Everything looked smaller, even his father.
He never thought I murdered those people.
He missed me.
The way his father had looked at him…with joy and regret. It brought everything rushing back. Laughter at breakfast and Christmas morning and playing catch in the front yard. There had been good times. A lot of them. Maybe they’d just been too hard to think about.
Mary, still dressed like a ghost princess, followed behind them with a hand on Tucker’s shoulder, apologizing faster than she could draw breath, which led to her puffing in his wake and his worry ballooning to encompass two people, instead of one.
“Honey, it’s going to be fine,” he said calmly over his shoulder. “Breathe for me. Please. This is not your fault.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No. It was my decision to present myself like some freaky corpse version of his son—”
Mary wailed miserably, turning the dial on his mate’s instinct, making it so that when they walked into the house, every piece of furniture bobbed several inches above the ground. Tucker took a deep breath through his nose and wove through the kitchen, turning sideways down the back hallway that led to his father’s bedroom. Nothing had changed there, either. His mother’s side of the bed was undisturbed, nary a dent in the pillow, while the sheets on his father’s side were rumpled and slept in.
He swallowed the lodgment in his throat and settled his father down, shaking his shoulder as gently as he could, trying not to dwell too much on the frail quality of his bones, his paper-like skin. “Pops,” Tucker said. “Wake up.”
The pace of the older man’s pulse didn’t change, keeping its steady thunkthunkthunk.
Concluding that Carl needed a few more minutes to mentally recover from seeing his son back—but not technically back—from the dead, Tucker turned away from the bed to find Mary wringing her hands beneath her ghost costume. There was no choice but to heal her feelings, make her better. The need pounded within him like a snare drum.
“Come here, honey,” he said gruffly, taking the crown off, followed by the sheet. Beneath the costume, she was flushed with moisture welling in her eyes and he didn’t stop to remind himself getting too close was unwise. No, he simply gathered her up off the floor, holding her to his chest, supporting her butt with his forearm so she could wrap her legs around his waist. “He’s going to be fine.”
“I should be comforting you.”
“I’m comforted when you are.”
She buried her face in his neck and languid fingers of pleasure stroked his senses. “How can I understand the consequences of my actions when I haven’t ever really done anything in my nineteen years? I need more life experience before I start meddling like this.”
“Mary, you did a good thing.”
“He’s unconscious!”
“Look.” He tipped her chin up so she would meet his eyes. “Whatever happens from here on out…” He shook his head. “Do you have any idea what kind of weight is off my shoulders knowing my father never suspected me of murder?” He hadn’t even truly taken the time to digest that yet. Or the regrets his father expressed, which had ultimately forced him out into the open. If only he’d had a chance to voice his own—and he would. As soon as the dude woke up. “And that, honey, is nothing compared to the ass whooping of knowledge you gave me tonight. You were right. I’ve been creating excuses to keep happiness just out of reach. For a long time. You made me realize that. So you’re doing pretty good at meddling, life experience be damned.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said firmly.
She cast a worried look over Tucker’s shoulder where Carl still hadn’t moved, so he carried her out of the room into the hallway. The drive to distract her from the distress was fierce and it multiplied when she started chewing on her lower lip anxiously. It was so full, that bottom lip. Smooth and rose hued. Just like her cheeks and the tip of her nose. Following that upward path brought him to her wide, luminous eyes.
Mary seemed to realize on a dime that Tucker had gone still. Well, not entirely still. His body seemed intent on swaying forward, taking the single step that would flatten Mary between him and the wall. With a feminine gasp, her small hands curled on his shoulders, her tongue coming out to wet her lips—and at the same time, he pressed forward with his hips, his palms smoothing up the outside of her thighs to cradle her hips.
“I feel like I haven’t kissed you in years,” she whimpered against his mouth.
“It’s torture,” he groaned, interlocking their lips, but not kissing her. In his current state of mind, a kiss could lead to a lot more.
Some part of him knew he was seeking comfort from Mary, because all of this, being home after so long, was overwhelming. But more than that, he was simply losing his grip on the ironclad control it took not to fuck his mate. Now was not the time, though. Not here and now.