Too Hard to Forget (Romancing the Clarksons Book 3)

by Tessa Bailey

  Elliott focused on the words instead of the unwanted images. With Peggy standing right in front of him, breathing and smelling like the highest point of heaven, he absolutely could not picture her on a date and maintain his composure, be the support she needed.

  “What do I do with the ring now?” Peggy whispered.

  “What do you want to do with it?”

  Her luminous golden brown eyes wrecked him. “Never see it again.”

  Elliott nodded and took the ring, dropping it into his pocket. “Done. It’s mine now, Peggy. I made us go without one another for three years and these failures are mine. They were mine when they happened. And they’re mine now.”

  Her brow wrinkled as she ducked her head again, sliding all three rings off the string and holding them out, a fistful of diamonds. “Morris the bass player was next. He never woke up before noon a day in his life. But it was eleven fifteen in the morning when he proposed, so I think he was trying to change.” She used her free hand to give Elliott the ring. “Then there was Carlos, the attorney and total adrenaline junkie. Took too many selfies. This one…this was the hardest engagement to break, because I could tell he knew. He saw it coming.” Elliott accepted the third ring, praying like hell this was helping Peggy so his absolute, unbearable suffering wouldn’t be for nothing. He’d earned the suffering. He knew that. Didn’t make it any less of a mind fuck. “Last one is from Samson, a bicycle shop owner.” She looked up at Elliott. “This one I can’t really be blamed for. He proposed to me in front of his mom on our third date. She was videotaping the whole thing. I couldn’t say no.”

  “No,” Elliott agreed through stiff lips. “That would have been too hard for someone with a good heart like you.”

  She breathed a shaky laugh. “The way this little ceremony is hard for you?”

  “I’ve just listened to the woman who rules me—mind and body—list her ex-fiancés,” Elliott gritted out. “Nothing is this hard.”

  Clearly stunned by his vehemence, she searched his face for long moments, before reaching over and pushing the final ring into his pocket, letting it join the others. Then she tucked the string into her pocket and dropped both hands to her sides as if she didn’t know what to do with them anymore. “Will you mail them back?”

  “Yes,” he forced out. “Whatever we need to do.”

  Peggy’s gaze traced away, landing on the water. “I didn’t expect to feel better, but I do.” Her mouth twitched. “Maybe because you feel worse.”

  Unbelievable that he should want to laugh and smash the entire cave to pieces with a sledgehammer at the same time. “You ready to get out of here?”

  The look she sent him from beneath her eyelashes was seduction without most of the darkness that had been there before. “Couldn’t be more ready.”

  Elliott bit back a groan as his cock reacted to the rasp of silk in her voice. He reached out to grab her hand, prepared to drag her out of the cave fast as humanly possible—

  A bat dropped down from above them, landing in the water with a splash. If they could bottle the jumping ability Peggy exhibited while launching herself at him with a high-pitched scream, he would stock it in the locker room. She left the ground and drew her legs up at the same time, giving Elliott no choice but to think fast, catching her in midair against his chest. She burrowed her face into his neck and slapped at his shoulders. “Jesus Christ. Go. Go go fucking go.”

  Lord, there was nothing better than holding Peggy. Nothing in the damn world. And he owed his receiver big time. “What happened to ‘bring ’em on’?”

  “I lied.”

  His laugher echoed off the cave walls.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Oh wow. There was something about a man who could carry you up a steep incline and set you down in the passenger seat of his truck without breaking a sweat. He seemed to relish the task, even, holding her like he’d growl at anyone who came close. His chest was an unmovable object, his arms like iron bands. With every step he took, the weight in her tummy sank a little lower, tickling down into her thighs.

  Peggy couldn’t pinpoint a time when she’d been more desperate to get laid. And it needed to be Elliott. Needed to be now. As the truck bumped back up the path toward the road, she swiped her palms down her legs, trying to get rid of the sweat. She could barely control her breathing, either, and if they didn’t stop soon and get naked, she was going to fog up the windows.

  This is bad. So bad. So bad.

