Too Hard to Forget (Romancing the Clarksons Book 3)

by Tessa Bailey

  “Hey. Baby.” He shook her by the shoulders. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “N-nowhere. I’m…”

  “You’re here with Elliott.” His hands cupped her backside and ground her on his erection, a strained growl drifting from his mouth. “That’s where you are. Right where I need you.”

  Peggy’s head shake was disjointed. “But w-we shouldn’t be, right?”

  Even in the midst of his visible, gripping need, he seemed to be grinding his jaw, but that made no sense. “No, we shouldn’t be. But that’s not going to stop you, is it?” He tugged her ass close and rolled his hips, at the same time, leveling a strangled fuck in her direction. “Do it. Drive me insane. I’m dying.”

  “Send you to hell?” she whispered.

  His Adam’s apple lifted and plummeted. “Send me to hell.”

  Bliss obscured her vision with a blurry screen as she started to ride. She gathered his head to her bouncing breasts, increasing her pace out of necessity when he sucked her nipples like a savage, his grip on her ass urging, urging. If it were anyone else on the entire planet, she wouldn’t have sensed the small part of him holding back. Elliott never did anything in half measure once his mind was set to the task, whether it be winning a football game or giving her pleasure. But something was off in the tight set of his jaw, the way he lifted his head to watch her under his half-mast eyelids, as if he were seeing her, finally seeing her and—

  No. It was too late. She didn’t want to know what he would find. Was terrified to know if it would change anything. Push him. Pushing him that final few meters toward the abandoned, animal mating they’d always known, without a thought to the consequences, was her only option.

  Peggy contracted her most intimate muscles around Elliott’s girth, listened as rusted epithets married in his throat, felt his fingers dig into the flesh of her backside. “These inches of yours,” she breathed up against his ear, licking the lobe, catching it between her teeth. “They’re the only ones that know the right spot to hit…the only ones that can make me scream. Or feel a damn thing. Please.”

  Her back landed on the bench, the wood’s coldness reaching through the back of her jacket to wrap around her spine. But the rest of her…oh God, the rest was so fucking hot, she knew the word fever would forever hold new meaning. Elliott descended on her with the power of a pack of wolves, caged inside one man.

  “Get your knees up. Get them up,” he snarled. Without waiting for her to comply with his command, he reached back and pulled her knees even with her hips, just out to the side. And that first drive with Elliott’s full weight on top of her was so glorious, it might have topped the orgasms he’d already given her. The positivity that she was being dominated, that she was prey and couldn’t escape his pinning heaviness, the thick evidence that he was man…it caused starburst to erupt behind her eyes, in her belly, all along her nerve endings.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she whispered, throwing her arms up over her head to grip the bench’s edge, just a foot or so from the top of her head. Already, her stomach muscles were tender, she could feel those twinges as they pulled again, already anticipating the oncoming rush of more.

  Elliott’s grunt in her ear turned into a long, drawn-out groan. “You’re the only one who’s ever gotten me going like this. Nothing comes close. How do you do it, baby? How? I can’t think about anything else when I’m this deep. Just getting us off so fucking hard. Feeling your tight pussy milk me and knowing I earned it.” His hips grazed the insides of her knees with each thrust; that snapping roll she craved constantly—the brutality and thoroughness of it—was finally hers and better than she remembered. A thousand times better. “Look at me, nailing you to a park bench. God above, you turn me into a pussy fiend. Just for yours, though, you made sure of that, didn’t you? Ruined me. You ruined me.”

  “Just returning the favor,” she gasped, elation and pleasure and fear throwing a party in her stomach. “Harder, Elliott. Deeper. Like it’s the last time.”

  She whimpered as her legs were thrown up over his shoulders, the cold of the night registering on her bare bottom, but nowhere else. And then, not even there, because he bore down on her so completely, not an inch of her was exposed or left uncovered by his muscular body in some way. His teeth snapped down on the curve of her neck as he drove inside her, reaching places that hadn’t been touched since the last time they were together. Peggy’s fingers clutched the bench’s edge so hard, she could feel cuts forming on her fingers, palms.

