Hard To Love (Rockin' Country #4)

by Laramie Briscoe

  “I’ve never been so happy to see you either,” he answered as he pushed them back into the living room and shut the door. He disentangled their arms from each other and guided them over to the couch. Putting he flowers on the coffee table, he grabbed her hands, looking at her.

  “I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out your decision and what you were going to do,” she cried, using their hands to wipe away some of the many tears she had shed in the past few days.

  “I wanted to make sure it was my decision,” he explained. “I wanted to make sure it was mine and mine alone. At some point, I have to stand on my own two feet, and I have to make sure I can trust myself. I did it, I made the right decision.”

  “You did, babe.” She let his hands go and cupped his cheeks in the palm of her hands, kissing him softly. “You did it.”

  “I did,” He smiled, this one reaching his eyes. “I did,” he repeated. “But I wonder if I hurt you into coming into my own. I’m scared because you ran from that meeting when things got serious.”

  “I did run,” she admitted. “And I’m not proud of it, but I had to get those feelings out, I had to tell you those words. There was a part of me that was holding back from you, not giving you everything I could. I can do that now. I feel like I’m important to your life,” she sobbed. “I feel like I matter more than the drugs—finally,” she choked out a laugh.

  “Oh babe, you’ve always meant more to me than the drugs. I just had to find the strength to let myself feel.”

  “Do you feel it?” She put her hand up to his heart. “Do you feel how much I love you?”

  He nodded. “And I feel how much I love you.”

  She threw herself at him again. “Please don’t do this to me again,” she begged.

  “I can’t make promises I might not be able to keep, because I know myself, but I can promise you that you’ll never have to wonder how much I love you again. You’ll never wonder how important you are to me.”

  She could live with that, and they could move forward as a couple with that.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  * * *

  She slowly lifted her arms up to him. “I don’t want to hold back from you anymore. I want us to be exactly who we are with one another.”

  “I want that too, more than you know.” He circled her arms around his neck and pushed her up against the back of the couch in her living room.

  For a moment he looked at her, almost as if he were memorizing every part of her face, every hair on her head, and each fleck of color that showed in her eyes. When he was done, he leaned forward, capturing her lips with his.

  Shell sighed. This wasn’t the fast and out-of-control feeling they’d had for the past few months. The way he worked her mouth was slow and deliberate. She could feel the emotion he was trying to convey to her, she could feel the reverent way he ran his hands down her body and picked her up so that she sat on the back of the couch. She struggled for a moment to keep her balance, but trusted him to hold her up.

  “I’ve got you,” he whispered against her lips, his arms tightening around her. “I’m not gonna let you fall.”

  And she knew instinctively that she could trust him. His arms and hands were strong against her back as she leaned against them, letting her fingers play in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Take your shirt off,” she told him.

  He quirked a brow. It wasn’t often that Shell told him what to do when they were intimate, and the order intrigued him. He let go of her and slipped his shirt over his head, grunting as she hopped down, turned them around, and leaned his body against the couch.

  “Let me do this for you, let me show you how much I want you.” She dropped to her knees in front of him.

  “Fuck,” he ground out, and she hadn’t even done anything yet.

  The side of her mouth titled as her fingers went to the buckle of the belt he wore. She took her time unbuckling it before unbuttoning and pushing his clothes down his thighs. She stared at his hard length until he pushed against the back of her head.

  “It ain’t gonna do any tricks until you put your mouth on it, sweetheart.”

  She shook her head, a smile on her face as she grasped the base, holding it straight out, and moved her hand up and down for two strokes.

  * * *

  Jared’s knees weakened, and he gave his full weight to the couch, throwing his head back as he finally felt her warm mouth encompass most of his cock. He grasped the back of her head, twining his fingers in her hair, pulling her closer to him as he pumped his hips.

  “God, Shell,” he moaned. Sex was amazing, but sometimes head was even more amazing, and Shell didn’t do it a lot, so he knew that when she did, he was in for a treat. She made a tight circle with her lips and sucked harshly against him. The feeling almost made him jump out of skin.

  “That’s it,” he encouraged as he pried his eyes open and glanced down at her. “Suck it hard.”

  Abandoning her hair, he took one hand and moved it down her body, cupping her breast in his palm, running his thumb over the puckered nipple he could feel. “You like this?” he asked.

  She nodded against his length, breathing through her nose, allowing her throat to relax as she took him in deeper.

  “I like this too.” He groaned when she let her tongue bathe him, running up and down the underside.

  Finally, not able to breathe anymore, she released him and used her hand to jack up and down.

  “Tell me,” he commanded, his fingers roughly pulling against the fabric of her shirt.

  “So hot,” she moaned, throwing her head back as he moved his hands down to the hem and pulled her shirt off her body. “Doing this to you gets me hot,” she admitted as he took his hand and jacked his own cock for several strokes.

  “Are you wet?” He grabbed the back of her head and made her face him, forced her to look up into his eyes.

