Unbreak My Heart (Rough Riders Legacy #1)

Conversation was the dead last thing on my mind as I finally held this woman in my arms. She matched her rhythm to mine. Even our breath synchronized as I felt the rising and falling of her chest and her exhale across my neck.

I bit back a groan. I’d always known we’d move together like this—which was why I’d never allowed our bodies to touch during those months we first got to know each other. I’d even lied about why I planned to skip prom, claiming I didn’t have the money or the right transportation. But the truth was if I’d seen Sierra dressed to the nines and then spent the entire night body to body like this? I would’ve had her stripped bare as soon as we were alone and I never would’ve left Wyoming.

“What are you thinking about?” she demanded. “Because you’re making some Neanderthal noises.”

“I’m thinking about the real reason I didn’t ask you to prom.”

“Is this the ‘I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off you’ excuse?”

“Not an excuse, Sierra, and you damn well know it.”

Her disbelieving snort vibrated against my neck. “I’m so glad you were able to keep your virtue and my hymen intact when you took off a month later.”

I wasn’t falling for her attempt to rile me, which in turn would rile her and give her an excuse to stomp away mad. “That’s the only time in my life I’ve come close to being virtuous.”

“I think you had ‘virtue’ confused with ‘self-interest,’” she retorted.

Sliding my left hand up past the nape of her neck, I sifted my fingers through her hair until I had a good grip. “You’re going there? Good. We need to get this shit out in the open, so we can move on from it.” I felt the ferocity flicker in my eyes, knew she saw it and didn’t bother to try and hide it. “I secretly ate it up that a girl like you had a thing for me. That you saw me beyond the bullshit of my life. But goddammit, don’t pretend you didn’t know how I felt about you that whole time.”

“I didn’t know,” she said hotly.

“Bull. You were the only person I spent my nonworking hours with. I didn’t hang with the guys. I didn’t have any friends at school besides you, Sierra.”

“Because you were too busy working toward getting the hell out of Wyoming to bother with any of that normal teen life stuff.”

“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.”