39. Tyler
THIRTY-NINE
TYLER
I fucked up royally, and now I get to spend another night staring at my ceiling.
Becca must have sucked my brain out through my dick tonight because I wasn’t with it enough to articulate how I really feel.
She even made me banana bread. What’s wrong with me? This should be a no-brainer.
The woman in the next room is my wife. Our families approve of us. Ellie loves her. She’s witty and funny and generous and so damn pretty that even when she’s disappointed in me, I’m almost too captivated by how pretty she is to think straight.
So what’s keeping me from going over there and telling her how I feel?
Fear. Stupid fear that I won’t be able to handle doing this for real. Fear that I can’t be a dad and a son and a business owner and a good husband. Fear that I’ll ruin Ellie’s life by taking some joy for myself. Fear of getting hurt.
Becca doesn’t deserve the scared version of me. She deserves the boldness she instills in me. She deserves the faith that she’s more than earned. I’m the problem here. Me, exclusively.
Becca doesn’t want to hurt me, no matter how much I trained myself to think that for years. She cares now, and she always has. She’s not CJ or any other woman.
She is my woman, and I’m man enough to act like it.
I sit up and put my feet on the floor. I need to go before I lose the nerve.
I race to her door and knock. Becca’s sheets rustle and my heart pounds harder with each of her footsteps on the hardwood floor.
She opens the door and crosses her arms with a scowl.
“I want our wedding night.”
She purses her lips and sighs, gesturing to my crotch. “Don’t you need a minute to get it up again?”
She’s definitely hurt or she wouldn’t be making dry jokes like that. I hate myself for hurting her, and the only way out of it is to fix it. Now.
“No. I’ve made a lot of bad choices, and I’m not willing to make another one with you.”
She narrows her eyes and cocks her head. “Did you just come over here to insult me? To tell me what a bad choice I am?”
I press my fingers into my forehead and growl, but I’m mad at myself, not her. “I want this, Becca. I want you to be my wife in every way.”
“Geez, I’ll throw you a courtesy blowie every once in a while, ya chickenshit,” she says flippantly, glancing at her nails. “That way people in town won’t find out you’re not in love with me.”
Her eyes finally flash up to mine, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her look so sad. That look is my fault. No more making her hurt.
“Rebecca.” My hand rests on her upper arm but she almost shrugs it off. “I haven’t been saying this right because I’m afraid. You don’t deserve my fear. You deserve me at my boldest.”
A stitch forms between her brows.
“I want to earn being your husband, your true husband. I know I’ve been fumbling everything because I’m afraid I can’t do it all. The last time I tried to have a business and a relationship and be a dad, I ended up alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says gently.
“In my head, I know that. But making me,” I gesture to my whole body, “believe that is the hard part.”
She nods. “That’s why we’re going slow. So you have time to catch up.”
“But I know I want you. I’m afraid I won’t move fast enough, and somewhere in there, you’ll feel like I don’t care. And then I’m afraid that means I don’t deserve you, like somebody else could love you better.”
Becca chews on the corner of her lips and thinks slowly, contemplating each part.
“Maybe love doesn’t always come in a box with a bow on top.
Maybe it’s messy and unsure and a little suspect at times,” that gets a laugh out of me, “but I don’t need some scrubbed, perfect version of love.
Maybe if I’m lucky enough, I’ll get your version someday. ”
My eyes feel hot and my fingers twitch where I’m trying not to let them shake. “I want to give you my version.”
She laughs and her eyes crinkle. “Well, you might just get my wild-ass version too.” She considers me more carefully. “You don’t have to be perfect for me. If you want to do this, we don’t just owe each other the sunshine. We have to say when we’re stuck out in the rain too.”
I nod and clench my jaw. “Well, then . . . I want it all. The sunshine and the rain. With you.”
Becca’s eyes are so bright, and I hope to god it means what I think it means. “I want that too. The sunshine. The rain. I want all of it with you.”
“You’d better be about to kiss me,” she breathes, her cheeks red and chest splotchy.
The half-step between us gets eaten up in a second as we crash together.
I clutch her lower back and thread my hand into her hair.
Kiss after kiss, fierce and untamed, panting between each pass of our lips.
She climbs my body and I hold under her thighs, stepping into her room and kicking the door closed.
I put her exactly where I did the first time I kissed her, pinning her to her bedroom wall with my hips. I pull back enough to see her well.
“I’m yours, Becca, if you’ll have me. I’d be so fucking proud to be yours.” I kiss her temple, her forehead, her hair, doing everything I can to worship her.
