Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Tucker
After I make a call to the lodge letting Winnie know Gabby is safe and sound with me tonight, I collect the ingredients for smores and start a fire while Gabby showers.
I have a fucking hard on imagining the water running down her naked body.
What I wouldn’t give to lick the water droplets off those delicious nipples.
I decide I need a walk-in shower built for two in the cabin—our cabin.
“Dinner and dessert?” Gabby announces, joining me outside. She’s wearing the sweatpants and hoodie I loaned her. They swallow her curvy frame whole, but my imagination easily fills in the blanks. I can’t help but wonder if she’s naked beneath them.
“You know I never go anywhere without smores ingredients,” I say, ripping my gaze away before temptation can overtake me.
We have all night, and by the end of it, I hope to claim her for my own. But I need to keep my head attached until we straighten out a few things concerning our future. Because when I finally come in that tight, wet pussy and claim the woman I’ve always loved for my own, there’s no going back.
For now, I focus on stabbing marshmallows with sticks and handing one to Gabby. Her fingers graze my hand, a sensation like lightning surging through my body, and my dick stands all the way at attention.
“Why did you leave, Tucker?” she asks, holding her marshmallow over the fire and twisting her stick.
“I was always going to leave, Gabby,” I say, well aware I’m avoiding her deeper question as I bump my knee against hers. I’m not eager to spoil the good, playful mood with the sour memories of the past, so I try to keep things light. “You know I had to get out of there.”
“We were supposed to go together,” she says, staring into the fire.
“My dad gambled away my college fund. It was join the military or—”
“—or you could’ve traveled with me like we planned. I never wanted to go to college. I only went because I didn’t know what else to do after you …left.” She pulls her marshmallow back to study the golden color before sticking it back in the dancing flames. “What happened to you that night?”
My entire body tenses, because I know exactly what night she’s referring to. It’s the night that changed everything for me.
“Tucker, you were supposed to be my date. And you flaked. Why? Did something happen? At home—”
“No,” I say firmly. “I didn’t flake.”
“Really? Because I waited in the park for hours. I missed my entire prom waiting for you to show up. I worried about you. I felt so stupid, and I’ve hated you for it for years.”
Guilt twists my stomach into knots at the hurt in her tone. Fuck, are those tears pricking the corners of her eyes? But she’s not the only one hurt in this equation. Seeing her with that fucking prick…I nearly didn’t survive it. “You went with Colby.”
“Colby Johnson?”
“Is there another Colby I don’t know about?
” My question is almost as pathetic as my laugh.
Gabby had the biggest crush on the popular quarterback.
The guy the entire high school decided was the golden boy.
The fucker used her to pass biology, promised to take her to prom, and then the day before, ditched her for his ex-girlfriend instead.
But I know how guys like him operate. He never intended to take Gabby as his date.
He just strung her along so he could keep using her.
“Colby took Katrina, remember? You know, the whole reason you decided to go to prom at all since you were too cool to go in the first place? You were supposed to be my buffer so I didn’t have to feel like a kicked puppy.
Instead, you never showed. And I couldn’t stand the thought of going alone.
I was so embarrassed. I spent the whole weekend in my room crying. You never called. Not once.”
“Didn’t look like Colby ditched you in that park,” I fire back, unable to tame the rage that’s been suppressed all these years.
It boils to the surface, like a volcanic eruption.
The memory of Gabby and Colby making out is forever burned into my brain, and I can no longer hold back the hurt, the humiliation, the outright anger.
“What are you talking about?”
“I was there, Gabby. Just like I was supposed to be. I was there in a stupid fucking tux that I spent my last dollar to rent, and when I found you, you were making out with that worthless piece of shit. I never understood why you adored him so much. He fucking used you. Did you give it up to him that night too?”
Gabby slaps me so hard my chair tips over.
Shit.
I deserved that.
But fuck, it stings.
There’s a murderous gleam in her narrowed eyes as I right the chair, made slightly scarier by the dancing flames reflecting in her icy blue orbs.
“How long were you actually in the park, Tucker?” she challenges.
“Long enough.”
“Oh really?” she pushes out her chair, tossing the metal rod at me. The marshmallow’s on fire, and it narrowly misses my sleeve. I quickly blow out the flame. “Because if you’d stay more than five seconds, you would’ve seen me slap the shit out of Colby for kissing me.”
“What?”
“So I had a stupid, hopeless crush on the idea of the guy. I was young and stupid. When he dumped me for Katrina, I finally figured out the truth. I probably knew it all along, I just didn’t want to admit it.
It hurt like hell when I finally accepted reality.
He tried to kiss me so I’d help him pass his biology final, and after I slapped him, I told him to go to hell.
So no, I didn’t give it up to that prick. ”
“Gabby—”
“For one night, I just wanted the coolest guy in school to look at me like I was somebody.”
“Coolest fucking guy, huh?” I repeat, my tone thick with disgust.
“You, you jackass. I’m talking about you.”
Oh.
I stand, setting the smores sticks to the side. But before I can draw Gabby into my arms, she shoves at me with both palms.
“You left me, Tucker. You joined the fucking Army without telling me. I found out because Erin told me that you and Reid signed up together with plans to ship out the day after graduation. And I stupidly came to say goodbye, but you were already driving away. I never heard from you again. You disappeared like a fucking ghost.”
“I was tired,” I admit.
“Oh, you were tired,” she fires back, her tone mocking.
“I was fucking tired of wanting you so damn much and you never seeing me as more than your friend.”
Gabby shuffles backward as I close in on her, until she’s pressed up against the side of Bertha.
“I was tired of watching you fawn over boys who didn’t deserve the fucking time of day from you when I was right there all along. Don’t you get it, Gabby?”
I press one hand against the RV, gripping her exposed hip like a lifeline. I lock my gaze with hers so she can’t mistake the truth of what I’m about to say. “I’ve been in love with you since I’ve known you, Gabriella. Since we were eleven years old.”
“You have?” she whispers, shock in her eyes.
“I asked you to meet me at the park—at the gazebo where we first met—not because I gave a shit about the prom pictures you so badly wanted—though I’d have taken a million with you if it would’ve made you happy.
I went there because I was going to lay it all on the line.
I wanted a future with you, Gabby. I wanted to travel together, just like we planned.
But I was tired of being just your fucking friend. I wanted more—I wanted it all.”