Not Another New Year’s (21 page)

Things I Hate about New year’s

agreeing with my mother that it’s shaping up to be yet another year without her getting a grandchild.

A
t midday, Hannah’s small collection of belongings was packed in a new duffel bag and stashed in the trunk of Tanner’s Mercedes, and the two of them were headed out of the Hotel Del Coronado parking lot. She looked back over her shoulder, mentally pinkie-waving it good-bye.

“We could have packed up Desirée’s things and checked her out too,” she said.

“And waste the rest of your vacation days? I’ve never seen so much female stuff in all my life. My mother will jump for joy to have such a girly-girl in the family, but Troy’s going to have to add on to his house.”

“Really?” Hannah glanced over at Tanner. “Do you really think Troy and Desirée—”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen it coming for a while. They’re lifers now.”

The prison-sentence reference only underscored the importance of what she had to do next. “Tanner, I want you to take me to a hotel.”

There was a long pause. “I thought we talked about this.”

“No, we didn’t talk about it.”

“You only have a few more days here. You’re welcome at my place.”

A few more days. That was all. And that was already too much. “I couldn’t impose—”

“You imposed on Dezi.”

She grimaced. “That was slightly different.”

“Glad to hear it. Not that the thought of you and Dez sharing a bed and doing the girl-on-girl thing isn’t interesting, but—”

“Tanner…” He was trying to distract her for some reason. Blowing out a breath, she looked out the window and tried to think of an easy way out without going into the “I’ve done something stupid and fallen in love with you” explanation.

Her gaze caught on an upcoming street sign. Amstead Avenue. “Wait. Stop.”

“What?” Slowing the car, he glanced over at her again. “What is it?”

“I’m…I’m hungry. And I heard this was a great street for restaurants.”

He frowned at her.

So she pasted on her best smile. “Please, Tanner. Let me buy you lunch.”

The parking gods were kind to him, so she didn’t have a chance to rethink her lunch suggestion until
they were out of the car and he slid an arm around her shoulder and hugged her close to his side. They fit perfectly together, she thought. And every minute more they spent as a couple was only going to make not seeing him that much harder.

He brushed a kiss on her temple. “What do you feel like eating? We have several options.”

How could he be so casual about the affection and the doling out of kisses when the end of both was right in sight? She should have insisted on going to a hotel immediately. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”

“No wiggling out of the lunch offer now, sweetheart. This is on you, remember? Should we do Italian? Or the sandwich place over there?”

Hannah bit her lip. She’d seen the street sign and impulsively called for him to stop, but it wasn’t as if she could confront Caroline with Tanner at her elbow. “Let’s, um, check over the different menus.” If she saw the other woman, she’d make note of the restaurant and come back alone later.

But soon. She was running out of vacation, having spent most of it letting her heart run away with her.

There was no one obviously Caroline at the sandwich shop, or at the Italian restaurant, the yogurt and salads café, or The Eggcellent Stop on the corner. “Picky, picky, picky,” Tanner murmured as they crossed to check out the places on the other side of the street.

He threaded his fingers through hers and slanted her a lazy, oh-too-sexual glance. “If we get take-out, we can eat lunch in bed.”

Her knees softened, picturing it in her mind—
no.
She primmed her mouth like the schoolmarm she
needed to remember she was. “I told you, after lunch you’re taking me to a hotel.”

“Is that any way to end your vacation? With maids and nosy front desk people? Especially when we have my private little house just waiting—the perfect place to finish off our fling.”

Finish off our fling.
Hannah’s feet stopped moving, but Tanner’s didn’t, and their linked arms stretched across the sidewalk. She had to finish this now. Right this minute.

“Tanner—”

“Hart!” someone called. “Tanner Hart!”

They both looked around. Down the block, a couple was waving at them from a sidewalk table outside a Mexican café.

“Hey!” Tanner grinned and tugged on her hand. “C’mon. There’re some people I want you to meet.”

The other couple was Finn Jacobson and Bailey Sullivan. Finn, a former coworker of Tanner’s, had a pirate vibe going with his dark hair and eye patch, while Bailey was a blue-eyed blonde who looked small enough to fit in her escort’s back pocket. The way he was snuggled next to her, that might not be close enough to satisfy him.

“Join us,” the pirate said, sitting again, then scooting his chair even closer to Bailey’s. “We haven’t ordered yet.”

Tanner pulled out one of the empty chairs for Hannah. What could she do but sit?

Finn released a long whistle. “Manners, Hart? You must be spending time with your mama.”

