by Misti Murphy
“You didn’t need to hide from me. I wouldn’t have judged you for it. I loved you. Nothing changes that.”
He smiled against my shoulder. “Are you trying to say you’re mine, Hurricane?”
My heart skipped a beat, pop rocks fizzing in my gut. I was his. Had always been. But there were so many things we’d hidden from each other. It was too soon to feel so strongly, wasn’t it? Deep down it had never changed, but my head erred on the side of caution.
“I’m saying I care for you.” I rolled into him, laid my cheek to his chest, the strong reliable beat of his pulse filling my ear. “And I like your dick, a lot.”
He laughed, deep and throaty. “Fair enough.” Gripping my jaw he lifted my face, his lips lingering over mine, nibbling and teasing. “But I know you’re only saying that because you’ve got it into your head that it shouldn’t be so easy to know what you want.”
“Shouldn’t it? If it were meant to be easy would we have spent the last three years apart?”
He tugged my leg over his hip. “It’s an easy choice, a little harder to implement.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I closed my eyes, settled in to him. It wasn’t the decision to love him that held me back. In that there really was no choice. But here I was in the middle of nowhere, still running from myself. He told me time and time again to choose not to be like my father. Lola had proven it possible, but I’d been doing it for so long I wasn’t sure. Could I stop running from my heart?
Chapter Thirteen
Mike
“Wake up, sleepy head.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, I stroked her wild hair back from her face and pressed my lips to her cheek. After last night, I wanted to stay here in this small town and spend however long it took to wade through the mess between us. She’d been carrying my brat. I rubbed over the heaviness in my chest. It didn’t matter that we’d separated. Realistically, it wouldn’t have changed the fact she’d lost it, but that didn’t change my regret. I should have held her when she cried. Should have understood whatever could have that effect on her was bigger than worrying about whether I was pulling away from her. Not when I hadn’t told her about the cancer.
“Mmm.” She pressed into the hand cupping her face and blinked. “You were up early. Already showered and dressed.”
“I went for a run. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Couldn’t sleep?” She pulled herself up, sat cross-legged beside me, the blanket wrapped around her.
“No.” I smiled and kissed her forehead. “Trust me, I slept. But if I hadn’t gone for my run, I would have woken you, and after last night, I didn’t know that that would be a good idea.”
“Oh.” Her lips twitched shyly while she glanced up at me under heavy eyelashes. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
Shy on Mellie was rare, but it was also sexy as fuck. It was like the first glimpse of the sun after a storm, the debris scattered all around, but the light that much brighter than normal, because rebuilding could commence. My heart stopped at the look in her eyes, clogging my throat. There was never going to be a part of me that didn’t belong to this girl. I needed her like I needed oxygen.
Clearing my throat, I tugged the sheet away, revealing her nakedness. “The run didn’t help. Not when you look at me like that, not when I want you so damn much.”
Her lips parted and she darted her tongue out over them, wetting them until they screamed, Come get me, without her saying a word. Grasping her shoulders, I pushed her down on the bed and got drunk on her mouth, her lips swelling with the intensity. With a lone digit I circled a nipple over and over until her breaths came in tiny pants. I pinched the nipple between my fingers until she arched up off the bed. My dick was so hard it pressed painfully to my jeans.
“I want you.” She pleaded with her eyes, her body writhing under my touch. She yanked and pulled at my shirt, and I stopped only long enough to remove it, leaving my back and chest to the exploration of her hands. The smell of her arousal made my mouth water, drove me to want to taste her before I sank inside her.
Trailing my hand between her legs, I stroked her slit, appreciating each whimper I elicited from her as her clit twitched and grew hard under my finger. “I need to taste you.”
She shivered, her hips pushing down for more of the sweet torture my fingers created. “Own me. Remind me I’m yours.”
Diving for her pussy, I pressed a kiss to her clit, darted my tongue out to savour her. I didn’t know what it was about the way she tasted on my tongue, but I could never get enough. I’d willingly spend each day of the rest of my life with my mouth on her. “You are mine. I could live on this pussy. I want to eat it out every damn day.”
