Page 42 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“Goddamn, baby love, can I fuck you first? You tryin’ to take me out.”

She couldn’t share in his humor, even with pleasure drenching his words.

Tahli had floated from her body. To feel this good had to be a sin, but she had vowed herself to this man before God.

Which meant God had granted her him. He was hers to love and protect and extinguish all desires until eternity.

He could make her feel devilish, and they’d still get to heaven.

“Dalvin!” She cried, as he moved in and out of her. Driving his pelvis between her legs, splashing puddles while doing it. Feverish strokes as he pounded into her, and Tahli’s thighs quaked from the magnitude of pleasure.

“Do you know where you are?”

“With you,” she cried, a tear escaping, ecstasy magnifying.

“Tahli. Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?”

Gripping onto Vin tighter, fear paralyzed her. Over Vin’s shoulder, a bright light flooded her eyes. Foreign noises drowned out nature’s music.

“Vin?” She cried, terrified. But at least he was here. Whatever was happening, he’d figure it out. He’d get them through it.

“Tahli! Okay, let’s remove the tube!” Clanks and bangs. Tropical aroma vanished. The smell of medicine and death took its place. And it was freezing. And she was choking.

“It’s okay, Tahli. It’s okay. You have a tube in your mouth to help you breathe. Just relax.”

“Tahli. Relax, baby love. They gonna take the tube out,” Vin soothed her over the stranger’s words. A woman stranger. She tried to question Vin. She tried to scream. Her limbs weighed tons.

“Tahli, do you know where you are?” She choked on a rush of air when her airway was no longer clogged.

Eyes flooded with water. No matter how hard she tried, her blinks lasted longer each time.

Eyelids were weighted blankets, shielding her from whatever scary place she’d be transported to.

So, Tahli fought against it, closing her eyes for good and returned to Bora Bora with Vin.

Lengthy, steady beeps woke Tahli from her sex-induced coma. A warm sensation spread below her waist, proof of a Dalvin-certified pleasing session. She smiled lazily before turning her head, her lips a little numb.

Any concern flew out the window when she spotted that burly arm covered in both urban decay and Godly scriptures.

Vin’s big arm curled over the white blanket, protectively draped over her legs.

He sat in a chair at her bedside, face buried in the bedding near her calf, a light snore layered over the beeping sound.

Tahli swallowed, and her saliva was a drop of water in the desert of her dry throat. It made her cough, which stirred him awake.

Slowly, Vin lifted his fine face, and peace washed over Tahli.

Despite the lingering confusion about how she had gone from an island to a hospital bed with him, all that mattered was that he was here.

He’d explain it and make it right the same.

His eyes lit up with hope, as if she had been asleep too long.

They could talk like that, without words.

“Hey,” he whispered, taking her limp hand into both of his. He brought it to his lips in a kiss, and Tahli tried not to wince at him pushing against her IV.

“I…” she croaked. Her voice, hoarse. Vin rushed a cup of water with a straw to her and she drank it so desperately, she choked.

“Easy…” he directed, and she finished it calmer.

“I had…the craziest dream,” Tahli whispered out what she could, as he stroked her leg through the blanket, gallons of love in his eyes.

“We were back in Bora, Bora. When we went with Munch and Wynter.” Tahli reminded him.

“The first time.” It sort of hurt to talk.

Man, she felt like shit. A small smile curled his lips, as his admiration stole the pain.

After a lifetime, he kissed her hand again. But Tahli wanted his lips on hers.

“Hi,” Vin stated quite simply in their way. It made her snort faintly. She could only do it faintly.

“Hi.” Tahli returned.

“I swear Dalvin…it felt so real. I felt like I was back there,” she took her time blinking, still groggy. Appreciated the brief rests of her eyes with each blink. That’s how sore her eyes were.

“Yeah? I’d like to be back there,” he replied, hanging his head. Tahli waited for his eyes to return. Gazed into the mirrors of his lenses, reflecting love and gratitude.

“Where is she?” And then slowly, it dissipated. Vin’s face transformed.

“Who?”

“Who?” Tahli mocked. “…The baby.”

He let her hand go and raised both of his to run down his mouth. Made Tahli’s brows touch.

“What? Is she–?” She cleared her still arid throat. “Is she getting a bath?”

She watched his shoulders fall in a sigh.

Oh, no. Was something wrong with their baby?

He stared at her, his flat; thick brows that tapered at the ends, knitted in concern.

His hair was no longer soft and grown. It was gone.

Cut low, and nearly bald. All of his hair was on his face, beard lusciously thicker.

Still dreamy, with an air of sophistication.

He’d aged in minutes.

“Tahli… Baby love,” Vin spoke slowly; meticulously. He made a diamond with his fingers, tapping the two index ones against each other.

“I need you…to think. Okay? Can you do that for me, baby?”

She frowned. Confused. So confused. That warm feeling in her belly returning, but blending with knots.

“I need you to use that big…beautiful…brilliant brain of yours. Okay?”

Slowly, she nodded, following him to wherever he was leading her.

“How many children do you have?”

What a preposterous question. Tahli wrinkled her face, searching the hospital room for the answer. What a riddle? Was it a riddle? Because…

“Three,” she replied, certain.

Vin nodded.

“And…how old are they?”

Everything went quiet. Even the beeps silenced. Her brain fog drowned out the noise in the room. For a moment, Tahli knew what stupid felt like.

“I’m scared,” she admitted in a murmur.

“I’m here,” he swore.

She was utterly, completely, lost. And then…

“Terran…she’s not a baby.”

Like puzzle pieces handed to her one by one, Tahli slid them together.

