Chapter Eight: Blooming Torturous Delight
"You'll try to?" Tig pushed, not able to obscure the hope heavily infused in his words
"I will," Rosamund murmured as she tucked the bath towel back in place around herself.
As Tig reluctantly left Rosamund alone to dry off and slowly get dressed, back in Charming, Hector Salazar filled up his car at the gas station before heading out to the last location that Rosamund's phone pinged.
Back the Club House, Gemma pulled a couple stacks of banded twenties from her personal safe and tucked it in her makeup case to slip to Tig before she tugged her phone free and dialed him.
Up at her father's house, Tig's phone rang after she tapped call.
"Gem," he casually answered.
"Tig, everything alright?"
"Yeah," Tig mumbled.
"Tigger, is Hale's niece okay?"
Gemma could hear his smile though the phone.
"Did you find the box in the footlocker?" he asked ignoring her question.
"Yes, we'll be there tomorrow evening, if the weather holds we can have a barbecue."
Gemma couldn't hear his nod as Tig stared down the hall, anxious for Rosamund to rejoin his breathing space.
"Sounds good Gem," Tig said quickly before he ended the call when Rosamund appeared at the end of the hall.
"Everything okay?" she asked as she plucked another bottled coffee from the fridge and settling at the kitchen table.
"Gem and some of my brothers will get here tomorrow."
Rosamund pressed her lips together, a fresh layer of nerves settled over her, an uneasy cloak at the house being inundated with a lot of people.
Tig could sense her rising anxiety and pushed away from the kitchen island. "Hey, it's alright," he murmured in what he hoped was a soothing tone as he settled his large hands on the smooth caps of her shoulders.
"It's okay," he reiterated as he massaged her neck and shoulders, pushing the pads of his thumbs into her taut flesh.
"I haven't even begun to wrap my head about whatever's happening here to think about meeting more people," Rosamund admitted.
"What's happening here?" Tig asked, latching onto her admission.
"I don't know," Rosamund answered on a shaky breath as she barely managed to add. "What's happening here according to you?"
Tig slowed the circular motions of his palms against her shoulder blades. "I'd like to talk about our future before everyone arrives," he rasped as he leaned down and pressed his lips against the side of her neck, his exhale hot against her flushed skin.
"Our future?" Rosamund asked, tipping back her head to meet his eyes.
"Yes," Tig growled before he dropped his head and bit her neck, a living in the daylight vampire as his teeth nearly broke her skin and forced a sharp sound from between Rosamund's lips.
"What kind of future do you imagine?" she managed on a strangled gasp.
"Anything you want doll, long as it's together."
Rosamund lapsed into silence, her mind struggling to process.
"What do ya want baby?" Tig asked as she remained silent, save for her ragged breathing.
Rosamund surprised them both with a girlish giggle.
"What's funny doll?"
Rosamund shook her head. "I'm still not used to the idea of getting to make a choice for myself," she said sadly.
"Ask me for anything," Tig rasped in a tone just shy of demanding.
As Tig waited for Rosamund to formulate a reply, back in Charming, Gemma and Clay were finally able to steal some alone time as they sat on the porch swing and enjoyed the silence before whatever faced them as they drove north to the house Gemma had called a home as a child.
"Is Tig okay baby?" Clay finally asked.
"He will be baby," Gemma assured him.
As they continued to swing lightly, the day clear and cloudless, back north in Gemma's childhood home, Rosamund reached up and patted the tops of Tig's hands as they rested on her shoulders.
"There is something I want ….. need," she started before trailing off.
"Anything," Tig said immediately.
"I need you to promise me that I'll never have to see my uncle again," Rosamund murmured, squeezing his hands rhythmically.
Rosamund searched his eyes as he trailed a hand up to cup her jaw, murmuring hoarsely as he traced the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. "Never. He'll never be able to hurt you again," Tig rasped as he dropped his face and pressed his lips to hers, urgently swallowing her breath as he tried to impress the veracity of his words.
"You don't know my uncle's reach," she breathed when Tig lifted his lips.
He chuckled thinking of the slimy, toadstool Hale being able to instill fear in anyone, but he saw Rosamund's fear reflected in her wide, unblinking eyes.
Tig wanted to know why she was afraid of the small man who was attempting a hostile takeover of Charming through blackmail, murder, and extortion.
Tig turned Rosamund's entire chair around until she was facing him and squatted in front of her, his knees popping in protest.
"What did he do to you baby?" he asked, desperate to get answers out of her as she shook her head and looked everywhere but his face.
"Tell me," Tig demanded on a ragged growl.
Rosamund shook her head, "I don't want to get into that right now, it's a long story."
"My family will show up tomorrow, I'd like to know how'd ya feel about more."
"More?" she asked, a frown as she wasn't quite following what he was trying to say in his own way.
"More with me."
"What's that look like?" Rosamund whispered.
"Be with me, live with me," Tig murmured as he anxiously smoothed his hands up and down the outside of her thighs.
"Oh," she uttered, her chest tightening, finding herself unable to look away from Tig's penetrating gaze, cold blue fire pulsed in his orbs, his pupils pinpoint black dots in the bright kitchen.
