Tucker opened the door for Elle and scooped her up into his arms. “Damn, I missed you,” he said. She let him envelop her in a huge hug. “Three days felt like three years.” It had. It was crazy but the last few days had been rough. Especially considering he’d been seriously hungover on the first. It wasn’t the brightest way to start the new year, but he figured he wasn’t alone in his misery.
“I missed you too.” She lifted her head and raised her lips for a kiss.
He was happy to oblige. He could never get enough of Elle’s mouth.
“Now let me in the dang house, Tucker, it’s freezing out here.”
He had her in the house technically but her backside was still in the open doorway. Sheepish, he pulled her forward and closed the door. “Sorry.” Then he wrapped his arm around her and kissed her again, the kind of deep emotional embrace that made him both satisfied in her love, and wanting her body desperately. “Hey. How was the drive? Can I get you anything?”
It felt odd that they were still visitors in each other’s homes. How did they move past that? He wasn’t sure. They had gone about everything ass backwards.
“No, I’m fine.” She dropped her overnight bag on the floor. “The ride wasn’t bad either. No snow.”
Tucker smiled at her. “Listen to us. Making small talk.” He reached over and picked up her bag then set it back down again when he realized he should help her out of her coat. “You’d think we were on a first date.”
“This would be a weird-ass first date.” She patted her belly. “Even weirder since this is your baby.”
“True. And we’re married.” He helped her out of her coat. “I was thinking since you’re here for a few days we could go ring shopping. I think my wife needs some bling, don’t you?” They may have done this all out of order but he wanted it to be the real deal. She needed to have a wedding ring.
“Oh, fancy. If you insist, I won’t turn down a gift of jewelry. Though I would like it to be vintage.”
“Is that cheaper?” he asked, feeling his wallet theoretically squeeze.
“Definitely.”
“Then I think that’s a great idea,” he joked.
She laughed. “So romantic.”
He needed to work on that. “I was kidding, come on, cut me some slack.”
Without warning Elle’s face went tender and it did something crazy to his insides.
“You are actually very romantic,” she said. “I shouldn’t tease you about that.”
Tucker ran his finger over her bottom lip. “You can do whatever you want to me, just don’t ever leave me.”
“I promise.” Elle moved into his living room. “Speaking of leaving and being apart and stuff that sucks, I know we have a geographical issue we need to talk about.”
They did. It was a conversation he’d been dreading because he wanted a resolution immediately if not sooner, but he didn’t really know what that solution would be. “Do I need a beer for this?” It was only noon, but she was looking at him like he needed a drink.
“No! Calm down.” Elle made a face at him. “And it’s rude to drink in front of a woman who can’t have a cocktail.”
“Not my fault.” He laughed. “Wait. It is my fault.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“So you tell me.” He took her hand and led her to the couch. “Let’s at least sit down.”
“I’m going to hover because I’ve been in the car for four hours. My legs are stiff.”
“Then I’ll hover too.” He leaned against the arm of the sofa. “What’s up, sweetheart? Do you have a plan in mind?”
“Yes. You know I can’t move back here, Tucker. I just can’t.” She bit her lip. “I would have no job and I would have to befriend all these people I don’t care to be friends with.”
“I understand that.” He did. It was asking her not only to give up her career but to live where she was emotionally uncomfortable. He had done nothing but think about it since New Year’s Eve. Lying on the couch hungover the next day, his head throbbing, he had come to the conclusion that he couldn’t expect that sacrifice from her. “I can move to Nashville.”
The thought made his balls tighten but he would do it. For Elle and the baby.
“I don’t think you should have to do that,” she said, her expression earnest. “I know you don’t love Nashville and then it’s like you gave up everything for me. And moved into my life, my space. What do you think about starting over somewhere new entirely?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I never thought about that. Like a you-and-me beginning?”
“Yeah. That way we pick out a house together. You can get a job and I can get a job and we’ll both be independent but together. Our choices will be made together but nobody gets more than the other, you know what I mean?”
He was intrigued. “Did you have a place in mind?”
“Vegas. Remember when I did a tour with Jess Bryant? She is starting a residency in Vegas and I could work for her. Same show every night, totally stable income, a guaranteed job for at least two years.” Elle looked excited. “It would be perfect.”
Vegas? Huh. He was such a Kentucky boy. He loved the woods, the lakes, the green grass and rolling hills. Vegas was brown. Just…brown. Aside from the glitz of the Strip, that is. “But won’t you miss your mama and Shane and Jolene?”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “But all I’ve been doing is thinking and worrying and wondering what to do, and the thing is, I need to be a woman. A real adult. Who takes care of herself without depending on family or anyone else. I could work for a couple of years and then maybe when we want more kids I can quit and stay home. But I need to know that I can stand on my own two feet, that I am your equal partner, not a weight dragging you down.”
