"Let's go, Starch," I demand, trying to get my hands to stay on my hips, but they just keep sliding down the stupid dress I'm wearing. I look down at the offending material and start to gather up the skirt of it to tuck it into my panties, but Tate moves into my space quickly and bats my hands down.
"Stop tryin' to get naked, darlin'," he snaps, but with unmistakable amusement in his voice.
"I hate this stupid thing." I yank at the dumb dress Leigh made me wear again before looking up at Tate.
"You might not like wearin' it, but trust me when I say I'll make it up to you when I get you alone."
"Oh yeah? How's that?"
His eyes get hooded and he quirks up one side of his mouth. His lips look so delicious right now. I wonder what he would do if I licked them right here on the dance floor, in front of half the town.
"You wanna find out right now, keep lookin' at me like that," he says heatedly.
"I can feel your cock on my belly," I say in answer, reaching between us and cupping his hard length through his pants. Prying eyes be damned. "I don't even care if I can't play with your bull rider."
"What the hell?"
"Hey, can I give you some head?"
We never do make it to the dance floor after that. I'm not even sure if he tells anyone we're leaving. One second I'm trying to figure out the best way to get all of him into my mouth and the next he's tossing me over his shoulder, holding my dress down with his hand and storming toward the door of the bar.
Oh, his ass is really pretty.
I reach down, my head bobbing with his steps, and grab two huge handfuls of muscled, tight butt.
"That's my sister!" I hear Leigh bellowing over the slow tune.
Using my hold on the hard, denim-covered butt cheeks, I lift myself up and shake the hair from my eyes and look for her through the laughing crowd.
"Have fun, rodeo queen!" I yell back, not knowing if she can hear me, but not really caring because hello, perfect ass.
- -
God, that feels good.
I move my head around, feeling the softness of sheets under it, and try to remember what felt so good just a moment before. God, my head feels like a giant mess of confusion. How the hell did I even get into a bed? The last thing I remember was toasting, again, with the whole bar to Leigh and Mav. Then a whole lot of broken bits and pieces that don't make a whole lot of sense.
"You awake?" I hear Tate drawl, and I instantly feel all my senses coming back online when his hot breath hits a very needy part of me.
"Jesus Jones, do that again," I whine, reaching out blindly to find what I need, smiling when I feel the silky-smooth thickness of his hair, grabbing a fistful somewhat gently and pushing him where I want him. He goes willingly, laughing against my core before giving me a long lick and swirl of his tongue. "God, yes," I moan.
He grabs my thighs and forces them apart, no longer content to let me make a sandwich out of his head to try and keep his mouth on me. I squirm, loving the feel of him ravishing my needy sex with his mouth. When he bites down on my clit and sucks it between his teeth, my eyes pop open and I yelp into the darkness, feeling myself get even wetter.
"Please, Tate," I beg, pulling at the hair between my fingers to try and get him to move.
"Please what, Grease," he asks, voice vibrating against my pussy, and I hear myself make a pathetically needy whine.
"Get your cock inside me!" I yell, trying to pull his hair again. He laughs and shakes his head until I let go, and he climbs up my body until I feel the cock I'm so desperate for pressing against my pussy--resting against it instead of pushing inside, dammit.
"How do you want it, Quinn?" he asks, thrusting his hips so that his cock is pushing through the wetness, but not penetrating me just yet. Each time he bumps against my clit, I gasp and feel like my eyes are crossing. "Thought you wanted to play rodeo queen, Grease? Don't tell me you've changed your mind."
Blinking the pleasure from my vision, I look up at him with a question on the tip of my tongue. What the hell is he goin' on about? Then I remember and groan. "Fuckin' Leigh. Swear to God, I'll never be able to think about that position ever again."
Tate laughs, his body still moving against mine, the delicious friction consuming my mind.
"Bet I can make you forget," he vows, lifting his ass in the air and pulling his hard, thick heat away. His bottom lip rolls in and he bites his teeth on top of it. God, that's so sexy. He looks down our bodies, and I'm still so stuck on why biting his lip was enough to cause a new rush of wetness between my legs that I don't notice him moving until he's pushing his thickness deep inside me with one long, powerful thrust.
