He hugged her tight, and she whispered, “I love you,” once more, into his chest.
“Aw, babe—I love
you
.”
And when she finally gathered the strength to sit up a little, to look down into his eyes, she confessed to him again, “I feel . . .
wild
out here with you, Lucky.”
“You’re a mess,” he informed her with a teasing grin. “But a sexy-as-hell mess, and I like it.”
And he must have known, must have seen in her gaze that she wanted to get even wilder, because he didn’t even look surprised when she disconnected their bodies, peered into his brown eyes—no longer smiling, then positioned herself on her knees to begin kissing her way down his chest, his stomach.
Soon, though, she drew her gaze from his face. She instead studied the flesh she kissed—the olive coloring of his skin, the smattering of black hair that narrowed into a thick line on his torso which led her farther, farther . . . until her hand curved naturally over his erection, until she was gently licking at the tip.
His deep groan pulled her eyes back to his and she realized that even if he wasn’t
surprised
by the move, he seemed . . . well, more deeply affected than she’d anticipated. It fueled her, made her feel powerful, exciting. And it pushed her not to hesitate, but to kiss him there, to rain kisses up and down the length of him, listening as his breath came rough, catching at times, other times stretching into a low moan.
“I love you,” she whispered against the silky skin stretching so taut over this hardest part of him. And she felt the love physically in that moment, felt it gathering into a tight, lush fist in her stomach as she licked her way back to the end of his penis and lowered her mouth over it.
“Aw—Jesus,” he muttered, his eyes falling shut.
It had been so long since she’d been with a man before Lucky, and even longer since she’d felt compelled to get this close, this intimate—but suddenly it seemed easy, natural, right. She slid her lips up and down on him, basking in the pleasure of his response, and in the even purer pleasure of giving, of loving, and of being wild and free with him.
When finally she stopped, she met his gaze and he drew her briskly back up, kissing her mouth, rolling on the ground with her some more, murmuring that she was beautiful and perfect and telling her, “That felt so damn good, babe—even better than I imagined.”
Their eyes met. “Imagined?” she asked.
He just nodded, eyes half shut and sexy.
And she bit her lip. “You fantasized about me?” The very notion made her feel more desirable than ever. “Before we got together?”
He nodded vigorously. “And after. Still. All the time.”
The concept moved through her like a hot breeze. She knew Lucky loved her, but given her health issues, somehow she’d begun to feel he couldn’t possibly see her the same way he’d see some . . . more perfect girl, some model or centerfold, someone unreal and therefore without flaws. He’d always said all the right things, but somehow, this shored them up in a whole new way. “Is there . . . anything else you fantasize about that we haven’t done?”
A slightly depraved grin slowly unfurled on Lucky’s handsome face. “Babe,” he rasped, as if the question were silly. “It’ll take us a while to get to
all
of it.”
“Oh . . .” She felt his words in her chest. And gave him a naughty smile of her own. “Then we should probably get started.”
At that, his amusement faded into something hotter, smoldering. “Are you sure?”
She nodded and asked, “Why?”
“Well . . .” He hesitated just slightly, then his voice came low. “I don’t always like to be gentle.”
“Believe it or not,” she admitted, “neither do I.”
Fresh heat darkened his gaze and he said no more. Instead, he rose to a kneeling position and pulled her up before him the same way, her back to his front. Then he bent her over until she was on her hands and knees, facing the falls—just seconds before he gripped her hips and re-entered her that way.
“Ohhh!” He felt even bigger, deeper in this position, and it was almost hard to take. Almost. Because it was also
incredible
.
When he began to plunge into her, she felt it
everywhere
—her scalp tingled and the very tips of her fingers and toes pulsed with the driving pleasure he brought her. She cried out with every stroke, lost in the power Lucky delivered, lost in the scent of him combined with that of the woods and the water, lost in the sight before her: the smooth stream gently dropping over the edge to become something new, something wild and raging.
She had no idea how long they moved together like that, but when Lucky finally came inside her, it was with a mighty groan she could have sworn she heard echoing through the trees. She sensed his pleasure, almost felt it rolling through her own body—until they collapsed gently together on the ground.
“I was just thinking,” he whispered in her ear.