“What are you talking about? You don’t weigh me down.” He didn’t even understand how she could think that. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
“And I don’t want to have it again. That’s why I need to do this. Why we need to do this.” She was curling her fingers into two tight fists.
He’d been right. He needed a drink. He eyed her long and hard, tried to wrap his head around what she wanted. He got it. That she wanted to be her own person. That she needed him to back her up on it. He didn’t want to lose his position at the Sheriff’s Department. He didn’t want to start over. But if that was what Elle wanted, what she needed to feel on equal footing, that was what he would do.
It had been impulsive and impractical to have sex with her in the first place, and to marry her.
This was the most practical thing Mr. Practical could do.
Besides, when had he ever gone on an adventure? He’d never lived anywhere but Starkey and maybe he needed to expand his horizons. Having a baby and getting married had already turned his world upside down and those were positive changes. Maybe this would be too.
“Okay,” he said. “If that’s what you want, I’m good with it.”
She looked stunned. “Really? You’re not even going to argue with me?”
“No. If this is what you think is our best move, then I’m in.” He swallowed all his reservations about how much he thought he might hate the desert and just pointed to her, then to himself. “You and me. We’ve got this.”
Elle started crying. Not sobbing. Just a crinkled-up-face, tears-in-her-eyes kind of cry. She swiped at her cheeks. “Jason Michael Tucker, you are the best man I’ve ever met. By far. And I do not deserve you.”
That touched him beyond anything. “I could be modest and say you deserve better,” he said gruffly. “But the truth is, there is no one better for you because there isn’t a man alive on this planet who could even come close to loving you as much as I do.”
Elle dropped her hands and gave him the fiercest, sexiest look he could ever have imagined. That look? Men would kill with their bare hands for that look. Men would walk across fire to be with a woman wearing that expression. He was instantly hard, desperate for her. He took a step toward her, but she was already coming at him, her arms wrapping around his neck.
“This is our first night as husband and wife,” he told her. “Let’s make it a good one.”
“It’s only noon.”
“It’s nine o’clock somewhere.” He wasn’t going to wait all day to taste her again. Oh, hell no. “Kiss me, sweetheart, and show me you love me.”
She went up on her tiptoes and tilted her head, her dark eyes filled with emotion and unshed tears. “I most definitely do. Love. You.” She shifted closer, her eyes drifting closed.
Tucker bent his head, met her halfway. This was marriage. Meeting halfway. God, he loved her. He needed to send that asshole back in Nashville a thank-you note for being such a prick. Whatever he had done to her, it had led her back to Tucker. Where she belonged. He kissed her, softly, teasingly, over and over until she sighed and melted into him. He pulled back so he could study the sharpness of her cheekbones, the long and damp eyelashes. The flushed cheeks. Those lips he loved to take. “You’re very beautiful, you know. And I’m so proud to say you’re my wife.”
She laughed softly. “Now you’re just trying to get into my pants.”
“I can’t argue with that. But it’s still the truth.” He gently shook her. “Take a compliment, damn it.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, and he could see how much she loved him.
It made anything, everything, worth it.
Tucker reached down and scooped her up into his arms.
“Hey!” she shrieked. “Oh, my God, you’re going to drop me.”
“Don’t insult my manhood,” he said gruffly, settling her into his arms. She wasn’t heavy, not by a long shot.
She smirked. “I would never insult that.”
“I’m carrying you over the threshold. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you get married?”
“I think that’s protocol, yes. But usually the front door.”
Tucker moved down the hallway. “It’s too cold to do that. I’m carrying you over the threshold of the bedroom.”
“You’re quite a rebel for being a lawman.”
That amused him. “You’re always asking for it.”
She dug her nails into the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah. Give it to me.”
She was so goddamn sexy. No pregnant woman should be this hot. Elle may have been carrying their child, but she was still his sassy wild woman. “That’s the plan.” The door to his room was half-closed so he just kicked it open with his foot. He wasn’t wearing shoes and the door glided in, revealing his unmade bed. He’d been meaning to do that but hadn’t gotten around to it. Now he was kind of glad he could drop Elle down onto that mussed bed. Her hair spilled everywhere and she just looked beautiful.
He was torn between wanting to be gentle and wanting to just destroy her with his desire. She crooked her finger at him as he stripped his shirt off over his head.