I scream out his name, slap my hands against his strong back, and dig my nails in. My legs go up, toes curling, and I would swear to anyone that asked, angels sung in that moment.
He flexes his ass and goes even deeper.
"I can feel you everywhere," I gasp. My gasp turns into a high-pitched yelp when he rolls--keeping us connected--and from his position, now with his back to the bed, gives a thrust of his hips, causing me to feel him so deep I'm thinking I might actually have to make a real appointment with Gladys to get some internal organs checked out for bruising.
He slaps my ass playfully and smirks at me from the pillow. "Show me what you got, cowgirl."
Oh, God. I clench involuntarily, so turned on it isn't even funny.
My palms go to his chest, and I flex my fingers, scraping my nails against his skin. He lets out a hiss when I drag them across his nipples.
Then I dig my knees into the bed and start riding.
"Fuck yeah," he grunts, using his hands on my hips to help me move when my legs start shaking, till hitting a part so deep inside me I feel like I'm being split into two glorious pieces. "Squeeze my cock, Quinn. Show me how much you love it."
"I do," I pant. "I do love it."
Crack. His hand against my ass makes me yelp. "Reach down and get yourself there, Quinn. Not gonna make it much longer with you grippin' me so tight with your pussy. Get yourself there so I can fill you up, baby."
His gravelly voice sets my body on fire almost as much as the part of him I'm riding. I pick up my speed, move one hand to my clit, and start rocking against him. It only takes me a few thrusts against his body before I'm tossing my head back and screaming his name into the darkness.
"God, Tate! So good." I fall on top of him, completely worthless to do anything more.
"Arghh, Quinn," he breathes, and I feel the hot splash of him inside me while he twitches under my body.
Long moments later, when both of our breathing has returned to normal and my head feels better, he shifts. I feel him brush my hair aside: I guess he just spent the last few minutes breathing through a face full of it. He kisses my temple, and I hear him breathe me in.
"Remind me to take you dancin' more often."
I giggle, which makes him moan. I feel his still-hard cock twitch inside me.
"Thank you for today," I whisper, lifting up to look down at him, my hands on the mattress on either side of his face. He looks adorably confused, so I smile and continue. "For givin' me your support while I talked to Clay. You didn't even say a word, but all it took was your hand in mine and I felt it. I wasn't even sure I would be able to get all that out with him until I felt that, and I just want you to know that it means a lot."
"That's not somethin' you need to thank me for, darlin'. Any battle you go into, even if it's just a mental one, is one I'm gonna be by your side for."
"Then how about this," I start. "Thank you for comin' back to me."
He jolts under me and slides from my body. I whimper when I lose that fullness, and he twists us so that we're both on our sides and wraps his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. His heart pounds against my ear.
"God, baby, you damn sure don't need to thank me for that. You've given me another chance, when I thought I'd lost it forever. You let me in and gave me back the only thing that ever felt like home to me--yo
u--you give me all that, and you're thankin' me?" he questions in disbelief.
I snuggle into his tight embrace and smile against his warm skin.
Home.
That night, with his arms never leaving me, I fall asleep dreaming of waterfalls and a home built with pure love that nothing in the whole world could ever tear down.
I'd always thought home was a place, but he's right: our home is right here, in each other's arms.
23
TATE
"Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles
- -
"What's got you so quiet over there?" I ask Quinn, looking over from the passenger seat of Paw's old F1.
Quinn's eyes have a faraway look to them, her face more downcast than usual. "I'm just a little sad about startin' him up. It seems like forever ago you called about him and that's all it took to throw my whole world for a loop. I'm not sure I'm ready to say good-bye to the beast that helped bring us back together. Every time I walk into the shop and see him sittin' there, waitin' for me to come crawl under him and mess with his body, I get a sense of pride in not just him--but because really, he's kind of . . . us."
