Chapter Nineteen
It hurts more to be slapped by a woman, than to lose ten years of one’s life.
—Italian proverb
He wasn’t at Vivi’s and he wasn’t picking up his phone. Kennedy said he’d made it clear he’d be out of calling range the night before and all problems should be taken to Derry.
The house looked shut-in and lifeless. She knocked. No answer. Standing back, she assessed her options and thought she saw a twitch at one of the blind slats.
She knocked again and again until her knuckles turned raw.
“Tad, I need to talk to you.”
Nothing but dead silence.
From her purse, she plucked the key Frankie had given to her thirty minutes ago with a nod and no questions. Righty-open, inside she went, the light behind her casting a wedge of brightness in the dark hallway where he had taken her so possessively just a few days before.
The door to the living room cracked open.
“Why are you here?” He sounded rusty, as if it was the first time he had spoken in days.
She inched closer and got a waft of booze fumes for her trouble. Giving the door a gentle push, she was relieved to see it give way.
“It’s so dark,” she said, her fingers moving automatically to the light switch.
“Leave it,” he rasped. There was just enough light to make out a bottle on the table, a couple of pizza boxes, and a sheet on the sofa. She didn’t need it to make out the lines of his body, which she knew better than any recipe.
His silence combined with the dark gave her a chance to examine him, but she decided quickly that she didn’t want to talk to him in the shadows. She moved to the window and pulled on the blind cord. Slatted light filled the room, bathing it in buttery stripes.
Illuminating the matter was an iced water shock. He hadn’t slept; that much was clear. His eyes were bloodshot and raw, two days of stubble gave him a pirate’s jaw. His whole appearance was one of someone haunted.
She sat beside him, close enough to touch but she held off although every cell in her body fizzled at being so near to him. Would she always feel this way? Probably. Definitely.
“Is Evan okay?” he asked in a whiskey-rough voice.
“He’s fine.”
He curled his fist into her hair gently and pulled her close. “I’m sorry that bastard ever hurt you and then I just rolled back over you. I’m going to make sure no one ever hurts you again.” He released her with a gentle stroke of her cheek. “Including me.”
Alarm bolted through her. “Tad, tell me what’s going on.”
“I need you to leave, Jules. I have to be alone.”
“No, you don’t.”
He rubbed his hand across his mouth and gave her an eviscerating look. She had seen that look before from men who wanted to get rid of her. Guys with whom she had outstayed her welcome.
She didn’t care.
He could glower and glare and give her what-for but she wasn’t leaving. He loved her. She knew he loved her. He was the only person brave enough to call her on her cowardice in how she handled Simon. He risked destroying their friendship by going against the grain and if that wasn’t love, what was? Jack might think he was acting for the best and everyone took their lead from her brother, the alpha of the pack, but not Tad. He marched to the beat of his own drum.
“You can’t be here, Jules. I don’t want you here.”
“Cara and Lili told me what happened that night.”
The look he shot her with was a mixture of disdain and heart-rending pain. “I…” He shook his head. “I can’t do this, Jules. In a couple of days, maybe. When I’m through it.”
“No, now. I’m here now, ready to be whatever you need.” She was ready to provide this man, who had pulled her through so many times, all the help he needed.
“I know it hurts like a bitch,” she said. “I know you miss them.”
He raised his bleary eyes to hers. “I do but that’s not even it anymore.”
“What is it?”
“It’s so selfish. I can’t even…”
Her heart hurt so much for him. “What, love? Tell me.”
“I miss me. Who I used to be before. Sometimes I see snatches of that guy when I’m joking around with Lili or out for a drink with Shane, but mostly he comes out around you. With you”—he threaded his fingers through her hair again and pulled her close—“I feel whole and good. You’re so beautiful, Jules. So perfect. I could fall into you, get lost in you, use you to make me feel right again for a short while. Take and take and take.”
Her throat thickened with tears. “Then do it. Whatever you need, take it. I’m here.”
