Page 61 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“I’m freakin’ soaked,” Tahli snickered, smoothing out her denim shorts and white tank that was now see-through, and clinging to her body.

“You know where the dryer is.”

Vin held out the blunt in front of himself to light it.

Tahli shifted her bare feet on the cool floors, the air conditioning ritually kept at 74 degrees stimulating her damp skin.

She should absolutely go home. To her new home.

She should fucking walk there through the torrents.

Let the floods carry her back to her present.

“Why’d you move the couch?” Tahli quizzed.

Vin let the smoke fill his mouth, puffing his cheeks, before he swallowed it, blowing it through his nose.

Tahli watched him the whole time.

“Took a page from your book. I needed a change.”

She rolled her eyes as he took a seat on the sofa. In a spot that she did not like.

“Shit don’t really work like that, though,” he added, throwing off her heartrate. “At least not for me.”

Tahli took placid steps toward the mantel.

“What does Bianca think about all of these pictures you still have of me?” Tahli’s gaze roamed their wedding photo. Her college graduation. The Jamaica pictures, where Tahli had gotten her locs braided and Dali got cornrows, both in a half of a heart that joined when they put their heads together.

Then there was Vin’s absolute favorite – Tahli in a bikini, and a seven-month-pregnant belly filled with Terran, hanging over her coverup while she sat perched on the beach, looking every bit the queen she felt.

7-year-old Milo burying her feet in the sand and 9-year-old Dali whispering in her ear.

Vin had snapped the photo and framed it in black and white.

Tahli smelled the salt from the sea, felt the grains between her toes on that Babymoon.

Heard Dali’s whispers back when they were pure and innocent…

“Daddy wants me to tell you he loves you very much.”

Disgustingly obsessed.

When she realized he never answered her loaded question, Tahli turned to find him watching her. Like he was waiting for a vampire to turn after biting them. Vin and his permeating presence. He felt like a cult she couldn’t quite walk away from. Felt like worship.

“Put your clothes in the dryer before you catch a cold.” Vin blew out with smoke. Such a simple, cunning request. Tahli should let the monsoon carry her home.

“You still got your clothes on and you’re wet, too?” She tried to prove a point, but it took a detour.

Vin stood, the blunt parked between his brown lips. He untied his sweats before stepping out of them. Then, he carefully shed his t-shirt, too. Every marking, scribe, and every bit of ink was exactly where she’d left it.

To the soundtrack of a raging thunderstorm, he retook his seat, and Tahli peeled her soaked clothes from her body, watching Vin’s lids hood with the slow tokes of his weed. When she was down to her black lace bra and panties, Vin gripped his dick through his boxers.

“That’s an interesting choice of underwear.”

“I just threw this on.” She had no intention of taking off her clothes when she rushed here.

But now. With the sunlight fading in the quiet of her familiar home encompassed by rain.

And him... She couldn’t forget him... Sitting there, irresistibly composed.

.. Tahli found her feet tipping toward the couch.

She straddled Vin with knees on either side of his legs. Watched him graze his lip with ivory teeth as she positioned on his shaft through the barriers of their underwear. It prodded her, and Tahli gushed, fighting the urge to grind.

When her fingers swept the tattoos on his neck, she watched Vin quiver. The power got her high. But he grappled some as well, snaking a hand up her spine, cupping the back of her scalp, and pushing her face to his.

“What are you doing?” Breathed onto her parted lips.

“I don’t know.” Honest. Never so compelled to action without thoughts. As free from the bounds of rules as he lived.

“I fucking smell you, baby love,” he grunted, and Tahli freed a jagged breath. “You gotta be so fucking wet and willing for me to pick that up. It’s faint…and sweet.” A space snuck between her lips. “But it’s her. I can smell my little wet pussy.”

Tahli churned her hips, eager for friction.

“Vin,” she shuddered. As she rocked in his lap, tears met at her lashes.

“Tahli Hall,” his fingertips trailed up her arm, chilling her. “Does that nigga know you’re magic? Does he make you feel it, baby?” Still stuck on Drew, somehow, Vin had snuck him in the moment. She brushed her nose against his, gravitating deeper into his world.

“Does he make you smile so big your eyes disappear? ‘Cause that’s all I ever wanted to do, baby love. I never wanted to hurt you. I didn’t realize just how much I was hurting us,” his tone was low and raw; finesse scraped away by the jolt of Lola’s departure.

“I took a risk and lost,” Vin seemed to mutter to himself. “I lost more than I ever should’ve gambled.”

