Page 1 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

His tongue glided over her parachute tattoo.

Lightning struck somewhere out in the world, flaring shadows in their commodious bedroom. In a trice, Vin caught her features warped in ecstasy. Tahli’s flesh, coated in sugared sweat, was a taste he’d familiarized himself with for a decade and a half, and never tired of.

“I love you.”

“ Uhh!” She cried out to his declaration.

Two years ago, Tahli’s hysterectomy resulted not only from her mother’s ovarian cancer, but from the sporadic cysts that would double her over in pain.

I’m going to dry up, Vin. I’m going to lose my sex drive .

One of the minor woes expressed of forced early menopause.

It hadn’t happened. The first months came with mood swings and a few hot flashes that had Vin freezing his nighttime nuts off.

But either the natural remedies she sought, or their undying chemistry, had that pussy– Vin's pussy–behaving as expected in his bedroom.

And that was because he made sure to do shit like this.

“Vin...again?” With a honeyed chuckle, Tahli gasped when he took that little pearl hostage in his greedy mouth.

That syrupy voice still grew Vin past his potential.

Like they were blasted back into Munch’s backyard, and he’d watched her big breasts bounce around in a bikini.

Or when she finally shed her good girl skin and delivered the only head that rocketed him to climax.

The only woman who could push the boundaries of Vin’s very amateur view of intimacy.

Meeting her at his 24 years of fucked up, he’d had enough pussy to cockily feel like a pundit.

Selective, but still fair. Whether black, white, Spanish, Asian…

med students or pole masters…all shapes and sizes, Vin had conquered his share; making them cum on his fingers.

..dick...tongue... Thought he knew it all.

Until Tahli Hall showed him that releasing inside of her while fighting for eye contact trumped any intricate sex position or mass of an ass – and Vin appreciated a big ass even more than most men.

But a backshot to a bad bitch couldn’t compare to the stroke of Tahli’s nails on his goose-bumped skin, or her whispered words of encouragement tainted with elated giggles.

“Just like that, daddy. Yes.”

Just like that.

When he rose, she used her body to nudge him onto his back.

That’s how it went. Vin doubled her in size, but often, Tahli guided, and Vin didn’t resist. Story of their lives.

Just a nudge was all it took. A small indication of her desire that Vin could quietly comprehend.

So, he sat up while she used his shoulders to mount him. His baby wanted to ride.

More thunder chased lightning, as Vin fucked her from underneath, finding that spongy center and tapping on its door until she shook.

One of her favorite songs regaled the darkness, something about going into orbit.

As their fingers interlocked, ecstasy beaded sweat on his forehead, and Tahli’s erotic moans swelled his balls with a desperate, impending release.

Vin’s muscles strained. His mind clouded, knocking over his thoughts like bowling pins, with only one standing.

As he buried his fingers into her damp skin and she began to seep, a cracked honeycomb ran down his thick, brown tree trunk.

“This shit gets better and better,” he had to voice, and it seemed to intensify her experience.

Tahli graduated from moaning to bucking, forcing Vin to clamp teeth to the hair under his lip.

He stretched her ass cheeks apart, driving into her steel-gripping walls until Tahli soaked his taut thighs in sap.

I love yous exchanged before Vin felt it coming.

Tahli stepped up and rolled her bowling ball right down the middle, aiming for that one pin.

Knocked it down in a spare and Vin erupted.

Her locs were the softest wool and the only barrier between his bare chest and her perfect head.

Judging by the pace of her breathing, his wife was drifting into sleep on a cloud of satisfaction.

With their children tucked in their respective bedrooms, Tahli trusted Vin enough to sleep soundly.

Small, but it meant something. He’d kept them safe all these years. ..his only goal.

Soon, she would see him as a failure.

As his thick fingers stroked her arm, all of those fallen pins reloaded on the conveyor belt of his busy mind. The outer corners of Vin’s eyes itched, and he wondered if she could sense his chest tightening. He blinked in the darkness, cursing the moisture tickling his ducts. Tears. Fucking tears.

He’d killed. Not just once, and not just in his past. He’d killed someone under a week ago, and that didn’t affect him.

Briefly, the dread of getting caught up like he was 18 again, and having to raise his children from a prison cell, toyed with him.