He looked at her with eyes the color of regret and for a moment she thought he was going to shut down. Just close her out completely. But he inclined his head until their foreheads touched, apparently needing that skin-to-skin connection to help form the words.
“He thought I did it on purpose. Getting into that fight after the argument we had. Rebelling against him because he wanted me to be a success, to vindicate all the sacrifices he made for us.”
She rubbed his back, encouraging him to let it out.
“I expected my mother to come pick me up but no one came after an hour. Then two. By that time, I’d fallen asleep with my head on the shoulder of some bum and when I woke up, they led me into the interview room. Up all these stairs, through countless doors. I thought they were going to throw the book at me because that big mouth and his South side Irish cop father had already threatened to make my life hell. But I got inside and Tony was there sitting at the table. His face—I’ll never forget his face, Jules. You hear that word “ashen” but I never knew what it meant until I saw Tony that day. Then he told me they were dead.”
He heaved a deep breath, but it broke up about halfway through. The effort was too much for him and for a moment, she worried it might be too much for her. But it wouldn’t be. This man needed her and she had to be strong for him.
“Tad, you know it was an accident. You’re smart enough to know this isn’t your fault.”
He buried his head in his hands. Painful, soul-destroying seconds ticked by.
“My heart says different. It knows what I did and I see it when Tony looks at me. I was responsible for his brother’s death. I couldn’t face him after that. I couldn’t face any of them for a long time. At the funeral, Tony and I had a fight. He said I was a disappointment. He said—”
“He was grieving.” She didn’t have to hear what else he said. She knew Tony well enough to imagine.
“When I came back, Frankie made him give me a job at DeLuca’s, tending bar. I didn’t want a job where I had to think.”
“Why didn’t you work somewhere else?”
“I said I didn’t want to think but really I didn’t want to forget. I needed the pain to remind me every day that I was the screw-up my father thought I was, that Tony thought I was. Working at DeLuca’s, seeing Tony who looks like my father, even hearing the clank in the kitchen, I needed all that to keep me sane. The pain has kept me sane. Every year, it would build to a point where if I didn’t take off on some sort of bender I would explode. I’d go somewhere no one knew me and hole up for a few days like some animal going through a transformation. Sometimes, I banged some chick until I couldn’t feel a thing. I wasn’t fit for company and those few days allowed me to get sane again until the next year. But this year, I have the bar and I had to stay home. Here.”
Her soul shattered in the face of all this pain. “Tad, you can’t go on like this.”
“Are you going to tell me to get therapy, Jules? To talk it out with someone?” He huffed out a weary breath. “I did when I came back to Chicago. And I know I should feel differently, but that doesn’t mean I can. What it does mean is that I can’t be what you need.”
“You’re already what I need.”
He shook his head, his shoulders sagged, his hand fell away from her hair.
“I’m not the kind of guy who can be there for you. I can barely hold my own life together. You and Evan need someone stable and strong like Jack and Shane and Tony. A provider, a protector.” He palmed his forehead. “I’m just a f*cking ghost.”
“All Evan needs are the people around him to love him unconditionally. I don’t need a man to provide for us—yes, I’ve always behaved as if a man could solve my problems but I realize now that I can solve my problems. I can take care of my son. What we need from you is all you’ve ever given us. Your heart, your love, just you.”
She smoothed her thumb over his jaw and he groaned under her touch. She followed up with her lips, working her way from his stubble-rough chin and back over to his mouth.
“Jules, please,” he groaned, so deep she felt it in every nerve. Please stop or please go on?
Making an executive decision, she took the groan as an invitation to suck on his bottom lip, to chase his tongue with her own, to kiss him deep. He shouldn’t have tasted good: all that booze should have soured him but this was Tad and the chemistry between them was undeniable. It no longer felt like stealing, it felt like taking what was hers.
Taddeo DeLuca belonged to her, and her alone.
She pushed him back on the sofa and straddled him, taking the lead, pulling out her inner bad girl. This wasn’t slow and tortured. This was her way. Fast and urgent and get inside me now before I die from the want. She ground her body against his erection and peeled his sweat pants down past those lovely hip indents that she knew like the back of her hand. His beauty awed her.
