Chapter 27 #2
She let me go and walked to the counter, reaching out to touch a bloom. But she yanked her finger away before it could skim a petal.
“The thorns are on the stems, Peach.”
She stared at the flowers, and if I wasn’t standing here, I had a hunch she’d toss them in the trash.
“Want to talk?”
“No.”
I sighed and walked up behind her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Then I kissed her hair. “Vera—”
“Where’s Allie?”
“Asleep.”
She tore herself out of my hold. “I’m going to go kiss her good night.”
Her silky hair, tied up in a ponytail, swished across her shoulders as she left for Allie’s room.
I scrubbed both hands over my face. If only I knew what to say to get her to open up. To just let it out. But she wasn’t just kissing my daughter good night. She was fortifying walls, adding another layer of bricks and chains.
When she emerged, easing Allie’s door closed, her shoulders were pinned, chin lifted. Her hands might have well been raised into fists, ready to defend those walls.
“Vera.” I put a hand to my heart, then held it out, palm open. “I’m here.”
“I . . . can’t.” Her voice cracked. “I can’t talk about it. Please, Mateo. Don’t ask.”
“It kills me to know you’re hurting and trying so hard to hide it. You don’t have to. Not from me.”
She dropped her chin.
“What can I do?”
“Help me keep it locked away.”
“Keep what locked away?”
“All of it,” she whispered, lifting her gaze. In those pretty brown eyes, a plea. Don’t push.
Then I wouldn’t push.
“I don’t want to be a hired hand or a maintenance man,” I blurted. It felt cathartic to let it out. To voice the thought that felt like a betrayal to my family and a balm to my soul.
I didn’t want to be a hired hand or a maintenance man. Or I didn’t want to only be those things.
“What if I started a flight school?” This wasn’t at all what I wanted to talk about tonight, but for tonight, it would do. I’d leave those walls alone.
She blinked. “A flight school?”
“Yeah. There isn’t one in Quincy. It would be small. There aren’t many pilots in town, but right now, anyone wanting to learn has to travel to Missoula. I doubt I’ll make much money. If any. Hell, I doubt I’ll have many students.”
I walked over to take her hand, then I pulled her around the house as I shut off the lights.
“I’ll still have to keep working on the ranch for Griffin and at the hotel for Eloise. But if I can drum up a student or two, it’d mean I’d get to fly.”
Quincy was growing. People were leaving the larger cities in the Pacific Northwest to raise families in small towns that ran at a slower pace. The elementary school was at capacity and this year’s graduating class was the largest in a decade.
Maybe a newcomer would want to learn how to fly. Maybe a millionaire or two would move to town and need a private pilot to help them commute to Denver or Salt Lake on occasion. Maybe every couple of years, a high school student would dream of getting his or her wings.
“What do you think?” I asked when the last light was off and we were standing outside the bedroom door.
Vera lifted our clasped hands until my knuckles were resting over her heart. “I love this idea.”
“Me too.” There was plenty to think through, but it wasn’t the first time I’d tossed around the idea. But it was the first time I could see myself making it happen.
It was her doing. Her encouragement.
With my free hand, I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and untucked it. Maybe I’d changed the subject for a few minutes, but that sadness was still so deep in her gaze.
It hadn’t been like that this morning. She’d hidden it well. But after a long day, there was no masking it now. That agony in her gaze was like a knife to the heart.
“I wish I could take it from you.”
She swallowed hard. “I would never let you.”
No, she’d keep it all herself, thinking it would save me pain. Didn’t she realize it hurt to see her hurt? Frustration swelled, escaping my chest as a low, menacing growl. “Stubborn woman.”
There was nothing to do about her secrets, not tonight. And if she wanted to forget, to block it all out, then I’d play that game.
I wrapped her in my arms and picked her up off her feet, lifting her high enough so we were eye to eye.
She threaded her fingers through my hair, her nails scraping against my scalp as she brought them to my nape. “Thank you.”
“Say it with a kiss.”
Her mouth dropped to mine, kissing the corner of my lips. She peppered gentle, soft touches from side to side, until finally, that sweet tongue darted out for a taste.