Bailey picked up the roll of architectural drawings on the table in front of them and bopped him on the
head. “Leave him alone. Not everyone grew up with the grand ambition of joining the Hell’s Angels.”

“But then I joined the Secret Ser vice instead. And found myself an angel, GND.”

Bailey smiled, obviously pleased, and glanced over at Hannah. “GND. Girl Next Door. I fell in love with this hunka hunka burning love when I was eleven.”

“She means she made me miserable until Christmas Day, just two weeks ago,” Finn confided. “But now we’re engaged.”

There was an interesting ring on Bailey’s left hand. Instead of a traditional diamond, it was a looped design of gold and silver. As if she couldn’t help herself, the blonde ran her forefinger over the metal, wearing a small, secret smile.

Watching her, envy jabbed at Hannah’s heart. Wouldn’t it be nice if—

“Engaged?” Tanner echoed, then groaned. “Good God. What’s wrong with you men? You’re falling like dead flies around me.”

Bailey frowned at him. “I think that makes me spoiled meat.”

Finn patted her shoulder. “Only spoiled for any man that’s not your hunka hunka burning love, GND. But what other flies are you talking about, Tanner?”

“Dez bagged Troy. Or Troy bagged Dez. Whatever.”

Bailey hooted, then bopped Finn over the head again with the roll of drawings. “Didn’t I tell you? I saw the way they were looking at each other at Hart’s the other night and knew what was happening,
while you, on the other hand, thought I was so bedazzled by romance that I was finding love in all the wrong places.”

“You’re always right,” he answered, his expression pious, then looked over at Hannah and winked. “I’m practicing for marriage.”

Bailey sent him a sidelong look, then half turned to give him her shoulder and to smile at Hannah. “So how do you know Tanner?”

She didn’t like the speculation in the other woman’s eyes. From what Hannah could see, Bailey really
was
bedazzled by her engagement, and she didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about what was going on between her and the man on her left.

“He’s my tour guide,” she said. “My uncle is Geoff Brooks and he asked Tanner to do him a favor and show me around a little.”

“Oh.” Bailey’s gaze dropped to Hannah’s hand, which rested on the table—enclosed in Tanner’s. Though Hannah quickly drew it away to grab her water glass, it was too late to escape the other woman’s notice. Bailey looked up at Finn, and then over at Tanner. “Nice work if you can get it.”

“A favor, huh?” Finn’s eyes narrowed at Tanner too, and then he shifted his gaze to smile at Hannah. “I know your uncle. He’s a good man. He’s my former boss now too.”

Tanner leaned forward. “You quit.”

Finn nodded. “You knew it was coming. Without the eye…” He gestured to the patch. “…It was only desk work for me.”

Tanner sighed. “But—”

“But nothing. I already have a new job. There’s a
firm in town with a fat Department of Homeland Security contract and a lot of work to be done. There’s room on my team.”

“There’s room on the Secret Ser vice team too,” Tanner said quietly. “With you gone, and me, and Ayesha…”

“Yeah.”

Both the men went quiet.

Bailey jumped into the sudden, strangely heavy silence. “Look, before our plates come, I should show off what the architect has planned for The Perfect Christmas.” She looked at Hannah as she started to unroll the paper. “My family’s store.”

Smiling, Hannah nodded in cheery agreement. “Yes. Great. I’d love to see them.”

Neither man looked up or acted as if they heard the women. Tanner shifted his chair closer to Finn’s. “Speaking of Dez…I should tell you what’s happened.”

The two of them engaged in a low-voiced conversation, leaving Bailey and Hannah to look over the architectural plans alone. “Hell,” said the blonde under her breath. “I was kinda sorta big-time hoping we were going to get through the anniversary without any painful reminders.”

“Anniversary?”

Bailey lifted one page of the plans and held it up as a curtain between them and the conversing men. “You know about the assassination attempt?” she asked, her voice a near whisper.

“Yes.”

“You know that night that Finn lost his eye and Secret Ser vice agent Ayesha Spencer lost her life?”

Finn’s eye patch. Probably something else Tanner thought he could have prevented. “And Tanner lost his reputation…or so he believes.”

“Right.” Bailey blew out a gusty sigh. “It was a year ago to night.”

To night, when Hannah was leaving Tanner to sleep alone in his bed with nothing and no one between him and his bad memories and undeserved guilt.

The waitress arrived with the food they’d ordered, breaking up the separate conversations. Bailey rolled up her plans, and then they all exclaimed as mountains of fragrant Mexican food were placed in front of them.