“Right. I mean, she’s our baby,” Vin snickered. Slowly, Tahli pulled the blanket up to her chin, rolling to her side. Her body ached all over the moment she remembered why. She curled into herself, chest burning and heart bleeding. Mouth stretched wide, splitting the dry corners.

“It hurts.”

“What, baby love? Where does it hurt?” He rushed to her. Vin’s hand was on her back as he leaned down into her face. Tahli brought her teary gaze to him.

“I forgot how much it hurts,” she muttered, feeling ever stab of his betrayal again. Guilt turned down the edges of his eyes. Tahli felt her sinuses burn with ruin. Nothing should hurt this much. Nothing should keep cutting over and over like this.

“And I don’t even blame you…because no one should have that much control over someone else’s happiness. But we were supposed to be the exception,” she rattled off, mind groggy and filter waning. “We were supposed to be each other’s parachutes.”

Elbows on his knees, he now sat on her bed, lenses brimmed with water.

“I think I’m peeing myself,” Tahli mumbled.

“You have a catheter in, baby love. Just let it happen.”

She frowned, heart heavy.

“I went out for ice cream.” More puzzle pieces handed to her. “It was raining…real bad.”

He nodded.

“This…car switched into my lane, and I swerved. I hit something and flew out into traffic. I thought that was it. Then I saw headlights…”

Vin dropped his head in his hands as she formed the full picture, then painted it.

“Doll and I were fighting before...”

Tahli’s mind hit rewind…

“I hate you! Oh my God, you’re so stupid!”

“Dali Ellery Hayes, get down these stairs and say that shit one more time. So, I can put your little ass right through this mothafuckin wall!”

Tahli slammed her hand against the banister. “Ever since you started 10 th grade you’ve been out of fucking control! First, that shit in the bathroom–”

“Don’t bring that up! It was a stupid dare. You don’t get to bring that up. You got engaged to somebody six months after you divorced my dad!”

“It was nine months and I’m a grown ass woman!” Tahli shouted. “You…are a little girl. And you’re acting like a dumbass one. Matter of fact, I’m about to call your father so he can deal with you.”

“Do it! But he’s not home! You know why? He’s on a date!”

Dali might as well have doused ice water onto her from on top of those stairs.

“He thinks I don’t know but when I was at his office, Jodie let me use her computer to do homework, and I saw she put it on the calendar for him,” Dali cried.

“He even had Jodie send her flowers! So I hope he likes her and falls in love with her, and they get married and make a baby and then maybe you’ll be happy then.

I hope their wedding is better than yours and their house is already bigger than yours and their car is better than yours.

And then you’ll see how you ruined our lives! ”

Dali was irate, but beneath it, Tahli spotted the pain. Her baby was hurting; all in her red, swollen face, clenched fists, and tears streaming down her cheeks. Her mother was moving on. And now her father was too.

Her dream was crumbling.

“Ugh! My life is freakin’ unbearable. I don’t even care anymore!” Dali stormed off, slamming her door.

Tahli had stood there for at least ten minutes, unsure of what to do.

Drew had left for the night as he often did, still respecting boundaries of not sleeping over with her children there.

They were easing into that. So, Tahli took a drive.

She called Drew on her way out, and he insisted he’d bring her whatever she needed.

But she wanted to clear her head, think things through, and allow new information to sink in.

Vin was on a date. A date he sent flowers to…

“What y’all fight about?”

He brought her back to the hospital room. Tahli quashed the jarring memory.

“I don’t remember.” Gratefully, before he could push, Drew rushed into the room. His hand on his chest came with a sigh, and Tahli spotted the relief in his glossy eyes.

“Baby,” he uttered. He peeled his eyes from her to shift to Vin.

The glower Vin gave back, Tahli was surprised Drew wasn’t the one to piss himself.

“You weren’t gonna let anyone know she woke up, Dalvin?”

“No,” Vin replied evenly. “But you would’ve known if you’d been here.”

“I was talking to the doctor. So he could tell me the next steps.”

“You would wait for somebody to tell you the next steps, huh?”

Drew narrowed his eyes. Tahli held her stomach, uneasiness and discomfort all over. A nurse entered, rattling off words about catheters and pain scales.

“Where’s my kids and my dad?” was all Tahli wanted to know.

Vin stood to his vastness. “I’ll got get them.”

“Thank you…and then you can go.”

His head snapped to her, and Tahli could barely look at him.

“I appreciate you being here…but I’m okay. You don’t have to stick around.”

She never wanted to see Vin die, but in that instant, she did. She could feel the smug sense of accomplishment radiating from Drew. But…it all felt suddenly fresh again, and quite confusing.

Vin seemed to deliberate, pulling on his fingers before cracking his knuckles. No words came. Perhaps he had none to give.

“I’ve got her, Dalvin.”

The step Vin took in Drew’s direction was menacing, even though Drew seemed genuine. The nurse jumped between them, extending a long acrylic hand to Vin’s chest.

“She’s loopy. It’s the anesthesia,” The nurse explained to Vin in a cotton candy voice, frowning Tahli’s lips. She wanted to fuck him. To have Vin fuck her. As a woman, Tahli knew things.

When her babies came flying into the room, none of it mattered. Even Dali was all sobs, reverted to innocence. Tahli swallowed them in her arms, that IV really throbbing now. Head pounding. Spine on fire. But the love of her children remedied it.

Her father came after, and Vin passed him in the opposite direction; but not before finding Tahli’s sympathetic gaze. Something in his face suggested it was okay before he walked away.

There was baggage stowed away that she needed to unpack. She couldn’t do that with him there. Tahli needed to rebuild her wall of detachment.