Page 182 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
“I didn’t think—”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? You never think!” She’s in my face now, and even the appearance of tranquillity is gone. Her eyes are blazing, her cheeks flushed pink, and her breathing—her breathing is all over the place. And I am going to burn in hell because, even though it’s been three years since I walked away, all I can think about is touching her rapidly rising and falling breasts.
I want to pull her into my arms, to kiss her and hold her and lick her and touch her until the last three years disappear. Until everything disappears but her and me and how it feels when we’re together.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“I am. So fucking sorry. I didn’t want to leave you—”
“Don’t.” She lays her gloved fingers on my lips, stops me mid-sentence. Even after all this time, sparks of electricity shoot through me at the touch.
“But—”
“Is that why you never called? Why you didn’t come see me when you got into town two days ago? Because you thought I was mad at you for leaving?”
I pull her hand away from my mouth, then squeeze it tightly in my own. “Aren’t you?”
“Why? You left because he would have killed you if you stayed. Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’ve been grateful, every day, that you got out? That you’re alive? That you’re safe? That your father will never be able to hurt you again?”
I can’t take it anymore. Not being with her has been killing me, and now that she’s here, in front of me, all I want is to feel her against me one more time.
Reaching out, I pull Dyani into my arms. Her wicked, wonderful body curls against me like it’s been three minutes instead of three years, and she holds me at least as tightly as I’m holding her.
“I missed you,” I tell her, my face buried in her long, silky hair. She still smells like ginger and snow and freshly cut pine trees. The scent, combined with the sweet relief of holding her again, nearly brings me to my knees. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too.”
She presses kisses—soft as the snowflakes that are even now coming down around us—to my jaw, my eyes, my chapped and burning lips. It feels so good—she feels so good—that when she starts to step away, I can’t let her go. Instead, I lock her to me and slowly, oh so slowly, lower my mouth to hers.
Part of me expects her to reject me even now. To fight my kiss and all the memories burning between us. God knows I deserve it. But she doesn’t. Not even close.
Instead, her arms lock around my neck and she presses herself even more tightly against me. And then we’re kissing, kissing, kissing, and it’s just like it always was—flash and fire and pleasure so extreme it’s like a kind of pain.
I run my tongue over her lips, desperate to taste her again. Even more desperate to be inside her any way that I can. She opens right away, and then I’m pulling her lower lip between my teeth, nibbling on it in the way that used to drive her crazy.
She moans, her fingers clenching in the blond hair peeking out the bottom of my own beanie. I dart inside her then, my tongue stroking over and around and under her own. She tastes just like she smells, like fresh, clean powder and sharply sweet ginger. I want more, so much more. I want everything.
I delve deeper, running my tongue over the roof of her mouth and across her teeth before pausing to toy with her delicate frenulum. She gasps, then, her teeth closing on my lower lip this time. It’s my turn to groan, my turn to bury my hands in her hair and hold her face to mine as I take and t
ake and take. I take everything she has to give me, give her everything I can in return.
And still it’s not enough. Still I want more.
Except she’s pulling away, her breath coming in spurts and gasps as she sinks down onto the huge boulder that has always been “our spot.”
I start to apologize again, but the truth is, while there are a million things I regret about us—the way we ended, the way I was too much of a pussy to call her and beg for her forgiveness, the fact that in two days I’ll be leaving Taos, and her, behind again—that kiss is not one of them. If I could, I’d spend the next twenty-four hours doing nothing but loving her.
I sit next to her, and for the first time realize that she’s trembling. “You’re cold.” I pull the scarf out of my pocket, wrap it around her neck. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
“It’s not because of the weather,” she says with a smile. But she doesn’t give the scarf back. Instead she buries her nose in it and breathes deeply, like she’s pulling my very essence inside of her.
Whatever little bit of resistance I have to her—whatever small distance I’ve managed to create over the last three years—disappears like so much smoke. This is what I’ve missed. This is what I want. And it kills me that I can’t have it. Can’t have her.
I’d give up snowboarding if I could, would walk away from the sport and the glory, the rush and the money, if it meant that we could be together forever. But she has to stay here in Taos, taking care of her younger brother and sisters, and I—I can’t be here. I’m not seventeen anymore, no longer at the mercy of an abusive father. But here, in this town, the memories are as real as they’ve ever been. They’re there in every street I walk down, every place I visit, every mountain I board down. And ignoring them, as I’ve been doing from the second I hit town, isn’t enough. I can feel them dragging at me, pulling me under. Making me panic. Making me hate.
Besides, even if I didn’t have a decade and a half of abuse to get past, there’s no way for me to build a life here. No real jobs, no chance to do anything but make minimum wage working at one of the resorts. And even if there were, I can’t do anything but board. It’s all I’ve ever been good at, all I’ve ever wanted to do. All I’ve ever wanted, at all, except Dyani.