"I find it oddly sexy when you talk about workin' on trucks like that," I drawl, twirling a long piece of her hair around my finger.
She rolls her eyes and looks over at me. "I'm serious."
"I know, Grease. I wasn't tryin' to devalue your feelin's. Bad timin' to bring it up. How do you figure this old thing is us?"
Her face grows serious, and I'm not sure if I should brace myself for what she has to say or not.
"Think about it, Tate. You had this thing delivered to me a broken, rusty, sad shell of the beauty he used to be. Everyone would have counted him out and taken one look at him, immediately assumin' that he would never be set to rights again. That he was a lost cause or somethin'. All he needed, though, was the right touch and someone determined to get him back to what he used to be. With a little hard work, sweat, tears, and maybe a little blood--he's lookin' better than he probably ever did, even when he was first made. He's . . . us."
I blow out a breath and study her face, her words tumbling around in my mind, making a whole lot of sense when she puts it that way.
"No one woulda thought we would get a second chance, Tate. Not even us. That's how much of a lost cause we were," she continues, her voice lower as she shifts in her seat to look at me better. "Even though we both would have given anything to have each other back, there were just too many broken pieces, rusty unused parts, and the broken shell of what we were. Situations changed and you--thank God--were determined even without knowin' for sure what you'd get when you got back to Pine Oak. Together, we had the right things drivin' us toward bein' a better version of what we once were. You and me, we're Homer and Bertha. The two wouldn't be what they are now without the other."
"Bertha?" I ask thickly, her explanation rocking me to my core.
She points over my shoulder and I look over to the other F1 I vaguely remember her talking about weeks ago. I had been so desperate for anything from her, that conversation was a test to my abilities of focusing. I try to remember exactly what she said, but the only thing I can remember is that Quinn had used the engine in that truck for mine.
What she said finally registers completely and I feel my heart skip a beat. "Wait a minute, how are we these two trucks when that one," I say, pointing to the one she keeps calling Bertha, "doesn't have an engine anymore. Are you sayin' you're still broken, baby?"
God, I fucking hope not. I thought, after the wedding and her talk with her brother that night, that we were past this. I figured we were finally in the right spot--that place where nothing would stand in our way again.
Her serious expression breaks and a sly, content smile tips up her lips. "No, honey," she breathes, reaching out to caress the side of my face, stopping when she reaches my jaw to cup it lovingly. It's pathetic how addicted to her touch I am. I fucking crave her hands on me. I turn my head to nuzzle into her so I can smell the perfume on her wrist better.
"Bertha's a good girl, Tate. She's patient when it comes to her man and wants to give him what he needs to be whole. I'm sayin' you came back and gave me Homer to fix and in turn offered me somethin' I never imagined I would get another chance at again. They both got the same thing in the end. Homer got Bertha's engine--her heart, the part of her that is the most vulnerable and important--and you . . . you got mine."
"Fuckin' hell," I mumble in awe, feeling like my heart is about to pound out of my fucking chest over what she's just said and what it means to our relationship.
"What d'you say we fire this bad boy up?" she asks, giving me the moment of recovery I need to get my shit together.
Too overcome by her words to speak right then, I give her a nod and try not to cry like a fucking baby.
The second she turns the key and the truck roars, vibrations shooting through my whole body, she tosses her head back and laughs--pure elation shooting from her, just from starting up a truck. She shakes her head, pressing on the gas a few times to rev the engine, the whole time bouncing in her seat like a kid on a sugar high. She's fucking eating this up. Seeing her like this, in her element, is a joy.
When she looks over, her dark hair running over the skin of my forearm that's still resting on the back of the seat, goose bumps shoot over my body. I just stare at her, at the streak of grease just above the line of her chin, at her eyes wild and bright with excitement, and I'm not sure that she's ever looked more beautiful.
"You wanna drive?" she asks, her green eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed. No fucking way I would take the chance to do so away from her, not when she looks like she was just handed the world by turning the key.
