Unbreak My Heart (Rough Riders Legacy #1)(41)
“So why did I go out of my way to make time for you? Only you? Because you were the most important person in my life.” In pressing my point I ended up increasing my grip on her hair. “What we were to each other was always deeper than just friends.”
“I didn’t want to just be your friend, Boone.”
“You’d have less resentment toward me now if I’d turned our friendship into something more and then left?”
“You didn’t give me a choice.” She twisted out of my hold and broke eye contact. “I hated you for that.”
The knot in my gut tightened. “Hated?”
“With the power of a thousand fiery suns kind of hatred that a sixteen-year-old girl excels at. After you left, I spent most of the summer in Paris with my mom. I got rid of that pesky virginity as soon as possible to a sophisticated—and experienced—French college senior named Jean-Michel.”
I ground my teeth together.
“The worst part wasn’t you not taking me to prom. The worst part was finding out, literally at the last minute, that you had cared about me the way I’d dreamed you would.” Her gaze sought mine. “Then you kissed me and satisfied your curiosity so you could move on.”
“No. No,” I repeated, more vehemently, “that goddamn kiss wrecked me, Sierra.”
She went utterly still.
“Wrecked me,” I repeated. Curling my hand beneath her jaw, I feathered my thumb over her bottom lip. “I didn’t kiss another woman for a goddamned year because I couldn’t get this mouth out of my mind. I kept flashing back to that smile, the one that dazzled me the first time we met. Or the sneering one that pissed me off, because it managed to be cute and a little mean. I remembered how badly I wanted to bite this pouting bottom lip when you were being a brat. But mostly I remembered how your lips softened beneath mine from that first touch.”
“Then you remember the taste of my tears, too.”
Those words hit me as hard as a punch to the gut. But I soldiered on, continuing to gently stroke her lower lip, while inching closer. “And you know the taste of mine,” I said softly.
That startled her. Then she whispered, “You’re right. God. I’d…forgotten.”
“You think it was easy for me? That I just climbed on my bike and never looked back? Never thought about you, never wished my life circumstances had been different so I didn’t have to make that choice?”
She shook her head. “But it did get easier to block it out, didn’t it?”
No malice distorted her words. She’d been speaking for herself as much as asking me. “It did. And then there were times when I imagined what it’d be like when I finally saw you again.”
“It’s not exactly been us holding hands, having heart-to-hearts and hugging it out, has it?”
“No. But you haven’t kicked me in the balls either, so I’m still ahead of the curve.”
That earned me a smile.
And I shamelessly caressed the bow of her upper lip with my thumb, as if I could make the touch erotic enough that she’d let me use my tongue next time. When her breath caught, I groaned.
“Boone. What are we doing?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m about to kiss you.” I shifted the position of my hand, lightly resting it on her throat. “Are you gonna run?”
Sierra’s eyes were affixed to my mouth. “Not right this second. But I reserve the right to freak out afterward. So you’d better make this good.”
Of course she’d throw down a challenge. Such a f*cking temptation to smash my lips to hers and devour her. Give her a preview of how explosive it’d be when we finally sated this hunger with more than just hot, grinding kisses.
And yet…that’s what she’d expect. I didn’t have to prove there was heat and passion between us. It’d been there when neither of us really knew what to do with it. Sierra needed a reminder of the other side of me, the tender side I’d only ever shown to her.
I pushed her hair back before I framed her beautiful face in my hands. I nuzzled her cheeks, letting the scruff on the edge of my jaw brush the corners of her lips.
Her soft, surprised moan flowed into my ear like a smooth shot of whiskey.
That. Right there. I craved more of that.
I took my time aligning our mouths. Kissing the divot in her chin before I began to lightly tease my lips across hers. Each pass a little longer until the pressure of my mouth on hers was constant. No tongue, just languid dedication to relearning the shape of her mouth beneath mine. Even as my head spun with the incredible intimacy of this—the tightening of her fists in my shirt, her soft sigh gusting across my lips, the tiny squeak when I used my teeth—I committed every reaction to memory just in case this was all I ever had from her. I’d keep it with all the other memories I had of her, of us. She had no idea of the power those memories held for me.
We swayed together, the pace set by our bodies’ rhythms, not the music.
So addictive, this druggingly sweet exploration. The whisper-soft glide of my lips, taking in little sips of her breath from hers as she exhaled.
My tongue followed the seam of her lips. On the second pass, I pushed in deeper, my tongue connecting with her teeth. On the third pass, she opened her mouth fully and it was ON.
Lust told sweetness to take a f*cking hike and poof—it was gone.