Memories of Us: A Second Chance, Amnesia Romance Novel

by Kennedy L. Mitchell

  “Say it again,” I demanded through clenched teeth. Hell, I was hanging on by a thread. I needed to get my shit together or this wouldn't last a full minute once I was inside her.

  She repeated her begging plea over and over as her head thrashed against the bed.

  Beks stilled when I pushed off the bed, her eyes focusing where my fingers worked the snaps of my shirt. Her upper teeth sank into her bottom lip and her eyes flicked up to meet mine. The soft cotton of my shirt brushed over my shoulders and floated to the floor.

  “Hell, you're like a real-life GI Joe action figure.”

  I chuckled and unbuttoned my jeans, allowing them to pool on the floor, leaving me standing in boxer briefs.

  “Do you know how sexy you are?” Her burning gaze licked fire along every inch of me. For the first time, I knew the person in my bed saw all of me. Not just my family name, my trust fund, or the body I spent hours in the gym sculpting. No, this gorgeous woman thought I, just Brenton, was sexy. “If you're ever in trouble on a mission, you better hope the enemy is all women. All you'd have to do is strip to disarm them. Hell, I'm sure they'd drop trou and fight each other over who got your dick in them first.”

  “Woman,” I groaned, gripping my throbbing cock. “The shit you say.”

  “Sorry,” she grumbled. A faint stain of pink flushed across her cheeks.

  “I lo—” I squeezed my dick harder at the near slip of the tongue. “It's perfect. Like you.”

  A shy smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “Enough talking. Take those off.” With two fingers, she gestured to my boxer briefs.

  “Yes, ma'am.” I slipped the underwear down my thighs, relishing in her wide-eyed stare. “Skirt off. Now.” While she fumbled with the button and zipper, I pulled open the nightstand drawer. Box of condoms in hand, I turned back to the bed.

  “Please tell me those are new and not thirteen years old.”

  I shot her an incredulous look as I rolled on the thin rubber. Hand still gripping my cock, I stared between her legs. “No way I gave you up for money,” I whispered more to myself than her. “I'm a damn fool for forgetting us.”

  “If you don't crawl on top of me right now, I'll start without you,” she groaned with her eyes closed, a grimace crossing her features.

  Hell. This woman. Could there ever be anyone more perfect for me?

  Smart, honest, straightforward, and just as demanding.

  I love her.

  The thought jarred through my mind, but acceptance of it sent a soothing wave through my veins. I'd have to figure it out later though, because she wasn't kidding about starting without me.

  “Stop,” I growled, smacking her hand away from between her legs.

  Both her ankles in my grasp, I yanked her ass to the edge of the bed. Every nerve, every sense zeroed in on the heat pouring from between her legs, drawing me closer. Right hand on her hip, I angled her off the bed and slid in an inch.

  I palmed her breast with my left hand and teased her nipple between my fingers as I pushed in to the hilt. In unison, we groaned at the perfect fit. I became lost in the way her soft hip molded into my hand, giving me something to hold as I slid in and out. We moved in a slow cadence, giving this moment of two lovers rejoining the reverence it deserved, until the fervor grew unbearable, the urgency pushing me harder and faster.

  Curses and versions of my name spilled from her lips in hushed whispers, insisting I go deeper. She was too much; we were too much. I only had seconds before I exploded.

  “Beks,” I gritted out through clenched teeth.

  Shouted unrecognizable words filled the room as she shuddered, clenching tight. With a loud curse of my own, I sank deep once, twice, and collapsed on top of the bed, barely catching my weight on my elbows before I crushed her.

  Her soft, muscular arms wrapped around my sweat-slick neck and pulled.

  “I don't want to hurt you,” I said, eyes closed, still coming down from the most intense orgasm ever.

  “I'm not breakable, B. I want to feel you on me. All of you.”

  Hesitantly I lowered, putting my full weight on her. Those arms tightened, and her nose nuzzled against my slick neck. It felt right, perfect even. Then again, it wasn't surprising, since every moment we were together seemed like it was made just for us. But the clock was ticking until I left.