With an animal growl, he got on board and pushed up her skirt.
Rip. There went another pair of panties. All for a good cause. And then he was inside her, pumping his thighs up to meet her downstroke as she took what was her right. Tad’s body, his quick mind, the only man who got her. This was what she needed—not a man to take care of her, but a man who would be her partner in all things. Cooking, laughing, loving. Working together to make each other happy. The push and pull of two people who understood each other better than any other.
As they moved together, finding that sensuous rhythm, she kissed him again. She needed the connection that came from touching him everywhere she could. Their mouths, their chests, where their bodies fused as one. He moved his thumb to stroke between her legs, the pleasure so sharp she moaned into his mouth.
“Oh, God.”
“Just Tad,” he whispered, making her laugh so hard she almost lost her tempo. It felt like he had come back to her with that one little interjection. Even now, with his heart in shreds, he was thinking of how to please her.
No more than a few seconds later, the build of pleasure became so unbearable she had to pull away, but he had other ideas. He turned and flipped her onto her back, and drove into her deep and fast with one long, consuming stoke after another. He curled his fist in her hair and with his other hand pushed one thigh further apart to heighten the angle of penetration.
The orgasm ripped through her, cresting in an explosion of heat that radiated through every nerve ending. It went on and on and on, no end in sight, no mercy or quarter given. Naked want finding its fullest expression.
Bad girls had it best.
“I love you,” she said as the violence shuddered to diminishing aftershocks. Not a whisper, but strong and directly to his face. There would be no doubt that she loved him. He needed to be told, often, and in the clearest terms. He had been revealed to her, laugh by laugh and stroke by stroke. She had peeled away to the man inside and he was all she could ever want.
She could feel his entire body shaking though she knew he hadn’t come yet. Still inside her, he stopped his powerful thrusts, and plundered her mouth with a long, possessive kiss. He tasted of man and home and salt. He tasted of… tears.
“I love you,” she said again.
He shook his head vehemently. “No, Jules. Don’t say it—you can’t.”
“Yes.” She could and she would. Forever.
She swiped away his liquid pain with her thumbs. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Over and over she said it as she kissed every inch of his face. She loved this sinful mouth, this strong nose. She loved every last whisker of stubble, every laugh line around his eyes.
She loved this man.
The honesty of the moment ratcheted up her need again. It shouldn’t have been possible, but then Tad made the impossible happen. With that inexorable climb, he took her over again with words so faint she thought she must be mistaken.
“I’m sorry,” he said against her mouth before he roared his release.
He buried his face in her shoulder while their breathing returned to normal. Just their breathing, though. Nothing else would be normal again.
Slowly he withdrew from her, pulled up his sweat pants, and left the room.
Bollocks.
Before she had time to process it, he was back with a wet washcloth. He pushed aside her torn underwear and gently washed between her thighs, every warm stroke like heaven in contrast to the chill emanating from his body.
“You owe me another pair of expensive knickers,” she teased.
“Put it on my tab,” he said gravely.
“Tad—”
“Is there a chance you could get pregnant?”
The words, said with a flat indifference, pinned her back. She shouldn’t have been surprised. It was a reasonable question to ask but usually… hell, she didn’t know what usually happened in these situations.
“I’m on the pill.” After what happened with Simon, she treated it with the respect it deserved. Alarms, post-it notes, you name it, she did it to make sure she didn’t repeat that mistake.
He stopped what he was doing and looked up with frost in his eyes. “Weren’t you on the pill before?”
“Yes, but I’m more careful now.”
“I hope so.”
She bolted upright, pulling her skirt down as she went. “Don’t do this.” I’m sorry, he had said right before he exploded inside her. Was he already planning his exit strategy while he made love to her?
“Jules,” he said patiently, like he was about to explain something difficult. “What just happened was a moment of craziness. This whole thing between us has been one long series of crazy moments. We were geographically convenient but now it’s over.”