“More,” she breathed. I ate her greedily, her wetness slicking my mouth while her hands grasped my head, holding me to her while she fucked my face, her desperate moans ending on a cry, “I’m going to cum.”
“Cum for me, beautiful. I want to feel you cum on my face.” I shoved my fingers inside her, feeling her orgasm squeeze around them as she fell apart. My mouth to her clit, nibbling and stroking her, while she rode wave after wave of pleasure, drawing it out until she slid her hands between us and writhed away from my tongue.
Climbing back up her body, I settled over her, letting her feel how she affected me. She cupped my hardness through the thickness of my jeans, and I purred as she slid her hand up the length before undoing the buttons on my pants. Lifting off her, I gave her access so she could drag them down before I kicked them away. She snatched up a condom from the nightstand and rolled it down over my cock before I pressed into her wetness, wanting nothing more than to slide inside her and never fucking leave.
Embraced by her tightness, I stroked her slowly while she clung to me, her delectable moans against my ear urging me on, the music of our loving taking me higher. “If you keep making those sweet sounds, sexy legs, I’m going to cum so hard.”
We rocked that way until her body bucked beneath me, her nails digging into my ass pressing me deeper. “I want you. I want to feel what I do to you.”
When her climax robbed her of breath, her eyes rolling back under heavy lids, her lips parting on the sweetest use of my name I’d ever heard, I took her harder, my ball tightening as my orgasm rushed through me, an explosion of sensation that washed through my body over and over again.
Afterward, I rolled her on top of me, brushing the sweaty strands of her hair away from her face. Our skin was chilling, but I didn’t want to give her up, not for a second. This here was perfect.
When she finally pulled away it was to sink onto the mattress beside me. “I suppose we need to get ready to go.”
I locked our fingers together, not wanting to move. “I checked out the shops when I took my run this morning. There’s a Kmart. It’s not much but I thought we might get some clothes before we hit the road.”
“That would be great.” She crawled off the bed. “I don’t think I could do another day in the same clothes, even if I did wash them last night, thanks to you.”
“Well get dressed then, sexy legs, before I drag you back on this bed.”
She yelped as I launched at her, and then she darted into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. A minute later the shower turned on and her singing reached me through the thin door. It was probably for the best that she’d locked the door. Otherwise I didn’t know if we would have been going anywhere today. I smiled as I picked up my clothes and got dressed.
***
We wandered around between the clothing racks, while Mellie pulled items and hung them over her arm. Every now and then she’d stop, wrinkle her brow and glance at me.
“What’s on your mind, Hurricane?”
“People come back.” She held up a shirt between us, giving it a cursory glance before hanging it back on the rack.
“Why do you say that?” I caught her hand, rubbed my thumb over the back of it.
“I remember coming here when I was little. Lola and I would have been about seven.” She screwed up her
forehead. “I don’t remember why we were here, but Lola had spilled something. I think it might have been a Slurpee, or something like that.” She waved away the thought and headed toward the changing rooms. “Anyway, she needed a new T-shirt. I remember this store. It’s different now, but we’d hid in the clothing racks, running from one to another. Mom was getting cranky, but we wouldn’t stop doing it.”
Sliding into one of the changing rooms, she pulled the curtain across, blocking me out, but her voice carried. “I smacked into a pole so hard the whole rack fell over, spilling these vile pink and green T-shirts everywhere. I mean they were hideous.”
I laughed with her, picturing Mellie as a crazy bundle of seven-year-old energy. Imagining her as the mother of a seven-year-old bundle of energy. She’d be a fun mom. The kind who’d play hide and seek with our kid in a clothing store. We’d pretended having unprotected sex, lots of it, had been purely about the enjoyment of it, but she’d understood how much I desired a family. She’d wanted it, too. We were going to have a house full of brats. A whole team of them. It was supposed to have happened in a year, or two, or three…or whenever it happened. I was supposed to teach them how to play baseball, and she was going to teach them how to catch fireflies in the warmth of a summer sunset. But it hadn’t happened, and I’d been so grateful for that when we’d gone our separate ways. Imagining her like that, made me wish our brat had stuck.