But that murder was non-negotiable. Someone had harmed his child.

A child Vin hadn’t protected like the ones under his roof.

He had to do it, so he did it right. Everything had a price and Vin had the money.

Money to get away with murder. But he’d never be able to buy this.

He’d never be able to buy making love to his wife or the peace of her asleep on his chest. Tahli wasn’t a slave to the green devil.

Not even to the plush life they’d afforded.

Not even to motherhood, although a damn good mother.

Tahli was one of those women who knew the best woman, wife, and mother she could be stemmed from her level of happiness.

So, in that theory, Tahli had to come first. Not pouring from empty cups and shit of that nature.

Vin respected it. Downright envied it. And loved her for it.

“I hate this song,” she warbled of whatever track played three or four songs after going into orbit.

Vin snorted, almost inaudibly. Not because it was funny but because that was expected. In these moments, with his mind pulled in so many directions and almost snapping in pieces, he would turn on autopilot and do the expected things, so that no one could spot the internal turmoil.

“You want me to turn it off?” He’d get up and turn off the music she played to mask their erotic sounds from their sleeping offspring; miracles of what magic their lovemaking could create.

“I want you to stay right here,” Tahli nibbled his chest, and Vin’s body sank into the bedding. “You know I love the smell of your underarms after you sweat.”

“That shit is gross,” he murmured into her hair, making her snicker.

Lifting her hand to his lips, Vin started with a kiss to her palm before moving to each of her fingertips.

“Are you adoring me?” Tahli teased.

“Always.” No forced laughter. No autopilot. Just honesty. “Promise me you’ll always know how much I love you,” Vin urged in his bedroom tenor.

“You’ve been making me promise you shit since 2008, Dalvin Hayes. How about just a blanket promise to cover eternity,” she drawled.

“I’m serious, Tahli.” He didn’t mean for it to sound so dire, but he felt her tense. Vin ran the hand that didn’t cradle her over his furry face.

“Just don’t ever forget that I love you. And no matter what I say...or what I do...” Vin couldn’t believe how close to the line he was dancing.

“Promise me you’ll do whatever you need to be happy. If for any reason I’m not here to make you happy...promise me, you’ll still find a way to be.”

As expected, her small head shot up in the shadows, and Vin cursed himself. But when would he get a chance to say it? Very soon, things would change.

“That’s it. You’re not going to LA.”

“Tah...”

“Nah.” He knew her head was shaking through the shadows.

“Like what the fuck are you even talking about? I was already worried about you missing the Christmas Eve party because of this stupid weather, but you’re the one who promised to get back here on your birthday even if you had to hijack a plane.

Now you’re sitting here acting like you’re gonna get in a fucking plane crash, or something?

Nah. You staying yo’ black ass right here in Jersey. ”

“A plane crash? Why would you say that?”

“Why would you say all that...shit you just said?” Tahli’s voice spiked, and Vin caught the tremors in it.

“What are you even talking about if you’re not here?

When are you not here? Even when you’re not here, you’re here.

” Now, his fear has metastasized hers. Fuck.

A fear he’d given to her by forcing her to love him in the magnitude he loved her.

Nobody had ever loved Vin the way she did.

Definitely not his mother. Not his father, or his grandmother.

..not even his children. Tahli loved him with no blood ties and against everything she feared about love–the abandonment issues from her mother, infidelity trepidation from her father. ..her own standards.

“I know. My bad, baby love. I’m talking crazy. Come on...lay back down.”

“You are talking crazy,” her voice quavered, as his strong arms won against her reluctance, and she laid back down.

“I know. I’m tired. I’m...I don’t know,” Vin blew out, shutting his eyes. A few seconds later, his lids popped open. The moisture on his chest joined a snivel.

“Tahli, why the fuck are you crying?”

“Because...” She squeezed his arm, and her nails dug into his skin.

“You can’t talk like that, Vin. You can’t talk like that right before you’re about to get on a plane and fly across the fucking country.

You can’t talk like that when it’s Christmas and we have three kids.

You just...you can’t talk like that. We lost enough already.

..we can’t ever lose each other. Alright? ” Vin swallowed down Tahli’s reminder.

“There’s power in the tongue.”

“I know.” Gripping her shoulders, Vin kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry, baby love. Now tell me again about the place-settings.”