She chuckles. “You might eat those words soon.”
I laugh and kiss the tip of her nose. “I might, but I’ll still be yours.”
“Serves you right,” she teases. “All those years you wasted hating me for being the work of art I am.”
I shake my head. “I was a fool for that. I’m sorry.”
Becca’s eyes and smile are soft and she messes with my hair. “I’ll let you make it up to me.”
A heated stare passes between us, and I give a testing roll of my hips. Her jaw drops and she shudders, and the power is heady.
I move for her bed, enjoying the feeling of her arms draped over my shoulders and her long, blonde hair brushing my arms with each step I take. I lay her back on her bed and stay propped over her to drink in her bright smile. She reaches up to pull me in for a kiss, but I pause.
I want to be that guy I used to be, the guy who could take and take, and give pleasure until my partner collapsed.
But given what happened just from kissing her once and eating her out another time, I fear I might be a one-minute man.
Those thoughts must make me hesitate, because Becca puts a hand on my chest.
“What? Are you okay?”
I wince, but this does fall in the category of what we just agreed to, the sunshine and the rain. “I want everything, Becca, and I want to give you everything. But it’s been a long time. And you’ve seen my trigger is . . .” I gesture to my pants, “sensitive.”
Becca traces a finger down my chest. “I’ve seen. I think it’s hot. It means you want me.”
“I’ve wanted you for a very, very long time, baby.” I dip to brush a kiss to her lips. “And I don’t want to disappoint you.”
The corner of her lips lifts, but she’s not laughing at me. She’s taking me seriously and trying to make me feel comfortable.
“Okay. You used to last way back when,” she says. “What was different?”
I chuckle and slouch onto one elbow, lying next to her. Her hand keeps moving on my chest. “We were kind of on a lot of drugs. It dulled things down.”
“Hmm.” She taps her lips. “So you wanna get high?”
“No!” I groan and flop onto my back.
She giggles and straddles me, sitting on my pelvis. “Can you get it up twice in a row? Like, does it help that I just sucked you off?”
“Should help, but I can’t make any promises. And, um,” I stop, because this is the really hard part. I have to own up to some shit I’ve had buried so long it almost feels alien. “I’m afraid I’ll get caught up in my head with sex. CJ was my last and she got pregnant, and while I love Ellie . . .”
Becca nods with a wink. “I got you. I have an IUD, so low chances of getting pregnant. I’m also clear on infections.”
My face feels like it’s on fire. “Me too. On the infections. Not on the birth control. And, even if I maybe want to give Ellie a sibling someday, I kinda don’t want to think about kids right now. I want it to be about you and me, not us and trying to have a baby.”
Becca’s hand lands on my heart again, rubbing gently. “I don’t have to go full ‘breed me, Daddy’ dirty talk today. And we can use condoms. Hell, I’ll let you fuck my ass if my pussy makes you nervous.”
“Well, I mean, dirty talking and ass fucking sound great too. Just maybe not tonight.”
“I get it. How about, while we’re getting started, we keep it simple. Tell me what you want to do and how you’re feeling, and I’ll do the same. No pretzel positions or wild dirty talk necessary.”
Relief floods my chest. I do want all those things with Becca, but I’m so grateful she’s willing to ease into this. It’s further validation that she’s the right person for me.
But I’ve also wanted her since we were old enough to want these sorts of things and I’m ready to get this going.
I smirk. “So, dry missionary?”
She shrinks back from me. “Who said anything about dry? I didn’t say bad sex! I said simple!”
I tickle her side and she falls onto my chest, squirming and gasping for air. “Is this simple enough for you? How does this feel, huh, baby?”
“You’re the worst!” she cries through a fit of laughter.
My hands scrape up and down her back as my mouth cruises down her neck, her laughs turning into sighs. I clap her ass cheek with one cupped hand and fist the other into the back of her hair. Her eyes meet mine before we sink into a hot, desperate kiss.
For one blissful moment, I have the feeling that everything I’ve ever dreamed of is coming true.
My child is safe.
We’re in a beautiful, happy home.
And Becca Martin is my wife.
Not just my wife, but my sexy, hot, amazing, wonderful partner. Collaborator. Co-conspirator.
And she’s not someone I shouldn’t want. She’s good for me. Healthy, even. And all I want is to give her back everything she’s given me.
It’s work for me to break our kiss, because I’m enjoying it too much: her ass in my hands, her grinding on me, her hand holding my jaw like she needs me closer. Like she can’t lose me.
Like she doesn’t want to lose me. I sure as hell don’t want to lose her.