Chapter Twelve
Tyler
“Sorry?”
Tyler pressed his face into Bernie’s skin, ashamed to look at her. He’d never… failed that way before. Sure, she had orgasmed, but it was so tame. He’d never been unable to control himself long enough to give his partner something explosive. Not since he was an inexperienced young pup, at least. Now, when it mattered most…
Bernie ran her fingers through his hair. “Tyler, that was really nice.”
“Only nice.”
With a sigh, she pulled his head back. “Nice. Gentle for a first time back in the saddle. I’m not sure I could have handled anything more intense right now. I had a baby. Things are all healed up down there, but it’s not… quite all the way back to normal. Not to mention my hormones are all messed up. A lot of women don’t even want to have sex at this point. So, don’t blame yourself for something that my body did. And don’t act as though that wasn’t good enough.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know you have your ego and all that, but I happened to have like it.”
The knot in his chest eased. “I guess I might have been putting too much pressure on myself.”
“You were exactly.” Bernie grinned. “You’ve heard of multiple orgasms, right?”
With a grin, he seized her in his arms like he was carrying a bride and raced to his room. There, they had sex for another couple hours before both of them collapsed, exhausted. Each time was better than the last, although they still didn’t reach the explosive levels that had conceived Xavier.
Bernie rested her head on his arm and traced the tattoos over his chest. “Dragons heal really fast, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, was getting these more or less painful than if you had been human?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been human.”
Bernie laughed. It made his chest warm, and not because of the endorphins that were no doubt buzzing around his brain. The tension of these past couple weeks had weighed heavy on both of them. It wasn’t until now that he realized just how heavy they were, and he was grateful to finally be free of it. He yawned as he rubbed his nose into her cheek.
“They have to take twice as long putting a tattoo on a dragon than a human. And yeah, it hurts. But I like tattoos. I like the way they look on my skin.”
She hummed. “I like them, too. Not on me, I’m not a fan of doing anything permanent to my body, but on other people. I love this one. It’s new.”
Her fingers brushed against a small blue dragon near his heart. Tyler clasped her hand in his. “That was one that a bunch of the guys in my club got together. I would have picked something less on-the-nose, but it was the general consensus so I got it.”
“Your biking club. You’ll have to take me to your clubhouse and introduce me to your friends—as a friend, of course.”
“As a friend,” he repeated. He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “Yeah, I’ll do that. You know, for a dragon without a clan, life can be… lonely. That’s why I joined in the first place. Shane and my mom are great, don’t get me wrong, but I needed friends. Friends like me. And sure, there are jerks like Bill but it’s… It’s good.”
Bernie made a humming noise in her throat. “I guess you could say that the dig is a transient club. We’ve got the ones who always return, but we get to know new people. And we all have something in common. I sometimes think of them as a replacement family, though. Is that weird?”
“I don’t know…” Tyler frowned. “I don’t really know anything about your family. Other than what I learned about your dad when he… We never really talked family.”
She flinched and he wished he hadn’t said anything. Her hand flattened on his chest. Tyler held his breath, thinking that she was going to leave. But she let out a sigh, relaxing into him again and shook her head.
“We didn’t ever talk about it.”
“Do you want to talk now?”
Bernie looked up at him. Her nose wrinkled in that way it did when she thought really hard. Her lips pursed and for a moment he was tempted to kiss her and stop this conversation altogether. She rolled over and propped herself up with a pillow under her chest. She rested her chin in her hands and nodded. There was a steely glint in her eyes.
“We’re connected and, eventually, you’ll probably meet my family. So better tell you about them. My dad was… awful growing up. He had a terrible temper. Things were better after he left, but he always came back to wreck things again. My mom… my mom could never say goodbye to him. She’d give him anything he wanted to beg him to stay with her. It was pathetic. Now, I rarely have anything to do with her or my siblings. I guess we’re all too interested in our own problems. When we do get together, there’s just all this negativity. They all think I’m stupid for keeping Xavier.”
Tyler had to fight the urge to bare his teeth. “Which is why you were having such a hard time with deciding where to work.”
Bernie nodded. “They made it clear that they wouldn’t help me. Not in so many words, but it was obvious.”
“And your dad?”
“I’ve tried to cut him from my life, but he always muscles back in. I hate him. The only time he ever shows up is when he needs something. Like to sell off my body so that he can be out of debt.”
His fires roared. His hands clenched. Smoke curled from his nostrils. When Bernie rose a brow at him, he turned his face away and swallowed it down.
“Sorry,” he grunted at her. “I didn’t mean to get angry. It’s just… I can’t understand how anybody could be so… so… parasitic and selfish and psychopathic. I promise you, I will never act that way. Xavier can always count on me. And so can you. Everything you need. I will be there to help you. And I know this job thing is freaking you out, but—”
“Wait.” Bernie frowned. “How do you know about that? I never told you.”
“Oh… well, I mean, my brother is your boss.” Tyler shrugged apologetically. He had meant to give her time to tell him herself. Or, if she decided never to tell him, to just silently offer his support until she knew what she was doing. “Kayla’s been worried that you aren’t going to come back to the dig because of financial issues and stuff. So… yeah. It was my understanding that you were having difficulties.”
Bernie shook her head, though she smiled. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I don’t want you to feel obligated to support me at all.”
“Xavier is my son. I’m obligated to support him. And part of that is going to support you, Bernie. You’re his mom. I don’t want you to be stressed out about how you’re going to care for him. I’m here, I’ll help out in any way I can.”
She turned away in the way that he knew meant she was hiding her tears. He stroked her hair. It hurt to see her cry but he understood that it wasn’t always a bad thing. Like right now. At least, he hoped that right now was one of those times. After a long moment, he kissed her bare shoulder and began talking again.
“Do you want to go back to the dig?”
“Yes.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Bernie sniffed. “I won’t be able to do everything when I have a baby to look after. I’ll be stuck with just paperwork. And I can’t afford to do the dig and have someone watch him… and with another job, I’d be able to start putting money away for his college fund and… and it’s money.”
“Would it help if there was someone who could watch Xavier during the day while you worked? Someone you didn’t have to pay?”
Bernie peeked at him, eyes bright.
Tyler grinned at her. “We could work that for our custody arrangement. I have him during the days while you work, you have him on the weekends. We alternate who he stays with at night, or we get a duplex or something, so that we’re not too far away from him, even when we don’t have him.”
“You’d… you’d do that?”
“Of course.”
Bernie grinned. She threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly. As she climbed over him, pressing him into the mattress, he couldn’t help but think–there was a better solution to this problem. Unfortunately, he couldn’t assume that sex meant that they were going to get back together. And if they did, they had no idea if they would be any good together.
No. Just friends. It was for the best. Starting in the morning.