  And I would leave.

  The army would never let me out of the contract just because I fell in love with my childhood sweetheart. Even if they did, would I want them to?

  The army was my life, one I'd never considered leaving since joining, but what if she was my cure? The one to not only keep me from my addictions but take away the need altogether, to soothe the festering anger and rage boiling in my gut on a minute-by-minute basis?

  I shifted to stare down at the beauty beneath me.

  She was more than a cure.

  This woman was my salvation.

  Chapter 20

  Rebeka

  MY DESERT-DRY MOUTH pulled me from a deep, comfortable sleep in urgent need of water. The bed dipped and sheets tangled around my hips when I rolled over in search of the glass Brenton set aside last night. The thoughtful man was worried that I'd wake up dehydrated due to the cheap tequila, plus the strenuous exercise we put in through the night between the sheets.

  I relished every gulped drop of the room-temperature water before setting the empty glass back on the nightstand. Snuggling back under the covers, I tucked my hands beneath the pillow, pulling it tight against my cheek to stare at the still-snoozing man beside me.

  Last night was.... I bit back a smile and squeezed my thighs together to relieve some of the building pressure. How in the hell was that even possible? We went round after round; I shouldn't have anything left to get all hot and bothered again. But with my very own naughty, tatted GI Joe snuggled beside me, how could my body not react was the real question.

  Yep, I was in deep shit.

  Stuck in the emotional muck with no way out.

  I loved him, really loved him, and last night only solidified it. I didn't just love him—I was in love with him, and something told me he saw us as more than a diversion until he left. But he wouldn't admit, maybe not even to himself.

  “What time is it, and why are you staring at me?” he grumbled before turning his handsome face away from my adoring eyes.

  I glanced at my phone and then tucked it back under the pillow. My stomach dipped at the empty screen. Not a single text from Ryder.

  “Six,” I said, unable to hide my disappointed tone.

  His head rolled along to the pillow to face me. “What?”

  “Six. The time is six.”

  “Not that. What's wrong?”

  I sighed and tucked a lock of unruly morning hair behind my ear. “It's nothing. I don't have any missed texts from Ryder is all.”

  Something I couldn’t read flashed behind his eyes before flicking to my injured cheek. “It doesn't look bad this morning. Does it hurt?” At the shake of my head, he rested his palm on my cheek and brushed the pad of his thumb along the bruise. “What do you want to do about Ryder?”

  The soft sheets rustled when I turned to lie on my back and look up to the ceiling. “I don't know. Give it a few days, I guess? It was just so odd and out of character for her. Something else is going on.” I cut my eyes to him. “But she and I can talk after you're gone. It'll be easier without you around to rile her up again.”

  The hand that was on my cheek slid south and dipped under the expensive sheets to explore lower. At the first brush of his fingers, my eyes shuttered closed and a low moan escaped.

  “I'll never have enough of you,” he whispered. Slick, soft lips brushed against my neck just as his fingers pushed easily inside me.

  A gasp, not my own, snapped my eyes open. To my horror, the lead housekeeper, Mrs. Hathway, stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and flaming red cheeks.

  “Can I help you with something?” Brenton asked, utterly unfazed by the interruption. I let out
a small squeak when his fingers slid deeper.

  “I thought... I wanted...,” she stammered, then took a step back.

  “While you're here, please make sure there's plenty of coffee and breakfast for Beks and me here. We have a flight to catch and will be leaving shortly.”

  Mrs. Hathway's accusing glare burned into me. Filled with the shame her stare condemned me with, I pulled the covers over my head in hopes of hiding from the entire encounter. Not sure why. I was a grown-ass woman this time, and I didn’t care if she did run off and tell Daddy like last time. Brenton would protect me.

  “Now, Mrs. Hathway.” The cold command sent a shiver down my spine. I loved Brenton's commands, but when directed to me, they were warm, provocative, not distant and authoritative like the one he just gave. “And if you ever look at Rebeka like that again, you'll find your ass off this property and never allowed back. Do I make myself clear?”

