Page 63 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

She watched his gaze rest on the closed patio door as offbeat raindrops struck the glass.

“I’ll survive,” was Vin’s impassioned reply. Tahli imagined where she fell now. He survived Lola’s abandonment. He would survive hers…again.

Heading for the door didn’t feel good. The tug in her chest pulled harder with each step away from the parachute, back to the rest of the world.

“Tahli,” he called for her, and Tahli awaited his direction.

“Don’t forget to put your ring on.”

Drew had left. Tahli entered her dim, still home, the lips of her womanhood still sore and swollen; Vin’s sperm oozing from her gratified walls. The need to shower off her dirty deeds swiftly moved her feet.

Tossing keys onto the foyer table, Tahli set the alarm. Two steps to the staircase and an icy tone suspended her.

“You fucked him, didn’t you?”

She startled. Hand shot to sinking heart. Her shoulders slumped in instant remorse, Drew’s question constricting the space between her breasts. One of them, still stinging from Vin’s bites to her nipple.

“Wha…Where’s your car?” Tahli was unable to muster much else with her souring stomach. The living room lamp flipped on, and Tahli shielded the sudden glow with a hand to her brow. She felt drunk. Grimy. Could still smell Vin’s skin on hers; his sweat soaked into her pores.

“I parked it down the street so you wouldn’t know I was here. If you would’ve brought him back here, I probably would have killed him.”

That may not have played out how Drew projected.

“May have killed you both,” he threatened, and Vin would murder him for the threat alone.

But Tahli was too busy pushing mediocre arcade pizza back down her throat to be offended by his very valid threats.

She was scum. She was low, reckless, and inconsiderate.

.. She was Vin. They were now one beyond matrimony. They were one in sordid selfishness.

“I’m so sorry, Drew,” she shut her eyes to swear, unable to look into his.

“How could you, Tahli?” Wound splintered the question. “I knew…I knew I shouldn’t have let you go there. But I thought…if we’re gonna spend the rest of our lives together…and she has three children with this fucking guy…I can’t worry anytime she’s alone with him.”

Tears tickled her nose. Yes, Drew had trusted a crackhead in a crack house. But it was Tahli who picked up the pipe.

“I’m so fucked up,” she whispered, swiping her leaking nostrils. “I…I can’t even…I can’t explain it. When I’m with him…” Tahli could only shake her head for the rest.

“Why?” Drew got stuck on the why. Tahli understood. She had gotten stuck on the why once. “After everything that he did?”

Her gaze trekked off. The night of drunken karaoke, Paige advised that Tahli needed to be alone for a while. Spoke of trauma responses and such. Control issues…

“I don’t know what happened,” Tahli breathed out, spluttering. I was possessed. Obsessed. Disgustingly obsessed.

“I already know what happened.” Tahli launched bewildered eyes into his, as Drew approached, still dressed in the jeans and t-shirt she had left him in. Yes. Drew was in the real world in his real-world clothes. Tahli…was back in the real world. Not on a parachute in the cosmics.

“I know enough about Dalvin to know you went over there to comfort him…out of the kindness of your heart…and he took advantage of the love you still have for him.”

Tahli brought her thumb to her mouth. Chomped down on it like a toddler. Drew had some roles reversed. It was Tahli who had abused her power over Vin for her selfish gain at his vulnerable moment.

Albeit not with malice, the act was one of healing. But selfish, nonetheless. Did he know that? Something told her that Drew already knew that.

But she had ruined him already. The details would only scorch his already-shattered heart.

“You didn’t deserve this.” Tahli shook her wet face, unscrewing the engagement ring from her finger. Sodden with regret, and…something else. “I didn’t deserved you , Drew.”

“What are you doing?”

Her tired eyes lifted to him, and Tahli froze with the ring between her fingers.

“Put that ring back on, Tahli.”

A sharp breath trapped in her throat. “…Huh?”

“You’re not running from me.”

She almost pissed herself.

“Do you want to be with Dalvin?”

“Huh?”

“I said…” He took another deliberate step. ““Do you want to be with Dalvin?”

Tahli shook her head before a syllable could develop.

“N-n-no. No… No,” she added, adamant. She couldn’t be. Vin had heaven in him. But he was wrapped in barbed wire. Tahli had to slice herself just to get to it.

“Okay. So why would I let you go?”

Tahli looked off to her front door. Was that rhetorical? Because my pussy lips are literally stuck together with his dried semen .

“Look…maybe we moved too fast. Okay, fuck it, we did. Of course, we did! A year after your divorce, we were engaged. 15 years of love and marriage, it doesn’t just go away. But if you don’t want a future with Dalvin, then we can get through this.

“Just because you don’t want to be with Dalvin, doesn’t mean you’re over him. I’m not that gullible. You may never get over him. But it doesn’t mean he’s what’s best for you. I’m what’s best for you, Tahli. Maybe we go slower… Maybe we communicate more. But I want you. Do you want me?”

Perhaps…if it was relief she had smelled slipping off that hundred-pound ring.

Perhaps…the aroma was fading. Tahli had been so terrified of being alone.

After living the better part of her life connected with someone, the idea seemed intolerable.

Quite simply, if she were alone, she would take Vin back.

Isolated, seeing him daily; denying her heart’s yearning.

She needed a place to keep her heart protected.

Drew was the safe Tahli could place her heart in.

She refused to be the woman who let a good man go for the second time, just because she was still a little fucked up over a bad one.

“Yes,” Tahli uttered, surer.

“Good. Because when we take that step…in this marriage, we will work shit out. This is going to last. We’re going to take our time to make sure of it.” In this marriage . As if superior to the one before.

“I’m…” Tahli shook her head, still processing Drew’s level of understanding as he closed the space between them, gliding the ring back on her finger. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

He nodded. “I know. But I want you more than I want to punish you for your mistakes.” That broke skin. “Let’s go upstairs and get you cleaned up. Then we can talk some more.”

Drew took her by the hand, leading her upstairs, and Tahli wondered if Vin felt this loaded with shame.