“Christ, Chel. You can’t believe that!” I felt all the anguish coming off of her, and I wanted to scream or punch something or channel this huge, horrible despair I felt into something more manageable like anger instead of a chasm of sadness. “Please. You have to know I loved you. I’ve never loved anyone in my whole life the way I loved you. It kills me that I ruined it. It was never that I didn’t want to be with you. But I swear to God, it was real,” I ground out.
I leaned in and kissed her, pressing my lips against hers the way I used to do, teasing and sweet. She stayed stiff, didn’t give me the slightest response. I caught her upper lip between mine, locked lips with her. “Do you remember this?” I whispered against her mouth, “do you?”
Michelle pulled her hand out of mine and wrapped her arms around my neck, stretched to reach me better as our lips met. I folded her in my arms, lifting her a little off the ground and parting her lips. I worked my tongue into her mouth, fire whipping through me, merciless and lush at the same time. I was shaking with how it felt—like coming home. Like I’d walk through hell to get back her, like old times, if old times were a place where everything made sense.
I nipped at her lips and teased her with my tongue, then let her slide her tongue in my mouth and kiss me back. She went all in, shaking me to the core with a sensual, passionate kiss that went on and on. Our bodies remembered each other—and it all came flooding back. I couldn’t believe I’d gone so long without this, without her and the way she made me feel. Holding her closer, kissing her, I felt her trembling. Molding her body to mine, remembering how tiny she was, barely five foot one, and the way her curves had fleshed out, the fullness of her body in my arms was ecstasy all on its own. I loved having an armful of her, to know that the sweet, barely-there curves of the girl I had loved were now overflowing and I’d give anything to taste them, to have her in my lap now the way we used to do.
Madness had taken hold of me with that kiss. I couldn’t stop. I set her on her feet just so I could cup her face in my hands and kiss her more deeply. Her fingers combed through my hair, shorter now but, God, the feeling was the same, the tingle in my scalp, the tension snapping in my body. I stroked her cheek, ate at her lips, kissing back and forth, nipping and tasting each other with such intensity, like it had been forever that we had been apart.
13
Michelle
The sharp slam of a car door startle me. I broke away from him, hot and lightheaded. Backing up, I put a hand to my mouth. I couldn’t believe we’d just kissed. I couldn’t believe that it felt like no time had passed, like he’d had his tongue in my mouth every damn day for the last almost-twenty years instead of the lifetime we’d been apart. It had been thrilling, blissful, heady as a drug. I was shaking all over. If I thought it had been sexy and alarming when our fingers brushed over a check, this was off the charts. I backed away another step.
“Don’t go. Please,” he said. “I won’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not sorry. Not for kissing you. I’m sorry for a hell of a lot when it comes to us, but not for that. That was the most natural thing I’ve done in God knows how long. And I wouldn’t take it back. Don’t run from me. Come back in and we’ll have something to eat—"
I shook my head. My knees were ready to buckle. I wanted to break into a run and get as far from him as possible, go lock the doors and hide under the covers and be sad and confused and then go over that fiery kiss in my mind about a thousand times.
“I need to go. I need time to think, on my own.”
“Can I take you home?” Drew asked. I shook my head again.
I knew if I got in his truck, we’d end up pulling off on a dirt road and I’d be in his lap before we ever made it a mile from this spot. It would be so easy to fall back in love with him over one kiss, one apology, like he never broke my heart in the first place. It was so seductive, knowing what he could still do to me with just a kiss, having intimate knowledge of just how good we were together, and how he could make me feel. Part of me wanted to turn around and run and never look back. The rest of me was feeling sort of slutty and would have gone and hooked up with him in the bar bathroom.