Good Friday Morning,
I’m bringing another “first kiss”. This is from another work in progress, tentatively titled “No Cinderella” but I’m sure that’ll change. This about Becca, who left town as a teen after being publicly humiliated by the bosses wife. She leaves behind her father, a horse groomer, who loses his job because of Becca’s behavior. In the time she’s been gone, her father wins one of the largest lotteries in history. Now he’s dead and Becca has just found out that she’s inherited all his money and a fantastic horse farm. But she has mixed feelings about coming home again, as does her best childhood friend, Josh, who is the manager of the stable, who she hurt when she was a teen.
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Becca remained silent until they got back to her room. “You didn’t have to walk me in.”
“Yeh, I did. Had to make sure you wouldn’t turn around and go back to the party to
throttle her.”
“Ha ha.” Becca threw her little purse onto the bed. She swung on him , glaring. “Or
maybe you want to say ‘I told you so.’”
The anger was back. Or maybe it had never left.
He couldn’t deny the desire to do exactly that. She deserved it. She deserved a whole lot
more.
“Come on, Josh. I see it in your face. You want to say it so badly. And hell, I probably
deserve it.” Becca stalked toward him, fists flexing at her sides. When she was a foot from him, she stopped and looked up at him.
Irish eyes flashed and there was nothing more that he wanted than to grab her, wrap his
arms around her and devour her. Kiss her like she’d never been kissed in her entire life. Need pulsed inside him. He didn’t want this, should back off and get the hell out before he
acted on the desire.
Still, he was rooted to the spot, staring down at the woman he used to love. Who used to
be the girl he wanted to spend his whole life with. But she had chosen Ty instead. For purely material reasons. He never believed for a second that she had been in love with Ty, which made the betrayal even more painful.
“You deserve it,” he murmured.
She was a kid when she went after Ty. Young and wanting more out of life then she thought she could get on her own. “I didn’t want you to have anything to do with them. But you had to.”
Becca continued to study him, her brows furrowed and lips turned down. “I thought
maybe they’d changed, that they could help.”
“Even though they never changed for your father?”
God, why did they have to talk about the Yearwoods? Let it go. Let the damned past and her mistakes go. She’s paid for them as much as anyone. Maybe they could. With her standing so close, nothing was more compelling than the scent of her perfume, the way her eyes glowed or her lip s parted just slightly.
Becca shrugged. “I was wrong. You were right. As always.”
Before she could say more, Josh reached out for her, pulled her to him and dipped his
mouth so it captured hers. For a second she struggled against his embrace, but slowly she melted into it, her own arms sliding up and around his neck.
Yes, this was how he remembered her. Sweet, giving, passionate. But there was so much
more. She wasn’t the innocent girl she used to be, the one who was growing and exploring along with him. There was skill behind her kiss. A spark of jealousy flared then faded quickly. He had no right to be resentful of any of the men she’d kissed, of the love life
she’d led, after leaving town. Maybe someday he’d be sad that he hadn’t been the one she had learned with, but for now the fire she was stoking inside his head and veins overtook any kind of logical thinking.
Impatiently, she shoved off his blazer, then pulled at his shirt until she dragged it loose.
In turn, he found the zipper at the back of her dress and lowered it, brushing his fingers against her soft skin as he went.
“Josh,” Becca whispered, her lips moving against his neck. “Why are we doing this?”
Why? Because he wanted her more than he wanted anyone in this whole world.
“We want to.”
“But you hate me.”
She didn’t stop touching him, taunting him as she made this claim.
Josh nuzzled his mouth into the crook of her neck then kissed his way to her ear.
“I don’t hate you.”
And he didn’t. He might have at the beginning, when she first arrived at Willow
Haven. Or it might have been the hurt became new again, like ripping open an old wound. That had changed over the past few weeks. The wounds were healing over again.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Got one to share? Please do!
Cerian Hebert 