I held her, feet off the floor, her chest crushed to mine, until I was done letting her play. Then I carried her into the bedroom, closing the door behind us before stripping her out of her tee and jeans.
When she was dressed only in her pale pink bra and panties, I tugged loose the elastic band around her ponytail, spilling that coppery hair around her shoulders. Then I pointed to the bed. “On your back.”
A smile tugged at her mouth before she brought her lower lip between her teeth. She obeyed, she always obeyed, and climbed onto the bed. Red and gold locks spread across the white quilt like flames.
“Close your eyes.” When they were closed, I stripped out of my T-shirt and tossed it aside.
Vera’s breathing turned ragged as the sound of my belt unbuckling and my jeans being shoved to the floor filled the room.
My cock sprang free, hard and aching to plunge inside her tight body. But tonight, we’d drag this out. We’d see how many orgasms I could coax from her before she passed out.
I moved to stand at the edge of the bed, taking her knees and pushing them apart.
The sight of her on my bed never got old.
I fisted my shaft, giving it a firm stroke.
Then I dropped to my knees and started worshiping her skin with my tongue, starting at her hips and working my way across her panties, leaving them on to tease.
“Mateo.” She squirmed, arching those hips toward my mouth.
I kissed the inside of her thigh, exactly where she was the most ticklish.
Her giggle was music to my ears. “Stop torturing me.”
“No.” I moved to the other leg while dragging a finger over the center of her panties, earning a hiss. “Soaked. Always so wet for me.”
A whimper escaped as I pulled her panties aside, feasting my eyes on that glistening pink flesh.
“First, I’m going to fuck you with my fingers. Then you’ll get my tongue. And after you come twice, you can have my cock.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
I slid a hand up her stomach to her bra, lifting a cup to expose a breast. Then I rolled her nipple and gave it a pinch.
She yelped but pushed into my touch, wanting it again.
This time as I pinched her, I slipped a finger inside her wet heat.
“Oh,” she gasped, her inner walls already fluttering. Damn it, she was perfect. The way she responded to my touch, the sounds she made. Like she was made for me.
Like she was always meant to be mine.
I took my finger out and popped it into my mouth. “You taste so sweet.”
“Mateo, make me come. I need to come.”
“Patience.” I kissed her hip, then slid two fingers in this time, working them in and out. I curled my hand to massage that spot inside that made her shake while my palm flattened on her clit.
“Baby.” Her breath hitched.
Fucking hell. She wasn’t the first woman to call me baby. But she’d be the last. “Say it again.”
“Baby.” She arched into my touch, and the moment her toes curled, I grinned, loving the hell out of orgasm number one.
Number two was twice as sweet. With her taste on my tongue, I picked her up and moved her deeper into the bed to settle in the cradle of her hips.
She panted, her skin covered in a sheen of sweat. The flush of her cheeks had spread across her chest and breasts.
“You have never looked more beautiful.”
Her eyes fluttered open.
“I—” Loved her.
I loved her.
It was a fight, but I held back the words. Not today. Not with those pink roses on the kitchen counter. So instead of telling her how I felt, I showed her, loving her with every stroke that brought us together.
We tumbled over the abyss in tandem, falling farther and farther until we were nothing but tangled limbs and thundering hearts.
When we’d regained our breaths, I settled her into the crook of my shoulder.
Her leg was draped across mine, her breath whispering over the plane of my chest.
By rights, we should both be exhausted. But when I closed my eyes, sleep was impossible. Maybe because I could feel the tension in Vera’s shoulders.
She was trying not to cry.
What happened that night? It was on the tip of my tongue to beg for the truth. For her. For me. I was flying in the dark here. How did I help her without a light? Especially when she wouldn’t let me? What happened?
I swallowed that question and traded it for another. A question similar to the one that had given me a purpose on one of my darkest days. “What should we call it?”
Her fingertips drew invisible swirls over my bare chest. “Call what?”
“The flight school. What should we call it?”
She rose up, tears swimming in those pretty eyes. Hair tumbling around us.
I pushed it off her face, tracing the line of her cheek with my thumb. “Help me think up a name.”
“Okay.” She snuggled into my chest and returned to drawing patterns on my skin. “Let’s start with the As.”