Remember Arizona: A Second Chance Romance (Country Love Collection)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  She pressed her hips against mine and I groaned.

  My dick was about to break through my pants. Here she was, the girl of my dreams, almost naked and instructing me to kiss her—practically demanding it—and I was still clinging to all the reasons why this would be wrong in the long run. Peyote. The past. The future.

  I took care of Tally. I took care of her when we were younger. When we were friends. And I took care of her even when it made her hate me. But damn if I wasn’t starting to question it all now.

  “Why can’t I take care of you, Tally?” I dipped my head lower, unable to withstand the draw of her perfectly parted lips.

  Her eyes locked with mine, and I realized, one way or another, she was going to be the death of me.

  Her tongue darted out, coating her lips with moistened metal armor, before delivering her first shot with wanton whispered syllables.

  “Because I was never yours.”

  Boom.

  Something exploded inside me. Desire. Possessiveness. Guilt. Need.

  And it obliterated the web of reasons holding me back.

  My hands pinned her cheeks, devouring her sudden gasp. I held her steady—captive. I held her like I could keep her—like I should’ve kept her all those years ago.

  Selfishly. Mercilessly. Regretlessly.

  “Oh, Tally,” I rasped, dipping my head closer to hers, our breaths colliding like greedy ghosts, pulling us into a past we couldn’t escape, only face. “You were always mine.”

  My lips crashed onto hers, branding my words onto the tender flesh and putting an end to all doubt.

  If a decade could be distilled into a kiss, compressed like carbon under the weight of the earth, this kiss came out as hard and as brilliant as a diamond. Rare. Pure. Crystal-clear desire.

  This time, my tongue slid over her lips, sinking into the warmth of her mouth with a groan when she eagerly opened for me.

  I’d dreamed of kissing her like this so many times. Too many times. Especially after she’d asked me to teach her.

  I remember thinking that would be the end of my crush on my best friend—a girl I only saw for a few months over the summer. I remember thinking—hoping—I’d only built it up in my head and that once I kissed her, I’d realize her lips felt like every other girl’s that I’d tried.

  But it hadn’t.

  And pulling back from that had been like trying to shove exploding C4 back into a bomb.

  Her fingers threaded through my hair, tightening in the strands as she roughly pulled me closer. And I let her.

  My body hummed as desire coursed wildly through my veins. Savage and wanting. She hadn’t been old enough to understand how I saw her, and by the time she was… I tensed at just the thought of letting go.

  Tally pushed the limits with a defiance I found magnetic. She always had. And I’d never been the one able to stop her.

  And that was why I hadn’t come back… or told her the truth.

  My hands skated down skin so smooth I’d never felt anything like it. I’d polished hundreds of thousands of stones that were the color of her eyes, but never had they felt as silky smooth as this. And definitely not as hot.

  I thumbed the waist of her lacy underwear, toying with a barrier I should welcome as one of restraint. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to let her go.

  My fingers climbed over her hips and around to the swells of her ass, palming the flesh before sinking my grip into it.

  “Sam…” she pleaded with a need that couldn’t be drug-induced. Not like this.

  If anything, the kiss drugged her. And me. It starved and satisfied with each taste. Her tongue stroked along mine, baiting it deeper into the minty sweetness of her mouth. And she met each thrust and volley, each lick and taste, with a need that mirrored my own. And it left me wondering how long she’d felt this way, too. How long we’d both been trying to hide it.

  How long we’d both been suffering.

  “Tally,” I rasped against her wordless demands, needing her to slow down. Needing myself to slow down.

  She sank her teeth into my lower lip, and the animal buried deep inside me—the one who’d risen through my steel-like composed surface and punched Carlos in the face—burst back through the weakened opening in my composure and savagely told my body to take what it wanted.

  I pulled her against me so hard it lifted her feet off the ground. It didn’t matter. Lifting her was the next step anyway. I hardly noticed her weight in my arms, only how her soft warmth was pressed along the length of my cock.