“Hey, Tucker, there’s something I want to show you.”
That made him laugh. “You know I fall for that every time. Remember that time by the lake? I thought you were going to show me your tits because you were acting like you were going to lift your shirt. Then when I reached for you, you grabbed my arm and shoved me into the lake.”
“I never did that.” But her expression showed she clearly remembered.
Shucking his jeans Tucker climbed beside her onto the bed and played with the hem of her sweater. “The hell you didn’t. What are you going to show me, sweetheart?” He lifted her sweater and exposed her breasts, bursting from a black lace bra. She was pushing max density in it and his mouth went dry. “Damn, girl. I appreciate the view as much now as I did then.”
Elle fluttered her fingers across her chest. “They’re certainly bigger now. I think I need new bras.”
He took her hand in his and traced the edge of the cup, trailing the movement with his eyes as goosebumps rose on her skin. “It looks good to me.”
“It would. And for the record, I may have shoved you into the lake but I did show you my tits afterward. It was only fair.”
“You are fair like that.” Tucker leaned over his wife and sucked the swell of breast above her bra. Her skin was cool and soft. He peeled the fabric back and took her nipple into his mouth. “I can be fair too. If you show me yours I’ll show you mine.”
She laughed softly and reached under her back and undid her bra. She pulled the straps down her arms and tossed it aside onto the bedroom floor. “See? Told you I had something to show you.”
It was a hell of a view. Greater men had been brought to their knees by less. Tucker palmed her breasts in both hands. “I like this game. Adult show-and-tell.” Her body was changing already and it amazed him. When he rolled the palm of his hands over her nipples she gasped.
“Dang, my nipples are sensitive.”
Good information to have. “Is this too much?” he asked, watching her suck in a breath as he brushed his thumbs over them.
“No, that’s fine. But maybe no pinching today.”
“Okay.” He bent over her and took a bud into his mouth, moistening the taut peak with his tongue and gently sucking. He pulled back. “That okay?”
“Yes.” She sounded breathless already, her cheeks pink, her clavicle equally flushed.
He loved that moment when Elle’s pale skin bloomed with color. It only happened on her chest when she was aroused, and to see it now after such little effort on his part turned him on hardcore. He had missed her. Ridiculous, but true. “Good,” he said. “I’m going to make it more than okay. I’m going to make it amazing.”
Tucker took his time. He worshipped her body, touching her everywhere, devoting a great deal of attention to her breasts. He caressed her inner thighs, he lavished his tongue over the delicate flesh of her labia, her clitoris. Learning each other’s bodies and likes was a curious thing considering how well he knew Elle. That was why he wanted to take his time, to listen. They were still learning.
So he made her a lesson he had to study, gauging her reactions, memorizing what made her heels dig into the bed, what made her gasp. Elle got restless but he felt relaxed, aroused, hard as hell but determined to make it last as long as possible. He wouldn’t rush a good meal and he wasn’t rushing this.
Elle was floating in some kind of endorphin haze. She had lost all ability to do anything other than moan as Tucker drove her insane from head to toe. She had never, ever, had a man devote so much time and attention to her body without any need for reciprocation. Tucker was making love to her.
He was her husband and he was devoted to her. To her pleasure, to their baby, to her happiness. He was willing to move to Vegas just to make sure she got everything she wanted. She knew it wasn’t really what he wanted, though maybe he was intrigued by the idea of them making decisions on a new life, a new house, together. He was a backwoods country boy at heart. Yet without hesitation he had said yes.
And now he was treating her body like a delicacy to savor. She was getting restless, needing more, but every time she thought he would let her finish, he shifted away and moved to a different erogenous point.
Finally, when she was ready to scream, her back arching, her hips unable to stay still, Tucker glanced up at her over the length of her body. “Do you want to come?” he asked.
“Yes. Please. I’ll do anything.”
He didn’t even take advantage of that breathless confession. Nor did he tease her about it. He just moved over her and pushed inside her, filling her. Completing her. She hadn’t known she could love like this. Feel this much. It was overwhelming in the most wonderful way possible.
Wanting to heighten his pleasure, she reached down between them and squeezed the base of his cock as he pushed in and out of her. His eyes darkened and his teeth ground together on a hiss.
“Sweetheart, holy shit, you’re killing me. You’re so damn wet.”
“Your fault,” she told him, and gave him another squeeze before letting her hand drop away.
He thrust harder, increasing the rhythm, forcing her eyes to roll back in her head. “No, look at me,” he demanded.
She did and she saw everything in his eyes as an orgasm swept over her. She saw past, present, future. And all of it was Tucker.