  Because tonight was supposed to be about easy. About that final tick toward closure. She definitely hadn’t expected to walk down into the cave and hand over her guilt, taking away Elliott’s in return. Hadn’t expected to say words out loud to Elliott she hadn’t known were dying to break free. But they had been. They’d been stretching her diaphragm with the need to release, and now she felt like a springtime breeze.

  “You all right over there?”

  Her nod was jerky. “Where are you taking me?”

  His hands flexed on the steering wheel, probably in response to the breathlessness in her tone. “You don’t want dinner.”

  “No.”

  As if he sensed she needed an anchor, he reached across the seat and laid a warm hand high on her thigh, which just about sent her into an orgasm spiral. This was unreal. She’d been feeling so shitty for so long and now it was all gone. Gone. And she couldn’t even get her pulse under control. In order to maintain the high, she needed Elliott now. Immediately.

  “Our options are limited around here,” he said in a low voice.

  “Anywhere.” She threw her head back against the seat. “I don’t care.”

  The truck picked up speed. When they hit the road, Elliott fishtailed, before righting the vehicle. Then they were speeding in the opposite direction from which they’d come. “There’s a turnpike up ahead, which usually means a motel.” He bashed his fist into the steering wheel. “I hate bringing you to a place like that.”

  Not sure where she ached worse—her chest or between her legs—Peggy dragged his hand higher, cupping it around her center. “I won’t be paying attention to the décor.”

  “Fuck, baby,” he groaned. “You’re soaked.”

  The goddess of sexual frustration must have heard her cries, because a neon sign flickered on the horizon and Elliott put the pedal to the metal, bringing them into the parking lot in under a minute.

  “Wait here,” he ordered, climbing from the truck, slamming and locking the doors. As if she’d needed to be told to stay put. The clerk would take one look at Peggy and ask where she’d gotten the good ecstasy pills. She watched Elliott disappear into the front office, nearly wrenching the door off its hinges in the process. And once she was ensconced in the dark truck alone, she ripped off her jacket in an attempt to lower her body temperature and closed her eyes, counting to one hundred, trying to focus on something other than the slick flesh between her legs. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

  When the passenger side door was flung open, the blast of cold that sailed over her damp flesh did nothing to cool her down. Elliott wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her out of the car, closing the door with a bash and shoving her up against it, much like he’d done back in the cave parking lot. Only this time, she wasn’t even attempting to play coy, her legs tangling around his waist, hands tearing into his hair to bring him down for a kiss. The first encounter between their tongues was accompanied by an aggressive hip pump from Elliott and Peggy broke away with a half cry, half gasp. “Keep going. Oh God, I’m one more of those away from coming. Please.”

  “No.” His stubble rasped against her neck, her ear. “No, I’m getting you inside. It’s happening on my tongue.”

  Elliott turned, Peggy all but suctioned onto his front, and walked them down the row of doors, the key in his hand jangling. They almost descended into another round of kissing, mouths hovering so close, breath racing out in heated gusts as Elliott unlocked the door, but they made it inside. Elliott kicked the door shut behind them, took two steps, a
nd laid Peggy down on the closest available surface. She curled her fingers into the cold, hard…bureau? Yes, she registered vaguely, her fingertips encountering the coarse finish of the drawers. Elliott perused her as he drew off his shirt…and splayed her thighs with one desperate outward push.

  The glow of the flickering motel sign outside filtered in through the cheap curtains, teasing light into the otherwise pitch-black room. But that was all Peggy could process once Elliott was bare chested…and that chest was heaving as he unclothed her from the waist down, leggings and panties both, then trailed his tongue up the inside of her right thigh. His fingers reached her center before his mouth, parting her, exposing the bundle of nerves that so desperately needed tending.

  “Yes,” she wailed as Elliott did just that. Tended to her like they had only one minute until the Apocalypse. His stiff tongue raked over her clit, lapping at it, while his middle finger slipped through moisture into her entrance. “Yes.”