Tanner declined the waitress’s offer to bring him a beer instead of another glass of water as he’d asked. “Nope. I have to keep sharp. Have to run Hart’s tonight since Troy and Dez are in Palm Springs.” He glanced over at Hannah. “I was hoping to think of some way of bribing you to help me out, Ms. Davis.”

“Oh, I—”

“Owe me. You owe me boatloads for my…service to you these past few days.” Under the table his hand found one of hers, resting in her lap.

Ser vice.
As his fingers closed over hers, she could feel the blush crawling up her neck at the way he’d said the word and the way he was looking at her. At the way he was touching her. Goose bumps broke out over her skin, fueled by all the memories of all the other touches. And whispers. And moans.

“Now that she’s checked out of the Del,” he said, “she’s going to be staying at my place. Isn’t that right, Hannah?”

She looked up, her gaze meeting Bailey’s. Hannah remembered the anniversary again. Suddenly she couldn’t think of anything
but
the anniversary. And Tanner needing her help. At the bar, and as a buffer against what would surely arise.

“That’s right,” she heard herself say. “I’m staying with Tanner until my plane leaves San Diego.”

A
fter lunch, Tanner drove to his house, telling Hannah they had a few hours to relax before going to Hart’s for the evening shift. But relaxing didn’t feel like an option for Hannah at the moment, not with the walls seeming to shrink around her as if unwilling to let her go.

If only Tanner’s arms would do the same.

As he puttered with something in the garage, she walked out the sliding French doors that led from his living room to the backyard. On her previous visits she’d merely registered the presence of flagstone patio, potted plants, plot of well-manicured grass from the other side of the glass. Now she stepped into the fresh air and took in a long breath.

The yard was small, but perfect. Two chaise
lounges were positioned on the patio, flanking a small fountain that bubbled gently. Terra-cotta pots of red and white geraniums basked in the sunshine here and there, while to the left, on the rectangular section of grass, a hammock was stretched between a sycamore and a thick-fronded palm tree.

Tall hedges shielded the property from the neighbors. With only the burbling fountain and the calls and twitters of birds, it was like stumbling upon a secret garden.

Folded at one end of the hammock was a red, white, and blue afghan. She ran her palm over the soft, crocheted threads, then sat down beside it and pushed against the ground with her feet to start a gentle sway.

A salty-scented breeze scattered the warmth of the sunshine, and she picked up the afghan—she noticed now it was styled like an American flag—and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then she closed her eyes and tried to breathe in the moment. For so long she’d lived for some future date when Duncan came home, or she’d lived in the past trying to make herself in Deborah’s image. But now, in Tanner’s secret garden, she just wanted to be herself.

“There you are.”

She turned her head to see him coming toward her, walking through sunshine and shade, one minute his hair a blaze of gold, the next his face hidden by shadows. She didn’t need to read his expression to feel the dark moodiness radiating from him. It had been brooding since they’d left the Mexican restaurant, and
she suspected that one of those memories she was supposed to be guarding him against had already taken hold.

Now she remembered her first thoughts about him at the bar on New Year’s Eve. Now she understood the source of that unfriendly, maybe even angry, chip on his shoulder.

It had been with him for the last year, she suspected, a constant reminder of his impotence on the night when so much had happened: the death of a Secret Ser vice comrade-in-arms, the loss of his best friend Finn’s eye.

The demise of his own career.

He stopped a few feet away from her and shook his head. “You’re doing that patriotic thing again. I’m never going to be able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance after this without thinking of you.”

She tried to smile at that, but there was no amusement in Tanner’s voice.

He took a step closer. “Take off your clothes, Hannah.”

Her whole body twitched, shocked by the grim, urgent note in his voice.

“Please, Hannah.” But there was only command in his voice, no plea. “I need you.”

There was no doubting that. Her glance flicked down and she couldn’t miss the thick ridge underneath his jeans.

His hand went to the first button, popping it open. “I need you right now.”

Goose bumps washed over Hannah’s skin, followed by a flush of heat. No man had ever needed
her.
Obviously not Duncan.

“I have to have you.” Tanner had released the buttons of his fly, and she could see the jut of his sex pushing against his boxers through the open vee of fabric. He stripped off his T-shirt and threw it down, then gestured toward her. “Take off your clothes,” he said again. “I have to have you now, Hannah.”

