Dad had told me he’d call a tow truck this morning, and I’d assumed that was what his call while I was in the shower had been about.
It wasn’t, and I wished it had been.
“Yeah, baby,” he confirmed. “It’s dented, but luckily it was high enough off the ground that when it was wedged against the trees, no water was able to get in it, other than the rain water that came in through the open window. Once the water recedes, they’ll be bringing it back home.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you.”
Dad hummed in understanding. “It’ll be okay.”
I knew it would.
It didn’t help the hurt I was feeling right now, though.
“Night, Daddy,” I whispered. “Love you to the state line and back.”
Dad chuckled as he said, “Love you to the state line and back, too.”
When we’d made our way to Texas after the forest fire that’d taken my brother’s life, apparently my commentary about the sheer size of Texas had been enough to start a new trend that not just me, but my brother and sister had also adopted.
You could spend an entire day driving in Texas and never leave the state, and it was an observation I’d made, which had slowly morphed over time into a catchphrase in our family to add emphasis onto something.
I had started it by saying ‘I love you to the state line and back’ to my mother and then my sister had started to use it, too. It caught on, which led all of us using it now.
After pushing the phone into my pocket, I turned to survey Tommy’s front door.
I was nervous.
It was bedtime, and Tallulah, my buffer and excuse for not getting close to Tommy all day, would be in bed and no longer available to be used as an excuse.
But with nothing else to do, and no more reasons to stay out here, I twisted the knob and headed back inside.
I found Tommy sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees and face in his hand as he studied the floor.
He was still upset about the patch.
I wished I knew what to say to get the happy vibe back that we’d had earlier, but I didn’t know what to say or do to make it better.
“I have it there so I don’t forget,” he murmured. “I can’t ever forget.”
I swallowed, and walked further into the room, taking a seat on the couch directly next to Tommy.
The moment I sat, I found myself wrapped up in a hug so tight that it took my breath away.
“Forget what?” I asked breathlessly.
His closeness made me forget my promise not to do this with him again.
The second the bare skin of his arms met my palms, I dropped my mouth to his for a quick kiss without even realizing that I’d done it.
The moment my lips lifted from his, his eyes snapped open, pain laced throughout.
“The patch is a memorial patch,” he murmured lightly. “The president of our MC, Stone, was killed in the line of duty not long ago.”
The food I’d just eaten started to churn in my belly.
“Is that…was that the police officer that was killed by that gang member?”
He nodded.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “That one.”
I smoothed Tommy’s hair back by running both sets of fingers through it. “He was a good man,” I murmured. “Did you know that he took me to the hospital the day that I went into labor with Tallulah?”
His mouth quirked.
“You were the chick that had the kid in his car, weren’t you?”
I bit my lip.
“I was,” I confirmed. “He saw my vagina, along with the rest of the general population of Mooresville.”
He started to chuckle.
“I didn’t see your vagina,” he pointed out. “And I worked there. You’re just lucky I was at lunch that day, or your vagina would have been branded into my brain…” I slapped my hand over his mouth before he could finish.
“There are certain things a man should never say to a woman, and that’s one of them,” I told him, pushing on his face a little harder before letting him free.
His eyes sparkled in mirth, and I would take teasing from him anytime if it kept him from having that haunted, broken look in his eyes.
It was clearly apparent that the death of his club’s president had hurt him. Affected him on a monumental level that he would likely never fully get over.
“I was there,” he said, startling me.
“What?” I asked, not sure I heard him correctly.
“I was there.”
I blinked.
“You were there the day he was shot?” I asked, hoping that I was wrong about what he was trying to say.
I wasn’t, of course.
I was always right.
And it was as much of a curse as it was a gift.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I was there…tried to save him.” He shook his head. “He was shot. The bullet went straight through his aorta. He bled out in a matter of seconds.”
I closed my eyes and leaned forward until my forehead was leaning against his.
His fingers tightened on my ass, and I found myself picked up and being moved to the bedroom.
“Tommy…”
“Shhh,” he whispered. “Just one more time.”
I leaned back so I could stare into those bluer than blue eyes and melted.
“Okay,” I whispered. “One more time.”
The moment my back hit the bed I spread my thighs wide, causing his mouth to kick up at the corner in a small grin.
“You want me?”
I stared at him.
“I’ve wanted you for weeks.”
His smile was brilliant as he reached a hand over his head, catching the collar of his t-shirt between two fingers and pulling it over his head.
Why did men look so sexy taking their shirts off?
Trying to be just as sexy as he was, I did an ab curl that was more of a muffin mush as I tried to execute the same move he’d just done. I failed spectacularly.
I got my head caught on the collar of the shirt and promptly choked myself. When I tried to grab the hem of my shirt to ease it over my head, I somehow got my hair added to the mix.
“It helps if you hunch your shoulders some,” Tommy’s laughing, muffled voice came from somewhere above me.
But since I was still stuck in my t-shirt— how the hell did this even happen? —I couldn’t confirm that.
His hands went to the shirt and he pulled my arm out, causing the rest of me to pop free as well.
His smiling face was the first thing I saw, and I kind of liked that my quirkiness was the thing that put it there.
I didn’t like seeing this man look as sad as he did just a few moments before.
“I need to work on that before I do it again trying to be all sexy,” I informed him. “Can we just pretend like that didn’t happen?”
He grinned down at me.
During the time I was tangled up in my shirt, he’d lost his pants.
The only thing shielding the object of my current desire from my gaze was a thin piece of fabric—his boxer briefs.
“I think you need to buy more of those,” I told him, indicating his boxers with a tilt of my head.
He didn’t look down like I expected him to, he just planted both fists on either side of my hips.
“Under Armour apparently likes to make underwear that shows off the goods,” he mumbled. “I have a pair of shorts that do much the same. They push everything up and out…it’s kind of like a push-up bra for my cock and balls.”