Chapter 17
“What. The. Hell.” Maddie stood with Tiffany, watching the EMTs take Dan Torrington away from his engagement party on a stretcher.
“Goddamned Jim,” Tiffany muttered, mortified and humiliated by her ex-husband’s tirade. At times like this, she had no idea how she ever could’ve loved him. “What was he hoping to prove by pulling a stunt like this?”
“He looked like he’d been drinking for days.”
“I wondered why he hadn’t called to see Ashleigh in a while. For all his faults, that’s not like him.”
Maddie’s arm came around her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess. Just kind of shocked to see him lose it that way. I had no idea his business was in such bad shape.” Suddenly chilled to the bone despite the warm summer day, Tiffany wrapped her arms around herself protectively. “You don’t suppose Blaine will kill him, do you?”
“I’m sure he’d like to rough him up a bit, but he’d never do that to you or Ashleigh. He’ll go totally by the book on this one because of who Jim is to you.”
“He’s nothing to me,” Tiffany said forcefully.
“You know what I mean. He’s still Ashleigh’s father.”
Tiffany knew her sister was right, even though Blaine was already more of a father to Ashleigh than Jim had ever been.
Speaking of her husband… He came back into the room, his face stony with anger.
When the brown eyes that normally looked at her with nothing but love and lust and tenderness connected with hers, she realized he was incredibly angry. At her.
Tiffany’s stomach ached with apprehension, a feeling that reminded her all too well of her unhappy years with Jim.
“Uh-oh,” Maddie muttered as Blaine crossed the room to them.
“Where is he?” Tiffany asked. “What happened?”
“I turned him over to my people.” His words were clipped and economical, nothing extra offered to calm or soothe her the way he normally did. “He’s on his way to jail, where he belongs. Let’s go.”
With a grimace for her sister, she let her husband lead her from the room.
He held the passenger door to his department-issued SUV for her and waited for her to get settled before he slammed it closed.
As he stalked around the front of the truck, Tiffany’s nerves skyrocketed into all-too-familiar terrain.
She’d spent years with a man whose mercurial temper left her in a constant state of dread over when the next blowup might occur.
If a blowup with her new husband were imminent, at least Ashleigh wouldn’t witness it.
She was spending the afternoon with Jim’s parents.
Blaine got in the truck and slammed his own door as hard as he’d slammed hers. He pulled out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of dirt in their wake, and drove to their house in total silence.
She noticed his knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel with all his considerable strength. Swallowing hard, she finally worked up the courage to poke the tiger. “What’s wrong?”
He looked over at her, seeming incredulous, before returning his attention to the road.
“So you’re just not going to tell me? It’s not my fault Jim did that! I hadn’t seen him in weeks.”
No reply. Fantastic.
She crossed her arms to contain her own fury, which was mounting by the second.
He pulled into the long driveway that led to their home a few minutes later, the truck swerving as he braked abruptly, threw the truck into Park and got out. Opening her door, he said, “Come.”
“I don’t want to. You’re acting like a madman.”
“I’m acting like a madman?”
“Yes! What the hell has gotten into you?”
“You want to know what’s gotten into me?”
“Stop answering my questions with questions!”
“Then how about you tell me what the hell you were thinking confronting a man who has professed his hatred for you to anyone who will listen when he’s wielding a fucking butcher knife?”
All of a sudden, she got why he was so upset. She’d scared him. She released her seat belt and turned to him, still sitting in the SUV while he stood outside. “Blaine…”
“Don’t do that. Don’t go all soft like that and think you’re going to get out of this by sweet-talking me. He could’ve killed you!”
Despite his reluctance, she put her hands on his face and forced him to look at her. “You were right there, and you never would’ve let that happen.”
“What were you thinking confronting him like that? He was clearly over the edge and looking for vengeance. You nearly made it easy for him.”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything other than trying to make him stop before things got even worse. I knew you were right there and would protect me if it went bad.” She leaned in to kiss him. “I knew you were right there.”
“Baby,” he said with a tortured moan as he hugged her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, “don’t ever do anything like that again. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you.”
“You have to promise me. I think my heart stopped for a second there when I saw you approach him. I need you to promise.”