  “Very,” she moaned as he leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

  As much as he loved her lips wrapped around him, he loved her warm heat just as much. He grabbed her up by the arms and moved them around to the other side of the couch. “Take it off.” He indicated everything else she had on.

  He did the same as he watched her get naked for him. Once she was naked, he pushed her down onto the cushions and situated her over the arm, on her knees. “You ready, baby?” he asked as he teased her with the head of his length.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Always for you.”

  Shoving himself home, he knew this was exactly where he needed to be, and he knew without a doubt this was home and would always be home.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  * * *

  “You ready?” Jared asked as he grabbed his jacket and glanced over at Shell. They were on their way to a meeting. One of the two they tried to attend together every week. In the month since they’d finally talked things out, the relationship had been going very well for them. They weren’t perfect. He still had times where he wanted her trust and didn’t always get it, and she had times where she wanted him to be more emotionally available and she didn’t always get it either, but they were working on it.

  She grabbed her coffee and bag. They were taking the SUV tonight. “Yup, whenever you are. Don’t forget that afterwards we need to run by Garrett and Hannah’s so I can give EJ that stuffed red panda I picked up for him at the Nashville Zoo.”

  That was another change in their relationship. They were finding things they liked to do together besides spending time in bed. A switch had been flipped, and they were becoming the couple he’d always wanted to be. When he looked at Garrett’s parents and Garrett and Hannah, they were partners, and for the first time he felt like he and Shell were becoming that. He didn’t hide things from her to make it easier, and she didn’t hide things from him not to hurt his feelings.

  “We’ll go,” he laughed, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. “And you can give it to him this time. I know I swooped in and gave him that Dragon and became his favorit
e for a week.”

  She wrinkled her nose and harrumphed. “I bought that for him. I’m still pissed at you for that.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and brought her in for a kiss. “You forgave me for that, or don’t you remember?”

  She did remember. He’d done naughty things to her that night. Her eyes were bright as she smiled up at him. What they had was good, and she tried not to wait on the other shoe to drop. “Let’s go.” She grabbed his hand, pulling him out of the condo.

  They got into his SUV and made their way across town for the meeting they were going to. Once they got there and parked, they walked inside, both waving to people they had become friendly with in the past few weeks. It amazed him how welcoming everyone had been to Shell, how girlfriends and wives had sought her out and given her tips, told her not to give up on him. They’d talked through each time one of those women had come to her and told her what to expect from him. He appreciated it more than he could say. He found them a seat, and they got comfortable, waiting on the meeting to start.

  * * *

  “One of the things we’re going to talk about tonight is expectation,” Trey, the leader, said after the preliminaries were said and done.

  Jared liked this particular meeting more so than some of the others. This one was always like a huge group therapy session. All of them had issues they needed to talk about, and each week the group had a theme.

  “Does anyone know what I mean by that?”

  There was something that had been bothering him for a while, and Jared felt like this was the time for him to speak up, that this was a safe environment for him to do so. If he and Shell could talk anywhere and get the support they needed, it was here.

  “I feel like there’s an expectation for me to fail,” he said quietly.

  “Okay.” Trey faced him and Shell, looking at the two of them. “Can you expand on that? If you’re feeling that way, then someone else in here is too. Let’s talk about it.”

  “This woman,” he grabbed Shell’s hand and held it tightly, “has been with me through a lot of shit. I’ve put her through the ringer. I don’t want you to think I’m asking for blind forgiveness, because I’m not, but I feel like she and most of my friends have this expectation that I’m going to fail. They are supportive, way more supportive than I probably would be if I had someone like me in my own life, but I can see it in the way she looks at me sometimes. I can tell by the way she makes plans but doesn’t make them too far out.” He glanced over at her. “Babe, I’m not asking for unbridled trust, because I know that’s a lot and I’ve been a fuck-up for more years than I’ve been good, but I want you to feel like we can make plans. When you hold back from me, you hold back from us, and I think we’ve had enough holding us back to last a lifetime.”

  “What do you have to say to that?” Trey asked as he scooted his chair closer to them, to give them one-on-one time.

  Shell wasn’t sure what to say, so she took a moment to get her thoughts together. “I will admit I’m scared to make plans with him. At one point, in my mind, I had the wedding dress picked out, kids’ names, and where we would be living, but then it all came crashing down around me. There’s still a part of me, on difficult nights, that can close my eyes and still see him in that shower fighting for his life as we waited for the paramedics to get there.” She stopped and looked at Jared. “My unwillingness to make plans with you hasn’t been an effort to hurt you, it’s been an effort to protect myself.”

  “I know.” Jared tightened his grip on her. “And I’m not asking for us to make plans for a year down the road, or even six months, but I want you to know that you can count on me. If you don’t give me a little bit, it hinders me instead of helping me. You don’t bring a bag to stay at my condo; I don’t have a key to your house. Those are things I want; they are small tokens of your belief that I can do this.”

