Kiss My Boots (Coming Home #2)

Tate lowers his head, the brim of his cowboy hat blocking the rain, and with one last slow blink, I look up at the boy that’s stolen my heart.

“I don’t want to lose your friendship, Quinn.” His words, spoken softly, hit my ears, and, instantly aware of his intentions, I feel a burst of electricity zing from my brain.

“You couldn’t never lose me, Tate.” He couldn’t. I’ll never be anyone’s but his.

“You don’t know that.”

I feel my head move in a weird combination of shaking and nodding. “Yes I do. Next to Leigh, you’re my best friend, Tate. We’ve spent the past four summers getting closer and when you’re back at your parents’, we still email every day. There’s not a second of my life that I don’t think of you. I know I couldn’t ever live without those seconds, either. I love you, Tate. Don’t you get it?”

His shoulders are tense under my hands, the deep heaving breaths he’s taking making his whole body move under my touch. Then, with another violent boom of thunder, his lips meet mine and I know without a single doubt in my mind that the boy giving me my first kiss ever will be the same one that gives me my last.

“I love you too, Quinn,” he says against my lips. “Promise me I won’t ever lose you?”

My mind gets muddled, his firm touch on me only making it worse.

“Quinn?”

I try to answer, but I’m so lost to him that all I want to do is feel his lips back against mine. This is it. I know he wouldn’t ever have given into this if he didn’t want me. He wants me. Finally. Finally, someone wants me.

“Quinn!”

- -

Present Day

“Quinn!”

I blink, the memory fading away instantly, and look up at Tate, a much older and even handsomer Tate than the fifteen-year-old version that had just been in front of me in my mind. His strong hands hold my arms, a firey burn tingling against the skin he’s touching, his gaze a little bit alarmed.

“Christ, Quinn, are you okay? You were a million miles away.”

I feel my head move woodenly: I’m helpless to do anything more than just stare at him.

“What the hell just happened?” He lifts one hand off my arm to tip the black cowboy hat on his head up, giving me a clear view of his face. The movement causes me to look up as I realize that we’re being soaked with fat raindrops. “Quinn?” His hand comes back and he gives me a tiny shake when I continue to gaze up at him mutely.

My mind is still swirling with the very vivid memory of our first kiss. Having him this close to me, almost in the exact way that he had been all those years ago, makes it even harder for me to separate memory from reality.

The only thing that makes sense right now is the overpowering need to feel his mouth on mine again. To experience the silky wet rasp of his tongue against mine as I get lost in him.

His fingers flex when I move, jolting myself forward and crashing my body into his. Not expecting it, he loses his footing and lands on the wet ground, taking care to cradle me in a way that eases the fall for me. We landed with him sitting, back straight up, and me straddling his waist, my center pressed tight against the hardness in his pants. I rock my hips and he bites his bottom lip. The action so beyond sexual that I feel my body clench with need.

My lips are on his, hips rocking, right as he opens his mouth to say something, giving me instant access to deepen the kiss. A groan tumbles up his throat, vibrating my chest, and I turn my head to get more. His hands move down and grab my hips, pulling my body down and at the same time refusing to let me move, the hard pressure of his hold pressing his cock against my swollen heat. This time I’m the one who groans. I’m vaguely aware of his hat falling into the dirt when I push my fingers into his hair. The thick strands feeling like heaven as they slip wetly through my fingers.

Our tongues continue to glide together, swirling and tangling with the heavy pants of our mingling breaths. I’m not even sure who is making which noise now, mewls, grunts, moans and groans combining in a chorus of ecstasy as we feast on each other.

Then he tightens his hold, my head becoming dizzy when the bite of pain registers, my panties getting even wetter. He sucks my tongue into his mouth and the coil inside me starts to wind up, tighter and tighter with each second. My hands roam through his hair, down his neck, until I’m holding his face between my palms. Just when I’m convinced my heart is going to stop—the sensations roaring through my body becoming too much—he forces my hips to roll forward, dragging against his hard length, and I rip my mouth free to cry out as an orgasm washes over my whole body.

“Holy fuckin’ Christ,” he whispers breathlessly, his face pink with arousal and what looks a lot like pride.

“Yeah,” I pant.

I jump when he shifts his ass on the ground, the movement rubbing his hardness against my still-sensitive parts.

“I’m two seconds away from comin’ in my pants, Quinn. Let me up before the front of my jeans are just as wet as my ass.”

He says it with a smile, but I can’t help but feel a little embarrassed about my actions. I mean, I did just virtually attack the man. I climb to my feet, with his help, and try to brush off the wet dirt clinging to my knees. When I realize it’s not going anywhere, I straighten and look at Tate bashfully, embarrassed that I just knocked him to the ground and used his body to find my release—something I haven’t obtained by any means other than my own hand in years.

“Don’t do that,” he demands, his voice hard.

“Do what?” I hedge.

“Don’t you dare regret that, Quinn. That was the hottest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever felt, and I still had my cock in my pants. Don’t you dare regret that.”

I shake my head. “I just . . . Tate, I attacked you.”

He grunts out a laugh and starts picking up our stuff before speaking. “Darlin’, if that’s how you attack people, you’re welcome to take me down any time.”

“Well, I can’t promise it won’t happen. I didn’t quite plan for us to get muddy and wet because I was stuck in a memory.”

His brows arch and he stops packing up the fishing stuff. His dirty hat is now back on his head, but his head is tipped up as he looks at me, rain streaking against his face. He blinks through the drops, frozen, as he waits for me to elaborate.

“Did you bring us here for a reason?” I ask, and the instant I do, I realize there is no way he chose this location on a whim. He knows exactly where I went when I was zoned out.

“It’s where we started,” he answers simply. He drops the tackle box on top of the rolling cooler, then stands to his full height, making me tip my head back to maintain our connection. “It’s where we first said, ‘I love you’; it’s where we had our first kiss; it’s our place. Honest to God, darlin’, I didn’t plan that happenin’, but I gotta say it feels pretty damn fittin’ that we start bein’ us in the same spot we did the first time.”

“Jesus Jones,” I breathe, unable to think of a better response.

His face gets soft and he leans down, pressing his kiss-swollen lips against mine.