Runaway Groom

by Virginia Nelson

  Her knees snapped up around his face as she cried out, spine arching. The taste of her, rich and hot and a little spicy, across his tongue, only made him hungry for more.

  Rubbing his hand from her knees to her hips, he pushed above her to meet her eyes. Her breasts jiggled as she struggled to breathe and his fingers, still buried inside her, moved so he could feel her clench around him in response.

  “That’s two. I owe you quite a few more.”

  “That’s a debt which, if you’re serious about repaying it, could take a while.”

  “I figure you’re right.” He suckled one of her nipples into his mouth, tweaking the other between forefinger and thumb. She wriggled in response.

  “We have all night. I want to see your body.”

  It was a request he was happy to fulfill. Once he was naked and slid on a condom, he pulled her against him. Just the feel of her breasts, pressed to his chest, her arms banding around him, made his heart twist.

  So long.

  He wanted to hold her again for so very long.

  He buried his face in her neck, kissing the softness of her skin there, inhaling her scent.

  Her fingers, those clever slender fingers, traced across his flesh, relearning the topography of his body. When she cupped his cock, he bucked into her hand, unable to resist the feel of her.

  Worshiping her, he started at her neck, worked his way across her collarbones, to her breasts.

  Man, he missed her tits.

  Once she was writhing beneath him, he touched her again, finding her wet, and enjoyed the way she arched.

  Urgent, she pulled him to her. He was happy to oblige, moving between her legs before they locked around his waist, and then he sank into her heat.

  Catching her mouth, he swallowed her moan, tongues tangling as he began to move.

  He planned to go slow.

  He planned to take his time.

  Her nails digging into his back and her hips jerking against him made him move faster. Swiveling his hips, he felt her whole body tense and then the muscles of her tight, wet sheath closed around him as another orgasm rocked her body.

  Fighting his own climax, he broke the kiss, clenching his jaw.

  And then she was moving again, all liquid muscles, wrapping around him and blasting all rational thought from his mind.

  His fingers slid between them, teasing the knot of nerves and feeling the aftershocks ripple across her muscles.

  And he came, his own orgasm seeming to start at his toes and spasming every muscle in his body, pushing into her as her hands smoothed across his back, his ass, her kisses peppering across his shoulder.

  His arms shook as he collapsed next to her, curling her into his body with the last remnants of his strength.

  Holding her, he tried to remember how to breathe.

  “So,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “That was nice.”

  Turning his head to face her, he met her laughing chocolate eyes. “Nice?”

  She giggled, for a moment looking like the carefree girl he remembered.

  “You thought that was nice?”

  “Very nice?”

  “You aren’t sure?” He caught her lips, amazed that even after mind-shattering sex, the taste of her was enough to make him a little dizzy.

  “I’m sure. It was very nice.”

  “Well, if round one was nice, wait till we get to round two.”

  “Round two?”

  “Yeah, Bigfoot. I’ve missed you. And I’m not tired yet and I’m not going anywhere. I may have been a chickenshit before, but I’m here now and we’ve got time to make up for.” His body stirred to life, cock beginning to harden.

  “Again?”

  “Oh yeah. Again.”

  “Oh my.” Her cheeks flushed and she smiled, a slow curl of lips full of seduction. “Well, this time, I get to be on top.”

  “You think?”

  “I figured we could change it up a little. Wouldn’t want you to get bored.”

  “I’ll let you know if I feel bored.” His fingers began to wander across her skin.

  “If you’re not bored…how many condoms did you bring, exactly?” Her voice was breathless as she began to move for him.

  His laughter rumbled up from his chest, feeling lighter than it had in years, as he met her eyes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  February 7, 2014

  Abby,

  Lou came to see me. We sat up all night until the sun rose, and I really talked to him…like I used to talk to you.

  I told him I miss you, Bigfoot. Even if you’re a stubborn ass who still never has written me back. Even if you might never forgive me.

  I miss you too much to stay away any longer.

  To put it in the words of the iconic Ozzy (knew you’d love that. You know the concert rocked. Even if he made fun of your precious Alanis.), Mama, I’m comin’ home.

  So, yeah, anyway. Prepare yourself.

  I want to see if you still feel something for me. And if I still feel the way about you that I used to. Maybe I can finally get you out of my system.

  Maybe we can finally have our happily ever after.

  One way or another, our time is now.

  I’m hoping you’re ready for me.

  Oh, by the way…you don’t have to wear underwear. I won’t tell anyone.

  ;)

  Love, as always,

  B

  Braxton woke up alone. A rooster on the farm on the other side of the lake crowed, a possessive cry that echoed over the water and into the brilliantly colored sky hanging above him.

  Rolling over, he looked for her. Her clothes were gone. She left him. After everything, the fact she made love to him through the night and disappeared before the sun stained the sky shouldn’t hurt.

  But it did. Shoving a hand through his hair, he realized, finally, that he was a complete fool.

  Everyone might joke about him being the Runaway Groom of Ashtabula County, but really, he had been chasing after the ghost of Abigail for more years than he cared to think about. He loved her, waited for her, spilled his heart out to her.