  “You don’t need to tell me yes when you’re this wet,” he groaned, stabbing his tongue as far inside her as it could go and drawing it out slowly, until his stubble met her sensitized flesh and scraped, before repeating the move several quick, mind-spinning times, all while his thumb strummed over her clit. “Keyed up in my passenger seat, wiggling around like I was already tongue deep in this soaked pussy of yours. Were you remembering how much I love licking it?”

  Elliott pushed two fingers inside Peggy and her hips jerked off the bureau, her bare ass slapping back down into the surface as she cried out, “Oh God. Yes, I remember.”

  Through a fog, she made eye contact with Elliott as he began his stiff-tongued torture of her clit once again, moving up and back, in circles, fast, slow, sideways, until a scream battered the inside of her throat. The arches of her feet curved around the slope of his shoulders, smoothing, rubbing, until she no longer had the strength to keep her legs up and they fell open once again.

  “My favorite part was afterward. After you’d come enough to be fucking delirious…” A prolonged suck of her swollen nub that had her legs shaking, one knee bashing off the wall. “Then I’d slide you toward me or flip you over, whatever you were begging for, and your cunt would be so shiny for me. Ready for a pounding from my cock. Gorgeous.”

  “Ohhh.” Her fingers plowed into his hair and gripped tight. “Do that again. Don’t stop. I need to. I need to—” Her pleas ended with a scream when Elliott pushed his fingers deep, jiggling them rapidly, while his mouth applied the sweetest amount of suction to her clit and sensation exploded below her waist. “Elliott. Jesus Christ.”

  Elliott must have inherited some priestly traits through osmosis during all those hours spent at mass, because the way her back arched, her eyes rolling back in her head, he could have been performing an exorcism on her. And maybe she was being rid of demons because she’d never experienced that brand of all-encompassing pleasure before with Elliott. There’s always been a barrier between them. Ghosts. Regrets. But no more. No more.

  Through half-blind eyes, she saw the room for the first time swimming in some kind of upside-down, dreamlike quality as the muscles between her thighs clenched, milking Elliott’s fingers. Words poured from her mouth, sounding as if they were spoken from some other dimension. Another orgasm wracked her body and she moaned, sweat rolling down her sides and making her slide backward on the bureau, but Elliott yanked her closer for more torture. And it was endless, the movements of his mouth working in a rhythm lost in the racing of her heart, the contracting of her private flesh, the deep down shudders in the pit of her belly.

  Pinpricks of pain dotted along her skull and Peggy realized she was pulling her own hair, her throat gone raw from screaming Elliott’s name. How long had he been using his mouth on her? How many times had she climaxed?

  Urgency washed over Peggy and she sat up, knocking Elliott’s hands away when he attempted to lay her back down, his mouth opening and closing as it French-kissed her between the legs.

  “Elliott—” He looked up as he flickered his tongue against her nub, causing her to moan and sway on the bureau. “Elliott.”

  He pushed her legs wider with a sound of protest, but she struggled against his hold until he relented and straightened, his chest hair curled with sweat, his eyes glittering in that lust way she remembered…but there was a difference. There was unfathomable depth to them as he perused her naked lower half, trailing his gaze up to her face. The beating of her pulse grew noisy, rattling in her ears, the organ in her chest simultaneously rebelling and rejoicing over what she encountered as he watched her.

  Ten thousand watts of emotion radiated from Elliott like a beacon. Peggy’s instinct was still to avoid the meaning there, so she grabbed the hem of her shirt, lifting it over her head and tossing it away. Elliott made a harsh noise in response, adjusting the bulge in his jeans when her breasts were exposed. “You’re a fucking work of art, Peggy. Head to toe.” He reached out, but instead of touching her breast as expected, he laid his palm flat over her heart. “And this is the best damn part right here. I need you to let me in.”

  Were her knees still shaking against the furniture’s wooden edge from the orgasm or his gesture? She didn’t know. Didn’t know. But she couldn’t seem to form words, pressure expanding inside her ribs until she worried she might pop like a balloon. She opened her mouth and nothing but a hum emerged.