  And because it was Tally, she didn’t let anything go in half measures. Taking that slightest provocation, her legs wrapped around my waist, locking me to her as I walked us over to her bed—a bed I’d slept in far too many times to count, but only ever dreamed of a moment like this.

  Laying her back on the mattress carefully, I rose up as far as she would allow, heavy breaths recycling the air between us into nothing but desire. Aerosolized and addictive.

  “I want you, Sam,” she breathed, nipping at my lip again. “I need you.”

  “Christ, Tally.” My forehead fell to hers, weighted with all the reasons this was a bad idea that still came up short against the bone-deep instinct to claim her as mine. Finally.

  I began to kiss along her jaw, small tastes that made her shudder and arch against me. I didn’t know if I could have her. Now. Like this. With the past still hanging over us like a shadow. But I knew I had the strength to ignore the painful throb of my dick in exchange for the freedom to taste and explore her. And take care of her.

  I kissed down her neck, following the thumping trail of her pulse as it led me to her chest. My hand rose to meet my mouth, sliding up over her quivering stomach until my fingers reached the lace border of her bra.

  I forced down a gulp of air, knowing I was about to forget the substance was necessary—that anything was necessary except her. She rose under me, her breasts straining against the edge of her bra, and with a ragged groan, I traced my fingers along the meeting of skin and lace before hooking them into the fabric and pulled it to the side, popping her breast free.

  Need jolted straight down to the tip of my cock, seeing her dusty rose nipple rising up off her tanned skin, pleading for attention.

  Her soft whimpers faded, along with the subtle tremors of her body. All my senses clogged with the need to taste her. And I was ravenous.

  I pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the center of her sternum, ending it with a swirl of my tongue before dragging it over her sweet flesh, up the rise of her breast to conquer the supple skin at the peak.

  Pulling her nipple into my mouth, I rolled it with my tongue, and a sound escaped my chest I didn’t know I could make. A sound of lust. Of want. Of utter bliss.

  I laved over the peak for several minutes, but it was when I began to tug on it with my teeth that she went wild, grinding the heat of her pussy against my aching length.

  “Fuck.” I let out the word that hardly ever crossed the gates of my teeth, pleasure searing so harshly through my body it bordered on pain.

  Turning my attention to her other breast, I clung to the peak like it was my last connection to reality and sent my hand down between us, needing to satisfy her before her movements made me come in my pants like we were back in high school again.

  My tongue swirled her nipple, feeling my fingers reach the edge of her underwear, and then cross over it. Her heat hummed through the lace and she cried out as I cupped my whole hand over her pussy, rolling the base of my palm over her clit until I heard her strangled gasp.

  “Sam!”

  Smiling against her skin, I tugged her underwear to the side and dipped my fingers into the slick heat waiting underneath. This time, I pulled a little harder on her breast with my teeth while I rubbed her swollen clit.

  She turned frantic underneath me. Gripping the sheets, her body jerked under mine, and I told myself it was because I was giving her something she’d never had before. It was stupid and selfish and most likely w
rong, but I didn’t care. I’d kissed her first. I should’ve been all her firsts.

  But life isn’t the poster child of fairness.

  With a growl, I dragged my lips off her breasts and kissed down her stomach, letting my tongue trace her belly button before heading farther south.

  “Sam,” she choked out, fisting her hand in my hair and forcing my head back. Her eyes were wide. Uncertain but also hazy with lust. “What are you doing?”

  I grinned up at her, licking my lips nice and slow, before I replied. “Taking care of you.”

  Holding her gaze, I placed an open-mouthed kiss along the hem of the blue lace, knowing I was crossing over it—and over a line I couldn’t come back from.

  “Sam…” She shuddered. “I’ve never…”

  Power and possessiveness roared through my veins. She’d never.

  “Been kissed like this before?” I finished for her, slipping my tongue to the other side of the fabric and tasting just a hint of her sweet honey where my fingers had rubbed it over her skin.