  And this morning, she was gone.

  There was no note in the cab of his truck. Nothing to show she spent the night in his arms, crying out, digging her nails into his back, answering his need for her with one that blazed just as hot on her end.

  Nothing.

  As usual, he was alone.

  “Enough of this shit.”

  Slamming the door of his truck, he spit gravel with the tires of the truck as he sped back to town.

  If she left at this point, so be it.

  He was done walking around with his tail between his legs like some poor, pathetic dog in heat, chasing after a bitch that didn’t want him.

  It was time for her to see how it felt to twist in the wind. She knew how he felt about her. She knew where he was. If she wanted him, she knew where to find him.

  And if he was crying a little, well, screw it. She read the letters. He’d poured his heart out to her. She of all people should understand that sometimes men cry too.

  They just fucking do.

  Curled into Braxton’s body, she was feeling anything but the serenity reflected by nature around her. Panic curled in sickly knots in her stomach. This wouldn’t work. He would leave again. She hadn’t lied to him. She read all the letters. Each and every one. Each one spoke of a love that made her cry…a lot. But it hadn’t been enough. At the end of the day, it hadn’t been enough to keep him and he had walked away.

  So she took him into her body since, really, she never took him out of her heart. She might have fooled herself for a while. She might have almost convinced herself that she hated him, that he hurt her enough that she would never forgive him.

  But all of it was cover for the awful truth. She loved him more than she ever loved anyone or anything, and she accepted that she wasn’t enough to keep him.

  The minute man from their teen years was gone, pr
oved by a night of lovemaking, and he wasn’t a jackass, proved by thousands of letters. But she wasn’t enough for him, proved because he left her once. For this moment, this snapshot in time, he was hers. The smell of him surrounded her as much as his warmth did.

  Knowing that he was going to leave and staying to see it were two very different things. She grabbed her clothes, threw them on and tiptoed away, only glancing back once at his still-sleeping form. Her heart twisted in her chest. Better to leave now, while he was sleeping, than to hurt when he left her.

  And if she cried a little on the walk back to town, it wasn’t that big of a deal. After all, she would cry far more if she stuck around to get more attached only to have him leave again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  February 7, 2012

  Abby,

  Happy Birthday!

  I’ve been working in a factory and I hate it. I’m stuck on swing shifts, so one week I’m on firsts, the next seconds, the third week I’m on third shift. The only good thing about this is that when I’m on thirds, I can sleep and get paid for it. My boss is a jackass, my apartment has roaches, and I miss home so bad it’s like a toothache on my heart.

  How the hell are you?

  This year, I got you a beer. Yeah, you aren’t drinking it so I will sip it for you. Who would have thought our lives would turn out this way? If you’d asked me back in school who would be part of my life forever and what my life would be like…I surely wouldn’t have guessed this. I’m thinking your life probably worked out a lot closer to what you wanted it to be. You were always smart, landed on your feet.

  Maybe I’m paying for leaving. Maybe my life was meant to be this empty. Anyway, thinking of you. Hope your birthday rocked.

  Love ya,

  B

  “Tea? You made me tea? I think I’m gonna bawl.” Carnie accepted the colorful mug with both hands and blew at the steam curling out of the top. “Thanks for putting up with my sick butt.”

  “That’s what friends are for.” Plopping at the foot of the couch, Abigail considered her. “Your hair looks like shit, your nose is redder than Rudolph’s but otherwise, you look much better today.”

  Carnie snorted, setting the mug on the coffee table. “Yeah, thanks for that. Hit me while I’m down. I’ll remember that.”

  Adjusting herself on the sofa, she got a strange look on her face.

  “Hey.” She pulled out a letter from between the cushions. “Is this one of those letters Braxton wrote you?”

  “Gimme that.” Abigail grabbed for it but, sick or not, Carnie snatched it out of her reach.

  “Oh no. I have been dying to read these. What did you do with the giant tubs-o-love, anyway?”

  “I read them.”

  “Then what? You never dished about it. It’s been driving me nuts. I’ve been dying to hear what happened with all that.”

  “Nothing. Nothing happened. It’s over, well, it was already over before it began.”

  “Uh huh…” Carnie was scanning the letter, which she opened while swatting away Abigail’s attempts to retrieve it. “Oh my sweet horny ex-boyfriends, I have never read anything like this. He wants to put his tongue where?”

  “Gimme the letter, Carnie.”

  “You didn’t wear panties? You daredevil you! And…oh, that is the nicest thing…”

  “Would you give me the damn letter, Carnie?” Abigail practically shrieked the last, and her best friend finally looked at her.

  “He loves you. Did you talk to him since you read these?”

  Thumping back on the couch and closing her eyes, Abigail nodded.

  “And what happened?”

  “We had really amazing sex out by Watkin’s pond.”

  “Oh, I am so telling Manda on you.”

  “Would you focus here?”