  Elliott lunged forward, obliterating the space between them. His lips interlocked with hers, but didn’t kiss. “Not ready yet? Okay. Okay,” he murmured, his voice ripe with…everything. Lust. Intensity. She heard his pants unzip and her anxious wheeze, brought on by the metallic reminder that he hadn’t even been inside her yet. The tearing of the condom wrapper. “I’ll fuck you until you’re too weak to fight what we both know is here between us. Still. Here. Never left. Never lost strength.”

  Peggy’s self-preservation screamed from under the dense blanket of need in her head…and she heard the warning to run. She did. But when Elliott’s hips fit between the notch of her legs with a low growl, and she felt his erection slip through her folds and press against her entrance, there wasn’t an alarm in the world that could keep her thighs from blossoming open. That could stop her from wrapping her arms around the back of Elliott’s neck and receiving that first savage thrust.

  “Ohhhh,” she cried into his shoulder, trying to absorb the incredible sensation of being full. Full to the point that she hovered on the brink of discomfort for a few seconds, before it abated and she saw her fingernails digging into his shoulders, felt his heaved breaths pelting her neck. They were locked together as they’d been so many times before, only there was static between them now, an electrified connection due to the lack of mystery. Every card had been played and they all lay face up on the table. She and Elliott were so very there in the moment that it was stark and unquestionable how they’d ended up in that motel room. There’d never, not for a second, been another outcome. But did she control the ultimate one?

  “Hey,” Elliott rasped in her ear. “You get back here to me right now, Peggy. I’m going to drown without you, and you know it. You can feel that if you’re not right here with me, I’m going to slide under the surface. Can’t you?” He crushed their bodies together until she could feel his heart, could feel the brutal speed of it, how it matched her own. “Don’t leave me.”

  Three words with two meanings, and they made her want to sob, but her body’s demands were fast becoming the sole focus of her existence. At the place where they joined together, a hot throbbing had begun, and every time she scooted her legs higher around Elliott’s waist, the urgency kicked higher. The low, continuous rumble in his chest told her how ready he was to spin-cycle her senses again, his erection solid as steel inside her.

  “Elliott.” Her own words surprised her so much, she barely realized she’d spoken. “Tell me…”

  “Tell you what?” He breathed into her ear, kissing the lobe, drawing it between his teeth. “Let’s hear it, baby. I want to know ev
erything that goes through your head when you’ve got me inside your tight pussy.”

  The words came out in a rush, as if they’d been hiding from her all along and needed to escape before she reeled them back in. “Tell me you missed me.”

  Elliott’s head snapped up, his gaze homing in on her, disbelief crackling like a fireplace fire in his expression. Before Peggy could draw a bracing breath, Elliott jerked her off the bureau and walked her toward the bed, laying her in the center and coming down on top of her, muscle pressing softness, without ever withdrawing from her body. The gravity of his weight on top of her was divine, and although she could tell he was poised to say something, she could also sense his inability to keep from pumping deep into her body and staying there, stretching her as she gasped.

  “Miss you?” He grated the incredulous question, dropping his mouth to her temple. “You left me without a soul. I can barely remember the days since you left. They passed without me feeling a single thing. Because you are feeling for me. You’re the only thing that keeps me from being numb. Twice in my life you’ve turned me back into a living, breathing man, and missing you…missing you, Peggy, doesn’t even begin to cover it. You revive me.”

  His lips traced down the side of her face and meshed with hers. Vocalizing the tumult of reactions colliding in her chest was impossible. There was no way to match the beauty of his words, so she showed him with her mouth. She opened for him the way he liked and allowed him to devour. Exulted in her destruction.

  Elliott went from savoring to aggressive, hungry, in the time it took to blink. His hips started to move with turmoil, his kiss pausing to accommodate the groan that roared out from somewhere only he knew about. “Baby…I’m going to fucking break you like this. You’ve got me so awake. I can hear your heartbeat, all your little gasps…the slap of my dick sinking in. Cut me off.”