  I refused to let go of her eyes when she answered, blushing, “No.”

  My cock swelled, reminding me that it was still there, still waiting for relief, and ready to revolt if it didn’t get some attention soon.

  Using my thumb and forefinger, I spread her pussy open wide, watching her shiver as I gently blew a stream of air over her slit. “You asked me to be your first kiss,” I rasped.

  “This wasn’t what I meant. Back then.” She gasped loudly and whimpered when I blew over her again.

  “Too bad,” I told her roughly and sank my lips over her glistening pink flesh.

  She tasted like trouble and sweet relief.

  “Mine,” I claimed and licked through her slick heat, savoring her sweetness on my tongue and the way her moans lodged in my ears and filled my head.

  “Oh, God. That feels so good, Sam,” she purred, encouragement and awe intoxicating her voice.

  Her hips jerked against my mouth with each swipe of my tongue, craving more. And I was eager to oblige.

  But if she wanted all of me, she’d have to want the truth along with it.

  “Sam!” she whimpered when I wrapped my lips around her clit and sucked the sensitive bud into my mouth.

  I groaned, feeling the rush of her desire leak onto my fingers that still teased by her entrance. I’d never felt need like this before—the need to give this to her.

  “Oh, Sam.” My name replaced God when I sank one finger inside her, her warm, tight muscles pulling me in deep. And I followed the invasion with a hard flick of my tongue over her clit.

  She cried out. Her back arched, her entire body writhing.

  Flick. Thrust.

  The pattern started slow, but demanding. Each whimper of pleasure was another wall between us tumbling down.

  Flick. A second finger joined the first, thrusting deep inside her tight heat and curling against that sweet spot on her front wall that made her body tighten on the verge of exploding.

  “Sam… Sam, please…” She panted, her feet sliding along the sheets, desperate to press her core tighter to my mouth and hands—closer to her release.

  I increased the pace, my tongue moving with violent speed over her, my fingers driving deep into her slickness. I wanted to prolong this—to prolong these moments when she was raw and exposed and vulnerable to everything I wanted to give her.

  There was a sense of triumph in pleasuring her, because I knew the truth about what happened—and how I felt would soon follow.

  “Let go, Tally,” I growled. “Let go and give me this.”

  I pinned her clit between my lips and sucked hard at the same time as I plunged three fingers inside her.

  And I growled in satisfaction when she came.

  Like the setting sun, her climax spilled over her body with gradual destruction. Every muscle from her legs to her neck seized with the intensity of her orgasm and held for long seconds before letting the aftereffects settle on her body in the vibrant, hot shades of pleasure.

  Her skin pinkened. Her eyes darkened from the depths of her release. Her lungs filled themselves with the air they’d been deprived of. And I savored it all. Every tremor. Every quiver. Until she was nothing but sated softness underneath me.

  Pulling my fingers free, I took one last taste of her sweetness before I lifted my head, searching for the bright sparks of her eyes.

  “Incredible,” I murmured, coming back over her.

  Her hands held my hair back from my face so she could meet my gaze.

  “Sam,” she whispered. “I want you.”

  I tensed, her fingers sliding over the front of my chest, their intent crystal clear. And not happening.

  Grunting, I clasped her wrist just as it grazed over my abdomen.

  “No. Not tonight, Tally.”

  I winced, seeing the wash of hurt douse her expression.

  “But I want to,” she insisted. “Please, Sam.”

  My jaw clenched and sweat beaded on my brow. Electricity coursed through my veins like I was being perpetually shocked, my cells burning out with the way I wanted her—the way my dick wanted to feel what my fingers had—the way I wanted to finally claim what I never thought could be mine.

  “We should…talk first,” I rasped, grasping at the straws of sense even as my fingers began to loosen around her wrist. I was breaking—cracking under the weight of how much I wanted this woman. “Plus, you weren’t—”

  I was cut off—we were cut off—but the loud, unmistakable rumble of Mee-Maw’s car pulling into the garage.