Hannah. He had to have Hannah, he said. There it was again. Before Tanner, no one had ever desired her like this. Desired her without family pressure or approval, without a future to be thinking about or plan for. This was a man wanting her for nothing more (and nothing less) than herself.

For right now, in this moment.

It was an aphrodisiac to surpass all others, slowing her pulse to a heavy, primitive beat.

Holding the afghan around her with one fist, she managed to undress one-handed. Her clothes made a pile at her feet on top of her kitten-heeled sandals, and then she stood, bare soles tickled by the cool grass.

“Come here,” he ordered again, his voice as hard as the agate-blue of his eyes.

Still blanketed by the flag afghan, she approached, shivering with breathless excitement. God, he was beautiful. His golden hair, his lean face, the etched muscles of his arms and torso. His nostrils flared, and she saw his fingers curl into fists, as if he dared himself not to reach for her.

As if his need for her was something he was fighting himself against.

Ah. But that made her so much stronger. No longer passive, pleaser Hannah. But Hannah who could own her own desire and who was not afraid to inflame his. She knew, now, that she had it in her to
make him forget everything but the two of them like this, together.

Toes to Tanner’s, she dropped the afghan.

Then dropped to her knees.

He made a choked sound, and she ignored it, focusing instead on releasing his erection from the silky confines of his boxers. She pushed the elastic to his thighs and slid her palms to cup the hard, round muscles of his butt. A little pressure there brought him to her mouth.

He made that choked-off sound again, and from the periphery of her vision she saw his fists clench as she ran her tongue over the head of his hot flesh. Another burning flush wafted over her skin and she gloried in the new spike of desire and took him deeper into her mouth.

As she drew closer to take more, her nipples rubbed against his jean-covered thighs. She gasped at the delicious friction, drawing cool air against his wet flesh, and he grunted, then grunted again as she deliberately moved to chafe the peaks of her aching breasts against the denim while she tasted and tongue-stroked the hard muscle that proved Tanner wanted her.

Needed her.

“God. Hannah. Oh, God.” His head dropped back and his fists uncurled to bury in her hair. He guided her movements on him and she reveled in the trembling of his body and the bite of his fingers against his scalp.

He was helpless against her touch.

She was strong in their mutual desire.

“Sweetheart, no, stop. Christ, Hannah. Stop. Stop.”

Closing her ears to his groans, she sucked him deeper, trying to take him into herself so she would never forget this man, this moment, this chance to play out her desires.

One moment she had her eyes squeezed shut, the next he lifted her up. “No,” she protested. “I want—”

“
I
want. I want. I want. I want you.”

She’d thought she was strong, but he proved himself powerful too, gently manhandling her down to the grass, stretching them out on the afghan she’d dropped. He came down between her thighs and cradled her head in his hands.

“Mine,” he said to her mouth, then took it. Closing her eyes, she opened for the deep thrust of his tongue and pressed up against his weight, rubbing her breasts against his chest, grinding her hips against his pelvis, feeling the heaviness of his erection against her belly.

On New Year’s morning she’d imagined herself melting into Tanner’s mattress, but now she wanted to melt into Tanner himself, and to take him into her as well. She opened her eyes, and the hard glitter in his made her shiver with another jolt of desire. He bit her bottom lip and she jerked in his arms, the sting making the desire only sharper, sweeter, more intense.

He groaned again and flipped her over, his mouth roaming the skin of her shoulders, her spine, sucking hard on the small of her back. She moaned, half rising on her knees to arch into the exciting sensation. Tanner slid his arm beneath her hips and dragged her up all the way, getting behind her so he could
run his palms along the curve of her bottom.

“I’m an ass man,” he said. “And yours is so damned beautiful.”

The harsh tone in his voice pierced the fog of lust swirling through her head and pulsing thickly through her veins. She looked over her shoulder at him, her heartbeat quickening at the intractable expression on his face.

“You said that about my legs.”

“Yeah.” His palms slid down to caress the back of her thighs. “And about your breasts.” He continued his strokes up, then curled his hands inside to cover her breasts.

His knees came between hers, pushing them outward. He caressed her nipples and she arched her back, her bottom meeting his arousal. He pressed the length of himself against her there, and she gasped.

“I’m a Hannah man.”

A Hannah man.

Then he dipped, and slid his erection between her thighs. She was slick—always so ready for him—and he squeezed her nipples as he pressed into her.

Deep. Slow. Sure.

Her head dropped back and she moaned. Tanner fisted one hand in the long strands of her hair and pushed even deeper. His chest dropped over her back and he tugged on her hair, urging her to turn her head so their mouths could fuse like their bodies.