"Figure with what you just said, darlin', the only person that should be drivin' the truck that represents me is you."
She leans her head back and sighs with contentment, still bouncing slightly as her hands grip the wheel.
"Show me what you got, darlin'," I say with a smile.
I know she gets what I'm saying--that she reads between the words spoken to find the deeper meaning--because her whole face gets even softer, love shining so fucking bright in her eyes that it would bring a lesser man to his knees. It's that expression, paired with the rumble of Homer as she pulls him out of Davis Auto Works and starts tearing up the streets of Pine Oak, that confirms to me that she is giving me exactly what I was requesting.
She continues to race through the whole damn town, laughing and giggling. She switches gears, the window down and her hair flying wildly around her face, the truck under her control coming powerfully back to life with her hands on him now that she's fixed every single thing that had rotted.
If I live to be a hundred, I'll never forget this ride.
- -
I rub my stomach when it rumbles again, the scent of the food Quinn's gotten out of the fridge reminding me just how hungry I was. We just spent another afternoon after work in Homer's cab, riding around like we've been doing the past few days. It's become a routine of sorts: bump around in the revamped truck until eventually, the high dims enough that Quinn wants to head back to either my house or hers. I'm sure there are a million other things I could be doing, but this time with her is so fucking perfect there isn't anywhere else I would rather be.
It's been a few days since our first ride--a full week since her brother's wedding. Until today, she's been acting fine. Her smile rarely dropped, and she's even gone out of her way to come have lunch in my office with me every day. Other than when we were both at work, we haven't spent a moment apart in seven days. But right now, she seems different. Not even when she was feeling bummed about being done with the truck was she this quiet and almost fretful, like she is now.
The truck I can't stop referring to as Homer is now parked in the garage behind my house--back in his old spot, only now he doesn't stay locked up. Quinn's taken him to the shop every day since with the excuse that she just wants to keep an eye on him to make sure nothing is g
oing wrong, but I can see through her bullshit. She's as attached to the truck as she is to the man she claims he represents.
"When do the newlyweds get back from their honeymoon?" I call to Quinn from my spot in the middle of the couch.
Up until a little while ago, she had been in this spot with me, warming my body with hers while we did more listening to the TV than watching it, seeing as we haven't been doing much focusing lately other than on each other's bodies. I'm pretty sure she would still be in my arms, letting me run my hands all over her body, if we both hadn't gotten hungry.
"Two days," Quinn mumbles, looking up briefly from the sandwiches she's making before looking away.
Her sudden shift in mood makes me pause, lowering the remote that I had been holding up to shift through the channels, waiting until she was done so we could start a movie. She was bouncing around the kitchen like she was full of happy, bubbly energy not even five minutes ago. What the hell could have happened in the time it took her to pull out sandwich shit and start putting a meal together?
"You okay?"
"Mm-hmm." She hums, nodding her head.
"You're a shit liar, darlin'. What's wrong?"
She shakes her head and continues to move around my kitchen, looking like she feels at home here in my house--exactly how I want her to feel, since I hope one day she'll be living here with me. I give her some time to work through her thoughts. If she hasn't figured out how to let me know what's bothering her by the time she sits down, I'll have to think of a more creative way to get her to speak up.
When she drops down on the couch, handing me my sandwich before leaning into my body and placing her own on her lap, she still doesn't speak.
"Quinn," I prod, trying to get her to tell me what's bothering her because she wants to, and not because I'm pulling it out of her.
A long exhale answers me back, and she tears at the corners of the paper towel she's using as a plate for her sandwich. My heart pounds while I wait her out. I can't think of a single thing that's happened this past week that would have made her look this . . . despondent.
"Maverick gets back home in two days," she whispers, still not looking at me, picking at her sandwich.
I frown. "I know, Grease, you just told me that."
Her back moves against my side as she breathes deeply and because she's so close to my body, I know that deep inhale was held tight before she blew her breath out slowly. Almost like she was using those few extra seconds to work up the courage to finish talking. Jesus, where is she going with this?