I cleared my throat, dragging myself back to the topic at hand. “Do you miss her?”
“Sometimes. Mostly I was just angry.” She was silent for a while, her silhouette played out on the curtain if I moved in a certain way. “But coming here reminded me she was a good mom.”
I stood up, hovered closer to the changing room. “And that people come back?”
“Yeah, people come back. Lola came back, my father apparently managed to show up after all these years, and here I am, going back.”
“What about me?”
“I’m beginning to realize you can’t come back if you never left in the first place.” She pulled back the curtain, wearing daisy dukes and a white crotchet halter-top. “I pretended, you know, that I didn’t see the way you looked at me, the way you’re looking at me right now.”
I wolf whistled under my breath. “You know it’s the middle of autumn, right?”
“I like them.” She slipped her hands in the ass pockets of the shorts and raised up on tiptoe. “I think I saw some cowboy boots out front.”
“I think you’re going to be keeping them on when you ride me later.”
She gasped, a bubble of laughter escaping on a snort that she tried to cover with her hand. “Could you have said that any louder? I don’t think the old biddy at the counter heard you.”
Glancing back at the woman, I caught her stare and the upward tilt of her nose as she turned away. “I’ll give her something else to eavesdrop on.” I stalked Mellie, grinning. “Now come here, sexy legs. Let me have my way with you.”
She scampered around me, out of reach. “Oh no, you don’t. Behave yourself.”
“Not possible, with you looking like sex on a stick.”
She backed up, shaking her head, her bright eyes twinkling with humor. “I’m not the kind of girl who gets nasty in a changing room.”
“Pull the other leg. You’re the kind of girl who will do it wherever the hell I goddamn please.”
She shrieked, as I darted in and lifted her up, wrapping her legs around my waist, her hands rubbing over my head. “You always did get your way.”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“I suppose not.” She offered up a blinding smile while she stared into my eyes like there was nothing else in the world worth seeing. My chest swelled, so full, it might explode if I didn’t just kiss the damn girl. Lacing my fingers through her hair, I dragged her mouth to mine, our tongues dancing in sensual strokes that stole the oxygen from my lungs.
“She’s still watching us.” Mellie whispered when we broke apart. “I don’t think you’re going to get your way this time.”
I already had. Maybe not with the changing room idea, but with the heart of the girl I loved most in the world. One last press of my mouth against hers, I lowered her down my body and slapped her lightly on the ass. “Go get your boots, cowgirl.”
In the end she got two pair of cowboy boots, a jacket and enough clothes to last the week, and then she’d pulled together jeans and T-shirts for me. Toting the things out to the truck, I admired the view of her backside and the way those cowboy boots clung to her calves. She was radiant perfection; the warmth of the sun on my face. I basked in it. How the fuck had I gone without her for so long? I loaded the bags into the cab and pulled out a baseball cap before locking the truck.
With a smile, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, she adjusted the cap on my head. “Do you know what I adore about you?”
“The way my jeans hug my crotch, or is it the way my mouth feels between your legs?”
“Ha. No.” She tapped the cap down over my eyes, before leaning in to kiss my jaw, one sexy cowboy boot kicked up behind her. “It’s that no matter how much money you made, you always looked so much more comfortable dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Money, suits, cars, and how many nuts you have. None of that outshines the guy underneath the baseball cap.”
God, I’d needed her when I’d been grieving the loss of my ball. I should have known she’d have the words to put things in perspective. I’d been so damn pig-headed, so stupid to believe I’d been doing the right thing in pushing her away. Never again. Unable to find the words to explain how much it meant to me that she could see through the bullshit and cut to the real me, the one people had struggled to see after I’d become successful, I took her hand and squeezed it. “Let’s go find some breakfast. We need to get on the road if we want to get to Hollyfields today.”
