Brianna absolutely adored the way his body had grown and changed and she couldn't seem to keep from touching him. Maybe she wanted to keep reassuring herself that Tuck was really here and this wasn't some dream. "You probably would have been fucking with my life, but I don't know for sure if that would have been a bad thing," she murmured. He had asked her to be honest with him, so she would be. Maybe she was being honest with herself too. "It's hard to say now, and maybe it doesn't matter. It sounded like you were doing well for yourself and I wouldn't have wanted to fuck up your life either." She still didn't, but he had made the choice to come back here and Brianna wasn't going to complain about it.
Tuck grunted softly. “Doing well is pretty relative,” he murmured. They’d both promised to be honest, and he couldn’t truthfully say he’d been living some fulfilled existence for the past several years. Making money wasn’t the same as being happy -- it just massively helped some things. “My bank account was doing great, and I’ve been okay, but ... not so much in the romance department.” Tuck gave a faint smile at the admission. He wasn’t trying to elicit sympathy or anything, a lot of his struggle with women was his own fault, he just didn’t want to leave Brianna with the impression that he was out there having successful relationships all over the place. Getting laid was one thing, really being with a woman was something else. “But we’re here now,” he murmured, lightly stroking his hand down the curve of her back. “And I’m staying for a while ... I want to see how it goes. If you do too.”
Brianna knew from what Tuck had told her that he hadn't had a lot of luck with relationships, though he had been married once. Not that marriage equated luck, obviously. She thought about her own marriage and how long it had been since she had felt guilt over sleeping with other men. Had James ever felt guilty? Or had he justified it to himself somehow. Brianna leaned in to press a kiss to Tuck's lips, pushing aside any lingering thoughts of her husband. "I do," she said once she pulled back. They were talking like she didn't have a wedding ring on her finger. Was that wrong? Fucked up? Probably. "I just think it's best that we don't jump into anything with high expectations. I don't want you to get to know who I am now and find yourself disappointed."
He felt no guilt whatsoever, and didn’t care much about the ring on her finger. In a world where divorce was so common and relatively easy to get, what did it matter? Brianna obviously wasn’t still passionately in love with and devoted to her husband, otherwise she wouldn’t be in Tuck’s bed with him. If things were rocky enough that Tuck could offer an appealing alternative, then that was James’s problem. He nodded a bit to what Brianna said, though he couldn’t imagine finding anything about her disappointing. He’d been wildly in love with her as a teenager, and of course he knew that adults were more complex with different priorities, and their relationship would end up looking completely different than it had in high school ... but Tuck still wanted to give it a chance. As much of a chance as they could get. Neither of them were getting any younger, and there was obviously still a spark between them. “Likewise,” he murmured, gazing back at her with a faint smile. “No expectations, we’re just getting acquainted again.”
Brianna had to imagine some men would be turned off by the wedding ring, or the complications of divorce, especially when children were involved. But her kids were all mostly grown and it wasn't like Brianna had ever considered leaving James for another man. She had considered divorce, but never to pursue a romance with someone else. "We're doing pretty good at that part so far," Brianna said, scooting in closer to Tuck's body. "Getting reacquainted." Physically, at least. Their bodies had definitely retained the chemistry from their younger days. "What prompted you to come back here," she asked, searching his face. "I know you said it was for me, but why now?"