  She felt as if she’d been smacked in the face. Until he’d pointed this out, she hadn’t realized how tightly she was holding herself from him, even though she gave him the words and actions of love every day. There was still a part of her she held so tight that if she didn’t let it go, he’d never be able to invade it. “You don’t have a key to my house?” The fact that she hadn’t given him one spoke volumes. She didn’t even realize that until he’d mentioned it.

  He smiled patiently, more patiently than she would have. “No, and I haven’t pressured you for it because I know I did things I shouldn’t have done, I know I took your trust and threw it down the toilet. I let stupid things affect me. I’ve made a conscious decision not to even let those things enter my thoughts anymore. My parents don’t want me, that’s fine, but you do, and I want you too. I’m putting everything I have into this, Shell. Give me a little bit back.”

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize I was doing it in such a way that was all or nothing. I promise you, I’ll work on it, and as soon as we leave here, we’ll go get you a key made.”

  Trey clapped both of them on the back. “Communication is the key to all of this, and as long as you both keep communicating with one another, you’re going to make it.”

  She leaned over to Jared as Trey made his way over to another couple. “I feel like we are,” she whispered.

  He flashed her the smile she knew was just for her. “I think we are too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  * * *

  That night, they lay in bed in his condo while she was doing work on Harmony’s social media and he was going over guitar mockups. Recently he’d signed a contract with a guitar company to release custom versions of the guitars he liked to play.

  “EJ’s face when I handed him that red panda was the best thing ever.” She laughed, remembering their afternoon.

  “I know.” He cracked up. “And when Garrett went to grab it from him so that we could eat dinner, I almost think that was Reaper looking back at Reaper. Scary to think what that little dude might be like in a few years. I know how Garrett was, and if his son is anything like him, those two have their hands full.”

  She closed her laptop, leaning back against the pillow. “I’m so sick of working tonight; actually I’m sick of everything.” She laughed. “I don’t want any responsibility for like, three days.”

  He grinned over at her before he reached into the drawer of his bedside table. “It’s ironic that you say that to me. Someone I know has a birthday next weekend.”

  “Who’s that?” she played along. “Surely to God it’s not someone turning twenty-seven. Right?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought she was a day over twenty-one, the way her tits are still perky and the way her ass bounces when she walks.”

  She threw back her head, laughing loudly. “Oh my God, you’re so good for my ego. Whatcha got?” She spied an envelope in his hand.

  “Your birthday gift, ya know…if you want it.”

  She almost tackled him, going up onto her knees and getting over to his side of the bed. “Gimme!”

  He held it out of her reach. “Now if this is something you don’t want, we can do something else; I just wanted to surprise you. But I want you to know it won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t want to do this.”

  “C’mon, J! Let me see what it is.”

  He handed her the envelope and waited while she opened it.

  “Oh my God!!! Is this for real?” She screeched at an ear-piercing level.

  Jared had never felt so powerful. The excitement made him feel like he was ten feet tall and could lift a thousand pounds. “If you want to, it is.”

  “Aruba?” she questioned, a huge smile on her face, her eyes wide.

  “Yeah, we leave day after tomorrow. I cleared your schedule with Hannah.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes. “I can’t believe you would do this for me. I didn’t think you ever paid attention to my mindless complaining.”

  He grabbed her hands, bringing her down so that their lips were within kissing distance. Digging his fingers into the hair at the nape of her
neck, he brought their lips together. “I hear everything you say, baby, and I’m listening. For once, I’m fucking listening.”

  “You have no idea how much that means to me,” she choked out, hugging him tightly to her.

  “I know exactly how much it means, because you’re listening to me too, and it’s a great feeling. I want us to go, have fun, and forget all the bullshit we’ve had going on the past few months. We both need this.”

  He was right; they had been through a lot. Personally and professionally, and they did need a break.

  “I have to pack!” She hopped up from the bed. “You have to take me home so I can pack.” She did her version of a victory dance on the plush carpet in his bedroom.

  He laughed loudly as he watched her, enjoying the happiness and excitement on her face. He would have paid a million dollars to have seen this. “We’ll set the alarm and head to your house early in the morning. I’ll pack here before we go, and then we can leave from your house for the airport the next day. How’s that sound?”

  She pouted, sitting back down on the bed. “You know I’m not getting any sleep the next two nights? Right? I can’t remember ever being this excited in my life!”

  Pulling her so that she straddled his waist, he pushed his hips up into her. “If you aren’t tired, then I think I know something else we could do to pass the time.”

  She bit her lip and leaned down so that she could run her hands up his stomach and chest. “I think I like the way you think, Mr. Winston.”

  He pushed the tank top she wore up and over her head. “Calling me Sir will be just fine.”

  She squealed as he flipped them over, dragging her panties down her legs. Her fingers went to the waistband of his boxers and pushed them down far enough too, sighing when he entered her. The first thrust was always her favorite part.