18
TATE
“Die a Happy Man” by Thomas Rhett
- -
“I love you so much.”
My eyes snap open in the darkness when I hear Quinn’s murmured, sleep-drunk words as they dance across my neck. I know she’s still passed out and just talking in her sleep, since her breathing is just as slow and steady as it was when I climbed into bed behind her ten minutes ago and instantly felt her curl into my side.
But, rational or not, those four words rush through my veins until they slam into my heart, the force of their hit stealing the breath from my lungs.
One day, when she’s not lost in her dreams, I’m going to get to hear them again, and I’ll fucking make sure she never goes a day without feeling like I deserve them.
I lie there with a stupid fucking grin on my face and let my mind wander. I have no idea how I managed to fight the pull I’ve always felt to her, not after what I felt snapping into place as I started making my way back over the last two months. The day I found out about Paw, it was just a sizzle of awareness. When I turned in my resignation back in Georgia, it was a burn. The minute I heard her voice over the phone, it was a searing pain, tugging at my chest for all it was worth. Then, when I finally saw her, it was a shot of pure ecstasy to the fucking heart. I had lived without her for so long, I could have cried on the fucking spot.
Ever year the struggle to stay away became more and more overwhelming. The hot summer months in Georgia would hit and I would get the itch to just say fuck the consequences and jump in my truck and speed to her. Then I would remember everything that was at stake and I would spend the next handful of hours later in one of the biggest depressions ever.
I’ll never feel that again.
Never.
Not now that I finally have her back in my life. All that’s left to do now is convince her to love me again.
And if her dreams are any indication, I’d bet my Stetson at least a part of her already does.
With a smile on my face, I hold her a little closer and fall into one hell of a good night’s sleep.
- -
“Why are you lookin’ at me like that?” I ask Quinn over the top of my coffee mug several hours later, finally having enough caffeine in my system to realize she really was looking at me like I’m some puzzle she can’t quite figure out.
“Like what?”
“Not sure there’s a polite way to describe those crazy eyes of yours you got goin’ on, Grease.”
Slowly, she places her mug on the counter and flips me the bird. “Kiss my boots, Starch,” she says with no heat in her voice and a smile on her face.
“I would, if you had any on.”
She looks down at her bare feet. I have to resist the urge to do the same, knowing that if I see her standing in my kitchen in just my discarded shirt from yesterday, with those long, tan and toned legs, bare feet with light pink polish on her toes . . . yeah, no fucking way I would be able to resist taking her on the spot.
She looks back at me, a knowing smirk on her face. “Somethin’ wrong?”
“Nope,” I respond, taking a long sip of my brew.
“You look like you’re, what’s the word . . .” She trails off, tapping her chin while she pretends to think, fucking minx. “Troubled.”
“You’re lookin’ at me like a crazy person again,” I joke, ignoring her prodding.
“Oh, Jesus Jones, Tate. I don’t look crazy. I’m just tryin’ to figure out how to bring up yesterday to you.”
I feel my brows pull in. “What about yesterday?” I hope to fuck she isn’t going to push me more about my talks with her brothers.
“You really aren’t gonna bring it up? Not even mention it?”
“You’ve got to be clearer than that, darlin’, because I haven’t the slightest clue as to what you’re talkin’ about.”
“The lake!” she laments.
Now I’m even more confused. I study her, my mind not completely awake, seein’ as we just rolled out of bed ten minutes ago.
“Tate,” she snaps with annoyance. “The kiss!”
“Ohhh.” I drag the word out, a smile forming on my face that I’m powerless to stop. “That.”
“I’m gonna go find my boots and kick you in the rear,” she snaps. “Yes! That!”
“What do you want to talk about, Quinn? Want me to tell you how hard I was when you were rockin’ against my cock, usin’ me to get off? How about how hot it was when your thighs tightened against my legs and you fuckin’ shuddered in my arms? Wanna know how all I could think about was how wet your pussy would be if I got my hands down your shorts?”
She doesn’t look irritated anymore. Whatever she had thought I would say about that “kiss,” it damn sure wasn’t what she got. One of her dainty hands is pressed against the granite next to her, the other against her chest, which is heaving as she breathes rapidly. The mouth I can’t wait to feel against mine again is hanging slack, shock written all over her face.
“Cat got your tongue, Quinn?” I question, taking another sip and lifting a brow mockingly at her.
