Page 121 of On the Ropes
“I let you believe I was fine with our arrangement. I wasn’t,” I said firmly. “I wasn’t ever fine with it. Even if you getting me to have fun again was exactly what I needed. It’s not a secret that I’ve been wandering around lost and frustrated since retiring. Wound tight and letting the opinions of an entire industry make me feel guilty for a decision I’m proud of. But I was still worried that I’d never be good at anything else but fighting. You made me remember that I was a human being again. Not a machine. You made me remember that my life was mine, my body was mine, my choices were mine. I didn’t think I’d ever experience the way I felt as a kid ever again. Carefree. Enjoying things without rules behind them. Leaping without looking.”
Tabitha was still quiet, sensing that I needed to reach the end of the speech I’d practiced. Her body language was anything but—I thought she might levitate straight off the couch. Every time I saw her smile, I was helpless not to return it. Reaching into my pocket, I slid the second item across the table. Her eyes went wide when she realized what it was.
“Dean,” she started.
“I officially turned down the commentator job in Vegas,” I said.
Her mouth dropped open. “You did?”
I nodded. “I don’t want to be Dean the Machine again. I’m not a person who wants to make money off a sport I love but that isn’t my home anymore. That isn’t a place I can trust anymore. Being a pro gave me a feeling of power and identity and purpose that was really addicting. I think I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. Sometimes in wrong places, like taking a job I didn’t want so I could feel like a big deal.” I smiled, the next words making a whole lot of sense to me. “I’m staying here, and I’m gonna run the senior food program at the rec center. I convinced Eddie to sign up, so I’m off to an okay start.”
She laughed, sounding relieved, wiping the tears from her eyes. “That’s better than an okay start. That’s brilliant. You’re going to do so much good for our neighborhood, Dean.”
I couldn’t ignore my heart’s reaction to the words our neighborhood. Or how passionately Tabitha spoke them.
I tapped the ticket. “I already asked Rowan if I could have some time off, maybe in a few months. To come see you.” I gathered my remaining courage from a source I knew came from my family. “Tabitha, I couldn’t care less where you live if you still want to be together. If you still want to be with me. I know none of this is ideal. But I can’t turn my back on fighting for you. Fighting to love you. My parents—” My voice cracked. “My parents have had to fight for their love, their family, their right to be here for their entire lives. Alexis and Eric have had to fight. All those people in our support groups having to demand their right to exist. I walked out the door yesterday out of fear and my own self-doubt. I don’t ever want to let that get between us again.”
Tabitha launched herself into my arms. I barely had a second to realize I was holding her warm, soft body—barely a second to understand that just twenty-four hours apart had wrecked me. Then her mouth was on mine, hands holding my face, and she was kissing me. I speared my fingers into her hair and drank her in, pouring all of my hope and yearning into the space between our breaths. She pulled back just a few inches, still straddling me. Still cradling my face in her palms.
“I’m not going to Texas,” she said breathlessly. “I officially, well, broke that contract in Austin, though I was able to hook them up with a videographer friend who’s on her way out there now to take my spot. But I’m staying in South Philly, Dean.”
Gratitude had me kissing her again for a long, sweet minute. Until we both trembled. “You’re coming home for good?”
She nodded, eyes bright. “Last night, I realized a couple things all at once. That I had been punishing myself for the role I thought I played in the worst years of my family’s life. Always leaving so I could stay one step ahead of my own guilt and regret. Never letting myself be truly vulnerable with anyone.” She touched my lips. “Until you. It gave me the courage to tell my family everything.”
I curled my hands up her back and pulled her closer.
“They’d been holding on to their own secrets from that time. Their own guilt. We were all trying to protect each other from the worst of what our mother did. But all those secrets, all those white lies, they weren’t allowing us to heal together. Hiding those parts of myself also meant I hid them from you. Pretended I wanted a sexy summer fling when the truth is…”
I held her face. Swiped her tears away with my thumbs. There was no sound, no distractions. I was only focused on the woman of my dreams.
“The truth is I knew from the very beginning that what I felt for you was different,” she whispered, voice thick. “That it was precious and rare and deserving of my honesty and true feelings. Instead, I pushed you away and told you I wasn’t interested in anything real over and over. I am so sorry, Dean. I’m desperately, head over heels in love with you, and I had no idea it could be this beautiful—”
I had Tabitha on her back on the couch a second later. We reached for each other at the same time, mouths crashing together in a possessive kiss. I broke us apart to hold her face, our gazes locked. “I’m desperately in love with you, Tabitha Tyler. You’re everything that I was missing in my life.”
Her smile became laughter, filled with relief. And that sound became a muffled, pleased moan as I kissed her in earnest. Those luscious, tattooed thighs hooked around my waist. I licked down her throat as her nails bit into my back. I slid my hand down her leg until I could palm her pussy, already hot and wet against my fingers. Her back arched at the contact.
“Why are we always having sex on couches?” she sighed. “And why are we always wearing clothes?”
I nipped at her ear. Circled her clit with my fingers. “Do you want me to stop so we can move?”
“No, no,” she laughed. “Please…God, I need you.”
I hooked my fingers into her underwear and slid it down her legs, tossing it to the ground. Our mouths on each other were relentless. The kiss deepened. I returned my hand to her folds, teasing her clit, circling her opening. Tabitha moaned and whimpered against my lips, tongue stroking against mine. She fisted my shirt, clinging to my shoulders, writhing beneath me. Raw power coursed through my veins. It was the confident knowledge that the woman I loved also loved me. It was a deep gratitude for the connections that brought us back together. It was her vulnerability. Her openness. That charming smile and goofy humor coaxing me back to a life filled with color.
It made every other type of power I’d felt in my life pale in comparison.
Her hands landed on the zipper of my shorts, fingers clumsy. “Now, Dean,” she begged. “I want you, here. Just like this.”
We made quick but awkward work of kicking off my shoes and tearing off my shorts. We were laughing by the end, my lips traveling over her hair, across her face. “The next time we do this,” I said, dragging my cock against her. “We will be naked. We will be in a bed. We will not be on a couch or against a door or in a shower or the back seat of a fucking truck.”
“I completely agree,” she said, still giggling until I hooked her knee high and thrust my cock deep in one fluid motion. I groaned raggedly, overwhelmed with too many sensations. I pulled back a few inches. Gave her a few slow, shallow strokes that became fast and deliberate. I drove between her legs with our lips close, kisses messy, teeth nipping at skin. She grabbed my ass, urging me faster.
“So close…so close,” she cried. Her internal walls were squeezing tight, pushing me to the brink. I reached between us to caress her clit, and she gasped.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too. I love… Yes, oh God.” Tabitha came, taking me with her, and my climax was earth-shattering and satisfying in a new and different way. We lay together, panting and sprawled on the couch. When I finally had the strength to lift my head, Tabitha was flushed and gazing at me like I was the love of her life.
