, Tucker in the early morning light was a sight to see. But more light meant better sight, and if I could add in touch, it would be the most perfect way to start the day.
Stay on track, Lustful Liza.
Or was I Lecherous Liza, perving on Tucker without his knowledge.
“Hot?” I finally remembered to ask.
“Kicked all the covers off while hilariously mumbling how hot I was. You stripped your sweats off, threw them at me, then plopped yourself on me and went back to sleep. Shortly after that, you sat up, declared you were cold, and pulled the covers back over us.”
His fingertips still gliding over my skin made it hard to follow his story of my nocturnal activities.
Still I managed to push out, “I told you sleeping in the same bed as you wasn’t a good idea.”
After Taco Bell was consumed and the wrappers were cleaned up, Tucker had declared it was time for bed. I didn’t fight this. Not only was I exhausted but if he was asleep he couldn’t instigate conversation and I’d been all talked out. What I did argue about was the sleeping arrangements. I wanted to spend the night in his guest room or alternately, the couch. He wouldn’t hear of either. I suggested I go back to the hotel. His eyes turned scary mad so that suggestion died quickly. I only gave in when the scary look dissolved into a look I’d already seen twice that day—he was going to kiss me to shut me up. I knew that kiss wouldn’t stop with his hand on my breast, but with my nipple in his mouth, and that would lead to me begging him to fuck me, so I gave in to his demand that I sleep in his bed. However, I did this under protest and bitched about it all the way to his room. I quit complaining when it appeared he was going to be a gentleman and slipped into bed then stayed on his side. Then I laid there awake wondering why I’d bitched and how much better it would be if Tucker held me.
Eventually with my thoughts driving me insane I fell asleep only to wake up and be the one who broke the invisible line in the middle of the bed.
“Seems to me it was a really great idea.”
At this point I really wished he was the one giving me mixed signals. I wished it was him and not me who was running hot and cold. And further, I wished I wasn’t totally broken and could believe in what he was offering me. I wished that in the past I hadn’t hoped with all my heart only to get it broken time and time again. I wished I was brave enough to take everything Tucker was offering, and throw caution to the wind and ride it out.
“I’m sorry,” I told his chest.
“Baby—”
“Just that, Tucker. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want you to know I’m sorry. I know I’m…that I’m being…” I stalled because I didn’t know what I was being beyond crazy, and I’d rather not point that out even though he couldn’t miss my cracked behavior. With a mighty heave I spat out the rest. “You mean everything to me and I lost you once. I did it on purpose. I did it on my terms; that way I was in control of how I lost you. That was how I needed it to be. I wouldn’t survive you leaving me. And when you declined my invitation to come into my room it hit me, you weren’t interested in me that way. I knew one day, I’d lose you, or at least parts of you when you found a woman you were serious about. That’s why I ran. That’s why I stopped taking your calls. I knew there would come a time when I’d lose the most important parts of us. The intimacy I only had with you. One day that would belong to someone else. It would be taken from me. That’s the man you are. You’d never give me the important parts of you if you were committed to someone else. That’s the difference between us. I was married to Arnie but I still belonged to you.”
I fell silent knowing there was a good possibility I’d opened a door I wasn’t prepared to have Tucker walk through. But knowing if nothing else, he deserved the truth—the undiluted truth. And an apology.
It took a few moments.
Then it happened.
I felt his fingertips dig into my waist, his mouth dropped to the top of my head, and there he muttered, “Thank you, baby.”
He was thanking me for being honest.
As he would, that was the kind of man Tucker was.
He was honest.
He was forgiving.
He was kind.
He was good-looking, great in bed, a phenomenal kisser, great with words, open with his feelings, and didn’t hide his emotions.
In other words, the kind of man who would pulverize your heart into dust when he walked away.
I’d known this from the beginning. I’d tried hard not to fall for him. The problem was, it was impossible not to love Tucker.
And that had led to ten years’ worth of torture.
With another squeeze, he announced, “We need to get rolling, Lizzy.”
Wait.
That was it?
He wasn’t going to push his way through the crack I’d created?
The relief I felt could only be measured against the confusion. Possibly even a little despair he wasn’t going to force me to open up.
“Will you start coffee while I take a shower? I’ll be quick.”
“Woman, you think I’d start a six-hour road trip with you without you topped up on coffee?”
“Not if you’re smart.”
“Thankfully, before Lauren switched to that mud water, mushroom stuff, she had a taste for expensive coffee. Since Logan doesn’t care what kind of coffee he drinks and I do, she gifted me her stash. I only pull out the Hare That Chases the Dog for mornings after I’ve worked all night. But I’m thinking it’ll work as your morning pick-me-up until we can find you some gas station with half and half evaporated carafe concentrate.”
God, I loved when Tucker teased me.
“You should get on the coffee before my brain fully awakens and registers it’s been without caffeine for eight hours,” I grouched, not meaning a word I said. Wishing we could stay in his bed forever.
Unfortunately, he gave into my demand and rolled me off of him. However, he didn’t roll off and exit the bed, he pinned me to the mattress with his lower half, balanced on his elbows, and grabbed my face.
“Loved waking up next to you, Lizzy.”
My heart swelled.
When he dropped his mouth to mine and gave me the sweetest, softest brush of his lips across mine, my heart started jackhammering.
Those lips traveled over my cheek and paused by my ear to whisper, “One day soon, when we’ve fully come into us, I’ll show you just how much.”
With that, he rolled off and exited, leaving me alone in his bed. I stopped studying his ceiling and turned my head just in time to see his boxer-briefs-covered ass disappear out the door.
“Damn. You should’ve looked sooner,” I mumbled out loud.
I heard Tucker’s amused chuckle from the hall.
“Up, baby, and don’t take a year!” he yelled from the hall.
“I don’t take a year to get ready!”
“You will if your ass isn’t out of that bed by the time I get back.”
I wanted to stay in bed until he got back just to see if he meant what I thought he did.
“Being an adult sucks!” I shouted and got out of Tucker’s big, comfortable bed that stopped being warm and inviting since he was no longer next to me.
Then I did what a responsible adult who had a job did—showered and got ready to leave to go undercover with Tucker Mitchell.
Six hours later, I was no longer Liza Monroe.
I was Liza Michaels, Tucker Michaels’ wife.
It was then the real delusion began and the rest of my walls crumbled, leaving me raw and vulnerable and my fake husband with the upper hand.