“Yes, the friends with benefits thing is over, Tad, but we’re not. This is real and we’re just beginning.” She rubbed the back of his neck, easing away the knots of stress. “I know you’re hurting now but my heart is strong enough to beat for two until yours can beat again. I’ve already gone through a lot of pain with Jack, Simon, how stupid I feel. I gave birth, for Christ’s sake. If I can bring a life into this world, I can bring you back into it as well. Let me help you.”
The look he gave her was cutting. “You can’t help me. Jesus, I told you not to get attached. I told you I couldn’t follow through and give you what you needed.”
Feeling gangly and weakened, she stood and balled her fists at her side. The temptation to clip him around the ear was so strong she almost collapsed under the weight of it. Instead, she took a step away—for his safety and her sanity.
“No, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t what?”
“No, you didn’t tell me not to get attached. In fact, I distinctly remember telling you not to fall in love with me.” She fanned her hips with both hands and dug one of her flip-flops into the carpet. The other one had gone AWOL during the pounding she just got on the sofa. “And now you have fallen in love with me, you poor sod, so you’re going to have to man up and deal with it.”
He stared up at her through bloodshot eyes filled with disbelief. “You’re crazy.”
“Tell me you don’t love me.”
He settled back on the sofa in an indolent pose, his body straining for the lie. “You know I love you, Jules. It’s impossible not to love you. I just don’t have it in me to love you the way you need.”
She made a very unladylike noise. “Now you’re just splitting hairs.”
“We’re not doing this, Jules. You can’t nag or logic me into giving you what you want. We made this clear weeks ago. You’re going to find some stand-up guy to keep you safe and secure and I’ll do whatever I need to keep on rolling.”
“So those chicks you banged during your previous benders? Are you trying to tell me that’s what happened here? That I’m just the comfort lay to get you through the tough times?”
He picked up her wayward flip-flop and tossed it to her. She caught it reflexively.
“If the shoe fits.”
She could hear the stress in those casual words, the lack of conviction in their casual cruelty. After the pain of Simon she knew she had it in her to be one half—one third, if she counted Evan—of a soul-deep love, but everyone had to play their part. She could carry him for a while through his hurt but she needed a sign that he wanted this as much as she did.
“I thought I wanted safe and secure, so I could avoid the heartache of falling too deeply, but it happened anyway. With you. I know what that feels like. I feel that with you—”
“Jules, honey.” More soothe-the-crazy-woman.
She threw her flip-flop at his head. It glanced off the side of his cheek, drawing his shocked expression.
“Jules!”
“Shut. Up. I feel that with you and I know I have it in me to feel it again with someone else. I have a lot of love to give. It’s inside me, ready and ripe for the right person. The person who can handle it. You will never meet another woman who understands you like I do, Tad DeLuca. I am the best bloody thing to happen to you but I’m not going to beg.”
Above flaring nostrils, those dark blue eyes seared her but when he spoke again, he was as calm as the stultifying air in the room.
“I know you won’t beg. You’ve never begged for anything in your life. You’re the strongest person I know and you’ll get over me. They always do.”
She had hit a wall. There was only so much she could do and she had already debased herself too many times with too many guys. She deserved to be fought over, to be wooed, to be the center of a man’s world. And until Tad learned to love himself, he wouldn’t be able to give her the all-consuming love she merited.
Convincing herself there was a smidgen of truth running through her brave speech was the only thing that kept her from crumpling to the floor. This fountain of love inside her couldn’t be all for naught. She wasn’t supposed to waste it on undeserving men.
You talk a good game, Bad Girl Jules said wryly.
She sure does, Good Girl Jules concurred.
It would stun her senseless for a while but she would get over him eventually. Seeing him at every family gathering would help to wean her off that bone-melting smile. Familiarity would breed indifference.
On her way out, she tried to think of some witty comment to see her through, but none was forthcoming. In the hallway, she took a moment to do what was needed, then closed the front door behind her quietly.