A short stroll later, I pushed open the door to a café, ushering her in before me. The smell of fresh baked pastries had our stomachs grumbling in unison. A fruit bowl sat on top of the glass cabinet, and I snatched up an apple and sank my teeth into the crisp flesh, pulling Mellie into my chest while she hemmed and hawed over the display case of baked goods. The teen behind the counter glanced up between dark bangs covering her eyes, forgetting the gossip rag she’d been reading, and wiping her palms down the front of her red plastic apron. She eyed the apple in my hand and tapped her sparkly fingernails on the counter.
I took another bite, chewed it leisurely and grinned. “Can I get a couple coffees to take away, as well as this apple and whatever else we decide we want?”
She nodded, murmured something under her breath, and disappeared behind the coffee machine, while Mellie decided on a selection of muffins. The kid boxed up the muffins and Mellie grabbed bottles of water from the fridge. Placing them down on the counter, she rubbed at the wrinkled label on one of them, a slight line between her eyes.
“You know, I wondered why you stopped drinking after we broke up. I noticed the way you would nurse the same two beers all night, when we’d catch up, at Orion’s. It didn’t make sense. You’d been the only one who could keep up with me.”
I tossed the apple core at the trashcan behind the counter, getting it in with one shot. “Being sick put some things into perspective. Perhaps not the right things, but my health was definitely one of them. That immortal feeling I used to have disappeared overnight.” I pulled money out of my wallet and handed it to the girl, before turning back to Mellie. “I took up running and quit drinking almost altogether. I tried to hide it from you guys. Didn’t want to have to answer the questions I knew I’d get. I guess it’s the same as when women stop drinking and people assume they’re pregnant. I figured one of you would clue in if I gave it up completely.”
Wincing, she scooped up the box of muffins and headed for the door, the bell above it chiming as she opened it and stepped out onto the pavement.
Chasing after her, I furrowed my brow. She would have had given up drinking, too. Would have been looki
ng after herself better while she was pregnant, but I hadn’t noticed. How had I missed it? A nearly full bottle of four hundred dollar Chivas sat on the top of the fridge at home. It had been there since before I got the diagnosis. How many times had I stared at that bottle and considered how enjoyable the smooth scotch would be on my palate? Only a shot or two of the amber liquid missing from the neck of the bottle. It shouldn’t have lasted. Not all these years, not even six months. Yet it had. How many damn times had I stared at that bottle, and not once had I made the connection.
“How the fuck did I not realize you were pregnant? The biggest clue was right in front of me the whole damn time, staring me in the face for literally years on end. The only time you touched that scotch on the fridge was the night we broke up wasn’t it? How did I not notice?”
“You weren’t there, Mike. Mentally, you weren’t there. You had your own shit going on.” She kept going, her pace picking up.
“That’s not an excuse for not seeing what was right in front of my face.” I growled, pissed at myself for having been so caught up in protecting her, I’d been oblivious to what she really needed.
“Yeah, well…” She blew out an exasperated breath, and yanked open the door of the truck, placing our breakfast between the seats. “We kept shit from each other. Did you really assume nothing had changed in my world?”
“I don’t know,” I grumbled, rubbing the back of my neck. “Hindsight’s a bitch.”
“It is.” She lifted herself into the truck. “No point in getting caught up in it. Isn’t that what you always say?”
That sounded like me. Always telling her she didn’t have to be the product of her past, she didn’t have to be like the people who raised her. But right now, the past seemed overwhelming. “I know, but—“
“But if we could go back and do things differently, we would.” She shrugged, taking the coffees from me and putting them on the dashboard. “That’s why I told you.” Taking my hand, she pulled me between her legs, her fingers plucking at my T-shirt. “Not to make you feel guilty, and not for regrets. But because I couldn’t keep this part of us from you.” Her voice softened when she dipped her head, her forehead resting on my chest. “I couldn’t hold onto what could have been. It hurt too damn much. I had to let it go, but I can’t let you go, and I don’t want to lose you a second time.”
