by Misti Murphy
I smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You sound like a girl who’s putting her past behind her.”
Tilting her face to mine, she welcomed my mouth on hers. “It is possible that I’m trying. I don’t know if I can ever get free of it all, but I want to.”
“Well let’s get this show on the road. Next stop, Hollyfields?”
“Sounds good to me.” She swung her legs into the cab, settling into her seat and snatching up her coffee.
I shut the door and jogged around the truck. Yes, the sun was out, shining brightly now and dispelling the darkness left by the storm. Maybe there would always be regrets. Things I would change given the chance, but all we could do was take the debris and rebuild stronger and better than the first time.
Chapter Fourteen
Mellie
The fields we’d passed on the first day gave way to forests and winding roads. The canopy of trees with their autumn hued leaves filtered the rays of the sun as we passed through them, and I’d curled up against Mike, my feet up on the seat. We’d talked. Not about anything in particular. Memories of our time together, when we’d been happier, and plans for the future. Mike wanted to expand Lance Starr, franchise it and start building further afield.
We’d stopped at lunch time. Pulled off the path near a creek that wound its way beside the road, and eaten the leftover muffins from the morning. I’d propped myself against the thick trunk of a tree, and he’d lain on the grass, his head in my lap and outlined his plans. His face brightened when he talked about business. It was a thousand watt sunshine, and I basked in it, letting it warm me inside out while I stroked my hand over his head and wished we could stay there under the trees all day.
We’d gotten back on the road, and I’d driven for a while. Mike had pulled his cap down over his eyes, and pretended to doze, but the wicked twist of his lips and the way he kept his hand on my knee, brushing his thumb along the inside of my thigh gave him away. Under that baseball cap he was toying with ideas, business maybe, but more likely us. Soon his fingers had worked up higher, starting the buzz that I couldn’t ignore. When it had gotten too much I’d found a dirt path off the main road and we’d driven along it until we’d found a secluded spot. He’d taken me on the hood of the truck, my boots still on, while he wrapped my legs around him and sunk deep inside me.
I’d napped for a while after, but the closer we got to Hollyfields, the more I remembered of my childhood. Things I’d blocked out when I’d left with no intention of ever going back. Friends I’d had in high school. A boyfriend whose name I couldn’t quite remember. He’d been cute, until I’d found him kissing Missy Pinkington in a school supply closet. Lola and I had egged his house. After that I’d stuck with studying so I could be a doctor, like our father. That hadn’t worked out in the end.
I peered through the windscreen as we drove through Hollyfields. Not much had changed since I’d caught a bus out of here, taking nothing but a suitcase. The grocery store, a mom and pop type of place, was still run by the same people. The same shops still lined both sides of the street. Only the garage had a new sign, but even that had faded. A few blocks up, the old doctor’s office where I’d found my sperm donor with his dick in his secretary boasted a new gold plaque. The pleasure of seeing his name removed from the town was counterbalanced by the sensory memory of how our lives had played out in this tiny town.
“I went to school there.” I pointed out the small building I had attended before high school, when we’d had to catch the bus to the next town over. “Back then I thought I’d stay here forever. Build a house close to my parents and settle down, probably with a doctor.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Mike squeezed my knee as he turned into the circular driveway in front of the bed and breakfast. I admired it through the window, the expanse of manicured lawn flanking the three story doll’s house, and garden beds full of peach and cream colored roses. “How gorgeous.”
He glanced at me. “It’s rather pretty, isn’t it?”
“Allergic to pretty?” I laughed, taking off my seat belt.
“I prefer beautiful and sexy myself, but it will do for the night. I just wish there was a better reason for us to stay in a place like this.”
“Like what?”
He scrubbed a hand over his head, not quite meeting my gaze, before huffing out a breath. “I don’t know. Let’s go get checked in.”
Mike rang the doorbell and we waited until the owner came to the door. She pulled it open and gave us the once over before ushering us in. “You must be the Starr’s. What a cute couple you make. Married long?” She bustled along the hallway, cleaning her glasses, which hung on a chain around her neck, with us following behind.
“Not married.” I shook my head. Married to Mike. The idea wasn’t completely unlikable. I rubbed my thumb over my ring finger. I could imagine it. May have planned it all out in my head once upon a time, but we were barely back together. It was too soon to have fallen so hard for him all over again, wasn’t it? Only that would have required me falling out of love with him in the first place, and I had never actually managed it. My lips twitched, curved up, and I bowed my head before casting a glance his way to find his gaze pinned on me. There was such intensity in it, my breath caught in my throat.
Sidling behind her desk, the owner pushed her glasses onto the bridge of her nose and put the guestbook in front of us. “Could you sign in here?”
My pulse stuttered as he scrawled his name, never taking his eyes off me. Such deep desire played over his face, my whole body heated like my cheeks.
The woman prattled on, oblivious, while she got the key from the row of hooks on the back wall and led us up a staircase to the second floor. “Check out is at eleven-thirty, breakfast is served in the dining room from seven. I hope you find everything to your satisfaction.”