  Sweat beaded along my forehead from the heat building beneath the comforter. With my pulse thundering in my ears, I didn't hear her response. A dousing waft of cold air sprouted goose bumps down my arms and chest when the comforter was ripped back.

  “You don't ever hide, do you hear me? There is nothing to be ashamed of. Not with me.”

  Eyes locked with his, I nodded. The harsh lines along his forehead faded, and he fell back to the bed.

  “I need clothes,” I said to the ceiling.

  “Huh?” he said, clearly still ticked, popping his knuckles.

  “You told her we were catching a flight. I need clothes and need to know where we're going.”

  My yelp rattled off the walls as he rolled on top of me to press his naked body against mine.

  “I'll take care of it.” The happy, boyish smile he wore warmed my heart. I loved seeing him like that. Carefree and happy.

  After a deep, leave-me-breathless kiss, he leaped from the bed. One elbow against the mattress, I propped myself up to watch him pull last night’s jeans over his bare ass.

  With one last confident smirk, he stepped out the door, disappearing down the hall.

  In the quiet of the morning, I stretched out along the bed, savoring the soft cotton against my skin. They were way better than the Dollar General ones I bought the previous year.

  After wiping the morning out of my eyes, I groaned at the black on my fingers.

  Of course tipsy and horny me didn't think about washing my face.

  With a sigh, I sat up, flipped the covers back and tiptoed to the en suite bathroom.

  After a long hot shower, the sense of someone watching had me shutting off the hair dryer and flipping my dark hair back over to survey the room. Brenton stood expressionless, leaning against the doorframe. The distant look in his eyes ticked up my nerves.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, clutching the towel wrapped around me tighter to my chest. His eyes stayed fixed on the wall behind me. “Brenton?”

  “Your bag is on the bed. I need to shower too. Then we go,” he muttered more to himself than me. After removing his dark denim jeans, he stepped into the shower and turned on the water.

  That was odd.

  “Hey,” he called when I stepped out to rummage through the bag he’d packed. “We need to talk. Do not go anywhere.” The harshness of his words and intenseness of his tone left no room for debate.

  While he showered, I dug through the clothes, searching for something to wear on the plane. I was still looking for my underwear when the water shut off.

  “Seriously?” I shouted. “You didn't pack me any underwear?”

  In all his freshly showered, naked glory, he stepped into the bedroom while rubbing his dark hair with a towel. “I didn't want them getting in the way again,” he said with a smirk and turned back into the bathroom.

  The man had a point.

  WOW.

  I turned, my mouth gaping, to a grinning Brenton. Inside the small jet, I took the seat he pointed to and immediately fiddled with all the gadgets around me.

  “Brenton, this is way over the top.” I shifted side to side in the seat, amazed at the comfort of the soft leather. “Is this yours?”

  “Technically it's the company’s. The board bought it a few years back and let the family use it whenever we want.” He took the seat directly across from me but kept his gaze out the window, almost like he was lost in thought.

  “Okay, I'm done with this avoiding shit. Spit it out, Graves,” I demanded with a sigh. The entire ride here, the tension between us had gnawed at my nerves, and I was done. “What the hell do we have to talk about?”

  His green eyes flicked to mine. A nervous pulse of energy passed through his brief glance before he looked to the still-open door. “I need a drink.”

  “Do I?” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest while giving him my best annoyed glare.

  Instead of responding, he shook his head and moved to the front of the plane. When he returned, he slid a Coke across the table and popped the top of a flavored sparkling water.

  “It takes the edge off even if there isn't any alcohol in it. Buckle up,” he ordered as he snapped his own seat belt together. “We're about to take off.”

  The door slammed shut and the plane rolled smoothly toward the runway. I stared out the window, watching the surrounding buildings whiz by as we took off when he said, “I remembered.”

  My stomach dropped as the plane lifted off the ground. “Remembered what?”