  “Put your hands on me,” he rasped into her ear, the volume of his voice fluctuating with his continued pumps. “You want to grab on to something, get those hands up in my hair, use your nails to open up the scars you left on my back. Touch me. I want you to touch me.”

  Her climax started to rise like the sun, slower than before, but twice as intense. It wasn’t going to simply take the edge off; it was going to create new, jagged ones. It was going to obliterate her, and she could do nothing to stop it. Not with the thick, wet glide of his erection hitting her in that spot—that spot—the base of him giving her sensitized clitoris hell with nonstop rubbing. If she just kept her hands on the bench, rather than him, she could salvage the mission, though. She could keep that one little part of herself from giving over, detaching, and flying away.

  As if sensing her resolve, Elliott set out to crush it, his mouth stamping down on her possessively, his tongue sweeping into her mouth and letting her taste his frustration. “Touch me,” he urged against her lips. “Skin on skin.”

  She shook her head, trying to distract him with more kissing, but he pulled away, those eyes drilling into her, his lower body grinding in rhythmic devastation, sending her so close to the point of no return, she lost her ability to think straight.

  “Damn you, Peggy,” Elliott growled, pressing his face into her shoulder. “I need your hands and eyes. I missed them most of all.” Their hearts slammed into each other between them, in perfect time with his rolling hips. But only hers was fracturing, splitting right down the middle, little pieces falling away as he continued. “No one ever touched me like you did. I’ve needed it, baby. I’ve been dead without it. Dead inside. Please.”

  Her hands moved on their own, shoving down the insides of Elliott’s jacket, past the waistband of his pants to scrape her nails over the taut flesh of his ass. His guttural groan in response sent her fingers raking up his back, her palms sliding down his spine. “Okay, okay,” she whispered, before his mouth took her again.

  Elliott was close, so close to the edge. She remembered his signals as if she’d never been gone a day. His thighs began to get restless, shifting and flinching, as if they weren’t under his control. He started holding his breath, releasing it in explosive bursts between utterances of her name, in that warning tone. Peggy, Peggy, I’m going to come.

  He didn’t have to say the words—his body spoke for him—but his breath puffed into her ear, along with one final litany that sent her orgasm cresting alongside his own. “Get ready to take it. The only cock that makes your pussy happy…it only comes for you, too, baby. Only between these spread legs of yours.” His hand came up to grip her jaw, tilting her head back. “Look at me while I brand you there. Going to pour it in, nice and hot.”

  Rising on a wave of undiluted ecstasy, she could no sooner have looked away than sever her own limbs. “Elliott,” she said, shaking head to toe. “Oh God, Elliott.”

  His free hand gripped the back of the bench, that giant body pumping one final time, teeth clenching on a moan. His hips gave five unexpected, smacking drives, as if his climax had continued on longer than expected, longer than was possible, and then he dropped down onto her heavily, breath rasping in her ear.

  Replete of energy, Peggy barely managed to unwedge her legs from beneath him and rest her ankles on his lower back, staring up at the night sky. Words, touches, sensations were already replaying in her mind, amplified now with renewed perspective.

  This walk in the park had been
about closure, moving on from the past, away from something she’d come to realize was bad for her. But Elliott hadn’t cooperated. Not even close. Now? She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just made a dangerous miscalculation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nothing looked the same to Elliott as he climbed the steps to his front door. The house itself resembled some foreign object with slopes and edges he’d never noticed before. Had there always been a window there? What was the name of the person who came by once a week to cut the grass? He had none of this knowledge, but honestly, he hadn’t given a shit before now. Even the air felt different filtering through his hair, cooling the skin still heated from having Peggy beneath him.

  Peggy.