“Dalvin,” she moaned desperately. “Just make me forget all of that for a little while.” Tahli gazed into the hypnotizing spinners where his eyes should have been. Raise your hand if you have ever been completely owned by someone. No? Then hold your judgments.

Maybe if she did this… Maybe if she let him fuck every crumb of love she had left for him out of her…

right into his headboard; maybe she could finally get a full night’s sleep.

Maybe if she got to taste Vin’s tongue one last time, like she never did two Christmases ago; maybe her fingertips would stop tingling anytime he was near.

“I know it’s fucked up,” she battled morale, savoring the feel of his barbed arms under her fingers. “But I want your fucked up. What’s wrong with me?”

Up his neck, resting on his hairy face. “You ruin and repair me, baby. Ruin and repair me.” Tahli laid her forehead against his.

Like fighting her next vital breath, she was underwater with the surface waiting.

Starving before a feast. Dear God, she missed the way his being matched hers.

The way his touch made it all melt away.

The parachute he kept tucked in his back pocket to place her on whenever the real world bored or beat her too much.

“Which do you want?” He held her in place by her hips.

Tahli scrubbed her center against his hardness until the thumps from her clit betrayed her.

“Both,” she moaned. “You, Vin. I need you.”

“Tahli…you know me.” Vin’s wet kiss landed on her neck, before he trailed the tip of his tongue up her throat. “I’m good on sustaining. But I can’t deny you. Once you awaken me, I’ll be back to square one…weaning myself off of you. I’ve been good, baby love.”

Enlightened, Tahli blinked slowly. “You haven’t fucked her?”

Vin’s stare was his answer. Then she pushed her lips against his, shoving her love down his throat.

“Tahli…” He gripped her shoulders, forming distance. “You’ve been with that nigga. That shit drives me insane. Every time I think about somebody else touching you…it’s like shotgunning acid,” Vin’s baritone professed over drumming raindrops. So sexily. So mannish.

“It’s a fucking shank between the ribs. But I take that shit. That’s my payback for what I did to you. But baby love, don’t do this. Don’t fuck up my head and then run back to him. Do you even want to do that?”

“Dalvin. I’m beyond what I want. I’m in my underwear on top of my ex-husband who broke my heart, with a good guy waiting at home for me.

I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t need you.

You don’t need me?” She murmured against his lips.

Because Tahli had a need bigger than morality. A need to feel like his again.

“You’re hurting, Vin. You won’t say it, but you are.

” Tahli brushed her lips on his, tasting his ache.

“Sometimes when you’re in pain. Deep, deep, deep pain, baby.

You just want to feel something familiar.

Something you already know the effect of.

The potential. Something you miss.” A second later, Vin had her lips between his, kissing her with every emotion she felt him unleash.

“I’ll do anything for you,” he breathed into her mouth, with the eye contact that Adam had to have given Eve. “Even the shit I know is gonna fuck me up later.” That was his forfeit.

They tongue-kissed to the floor. Like the phantom he was, Vin had her bra and panties removed before her body hit the rug.

He slid out of his boxers with a look that assured Tahli was good as destroyed.

His mighty hand rested on her belly, and Tahli watched him observe the rise and fall of her breaths.

“Relax.” She did.

Dipping low, Vin slowly parted her thighs, kissing on each one before slurping her clit into his humid mouth in one oyster suck.

Tahli’s back formed the Gateway Arch of ecstasy as his lapping ensued.

The crown of his tongue, excavating her folds, freed moans of selfish pleasure.

Tahli bathed in it until she exploded, clamping her legs against his scratchy cheeks.

His jagged nails dug into her soft ass, as Vin ravenously drank.

Marbles for eyes rolled into her skull. Vin rose on his knees, shielding her body with his, lips slick with her release.

“Dalvin,” Tahli whimpered, anticipating absorbing him. She felt awful and selfish and beautiful and…whole. She felt whole.

“No crying.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “Shit, Tahli,” he grunted, inching into her, as her starving walls tried to suck him inside. “Just…fucking wait . This pussy so hot and soaking. I gotta last.”

“If you need to let go, don’t hold back, baby. Just give me more later,” Tahli granted, and watched his eyes hood. Vin pushed her knees into the rug, and Tahli’s juices pooled down to her asshole, swathing him.

“Oh, my fucking God,” Vin groaned deep in her ear, sinking into her cushioned walls. They tingled in ecstasy, rushing for the magnitude of bliss they missed.