  Tally’s eyes widened and, with painful strength, I pulled myself off her.

  “I should go.” I brushed my hair back and then reached down to adjust my straining cock.

  “Don’t.” Her head shook. “She’s not going to come in here. It’ll be fine. Just hide alongside the bed.”

  We stared at each other for one long breathless second, transported back so many years like we were finally turning onto the right course after being detoured for so long.

  “Tally?” Mee-Maw called, entering the apartment.

  “Not tonight, Tally,” I murmured and, with a deftness that was medal-worthy considering the pain in my groin, I bent and lifted her just enough to yank the covers on the bed down and shove her underneath them. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Her frustrated groan only made slipping out of her room and onto the porch worse. My head pressed back against the wall next to the sliding door, listening as Mee-Maw knocked and then entered Tally’s room, checking on her and commenting about her flushed face. But Tally was used to covering up our trouble, and it wasn’t long before I heard good nights murmured.

  I heaved myself over the railings between the two apartments, focusing on the shot of pain the exertion sent through my dick in hopes it would calm my raging erection.

  Two years ago, my mom had wanted to move out of the apartment she’d lived in all my life—wanting something small of her own. But I couldn’t let this place go. Not when it was so close to Mee-Maw and what was left of Tally. So, I took over the rent and moved in.

  Landing on my own porch, I slipped inside what was now my apartment but had always been my home and paused.

  I should’ve left things the way they were—with the promise of our conversation tomorrow. But I knew she was upset I’d left. Parts of me were very upset, too. And we’d crossed a line tonight—one we hadn’t even approached in the past. And I needed to know I hadn’t lost her because of it.

  My shoulders sagged with my exhale and I lifted my knuckles, rapping on the wall shared between my dining space and her bedroom.

  One second passed—nothing. Another second. Still nothing.

  Come on, Tally. My chin ducked.

  Knock. Knock.

  Relief coursed through me, and I tipped against the wall. I didn’t know I needed to hear it so badly until the soft tap came through. A small sign that she was still there… that she was still with me.

  Because I co
uldn’t lose her again.

  I stared out over Bisbee, my fingers gripping the railing of the deck outside my room. Bathed in the warm afternoon light, it was hard to remember the years I’d lived away from here. Hard to remember what reasons I had to leave again.

  My head dipped, my gaze focusing on the turquoise ring around the ring finger on my right hand.

  I didn’t know it still existed.

  I didn’t know Mee-Maw had fished it out of the trash that day and kept it safe.

  And I was afraid to pinpoint the exact reason why, after last night, I felt incomplete without it on.

  My tongue darted out and moistened my lips, spinning the ring again and watching the late morning light reflect off the blue. I needed to head down to the gallery soon; it was the official unveiling of the second phase of the locally-inspired pieces tonight.

  I knew Sam would be there.

  Honestly, I thought I’d run into him earlier, but Mee-Maw peeked her head in this morning to tell me she was working down at the jewelry store all day, but she would be back to give me a ride to the exhibit.

  I swore I was just checking on her when I peeked out the window, ignoring how the first thing I noted was that Sam’s truck was gone.

  I swallowed. It was a Friday. He had to work. Duh, Tally.

  Initially, I thought it was better. I would have time to process what happened last night—and acclimate myself to the prospect of a conversation with Sam.

  A hard conversation.

  But as the hours ticked by, I grew more anxious between my tasks in preparation for tonight. Not to mention the numerous texts from Carlos informing me he was switching up his display and adding an additional painting. It wasn’t even a question, but I didn’t have the strength or the desire to argue; I half expected he’d sent the message to get a rise out of me. After last night, I would’ve been happy to forget his existence altogether.

  But without him and what he did, I wouldn’t have come back here. I wouldn’t have called Sam. I wouldn’t have spent last night in a stupor—not peyote-induced, but from pleasure.

  I sucked in a breath, feeling my core clench and ache at the memory. He wasn’t even here, but I could still feel the demanding caress of his tongue over me as though he were.