  Reaching across the small table between us, he gripped my clammy hand. “Today, I walked into your dad's place, straight to your room, and started packing your bag. Your dad came in yelling about something and I froze.”

  “You blacked out?”

  “No, I froze because instead of seeing what was going on in front of me, I had a whole scene replaying in my mind of what happened that night. I remember. Everything.”

  My hand trembled as I tried to open my Coke. Giving up, I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. “Tell me what you remember.”

  “I remember walking in to you and your dad screaming at each other and Bradley holding him back. What’s crazy is I can almost feel the rage I felt then at seeing your bleeding lip, your eyes red and swollen from crying. I grabbed you, pulled you into your room, and packed your bags. I threw whatever I could find into a small duffel you had, and we left.”

  “You told me you'd take care of me,” I whispered over the roaring engines.

  “You know what else I remember feeling?”

  “What?” I choked out.

  “Fucking happy.”

  “You were high, Brenton. Of course you were happy.”

  “It had nothing to do with drugs, Rebeka. Hey, look at me.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, took a deep breath in for strength, and opened my eyes. “You were pregnant.”

  Air stopped filling my lungs and my heart slammed against my chest as I stared wide-eyed into his.

  “That's what you texted me. You told me you were pregnant, and that's why I came to you. Last night you said you never imagined I would come to you after you sent that text. Was I that much of an asshole? Did you have that little faith in me that you thought I wouldn't give a shit?”

  Fuck it.

  We were doing this now or never. It wasn't like I could walk out, which was probably part of his genius plan all along. Get me in this floating tin can with zero exits a sane person would take at this altitude.

  I twirled the Coke can between my hands. “Do you have anything stronger?” Brenton nodded and unbuckled his seat belt. “Bring the bottle.”

  “It's an hour flight.”

  “Then you might want to bring two.”

  “So bossy,” he grumbled, but a corner of his full lips pulled up in an almost smirk.

  After he returned with two travel-size whiskey bottles, I cracked one open and tipped it back. When the burning down my throat subsided, I leaned back in the seat and shrugged.

  “Like I said last night, I was seventeen. I was scared, and we never had the whole ‘we
're doing this forever’ talk. Hell, you never even said you loved me. For all I knew at the time, I was just a fun distraction when you were at the ranch.”

  “That doesn't sound right,” he said with enough anger behind it that I looked up through my lashes. “I might not remember everything, but you knew you were more than a distraction. What we had was more than sex.”

  Again I sighed and leaned against the window. I took another swig from the bottle and grimaced at the bold flavor. “Okay, yeah, that was an asshole thing of me to say. I knew I was more than that, but still, I was seventeen and pregnant with my father’s boss’s grandson's baby, who happened to be way older. Oh, and to top it off, no one had a damn clue we were even together.”

  “How did your dad even find out? Did you tell him?”

  “Hell no. I went to someone, someone I thought I could trust.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Hathway. She'd been like a mother to me all those years, and I thought she would give me advice, let me cry on her shoulder. But it didn't turn out that way.”

  “I'll deal with her when I get back,” he said with an undercurrent of rage in his tone. “I was happy about the baby. Shocked, but happy.”

  I didn't hold back my smile. “Yeah you were. The wreck happened about five minutes after we left the ranch. Something darted out into the road. You swerved and then overcorrected us right into a deep drop-off. But in those five minutes, you had our whole lives planned out. You talked so fast, got me excited about our future. You made me believe it.” With the back of my hand, I wiped away a rogue tear. “You made me believe in a future with you.”

  All the color drained from his face. “Then I took it away.”

  Unable to get another word out without turning into a bumbling mess, I nodded and looked out the window to the white fluffy clouds.

  “No, Beks.” He wrapped his hands around mine and pulled them close. “I wouldn't have. I swear to you I didn't do that. I didn't make the decision to walk away. Yes, I was high, but my feelings were real. I remember that much. I wouldn't have said all that to you and then walked away. I won't believe it.”