caught on the edge of something that felt like a raised nail and she pinwheeled, time seeming to slow down to a snail’s crawl. I’m falling. It had been a while since she’d walked down the steps—and never by herself. Where would she go, anyway? Tilda had everything delivered or went out and got it alone. It occurred to Mary to scream, because it was her greatest asset, but wouldn’t that deter a potential rescuer?
As soon as she thought the word rescuer, she shouted, “Tucker!”
The door at the bottom of the steps crashed open loudly, metal slamming against the wall and she landed safely in a pair of arms, surrounded by the guardian’s energy signature. She recognized it immediately. Her suitcase didn’t fare quite so well, bumping noisily down the stairs, but considering it could have been Mary’s skull, instead, she considered herself lucky. And then she could think of nothing but the man crushing her to his big chest in a manner that was almost violently gentle. Like a giant protecting a doll.
They swayed like that a moment, her breasts flattened to his chest, bodies flush.
Mary had never been held like that before. So intimately. He’d caught her out of necessity, to keep her from falling. Right. But the longer they remained like that, the more her skin started to warm, the flutter of shock and adrenaline moving lower, to her belly, and growing dense. Almost…confusingly so. Her body seemed to be communicating with Tucker’s after a long absence, embracing, curves molding to muscle, making her toes curl where they dangled at his knees.
“Is this a test?” Tucker rasped into her hair.
Oh. It felt so terribly good having his mouth move there, sort of between her ear and temple. “A test?” She barely resisted leaning closer, rubbing herself against those hard lips. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re making sure I’m up to the job of protecting you on the road. Or…” His fingers splayed on her back and dragged an inch up Mary’s spine, before curling inward, but her lips were wide open by the time he showed that restraint, sucking in a shaky dose of air. “Maybe it’s a test to see if I can remember you’re supposed to be meant for someone else.”
With her feet elevated several inches off the floor and this vampire holding her like she might crack if he set her down, it didn’t feel as if she was meant for someone else. Not in the slightest. And then that hand slipped another quarter inch up her spine and she had the most pressing urge to circle his hips with her thighs. What was happening to her?
Could she really be jeopardizing everything after what she’d just learned?
No. No, she couldn’t do that.
Even if she’d almost missed Tucker while she’d been packing upstairs, two floors away.
Valiantly, Mary searched for a distraction so she’d stop thinking about how nice his thick belly felt against her slight one. Or how glad she was to have changed into a tank top tucked into a short, loose skirt, leaving her legs bare so they could rub against his denim ones. “I, um…had this whole speech prepared about how I can carry my own luggage and be totally independent. That you don’t have to babysit me just because I’m blind.” She dropped her chin to his shoulder, lulled by his strength, despite her best efforts. “Have I gone and blown my credibility?”
“Are you serious?” His voice sounded a little unnatural…but then, so did hers. They seemed to turn their heads at the same time, bringing his mouth to her ear, allowing Mary to bury her nose in his hair, inhaling smoke and nighttime. “There are a hundred slayers picking glass out of their butts right now because of you, kid. You’re a legend. I’m in full fan girl mode.”
She laughed. Still, “I’m not a kid,” Mary managed, swallowing, testing the hardness of his shoulders with a squeeze of her fingertips. “I’m an adult.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, I noticed,” he said, roughly, that hand sliding sideways to one of her hips, testing the groove with his thumb. “What happened to the nightgown?”
“Hey, I don’t wear it all the time,” she said, doing her best to sound exasperated, but not quite pulling it off. It came out like more of a half-gasp, half-gulp. “Fine, I wear it almost exclusively. I don’t get a lot of reasons to dress in regular clothes.”
Tucker hummed beside her ear, causing an outbreak of goosebumps down her arms. “You been inside