Her arms trembled, sun heated one hip, and she smelled Tanner and the scent of green grass as she sucked on his tongue. He filled her deeper, filled her to overflowing, as her senses banked every nuance of the raw, beautiful act.

Heat. Strength. Weakness. Take. Give. Sun. Darkness. Gold. Shadow.

Man.

Woman.

Sex.

Wanton sex.

Shameless desire.

Wanton.

Shameless.

Love.

Tanner broke the kiss to lay his cheek against her back. His hand released her hair to drag her hips tighter to his, then he reached lower and circled, stroked, coaxed with a gentle finger that was delicious counterpoint to the heavy, aggressive thrusts that drove deeper into her. Harder. Drove her on.

Until she shattered.

She writhed against him as she climaxed and he straightened on his knees, holding tight to her hips as he pumped to his release. His weight fell against her again and they both collapsed on the afghan.

Tanner rolled to his side and took Hannah with him. Sated in every way, he sighed. Everything was going his way, right? She’d just let him fuck his brains out, and mindlessness was what he needed more than anything else today.

One year ago.

Ayesha had lost her life.

Finn had lost an eye.

He’d lost his job.

He stroked his palm from Hannah’s shoulder, down her arm, and along her warm, perfect flank.

She shuddered, and he curled his arm around her waist to spoon her deeper against the curve of his body. “Cold?” he whispered in her ear.

She shook her head, but he could see a trail of goose bumps rush down her neck, her skin reacting to his breath.

His cock twitched and he thought of what had just happened between them. All else was pushed from his mind as he thought of her kneeling in front of him, of the soft weight of her breasts in his palms, of the tender softness of her mouth opening to the thrust of his tongue.

Yeah, that’s right. Think of sex. Nothing less, nothing more.

He ran his hand along that pretty set of Hannah’s curves, shoulder, hip, thigh. All was right with his world.

“Are you still in love?” he heard himself ask.

She stiffened. “Wh-What?”

He had no idea where the question had come from. One moment he was basking in afterglow, and the next…“Duncan.” Damn deceiving, war hero Duncan. “Are you still in love with Duncan?”

“Why are you asking?”

Did he need a reason? Because he didn’t have one to offer up. He felt his mood darken all over again and start to smolder around the edges. “It’s a simple question, Hannah.”

“Tanner, you don’t understand…”

“Then explain it to me. I want to understand.” Why? Why the hell was he giving her this line?

Because it was true. Because each time he and Hannah were naked and doing the wild thing, it felt
less wild and more intense. Less a “thing” than a…something more intimate. So intimate that he felt as if he was losing layers of himself each time. Soon she’d be able to see right through the thin skin that was the only protection he had left.

Turnabout was fair play.

He needed to be able to see inside her in order to keep the balance. Keep
him
balanced.

Brushing away her hair, he kissed the side of her neck. “Is your heart broken, sweetheart?” He hated the idea.

He heard her let out a breath. Then, still turned away from him, she spoke. “Sometimes I wonder if our parents forced us to get engaged.”

“What?” He blinked, going up on one elbow to try and make out her expression. “Did we travel back in time? Are you telling me this still isn’t the twenty-first century?”

“Oh, forget about it.” She tried to roll away, but he slid his arm around her waist again. Her mouth turned down as he confined her against him. “I knew you wouldn’t understand family pressure.”

“I wanted to enlist after 9/11. My mother cried, because my brothers were already serving in the military and she couldn’t bear the idea of all of us in harm’s way like that at one time.”

“So you didn’t join because of your mom?”

“No. I didn’t join because your uncle convinced me that what I was doing in the Secret Ser vice was an important job for our nation too. But the pressure thing, I do get that. I’m just not clear on why you’d marry some guy because of it.”

“But we didn’t get married, remember?”

“Engaged, then. Why’d you go along, Hannah?” He didn’t know what he’d expected to hear, but he still couldn’t swallow his surprise.

“He was my childhood sweetheart, remember? I…I had a love for him. And he was going off to war and I think his parents thought it would give him another layer of support and my parents thought…thought…”

He tried to hold out against the ensuing silence, but he was a man used to answers. “Your parents thought what?”

“I don’t know.” Then her eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, I’m lying. I do know. They were thinking about Deborah. They’re always thinking about Deborah. I don’t blame them for it, but I can always see it going through their minds. ‘Deborah would have married a man like Duncan.’ So then it seemed like a good idea for me too.”