“That wasn’t fair,” she gasps, coming out of her spell.
“How so? Not that I’m complainin’, baby, but seems to me if you’re amped up and so hot you’re burnin’ from the inside out, then you’re in the same place I’ve been since you came apart in my arms by the lake.”
“So this is payback because you have blue balls? Well, the joke’s on you, because I won’t be beggin’ for more just because you’ve got me primed and ready to detonate by your words alone.”
She must realize just how much she’s given away with what I’m sure she had planned to come out as an insult, because she drops her head and mutters a sharp “shit” under her breath.
“You primed, Quinn?” The thickness in my own voice gives away just how turned on this conversation has me, my already-deep voice sounding foreign even to my ears.
“You’re such a jerk.” She sighs with no conviction whatsoever.
I laugh, feeling like some sort of fucking god because of the effect I have on her. When we were younger—both of us with no experience and learning as we went—she came alive under my fumbling hands. It took me a while though, to find out what worked with her, and it took me even longer to get her to burn her brightest.
Now though, well . . . now I’m not a fucking boy who doesn’t know his way around a woman’s body. I would give anything to erase the past nine years without her, but I can’t. I also can’t beat myself up over the fact that I’ve had other women share my bed when I was stuck living a life I thought would never have Quinn in it again—just as she can’t do that for herself. It happened and it will only make us stronger in the end because we know there isn’t a soul out there for us except each other—well, I know it with crystal-clear clarity. Quinn’s still catching up.
It’s not just that the past has taught us that we’ll always be connected to each other—that we’ll be unable to fathom having anything but meaningless sex with others in our attempts to fill the emptiness each of us feels—but that time and loss have taught us exactly who we are.
It sucks that I know what I do now because of all the time I spent thinking I would never have her again, but it’s because of that time that I won’t take a single day I have her back for granted. Furthermore, it means I have more tools in my arsenal to convince her mind to believe in us again . . . to follow her heart right to me, back home where it belongs.
She’s been watching me while I let my thoughts get ahead of me, and when I finally come back to myself, I realize I miscalculated. She’s always been smart as a whip, but it’s the twinkle in her eye—the one I hadn’t seen shining while I was stuck in my head—that earned her the nickname Hell-raiser when she was growing up.
“I bet I could get you beggin’ for me before you catch me fallin’ on my knees pleadin’ for you to fill me up with your cock, Starch.”
Well, fuck me.
“Now wait just a dadgum minute, Quinn,” I rush, dropping my mug to the counter and taking a large step forward to get closer to her. She moves back and I stop, placing one hand on the counter. “I wasn’t issuin’ a dare and you know it.”
One perfectly shaped black brow goes up, and that fucking gleam in her eye all but blinds me.
I’m so fucked.
This girl has always been like a dog with a bone when it comes to dares. Doesn’t matter one fucking bit that I didn’t intend it to come out that way, it’s how she perceived it, and by God, she’ll bring me to my knees to win. I just know it.
“Quinn, whatever you’re thinkin’, put it outta your head right now.” I try to sound firm, but she’s got me right where she wants me and we both know it. The painful erection I’m sporting now is screaming that yes, yes she will get me to beg before her, at the same time my mind is telling me it would be the best fucking defeat in the world. Can’t look at it as losing when either way I end up with my cock in the stranglehold of her pussy.
“I’m not doin’ anything at all, handsome,” she says innocently with a wicked smirk, a fucking sexy-as-hell smirk that almost has me dropping to the floor to do the begging right now.
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I mumble under my breath.
She giggles softly and reaches out to pat my cheek. Why that’s something that makes my cock twitch in my pants, I’ll never know.
“Take me home, Tate,” she all but sings. “I need to take Daisy out for a ride and you should probably head out for some kneepads.”
“Kneepads?”
There’s that twinkle again, fucking hell.
“For when you’re on your knees beggin’.” She hums, breaching the gap between us and rolling up to her toes to press a kiss against my slack jaw. “Wouldn’t want your knees to get sore while you’re down there. If memory serves, you happened to like spendin’ a lot of time down on your knees.” She moves her head, mouth hovering right against my ear, and whispers, “Don’t you wonder if I still taste like sugar?”
God. Damn. I reach between us and cup myself, feeling like I’m seconds away from coming in my pajama pants.
Yeah, I’m fucked. So beyond fucked I can’t wait.