“Yeah?”
“That we’ve probably scared the shit out of all the animals in the woods.”
A burst of laughter erupted from her throat, and she rolled to her back to smile up at him.
“You really are a mess, hot stuff,” he said, pulling back to look her over.
“You’re not exactly fresh and tidy, either, Romo.”
“Come on,” he said, pushing to his feet and holding a hand down to her. Then he carefully led her to the water’s edge. “Let’s clean up.”
Tessa raised her eyebrows. “In there? You’ve got to be kidding. Besides the waterfall factor, it has to be freezing.”
But Lucky just shrugged. “We’ll get used to it. And I keep telling you, the water’s ankle deep—you’re not gonna go over the falls, silly.” And when she continued to stand there, still naked and skeptical, he added, “Do you wanna grab life or not?”
“Oh hell,” she said, scrunching up her nose. He knew that was her weakness now.
And so they found a good place to ease down into the water, Lucky going first to make sure the footing was solid—then he helped her step in. “God, I was right—it’s cold!” she screeched, drawing her hands into fists as she shivered.
“Hell, you’re right,” he admitted on a laugh, climbing right back out of the water and helping her, too. “I like to think I’m a tough guy, but I’m not hypothermia tough.”
After that, they just sat on the edge of the creek, and though some soap would have been nice, they still managed to get most of the dirt off of each other just using the crisp, clear water and their hands—and despite the cold splashes involved, Tessa began to appreciate how sensual and natural it felt to share this with the man she’d fallen in love with.
Afterward, Lucky pointed out a big, wide slab of rock a short distance behind them at one side of the stream, situated at a spot where the sun broke through the trees to shine down on it. Soon, they both lay on their backs there, drying.
Tessa still basked in that same sense of freedom she’d noticed earlier—after all, she was lying naked outside with Lucky in the light of day like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. Just a fifteen-minute drive away, the little town of Destiny was bustling, and no one there would ever believe what was taking place right now next to Whisper Falls.
She also found herself studying Lucky’s body. She’d seen it so many times before, but usually at night, in dimmer lighting—so it was hard not to want to look. And Lord, it was a sight to behold.
“How come no tattoos below your chest?” she asked, curious.
He shrugged. “Guess I wanted ’em to show. And I’m not really a shorts-wearing guy.”
Made sense, she supposed. “Did you get them all when you were in the Devil’s Assassins?”
He shook his head. Pointing to Anna’s name on his chest, and then the Live To Ride, Ride To Live crest, he said, “Got those after I left home, but before I ended up in California. The rest, though—yeah, they were mostly about trying to look scary enough to fit with the club.”
Then she asked him something she’d been wondering about, especially lately. “So the dead man’s hand and the grim reaper . . .”
“They’re not about Hammer if that’s what you’re thinking—I got ’em long before that night. They’re about . . .” He stared upward, through the trees, and she thought about all he’d seen—things she’d
never
see and never wanted to. “I guess they’re about me feeling like . . . maybe I wouldn’t last too long. Once I got into the MC and realized I felt kinda trapped, I wasn’t real sure what my future held. Guess the tats were just . . . me getting ready to die young or something.”
The thought made her shudder, and she reached out, gripped his arm. And that’s when her gaze was drawn to something else she’d only seen in much dimmer lighting, and had never before asked him about. “Is that where you got your scars?” she asked softly. “While you were in the club?”
“Mostly.” He sounded somber yet matter-of-fact. “It was . . . a pretty violent time.”
Maybe her curiosity came back to her need to know about him. She knew the big stuff—but now maybe she needed the details. So she pointed to a small scar just above his rib cage. “How did you get that one?”
He kept the answer simple. “Bar fight.”
She then touched a longer mark that slashed down the side of his torso. “This one?”
He glanced down at it. “Didn’t get out of Wild Bill’s way fast enough once when he was on a drunken rampage.”
Most days, the red, angry-looking scar at his temple was hidden by his hair, but was visible now while he lay on his back. “And this?”
“Fight with a rival gang. Some asshole’s ring cut me open.”
The biggest scar was faded, lighter than the others, but still prominent. “And the one on your knee?” she asked.
His tone remained just as solemn when he replied, “Bicycle wreck when I was nine.”
