Dirty, Reckless Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 3)

Her lips are as soft as I remember, and I match that softness with my mouth—a tentative touch that doesn’t ask for permission as much as beg for it. If kisses were words, this one would be please. Please let me touch you. Please let me hold you.

Please come home.

I don’t let the kiss go deeper, afraid I might lose my composure. I’m crossing lines and breaking unspoken promises as it is. Instead, I pull away and cup her face in my hands to study her. She keeps her eyes closed, as if she’s waiting for me to put my mouth on hers again.

Yesterday, she swore she wanted nothing to do with anyone from Jackson Harbor, and today she came here looking for Ava and me. Today, she let me kiss her and for all the world looks like she wants me to do it again. I won’t. Because I can taste goodbye on her lips.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

She opens her eyes. “Then why did you?”

I back away from her. My kryptonite. My undoing. My every exception. “That’s a loaded question, but also a ridiculous one, since you already know the answer.”

She shakes her head. “But that’s just it. I . . . don’t remember.”

My stomach knots. Is she trying to hurt me? “Don’t remember what exactly?”

“The last three years.” She bites her bottom lip and shrugs. “I have retrograde amnesia. For me, it’s like my life in Jackson Harbor didn’t even happen.”

I blink at her, half expecting this to be a bad joke, but she’s serious, and suddenly the way she looked at me in the bar yesterday makes sense. The way she didn’t understand my connection to Ava. The way she just let me kiss her . . .

I bow my head and surprise myself by laughing. “Christ. That’s actually a relief.”

“What? Why?”

“I didn’t understand how you could just cut us out like that. It was so easy. Like we were nothing to you.” I take her left hand in mine, and my throat goes thick as I study her bare ring finger. “I never expected you to pick me. I never assumed you would. But I also never thought I’d lose you completely. Then I almost did.” My chest is tight when I add, “Twice. Once when you were in the hospital, and again when you shut us out.”

“I didn’t remember Jackson Harbor at all until I talked to you yesterday. Now, I only remember a little. And even that . . . just pieces I don’t really understand.”

“And you don’t think that would have been nice to tell me?”

“My mom told me I was mixed up with bad people. She believes the worst about my life there, so I believed the worst too. I was scared.”

“Of me?”

“No. Not you specifically. Of the life I can’t remember.” She drops her gaze to the ground. “We were . . . having an affair? Was I cheating on my fiancé?”

“Hell no.” Shit. I just kissed her, and she doesn’t remember enough to understand why I’d do that. So why the hell did she let me? “You two were broken up when you and I . . . You don’t remember me?”

“Only enough to know you were important.” She glances toward the house where Ava disappeared before meeting my eyes again. She presses her hand to her chest. “It’s not a memory so much as something I feel. Does that make sense?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah. It does.” The draw I’ve felt toward Ellie has been there since the night we met. It’s elemental. But before this moment, I never had a reason to suspect it might be the same for her, but I can’t even enjoy the revelation that it was because it doesn’t change that she doesn’t want anything to do with us. With me.

“What was I to you?” she asks.

“We were friends.” I draw in a ragged breath. “And then, for a few days, we were something more. It was over pretty quickly.”

“But yesterday you said you never stopped loving me.”

“Also true,” I whisper. “Come home. I’ll answer any questions you have. I’ll help you remember. If you’re scared, I’ll protect you.”

She shakes her head. “I only came to say goodbye.”

The words are a blade coming right at my heart, but I dodge them. “You’re out of luck.”

“Why?”

“I can’t say goodbye to you. I won’t do it.”