Rosamund could hear the vulnerability in his admission, feel his nervousness at being exposed on the Serengeti to carnivorous animals looking for a pound of flesh.
"Where would we live?"
Tig felt bolstered that her first answer hadn't been a no and settled his hands on the curvature of her knees, moving his palms in slow circles.
"Wherever you'd feel the safest."
Rosamund shook her head slowly, "but what about your family, you can't want to leave that, start over," she started to stumble over before Tig interrupted her.
"There's other shops I can work, I can repair bikes anywhere baby."
"And being away from your family?"
"I can commute doll, it'll be hell on our budget," he teased.
Rosamund pressed her lips together and tried to keep from going down the sunny path to levity and instead stayed in the storm. "What about that memory card? My uncle will never stop looking for it."
"The card will be gone soon," he said thinking of Chuckie getting them the right contacts to leverage Hale with his own stolen information once they delved into the card's contents.
Tig watched Rosamund process his words and sort through what must've been too many questions to pick from to ask next. He glanced at the flashing digits of the clock on the stainless-steel microwave, calculating how much time before the house would be full of people and not much privacy to be found.
He desperately wanted to shatter the walls of seemingly impenetrable resistance she had carefully built around every part of herself. Discover why she'd blocked out the light with heart-stopping fear and bathed in a sea of tears.
The kitchen began to feel suffocating, the walls seemed to be closing in on Tig as he rose to his full height and pulled Rosamund to her feet.
"I need some air," he heard himself admit and tugged Rosamund towards the living room and double-paned sliding glass door that led to a redwood deck with a couple stairs that spilled onto a river rock walking path surrounded by lushly blooming flowers and thick bed of ivy.
Tig watched as Rosamund was drawn to the plump, full dahlia blossoms, boasting contrasting petals in teal and sunshine yellow. He licked his lips as she brushed her fingertips against the tall gladiolas that shot up proudly from the ground.
"So beautiful," Rosamund murmured as she traced a velvet petal as she looked back over her shoulder at Tig from where he remained rooted to the deck.
"Yes, beautiful," Tig murmured on a strangled whisper. The weight of his gaze and heat of his words made Rosamund flush and turn back towards the blooming yard.
Tig caught the briefest glimpse of the pleased smile that pulled at the corners of her lips before she turned away.
He swore under his breath when he heard the faint ring of his cellphone that was plugged in and charging on the kitchen counter.
"I need to get that," he said as Rosamund turned back towards him when she heard his phone ring. "Do I need to worry about you running away?"
Rosamund shook her head, "where would I go?"
"Canada?"
"Go answer your phone," Rosamund said easily.
Tig caught the call right before it was diverted to voicemail.
"Clay?" he answered.
"You alright brother?"
Tig walked to the deep sink and stared through the window at Rosamund walking through the yard, touching leaves, and gingerly avoiding thorns. "Yeah, it's good," Tig vaguely answered.
"We'll be there tomorrow before 5."
"You hear anything new from Hale?"
Clay blew out a deep breath, "he wants the card back that she stole at any cost."
They talked more about the plan once everyone arrived. Finding out what secrets Hale was using to take over the city and economy of Charming was in the front of Clay's mind.
Before they ended the call, Tig dropped his voice so low that Clay nearly didn't hear him. "How long fore you knew Gem was supposed to be your old lady?"
"Not long brother, not long," Clay chuckled before ending the call.
Tig poured two healthy glasses full of scotch before returning to the weather-protected deck and settled on the porch swing. Gemma's father had built the swing when she was a toddler, she always looked back in fond memory of the hours spent sitting on it with Nate, blowing bubbles.
Clay's wedding present to Gemma had been building a duplicate of the porch swing for their own home.
Rosamund made her way towards the porch swing as Tig settled, the chains squeaking from a while without use.
"Good call?" she asked as she sat on the bench, leaving more space than he would've liked between them.
Tig nodded as he passed her the other glass of amber alcohol.
Rosamund took a few sips from the glass, feeling warmth spread throughout her chest and belly from the strong booze.
"Can I ask ya something doll?" Tig asked as he drained his glass and slid over to eliminate any space between them.
Rosamund nodded as Tig dropped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her against his warm side.
"Tell me why you hurt yourself baby," he murmured as he settled a hand on her belly, smoothing his palm in slow circles over the thin cotton layer keeping him from touching her bare skin.
Rosamund laid a hand over Tig's, he found saccharine sweet relief that she didn't urge him to stop.
"I don't know where I'd start," she admitted on a dry chuckle.
"Start at the beginning," Tig pressed as he smoothed his hand up the front of her body, trailing his palm over the warm curve of her breast until he could grip her chin and turn her face upwards to meet his. "Tell me why you're afraid," he pleaded before he crushed his lips to her, hoping he could find the answers in her very exhale.
Rosamund let Tig pull her close after he lifted his lips. She let out a slow breath as she talked about being picked up by Hale at the hospital after her parents had died. How he had promised that he'd take care of her.
Hale planted the seeds of fear and tended the garden of insecurities that plagued her, telling her what she was thinking, feeling and all that she longed to be.