  His hands paused in the act of unlocking the door. He could see the way she’d sat up on the bench, looking like a beauty queen who’d been ravaged backstage, just before the talent competition. Shell-shocked, those eyes wider than the end of a cannon. A cannon pointed directly at the center of his chest.

  I’ve been dead inside. I’m dead.

  He might have been ready to blow when those words came out, but that didn’t make them any less true. He’d walked this same path to his house every day since moving in—right on the heels of Peggy’s departure—and yet, he’d never truly looked at it. If he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t even be able to describe the color of any surrounding homes or what cars his neighbors drove. Now, details were piling on top of him like falling bricks, battering out of the concussed state he’d been existing in. The smell of someone on the block nursing a fire in their hearth. Oncoming rain carried on the air. None of it went unregistered.

  A vision of himself in the hospital bed—instead of Judith—hit Elliott. There was no one in the room with him. Just four empty walls and a single, vacant chair. How long have I been asleep? he asked the doctor.

  “Fuck,” Elliott breathed, twisting the key in the lock and opening the front door. Silence greeted him, which was nothing new, but it was denser than usual. He could feel it parting as he walked through it, down the hallway, like hands traveling over his shoulders and ribs.

  Instead of going to the living room and setting down his keys, as his routine usually dictated, Elliott stopped outside of Alice’s room and listened, hearing nothing, which seemed to be a running theme among the women in his life. He and Peggy had barely exchanged a word as he walked her back to the hotel. Granted, he hadn’t exactly been in the mood for a chat—had he ever been?—after having so many…layers stripped off inside the park. Layers he’d thought were just hardened parts of him that people could either take or leave. He’d never expected to voluntarily shed them all his own.

  Or have it feel amazing. Overdue.

  Peggy didn’t seem to share that sentiment, though, did she? She’d all but given him whiplash bypassing him into the revolving hotel door. And he’d just stood by like a mute referee, refusing to make a call, despite the new…things…slowly but surely making themselves known in his gut. Things that weren’t right and hadn’t been for a long time, but he’d been sleepwalking past and ignoring them.

  When Elliott walked into the living room and tossed his keys into the ceramic bowl whose origin he had no idea about, he was surprised to find Alice sitting on the couch, illuminated by nothing but a low-lit lamp.

  He started to ask her if she’d finished eating, if she was still hungry, but suddenly he could recognize those questions exactly for what they were. A way to avoid what had happened over dinner. A way to avoid everything. Even knowing his methods weren’t productive, he almost used them anyway, they were so firmly ingrained. But taking a deep breath, he took a seat on the chair opposite Alice instead, and clasped his hands loosely between his knees. “You all right?”

  Eyes the same shape as his own widened in shock. “I don’t know,” she answered tightly, crossing her arms over the pillow sitting on her lap. “Were you with…her?”

  “Yes.”

  Her breath released in a whoosh. “Don’t bother softening the blow or anything.”

  Elliott sighed. “Peggy and I are adults.”

  “Sure, now you are.” Her upper lip curled. “She wasn’t, though. Not back then.”

  “Yes, even back then,” he corrected her, hearing the disgust in his voice, leveled right at himself. “I didn’t always treat her like one, though.”

  Alice stared at Elliott for so long across the magazine-littered coffee table, he had to look away. “Is it true what she said? You guys weren’t together when Mom was still alive?”

  Tears were thick in Alice’s voice by the end of her question, but she was clearly attempting to control them, probably for his sake. Something that never would have bothered him before, but now made him wonder why a twelve-year-old felt like she needed to be strong around her father. You know why. You’ve been a cold bastard to everyone. “Yes, she was telling the truth. I—you’ll understand when you get older—”

  “Oh God. Fuck that.” She threw the pillow aside. “Just talk to me for once. We can pretend tomorrow like it never happened.”

  Elliott shifted on the couch, the desperation in his daughter’s tone making something sharpen in his chest. And for the first time, he understood what one of his players felt like when he leaned down and got in their face during halftime. But this had to be worse, right? Because he had no idea how to correct his mistakes in the second half of the game. No damn clue. “What do you want to know?”