  Carnie shifted in her bathrobe and tried to look serious. After a moment, she gave up. “Where are the rest of the letters?”

  “You’re not reading them.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  After a short chase, Abigail found herself locked out of her own bedroom. Pounding on the door, she yelled, “Open up, Carnie.”

  “Found ‘em!”

  “I’m sure you did. Would you open the damn door?”

  “No. Oh my…he proposed at prom? That is kind of romantic.”

  “No, actually, it kind of sucked.” Abigail felt sort of stupid talking to her bedroom door. “If I agree to let you read the damn letters, will you let me in?”

  Silence answered her.

  After a minute, Carnie opened the door. Her eyes, formerly red, now leaked and she crumpled into Abigail’s arms. “Tell me you have tissues.”

  “I have tissues. Which letter?”

  “He-He…wrote you all these letters because once you said that letters were the most romantic—” Her sob broke off on a hiccup.

  “Oh yeah, that one.”

  “How are you not bawling?” howled Carnie.

  Abigail strode into her room, grabbed the tissues and shoved them at her.

  “Well, here’s the deal. He’s gonna leave again. Right now, he’s stuck on the idea of his old flame from high school. I’m not her anymore. When I was a kid, I thought I could change the world…now, well, I’m a boring adult who takes care of her mother. I’m not exciting and he will figure that out, get bored and go on with his life. So, no matter how romantic the letters, no matter how mind bogglingly good the sex was—”

  Carnie held up a hand. “He writes letters like this, looks like he does and the sex was mind boggling?”

  “Yes, regardless of all that, he’s going to leave. If I let myself get wrapped up in it—”

  “What?” Carnie interrupted again. “You might have memories to last a lifetime? You might look back on your life and think, wow, that fucking kicked ass? So, if I understand your skewed logic correctly, you are not having the most amazing sex with the man you love who loves you because…it might end at some point.”

  Put that way…

  “Fuck.”

  Carnie smacked her in the head.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  “My momma called them knowledge bumps. You needed one. Abby, you’re an idiot.”

  Now Abigail wanted to cry. “Shit. I left him. Ditched him at the lake. He hasn’t called since. What the fuck do I do?”

  Carnie sat, silent for a moment, fingering one of the letters.

  Then a slow smile curled her lips.

  “I think you should write him a letter.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Knobby Knees,

  I’ve been writing these for a week now. I’ve also been leaving little things in the cab of your truck. Since meddling mailmen and grandmothers aren’t in your way, there’s a chance you’re actually getting yours.

  I don’t know if you’re reading them. Guess that’s fair. You spent a decade not knowing if I heard you or not. A week in comparison is less than a drop in the bucket.

  So, you’ve heard about the years in between. You’ve heard about my fears and how things have sucked.

  I guess I’ve been avoiding writing the hard stuff though.

  Something I haven’t said is, I’m sorry, Brax.

  I’m sorry I believed you would actually walk out on me and not say a thing.

  I would like to blame it on the town, your dad, my age…

  But really, that would be bullshit and as you’ve said, we don’t lie to one another. That is a good foundation to build a future on, so I’ll stay as we began and not lie to you now.

  It was easier to believe you didn’t want me than to dare believe in you.

  If I believed in you, it meant that I should do something. Chase after you. Hunt you down when you came to town. Find you. Dare to do something.

  I was too chickenshit to do any of that.

  Plus, to be honest, I never really felt like I deserved you.

  Shit, this is going to be a long letter.

  Let me start at the beginning. Remember that summer
? The one where you finally kissed me for the first time in the pond? Well, I liked you before that. I used to dress up my Barbies and marry them and call them Braxton and Abby. You were so cute. And then we hit high school and HEL-LO…you were the football jock, the golden boy…you had everything going for you.

  Me? I was plain. I was the daughter of the town quack. I was ordinary, sometimes less than ordinary.

  When you kissed me…I felt special.

  I never really felt like I deserved it.

  That isn’t your fault. That was me.

  When I looked down the aisle on our wedding day and you weren’t there, my first thought, as awful as this sounds, wasn’t, “Where is he?” it was, “Oh, it figures.”

  I was so scared something happened to you…but then again, when I found out you left…

  Braxton, it made sense to me. You had a future. I had…this.

  Getting all your letters, realizing you carried me with you wherever you went, well, it was daunting as hell. For one, it felt like you were in love with a me I had never dared to be. For two, what if I let you down? What if I wasn’t all that you remembered? What if you left me after all that?

  How could I live with that?

  To be honest, Brax, I panicked. I freaked the fuck out and I bailed, leaving you lying there asleep.

  And I regret it.

  If I could rewind time, I wouldn’t change our wedding day.

  I know that probably sounds pretty weird coming from me. I wouldn’t change that because you were right. We were too young and it wasn’t our time.

  But if I could rewind time, I wouldn’t have left the safety of your arms by the pond last week. I would have stayed, curled up in you until you woke. I would have kissed you awake and tried to convince you to make love to me again.

  I can’t rewind time.

  I love you.

  Love, Abigail

  Dear Brax,