And she smiled a little—mainly liking to think of him at nine much more than she liked thinking of him being a Devil’s Assassin.
Though
that
thought doused her smile as quickly as it had come. All those other scars still remained, and she knew Lucky carried a lot of scars
inside
him, too. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all that,” she said, gently running her fingertips across his muscular stomach.
“Yeah, that bike wreck was a bitch. Had to get stitches and everything.”
She grinned, and he cast her a sly, teasing expression—but it, too, faded quickly, his expression gone serious again. “Don’t be sorry for me, babe,” he said. “It’s my fault, all of it.”
She was surprised to hear him say that so adamantly. After all, she knew he blamed himself for the decisions he’d made in California, but she also knew what had originally driven him to leave home. “You don’t blame your parents anymore?” she asked.
Next to her in the warm rays of the sun, Lucky sighed. “I blame them some for making me feel so . . . invisible. But the way I dealt with it, the lengths I took it to—that’s all on me. I have to face that.”
She pressed her palm to his chest now, then leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Sounds like you have.”
O
n the day before Mother’s Day, one of Destiny’s eldest citizens, known to all simply as Miss Ellie, hosted a spring picnic at her house out on Blue Valley Road. Of course, it was really Miss Ellie’s two daughters, Linda Sue and Mary Katherine, who orchestrated the event, because Miss Ellie was in her eighties now. But she had a lovely English garden to the side of her white gingerbread house just across from Blue Valley Lake, and she was a sweet old lady, so Tessa always enjoyed attending her garden parties.
Of course, getting Lucky to go was a little challenging, but he’d finally agreed, making it clear that “I’m only doing this for
you
, babe.” And that was good enough for her.
“This will be a good opportunity for you to see my mom again, and meet my dad and the rest of my friends.”
He’d simply offered a slight scowl from where he’d stood grilling up chicken breasts for them and Johnny, who been inside playing a computer game at the time. “Yippee,” he’d said very dryly.
But now they were pulling up in front of Miss Ellie’s place in Lucky’s Jeep and he was being okay about the whole thing—even if a little quiet.
Soon after walking through the latticed arch that led to the garden, holding Lucky’s hand, Tessa spotted Amy and another of their friends, Sue Ann, and dragged Lucky over to meet them. Amy was predictably cheerful but came off a bit nervous, so Tessa couldn’t have been more thankful when Sue Ann gave Lucky’s arms a long once-over and said, “Nice tats, dude.”
“Uh, thanks,” he replied, clearly caught off guard.
Tessa flashed Sue Ann a big smile, appreciative that her small-town friend with her small town life didn’t always have small-town attitudes. “Where’s Jeff?” she asked of Sue Ann’s husband. The two of them had been together forever, since high school.
“He had to help a co-worker move today,” she said, looking slightly bummed. Progressive thinker that Sue Ann might be, Tessa knew that at heart, Sue Ann appreciated the simple things in life—even things as simple as attending a community event with her little family. “And Sophie is running around here somewhere, playing with Adam Becker’s little boys.”
A few minutes later, Tessa saw her parents and went to greet them with Lucky in tow. “Mom, you know Lucky. And Dad, this is Lucky Romo, Mike’s brother. You probably remember him from years ago.”
And—oh crap. The look on her usually mild-mannered dad’s face was . . . one of pure shock. That’s when her mom said, pointedly, “Tom, this is the young man I told you about, who took such good care of Tessa when she was under the weather recently.”
And that—thank God!—changed everything about the moment. Both her parents put a great deal of stock in anyone who looked out for their children. So now her father, obviously still trying to adjust to Lucky’s appearance, offered his hand. “We appreciate you helping out our Tessa.”
Lucky took it, shook it, and replied, “She doesn’t always
like
having help, but that’s too bad, since I give it to her anyway.”
Her dad laughed knowingly, and Tessa couldn’t believe this had been so easy. She’d actually been nervous about introducing Lucky to her father, but had decided to just barrel straight ahead and not put it off, since it had to be done. And she nearly collapsed with joy when she heard her mom say to Lucky, “Tessa’s been telling me about your little boy. We’d love to have the three of you over for dinner soon.”