“Maybe I wanna kiss you this time.”
My thumb continued to stroke your full bottom lip and your mouth parted with a sharp intake of breath, your chest rising and falling much more rapidly now. I honestly didn’t have a clue how I managed to continue standing here up against you so casually when all I wanted to do was lift you up so your long legs could wrap around my waist and shove myself between them.
“I was an idiot four years ago. I said a lot of stupid shit I didn’t mean. That kiss…Jesus Christ, Legs. I haven’t been able to get that kiss out of my fucking head for four years. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head for four years,” I muttered, giving you as much honesty as I could so you’d start to trust me. “Wondering if your lips are still as soft, wondering if you’d taste the same, wondering if you’d gasp into my mouth again and make me hard as a rock with just that one little sound.”
Your cheeks flushed and you swallowed nervously a few times, lighting a fire inside of me that I knew would never go out.
“I know you’re not going to kiss me again, and I deserve that after the shit I said to you. But just so you know, I’m going to fight for you, Legs. I’m not giving up and I’m not going anywhere.”
With one last swipe of my thumb across your bottom lip, I couldn’t hold back any longer and I said “to hell” with warming you up to the idea of the two of us together. I dipped my head down and tasted those soft, gorgeous lips. You gasped right when my mouth touched yours and it sounded just as good as it did four years ago.
Every kiss I’ve ever given you is burned into my brain, Shelby, but that first one…that one is my favorite.
—Eli
His kiss consumed me the moment his lips touched mine. I was already so twisted with emotion from the words he’d said to me and how easily he got me to dance without even realizing it, that I wouldn’t have known how to push myself away from him right now even if I wanted to.
My mouth parts for him immediately, wanting nothing more than to taste him again and let him heal every part of me that’s been broken. As soon as our tongues touch, he bends his knees and tightens his hold around my waist, lifting me up against him. My legs immediately wrap around his waist and my hands fist into his hair as he turns and walks us out of the room.
I don’t know where he’s taking me and I don’t care. I’ll go anywhere with him as long as he keeps kissing me like he can’t get enough of me.
His boots pound against the floor as he picks up the pace, with his legs and with his mouth. His tongue pushes deeper and the kiss grows harder and more frantic when I hear the snorts and whinnies of horses before they’re quickly muffled by the slamming of a door.
The flash of lightning illuminates the room when my eyes open as he pulls his mouth away from mine, his breath coming out fast and heavy.
“I wanted to take you to my new place. Buy you some flowers and cook you dinner, but it’s twenty minutes away and I’ve waited six years for this,” he tells me, his eyes staring deep into mine as more lightning strikes and brightens up the tack room he brought us into.
“I don’t need dinner and flowers, I just need you,” I whisper as he turns us and leans down, pressing me into the cot in the corner of the room and covering his body over mine.
He settles between my legs, resting on one elbow to hold himself above me, his hand running down my side and over the material of my dress. His warm palm presses against my scarred thigh, slowly sliding back up and under my skirt. I’ve never been touched like this since the accident, so surely and without hesitation that the emotions overwhelm me and I can’t stop my eyes from welling with tears. I quickly blink them away before Eli can see them and think something is wrong. Nothing could be more right with this moment.
“You deserve to be in a bed, not in a cot in a horse barn,” he mutters, looking down into my eyes as his hand moves up and down my thigh, sliding behind it to lift it up and hook it over his hip.
Bringing my hands to his cheeks, I cup his face in my palms and lean up, pressing my mouth gently to his before pulling back.
“I already told you, I don’t need anything but you, Eli.”
He sighs, resting his forehead against mine.
“Say my name again,” he tells me softly.
I smile, craning my neck so I can press my lips to his ear.
“Eli, Eli, Eli,” I whisper.
With a low, muttered curse, he turns his head and takes my lips again. My body ignites when our tongues touch and I move my hands from his face to slide them down his sides, yanking and tugging at his shirt. He breaks the kiss long enough to lean back and pull his T-shirt off and I press my palms to his muscled chest, an ache building inside my heart when I feel lines of scars under my fingers.
I look up into his face to see him watching me with apprehension. An ache builds inside my chest, thinking about what he went through and I don’t want him to believe for even one second that he’s anything less than an amazing, strong, beautiful man.
“We both have scars,” I remind him.
“Yes,” he says with a strangled whisper that threatens to crack my heart open.
“Does mine make me look weak?” I ask.
“Fuck no,” he immediately replies as I continue running my fingers over his chest.
“Neither do yours.”
He groans quietly when I dip my head forward and press my lips against each mark I can feel. One of his hands immediately comes up and he slides it through the hair at the back of my head, holding me against him as I kiss each painful memory away. When I finish, his fingers tighten in my hair and he pulls my head back and reclaims my mouth.
We move in a blur of hands and arms and shifting around on the small cot, removing each other’s clothes as fast as we can, pausing to kiss in between each article that’s removed. When I’m naked and lying completely bare and open beneath him, he slides his body down the length of mine, stopping with his head above my thigh.
Pushing myself up on my elbows, I watch as he takes his turn, kissing every inch of my scarred leg so softly and with so much care that I know this moment will be burned in my mind forever, making me feel cherished and beautiful. I let the people closest to me make me feel ugly and ashamed for too long.
Eli moves back up my body, pushing himself between my thighs as he goes. Locking my ankles behind his back, I hold his face in my hands once more as he rocks his hips, sliding himself against me, over and over, until I can feel my wetness coating him. His mouth hovers above mine, our lips barely touching as I pant and gasp while he continues to tease me.
It’s been so long since I’ve wanted something this much, craved someone this immeasurably, and as he pulls his hips back and pushes slowly inside me, I know I’ll only ever feel this way with him.