Marry Me Again (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 1) (19 page)

He and Sammy had gone out for pizza. That had given Rebecca time to reflect on exactly what his move to Tallahassee would mean.

Tucker, everywhere, underfoot, all the time.

He and Sammy had grown closer and closer, and lately, she'd even stopped being afraid about that. They didn't have a typical father-son relationship yet, and she doubted they ever would. But they had something of their very own that seemed to be working for them, and it had definitely been good for Sammy.

Tucker was here to stay. She believed that. She wouldn't be able to avoid him, and she couldn't tell herself that all she had to do was hold out for a few hours or a few days until he left, because he wasn't going to leave.

So they had come to terms.

His terms, she feared. She didn't think she was strong enough to face the terms he would set, but she didn't think she could resist him, either. She was trapped by her own maddening, unexplainable desire for him.

She took a deep breath and started in on the conversation she'd been dreading all day.

"Why did you come back, Tucker?"

"Because I don't want to be an every-other-weekend-and-holidays kind of father."

She nodded. She believed that was part of it. Just a part.

"Because it wasn't enough to see Sammy for a day or two whenever I could get away."

He came closer. She could feel him, feel the warmth radiating from his body just behind her. Rebecca inched as close as she could get to the cabinets and stared at the fine wood grain of the oak.

"I want to be here with him, every day." His hand cupped her elbow, and she sucked in a breath. "I can't make up for all the years we were apart, but I intend to make damned sure that I don't miss anything else."

"All right," she whispered as she braced herself for the rest of it.

"And that's not all, Rebecca Jane."

She closed her eyes as the other hand came up to cup her elbow and he moved to stand right behind her. His hands barely held her there, and yet she couldn't have moved, not an inch. He'd never needed the strength of those powerful arms to hold her. His power was in his mere presence. He had a power over her that would not be denied, one that time hadn't diminished, one that even his betrayal hadn't destroyed.

He came closer still. His breath stirred the tendrils of hair at the back of her neck that had escaped from her chignon, and he set her whole body to trembling.

"We need to talk about you and me," he said, his breath warming the back of her neck.

"No," she insisted, wishing she could believe it herself.

"Yes." His arms slid around her, slowly and gently, powerfully, and he eased her back against him. He enveloped her with his warmth and his scent, with his power.

"Remember Sammy's first day of school, the emptiness we talked about, the loneliness? I've been empty inside, Rebecca. I've been searching and searching forever, and there was just nothing that came close to filling that awful emptiness inside me."

She was afraid he was going to kiss her then. She felt his breath warming her neck. But he didn't kiss her. He just nuzzled her with his nose, teasing her, tantalizing her so gently.

He'd always been so gentle with her.

"You know what it feels like. You told me so that day. You've felt it, too."

Oh, yes. She knew that feeling, that ache of a soul starved for love. She couldn't imagine that he'd been searching, too, that he hadn't found someone, that he hadn't found a half-dozen someones to help fill up his life. She couldn't believe he'd been as lonely as she had been.

"I did," she began. "But... "

"What if it was you, Rebecca? What if, all that time, all I needed was you?" he asked, kissing her finally, at the back of her neck.

She gasped, and her body began its awful betrayal. She didn't move. She couldn't. She just let herself sink back against him as he held her.

As he kissed her neck, his touch was light and teasing, but the effect was all too potent. He nosed the stray curls aside, and then his teeth sank into the cord of muscles that ran down the side of her neck and to her shoulders, and she thought she might die from the pleasure.

"Did you remember," he said huskily, "that it used to drive me wild to see your hair like this? Did you wear it just for me, Rebecca?"

"No," she said as she stood there in his arms, paralyzed by the desire he'd awakened in her.

"Maybe you will," he said. "Some day soon, maybe you'll wear it like this again, for me."

Her knees gave way then, and she leaned against him. He caught her easily, held her firmly in his arms with his body pressed against the back of hers.

They stood there, molded together, breathing in time with each other, her heart pounding as quickly as his.

Her head was spinning. Her breasts were full and aching. They remembered his touch so well.

She was liquid fire, his to do with as he would.

His hand moved to the buttons on her blouse, and deftly, he unfastened the top three. Then he pushed her blouse off one shoulder, his lips following the path as it was uncovered.

"I've missed you, Rebecca."

She'd missed him, too. She couldn't deny it, so she didn't try. She just closed her eyes and felt the power, felt the pull of the desire that he alone could create.

And then, she knew this was what she'd wanted. This was what she'd missed when she'd been with Brian. This was why she'd never become Brian's wife. He had never even begun to make her feel what Tucker had made her feel.

She went absolutely still as she admitted to herself, once again, that despite the years and all the tears, he could still make her ache for him.

Tucker pressed his lower body to hers, and she felt the hard muscles of his thighs, felt his arousal as he settled himself against her hips and then rocked back and forth in a slow, sensual rhythm that she remembered so well, one that took her breath away.

Oh, she remembered.

For years, she'd told herself that it couldn't possibly have been as good as she remembered between them, but she knew now. Nothing was wrong with her memory. It was exactly as powerful, as rawly sensual, as capable of robbing her mind of her power to reason.

The years fell away, and she was back where she'd longed to be. He was hers and she was his, at least for these few moments.

She would give herself these few moments.