  Alice didn’t quite manage to hide her shock over being given the green light. “Did you love Mom?”

  He scraped a hand over his five o’clock shadow and thought back in a way he hadn’t in a long time, remembering polite smiles in the kitchen, falling asleep at his home office with game film running only to wake up and find morning had moved in. “My relationship with your mother was more of a friendship, Alice,” Elliott said finally. “I don’t think either of us were romantic people. We were practical. We had similar goals, but a lot of the time…those goals kept us separated. Love…”

  When he trailed off with a head shake, Alice huffed, but her eyes were serious, watching him closely. “Do you even know what love is?”

  “You don’t ask easy questions, do you?”

  “Your players say the same thing about you.” She picked at the material of her flannel pajama pants. “But I have to read about it in magazines or see it on television. I don’t know firsthand.”

  “Would you…be interested in something like that?” He gestured in the general direction of the university, then quickly joined his hands together. “Watching me coach up close?”

  “No,” Alice scoffed. Shrugged. “Maybe.”

  How many roller coaster loops could he handle in one night? “I promise to have it arranged. For the Temple game.” He watched two big blooms of color appear in her cheeks and the tugging in his chest pulled taut. “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly, as if she was afraid she might lose her nerve. “You said you’re not a romantic person, that you’re practical. But…what about Peggy? She’s not practical at all.”

  Elliott couldn’t contain a wry laugh. “No, she’s not.” He raked a hand down his face, picturing her in the doorway of his stadium office, charging in and refusing to take no for an answer about the fund-raiser, seducing him into agreeing to make a speech. Wearing a foursome of engagement rings around her neck, for the love of God. “She’s the opposite of practical.”

  “And yet, you…”

  He waited for Alice to elaborate, but she ended the question with a wave of her hand, no longer meeting his eyes. Sure, leave me without any direction, he thought. This whole conversation was beyond him already. Trying to simplify the connection he had with Peggy into words was impossible, wasn’t it? He’d never even articulated it to himself. “I was at the bottom of the ocean. Everything was dark…and then Peggy showed up. She was the surface. And I finally saw something to kick toward.” He cleared his throat. “I know that doesn’t make sense—”
>
  “Keep going.” Alice shrugged. “Just keep going.”

  Oddly enough, he wanted to keep going, while at the same time dreading what he might find. There was a tingle at the back of his neck, telling him he was on the verge of something uncharted. A game changer, as he would call it in the locker room. But the game wasn’t supposed to change off the field. Not for him. “Peggy. She, uh…looked at me and saw things I didn’t know were there. And she didn’t judge me for them. That’s a rare thing among adults.” He swallowed the tennis ball in his throat. “She was selfless while I was selfish. I could say things to her no one else understood. But she already knew what I was going to say.”

  Alice stared. “Did you have that with Mom?”

  “No.” He held her gaze. “And I’m sorry about it, Alice.”

  She nodded and seemed to collect herself. “Did you do the same for Peggy? Could she tell you things?”

  Someone might as well have taken a fishing line and pulled it tight around his jugular, the pressure was suddenly so intense. “Some of the time. The thing about Peggy is, she doesn’t let you know when she needs you. Not until you’ve already missed your chance.” In hindsight, he could imagine how hard it must have been for a young woman to cope with a widower boyfriend. Yet she’d never shown a hint of jealousy, only compassion. Under the surface, though, she could have been suffering and he’d been too blind to notice. “Mostly I took what she gave me and squandered it.”

  Alice looked away, but not before he saw horror pass over her features. Horror he was gratified to see, because he damn well deserved it. “Sometimes I say things because I’m upset and I don’t mean them, like, two seconds later. Do you have that?”

  “Everyone has that. Especially in our bloodline.” He leaned forward and snagged a coaster off the coffee table, tapping it against the edge. “You’ll apologize to her.”