“It’s perfect, thank you,” Mike purred, ushering me into the room, and offering her a panty-melting smile.
“Let me know if you need anything.” She wandered back down the hall, mumbling to herself and patting her salt and pepper hair as if she’d been electrocuted by his charm.
Shutting the door, his gaze travelled over me while I shrugged out of my jacket and flopped on the bed. I patted the spot beside me, waiting for him to join me.
Instead he moved to the window, his hands in his pockets while he stared out over the gardens at a copse of trees, their long shadows cast over the manicured lawn. Crossing my legs, I watched him. The slight frown on his brow and the set of his jaw. The warmth that had enveloped me earlier evaporated, and I shivered. Picking at a loose thread on the quilt, the quiet made my skin goose bump. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I crawled off the bed and went to stand beside him. “You’ve been pensive all day.”
“Sorry,” he said gruffly, pulling me between him and the window. His chin rested on my shoulder, his gaze pinned on mine. “No storm today. For the first time in a long time the sky is clear.”
I knew what he meant. I’d felt it, too, and wanted the day to last forever. The gaping hole that had filled me so long had shrunk because of him, but it was still there in my gut. An awareness of some unquantifiable object in the distance. I’d wanted to come here. Had needed to after all these years, but I still didn’t know why. My mother had died, buried in some tiny plot amongst the poorest of the town inhabitants. Not that we’d been poor. Not until my father had left us, anyway. And what he left her had been enough for us to scrape by on after she paid for her booze for the months before she died. After that, there’d barely been enough to cover my bus ticket when I left the day after the funeral.
She wasn’t here anymore. And still I’d needed to come. “I don’t know why I came back.”
“Of course you do.” He swiped my hair from my neck, pressed his lips over the pulse point. “It all started here. It will end here, too.”
“Do you think it’s that easy?”
“No. But I think you know that you get to make the choice.”
“I’m beside you every step of the way.” He took my hand, entwined our fingers and kissed each knuckle before leading me back to the bed.
“Do you ever feel like you’re standing on a precipice? That tingling in your gut that sticks to your spine and all you can do is try to remember to breathe?”
“Every time I look at you.” He pulled me up on the bed, held me in the circle of his arms.
“I feel that way about being back here,” I whispered, pulling away slowly, not wanting to let go, uncertain about holding on.
He didn’t let me go, instead dancing on the bed to a tune in his head. He hummed a few bars. I’d heard it before. Something about loss and love, and how you should love as hard as you can since you never know when it will be gone. I rested my head on his chest, the vibration against my cheek. We’d loved harder, faster, and we’d lost it all. But maybe we didn’t have to be that way.
I slipped my hands under his shirt, explored the ridges and dips of his ribs as I lifted up to nip at his lip. His mouth surged over mine with an intensity that made my knees almost give out. Sinking down on his knees, he took me with him, pressing me down on the mattress as his hands traced every inch of my bare skin.
It wasn’t enough. That feeling I got with him, that I had never been able to contain in words, expanded through every nerve ending, every cell until I shook with it. Winding my fingers through his hair, I dragged him down to me, my pelvis seeking out the hard bulge straining against his jean. “I need you.”
“I’m all yours, sexy legs.” He rolled to his back, pulling me to straddle him as he stripped off my top and tossed it over the side of the bed. “Take what you need.”
Lazily, he brushed his thumbs over the thin material that covered my nipples. Sensation burst under his touch, shivered all the way to my core, pooling between my legs. I rocked over him, the hard length of his cock pressed to my slit until he groaned and grasped my hair, yanking me down to fuck my mouth with his tongue.
He did impossible things to me. Things that made me want to stay locked in his arms for the rest of my life, but could we really make it? Sliding down his body, I jerked his shirt up and darted my tongue over his flat brown nipples before moving down the lean expanse of his abdomen to the fine trail of hair that always made me obsess over how quickly I could find where it ended. The buttons slipped through their holes under my fingers, and I tugged them down as he lifted his hips to help me.
Heaven lay outlined by his tight boxer briefs, hard for me, and only for me. My clit throbbed as that thought filled me with a flood of warmth. I dragged his briefs away and wrapped my hand around his cock, stroking the length of him until his hips bucked, and pre cum leaked from the tip. He groaned when I sucked him, darting my tongue out to taste him. He grabbed my face between his hands, pulled me up over him and rolled us over. “I love your mouth on my cock.” His movements were frantic, jerky as he manhandled me out of my shorts and thong. “But I want to be inside you.”
He was already there, maybe not in the way he meant, but he was far deeper inside me than he could get with his cock. Grasping his hardness in my hand, I rubbed it against my slit and whimpered. I could slide him inside me, feel him bare, and let go of the things that had kept us apart. All it would take was a careful stroke of my hand and he’d know how much I loved being his and wanted to be again. “Condom?”