Tig forced himself to listen without interrupting her, without letting his anger drive him from the bench seat and back to Charming to personally eviscerate Hale with a pair of fingernail clippers.
Tig refilled their glasses frequently as Rosamund told him about her structured and unorthodox education. The private lessons to make her a penitent housewife, to be able to make a crown rack of lamb dinner for an impromptu dinner as well as be able to debate the fundamental issues with the IMF to the structure of the United Nations.
Tig felt Rosamund's shoulders shake as she tried to suppress her sobs as she recounted the first time Jacob Hale had slipped into her bedroom at night. How he had humiliated her and instilled the first stone in the foundation for original fear.
She sniffed hard and wiped at her flowing tears as she told Tig that she'd found the first remedy against the darkness that threatened to consume her in the brief moments when she sliced open her skin. In those small heartbeats of existence she could breathe again, feeling momentary relief when blood was called to the surface and spilled out of the lacerated flesh.
Eventually the sun began to set, and they made their way back in the house in search of food to soak up their collective belly's full of the potent scotch.
Tig went to use the bathroom as Rosamund went to the kitchen to put something together that didn't require cooking.
She washed her hands at the sink and found herself lost in thought as she watched the sunlight die and the moonlight begin to shine on the shiny leaves and soft petals.
Tig paused in the doorway and watched her staring out the window, not hearing him sneak up behind her until his arms were suddenly around the middle of her body, squeezing her flush to his body.
"Thank you," Tig said before he pressed his lips to the curve of where her neck met her shoulder.
"For what?" she managed.
"For you," Tig growled as he smoothed one hand down to cup the apex at the center of thighs, massaging his palm against her intimacy through her pants.
Rosamund closed her eyes as Tig moved his hands to rest on her hips and tug her away from the sink. "Come on," he rasped heavily.
"Hmmm?" she muttered.
"Let's go lay down," he said as he tightened his grip.
Rosamund let Tig lead her to the spacious master bedroom.
"It's our last night alone and," Tig started to say before he quickly pulled off his shirt and began unzipping his jeans.
"And?" she said near breathlessly as he slipped out of the last of his clothes before he pulled her into his naked embrace, squeezing her to his bare flesh, longing for nothing in between them.
"And I want to see all of you," Tig rasped as he captured her lips under his. "Taste you," he added raggedly.
Rosamund felt a warm flush wash over her, "could you turn off the light?"
Tig's eyes never left hers as he walked over and turned off the bedside table, leaving the room dim from the bathroom light she'd left on earlier.
Rosamund let Tig push her back against the mattress before he began tugging open the buttons of her long-sleeved top. She couldn't suppress the shakiness that spilled through her as his fingertips brushed against her bare skin as he pulled the fabric apart.
Tig could hazily make out her features in the barely lit room as he reached the last button and exposed her scarred belly.
"Baby," he moaned as he settled lower in the bed and pressed his lips to the various ridges of scar tissue in different stages of healing.
Rosamund shivered when she felt Tig's warm tongue trace the ugly, shameful souvenirs of slicing up her body.
She felt her nerves begin to fail and tried to squirm away from him when Tig began tugging at the waistband of her pants.
"Don't hide," Tig demanded on a strangled rasp as he assertively yanked her pants down her thighs and past her knees. He kicked them off as he shifted her until she was pinned underneath him. "You have nothing to be ashamed of," he added as he traced the pads of his fingers over the scarred skin under her belly button.
He hated that she'd only found comfort in hurting herself.
Tig splayed his hand on her lower belly, trying to encompass all the scarification with one large hand before he urged her thighs further apart, his cock pulsing with anticipation of filling her.
"You know you're going to have to marry me," he said on a ragged breath.
Rosamund blinked up at him in the dim room, finding his cerulean eyes glittering even with the poor light as he plunged into her, his erratic thrusting fueled by furious possessiveness.
Tig filled her until their intimate flesh wetly kissed, forcing her breath to leave at the end of each abrupt thrust.
Tig didn't give her time to speak before he captured her lips under his. "Don't say anything about that yet," he mumbled, a touch of youthful embarrassment washed over him as he returned his lips to hers.
Rosamund felt her thighs begin to trouble as each stab of his thick rigidity stimulated a group of spongy nerve cells, causing her body to quake with each of his plunges.
She found herself raising her hands and kneading her fingers into the flesh in the natural curve of his lower back, urging him closer, wanting him deeper.
As their ragged breathing grew in orgasmic crescendo, eventually culminating in collective, knee-shuddering climax, hours and hours in the opposite direction, Hector Salazar was scrutinizing every square inch of where Tig and Rosamund had violently met. He scowled at the items strewn about that Rosamund had wildly thrown at Tig.
Hector broke out into a wide smile when he found the stolen luxury sedan and grew doubly excited when he found the left behind key ring. He whistled as he started up the large engine that purred with its regular maintenance. He yawned, wanting to drink until he passed out, he still didn't have an idea of which direction to head.
Hector skipped over to the sleazy 24-hour convenience store and picked up a pack of cigarettes and fifth of Jack before finding inebriated solace as night turned into day.