He rocked his hips against hers. His hand slipped inside her blouse, under the bra, and he found her breast, while his lips found her ear, his warm breath fanning across it as he nibbled delicately on her earlobe.

"I won't hurt you this time, Rebecca. I swear it."

Oh, but he would. She was certain of it. He would hurt her terribly. That wasn't in question, but neither was the fact that he was going to make love to her again, tonight, and she was going to let him.

Because she wasn't strong enough to stop him. She didn't have the will to tell him no. Because some part of her had died when they'd divorced, and now it was coming back to life. He brought this part of her soul roaring back to life.

It was bittersweet, the pleasure and the pain, the past blurring with the present, leaving her dizzy with too many memories, too many feelings.

She shivered uncontrollably but stayed right where she was, with his hand slipped inside her bra to cup her breast and his mouth in the hollow where her neck met her shoulder.

And finally, when she thought she couldn't stand it anymore, he turned her around and took her back into his arms. Face-to-face, finally, he fitted his body to hers from their thighs to their shoulders, pressed together with nary a breath between them.

Finally, his mouth settled onto hers for a long, drugging kiss, for another and another, until the room started spinning around them. She held on tight to him, to the power at the center of her storm.

He broke off the kiss, and they both made a desperate grab for air. He groaned and kissed her nose. She could feel him smiling as he kissed her cheek, and she waited for him to take her mouth under his again.

But he didn't.

He kissed her cheek again, then went still. She felt him pull away slightly, felt his fingers reach up and run down her cheek.

Tears
. He'd found her tears, ones she hadn't even known were falling, and yet there they were, on his fingertips, then beneath his lips.

Tears on her cheeks, bittersweet memories flooding her mind as she stood there trembling.

Time stood still and the memories came rushing back, the pain, the humiliation, the loneliness and despair that had come at the end, just before they'd separated.

The memories were closer than she'd thought, and she couldn't escape them. She wished she could, for just a little while. Rebecca still wasn't sure how she'd survived it all, how any of her feelings for him could have possibly survived, but something had, something she couldn't deny and yet couldn't face.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice tinged with an anguish she knew so well.

And then he stepped away from her. He let her go. He stopped when she wouldn't have been strong enough to stop him herself. She should have been grateful. Instead she just stood there in front of him, cold and miserable.

"It just won't work, Tucker."

"It might," he insisted.

"It won't. Not ever." She wrapped her arms around her middle and tried to stop shivering. "There's too much between us, too much anger and hatred and bitterness. I can't go back to all that. I don't want to—"

He touched his finger to her lips and stopped her right there. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I've tried to forget you, that I've tried to forget about us, about the way it was between us, the good and the bad?"

She nodded. She remembered.

He wiped another of her tears away. "But I can't forget, Rebecca. "

"You have to," she insisted.

"Look, I know how impossible it seems. Believe me, I know. It's all I've thought about—you and Sammy and me. I know you're scared. I'm scared, too, but things are going to be different this time, Rebecca."

He held her easily then. He absorbed the cold, brought in the warmth. "I haven't forgotten anything about you. I haven't forgotten anything we shared. I never will. And I don't think you've forgotten, either, despite all those years of trying. Why do you think that is, Rebecca? Why haven't you been able to put me out of your mind?"

"I have," she lied, her sense of self-preservation much stronger than her conscience.

"Then why couldn't you put everything behind you and start over again with Brian?"

She closed her eyes, hoping he wouldn't see the truth. But she didn't fool him. He knew. Somehow he knew exactly what had gone wrong between her and Brian.

"Let me go." She pushed against his chest, hard, but he held her tight.

"Why? He was supposed to be everything I never could be, and you loved him. So why didn't you ever marry him?"

She hung her head and stared at the fabric of his shirt. He wasn't hurting her, but he wasn't about to let go.

"Tell me why you couldn't marry him," he insisted, his voice tinged with anger.

She looked up at him and knew he wouldn't let go until he had his answer. He was stubborn enough and strong enough to hold her all night if he had to. "Because he wasn't you!" She hurled the angry words at him.

He let her go instantly. She swayed on her feet in front of him.

This was her chance to get away from him, her chance to run like the coward she was when it came to facing up to her unresolved feelings for him, but she didn't take it. She had no reason to run now. She couldn't run anywhere that he wouldn't find her.

He knew everything she'd been trying to hide, both from herself and from him, and she had no protection from him now.

Rebecca would have sworn that she could never feel more vulnerable than she had when she'd been carrying his child, knowing that their marriage was never going to survive—but she did, now.

She was as helpless as a baby, trapped by her own traitorous emotions, trapped by the longing she still had for him.

Finally she found the courage to look up into his beautiful brown eyes. She expected to see triumph there. She'd admitted her deepest, darkest secret to him, and she thought he'd be triumphant at dragging it out of her.

But she saw only tenderness, maybe concern, maybe—affection? She didn't dare label it love.

He smiled at her then, ever so slightly. "It's going to be okay, angel face."

And then he held out his arms to her, offering himself to her, to comfort her.

She hesitated, knowing that moving those few inches into the shelter of his arms would tell him more than any admission that could come out of her mouth just now.

He'd trapped her with her own longing, by feeding her lonely soul, yet here he was giving her a choice.

If he'd taken her into his arms right then and kissed her, just once, she would have been lost all over again. She would have been his, to do with as he pleased.

He'd won, and yet he wasn't pressing his victory.