“I promise.”
He scooped her right up and out of the truck and carried her to the house, kicking the door open and then kicking it closed behind them.
Tiffany wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the love and desire he aroused in her every time he touched her. “You scared me, too, you know.”
“When? When did I scare you?”
He sat her on the counter in the kitchen, right where their first significant encounter had occurred. “When you were angry with me. It reminded me too much…of him. Of how it always was with him when I spent most of my time waiting for him to lose it with me over every little thing.”
“This wasn’t a little thing, but I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I never want to make you feel the way you did with him.”
“I know.”
“So we scared each other.” He ran his hands up her legs and under her skirt until they were cupped around her bottom.
“It’s only because I love you so fucking much that I nearly lost my mind when you confronted him.
The thought of you in any kind of danger, no matter how fleeting, makes me want to lose my shit. ”
“I’m okay.” She caressed his face and smoothed his hair, which had gotten mussed in the altercation with Jim.
“I should be at the station dealing with him, but I need to be inside you right now more than I need my next breath. I need you, Tiff.”
She unbuttoned and unzipped the dress pants she’d had to talk him into wearing to the party. “Take me. I’m all yours.”
He growled as he ripped the lace panties off her body in a move that sent her own need into the red zone. With his hands under her skirt gripping her ass, he pulled her toward him and impaled her on his hard cock, drawing a gasp from both of them. “Shit,” he whispered as he froze. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“That was rough.”
“I loved it, and I love you.”
Her words sent a tremble rippling through his muscular body as he took her on a wild ride. She hooked her arm around his neck and urged him into a frantic, passionate kiss.
He made an inarticulate sound as he pulled at the bodice of her dress, tugging until her breast popped free of her bra.
Squeezing and kneading, he pinched her nipple between his fingers until she cried out from the orgasm that ripped through her, sending waves of heat and sensation from her core to every part of her body.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he said on a groan as he pushed hard into her again stayed there this time as he rode the waves of her climax into his own. Sweating and panting in the aftermath, he let out a gruff laugh. “I need to get mad at you more often. That was incredible.”
“Please don’t get mad at me more often. I couldn’t take that.”
“You have absolutely nothing to fear from me—ever. I’m all yours. I’m completely and totally under your spell.”
Charmed and moved by his heartfelt words, she tightened her legs around his hips and pushed against the cock that was still hard inside her despite his orgasm. His stamina never failed to amaze and exhaust her. “Look at where we are.”
He seemed to snap out of the sex-fueled daze to realize he’d taken her right on the kitchen counter where he’d once given her the orgasm that changed both their lives. “I do some of my best work right here,” he said with a proud grin that made her laugh.
With his hands still wrapped firmly around her buttocks, he lifted her off the counter without losing their connection and carried her to the sofa in the living room, where he came down on top of her.
Lifting her skirt, he eased the dress up and over her head, leaving her only in the bra that had matched the now-shredded thong.
He released the clasp on her bra and disposed of it with expertise that never failed to amuse her.
“I know, I know,” he said before she could. “I’m good at that.” He nuzzled her bare breasts, teasing her nipples with his tongue and the rough brush of his late-day whiskers against sensitive skin. “It’s because I have the best possible reason to get rid of your bras with all due haste.”
She grasped a handful of his hair and directed him to focus on her nipple. Her husband knew how to take direction and had her twisting and gasping and straining against him within minutes. “Blaine…”
“What, baby?”
“I want you to know…”
“What do you want me to know?” He never stopped kissing or sucking or teasing as he spoke, and the wash of his hot breath over her wet nipple was nearly enough on its own to make her come again.
“I told you that when you were angry with me, it reminded me of him. But you’re nothing like him, and our marriage… It’s nothing like that one was. It’s so, so much better. It’s more than I ever dreamed possible.”
His forehead dropped to her chest. “You kill me, baby. The stuff you say to me… You’re so damned sweet, and I’m so sorry you went through everything you did with him, but I’m so, so glad it led you to me.
” He raised his head to meet her gaze. “I never felt like I belonged anywhere until I belonged to you.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way.”
“Love you,” he whispered as he began to move again, making slow, sweet love to her this time.
“I love you, too.”