He froze above me, his jaw clenching for the briefest of seconds. We were on the same page. He’d known I was about to offer him the world. I wanted to more than anything, but still I held back. I couldn’t offer him everything until I knew without a shadow of a doubt I’d never break his heart again. “I want to.” My voice cracked, as I reached for him. “But we’re still so new. I can’t…”
“I get it.” He shifted over me, finding a condom in the pocket of his pants. “I want all of you, always have. When you’re ready to come home to me, you won’t hold back.”
Rolling onto his back, he ripped open the packet and rolled the rubber down his length before dragging me over him. I settled over his cock, the head of it nudging eagerly at my slit. With a wiggle I seated myself, taking him in to the hilt and rocked. “Make me want that, Mike. Make me forget why I’m holding back. Remind me how it feels to be yours.”
He grasped my hips, tilting me forward so I had to grab the headboard to keep my balance, while he lifted me up and down, surging inside me with each roll of his hips, until I trembled all over from the deep hot ache welling up inside me. Each slide added to the delicious sensations swelling through me, and I closed my eyes, tossed my head back and rode him hard, using the headboard as leverage while I found ecstasy. “I’m so close.”
He groaned beneath me. “That’s it, sexy legs. I love watching you cum. Love the way your lips turn up while I bring you to the edge.”
“Mike,” I cried out, rocking faster. “More, I need more.”
He picked up the pace, pistoning into me, sliding through my wetness and pushing me right to the edge. I was so close to cumming. The first tight sweep of my climax rushed over me.
Wood splintered and gave way in a sharp crack of sound that stole my orgasm from me, then the bed dropped beneath us. My pulse beat frantically, and I scrambled against Mike as I opened my eyes. “What the hell? Oh my God, did we just break the bed?”
He grinned, tugging me down on top of him while he glanced behind him and then at the end of the bed. “Looks like it.”
“Oh shit.” I wriggled in his arms, trying to get loose.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He tightened his arms around me.
“To see about getting a new room. One with a bed that isn’t broken.”
Instead of letting me go, he turned us so I was underneath him, pressed into me again while he cupped my face in his hands. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”
“But the bed.” I waved a hand at the disaster around us, although what he was doing with those long slow strokes was quickly making the need to find a new bed fade away.
“It can wait.” He grazed his lips along my neck. “Besides it’s not the first time we’ve broken a bed.”
I chuckled, arching beneath him as he pulled the unravelled threads of my orgasm back into a tight ball in my core. “If I remember correctly you didn’t think it was no big deal back then.”
“You broke my dick, woman. It was one of the most painful days of my life.”
“You were so pathetic about it.” I cupped his ass, pressing him deeper. “You thought the doctors would want to cut it off.”
“I overreacted,” he grumbled. “But you kept me from getting worked up about it. Why the hell didn’t I remember that when I found out I had cancer?”
He wasn’t really looking for an answer, instead kissing me deeply while he surged inside me, building my orgasm back to its peak and keeping it going until I was boneless beneath him. Then he came, too.
Pulling us onto our sides, in the middle of the broken bed, he held me, my head resting on his chest. “Things could have worked out so differently.”
They could have, but maybe we wouldn’t have made it even then. But perhaps we could now. If I could only be who I wanted to be and not like the man whose genes haunted me.
Chapter Fifteen
Mike
Rolling over, I brushed the hair from her face. Always such a bird’s nest in the morning, especially after she let me love her over and over. Hard and fast until the headboard had cracked from the frame and we’d ended up on the floor. And then we’d done it again, slow and lingering, heedless of the broken frame around us, completely absorbed in one another. “We should probably get up, sexy legs.”
“I don’t want to,” she murmured, stroking her cheek against my palm. “Can’t we stay here for a little longer?”
I lifted the sheet on her nakedness, tempted by the line of her ass to slip inside her and make love to her again. Finding her clit, I brushed a finger over it, making he
r ass press to my erection. “A couple of days and I’ll let you stay in bed all day if you want. Hell, I’ll join you.”
“You will? You don’t sleep in.” She pouted and rolled into me, opening her sleepy eyes.
“I didn’t say anything about sleep, love.”
“Mmm, okay.” She smiled, lifting her face so I could kiss her.
She made staying in bed damn near irresistible. It would be so easy to stay here with her and forget why we’d come to this place in the middle of nowhere, but the sooner we got started, the sooner we could put this day behind us, and I could convince her to move back into my house, and spend the rest of her life with me. That was far more tempting than temporarily staying in this broken bed. “Let’s get dressed.”
***
I left Mellie in the dining room while I went to reception to take care of the bill. The woman’s eyes had widened when I explained about the bed and offered more than enough compensation to cover the damages. Then I organized a new room with a hefty deposit. I could feel her gaze burn into my back as I swaggered away. Let her think what she wanted. She was probably right.
“Are you ready to go?”
“Mmm, yeah,” Mellie mumbled around a mouthful of banana muffin as she stood up. “How did she take it, about the bed?”
“All sorted.” I ushered her out of the house. “Is there anywhere you want to go first, or straight to the cemetery?”
“There’s nothing here I want to remember, but could we see if there’s a flower shop? I’d like to take her something.” She climbed in the truck.