“I know you will.”
“Knowing that I have you to come home to is worth me being a little less reckless,” he said, his voice had gone husky. He placed his hands on each side of my face. The intensity in his eyes had me hanging on his every word. “I want a life with you, Georgia. It’s not just me I have to worry about anymore. It’s me and you. From here on out.”
His thumb brushed across my lips as he wiped away the last of the tears. I wouldn’t cry about this anymore. Well, I would try not to anyway. I wanted a life with him, too, and that meant sucking it up and trusting him.
“I want that. I want that so much.”
I leaned forward and kissed his lips. Every kiss between us had been special, but this one was sealing promises that we’d just made. My heart felt like it was going to pound through my chest. The severity of how badly I needed his kiss was threatening my existence. How was I going to make it being apart from him? I’d gotten so used to having him around to talk to. To see whenever I wanted. To touch whenever I felt the need. It was going to be torture.
I felt selfish with him. Greedy even. I never wanted to let him go. I wanted him to stay with me. I wanted a lot of things I knew were not possible. It didn’t matter though, because at that moment I was going to pretend like it all was.
“I need you,” I told him as I stood up. I held onto him, my hands fisted in his shirt like he might slip straight through my fingertips. “Now.”
“You’ve got me,” he promised, slipping his hands down my body and picking me up. My legs circled his waist as he carried me to the living room. The bedroom was too far. There was too much to be done. “I’m right here, baby.”
He lowered me on the sofa before pushing the coffee table far, far away from us across the room. The last thing either of us wanted was an interruption. I started to smile, but his mouth was back on mine before I had the chance. His hand worked the button on my jeans, as his tongue eagerly worked against mine.
My hands tangled in his blond hair as he kissed his way along my jawline—stopping briefly to nibble on my ear and whisper how badly he wanted to taste me. My insides twisted in anticipation. My blood feeling as if it was boiling to the surface. Every inch of my skin was seemingly on fire as his mouth moved to my neck and then to my stomach as he pushed my shirt up to get to my flesh.
When he grabbed the waist of my jeans and started to tug, I lifted my hips up off of the couch, just as anxious as him. As he pulled my jeans and panties down, his mouth moved over my skin as it was revealed to him. Lower and lower until I could feel the heat of his mouth against my most sensitive flesh. As soon as my pants were gone, he moved himself between my thighs—his tongue slipping through my center.
“For fuck’s sake, you are sweet,” he growled, working his mouth in a way I’d never experienced. Each lick, each nip, each time he sucked my clit between his lips I thought I was going to die. The sweetest death I’d ever imagined. His skills were numbing and exhilarating all at the same time. My body reacted as though I’d been possessed, my back arching and muscles contracting, as I tried to get my body closer to his. “That’s it, baby,” he urged. “Come for me.” He pushed two fingers inside of me, adding to the pleasure he was evoking with his mouth.
I felt myself shatter around him. My limbs fell limp as I let myself enjoy the feeling of being scattered in a million pieces. Pieces that he held in his hand. Pieces that I didn’t even know I had. He knew my body better than I did. I was starting to think he knew all of me better than I did.
This has to work. I’d been saying it over and over since my medical release. This has to work. It had to work because I honestly didn’t know what I would do if it didn’t. She was everything to me.
“I’ll call you every day,” I promised Georgia as we stood in the middle of the crowded airport. I’d shelled out the extra money for a ticket to get her through security. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. As expected, Dr. Forlani said I was released to get back on my bike at my last doctor’s appointment. The second I was released, Nick and the rest of the Throttled Energy team wanted me back in Texas—training and promotional work were all I had on the schedule for the next month. Well that, and making things work with Georgia.
“I know you will,” she said, her arms were wrapped around my neck like a vice grip. “And, I’ll see you in a month.” She’d agreed to drive my Expedition back to Texas with her sister when she came home for a visit. One month until I could hold her in my arms again seemed like an eternity. We’d done our best to get our fill of one another. I’d had more sex in the last two weeks than I’d had in my entire life. Not that I was complaining, and not that I thought I’d ever be able to get my fill of her. Sore muscles and bowed legs be damned.
Every time we had sex, I figured out something new that made her tick. Some new way she liked to be touched, or some phrase that seemed to push her over the edge. My girl had a bit of a naughty side that I was thoroughly enjoying getting to know. And she’d done the same with me. She knew exactly where to put her mouth and hands to set me off. All things I’d be recalling a lot of in the cold showers I’d be taking alone for the next month.
“I’m going to miss you so fucking much,” I told her. It was probably the thirtieth or so time that I’d said those words since I’d learned that I was actually going to have to go back home. It was the next three words—the three words that really mattered—that I was saying out loud for the first time that came next. I took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye, “I love you, baby. So damn much.”
“I love you, too, Brett,” she replied, the fact that she said my name was not lost on me. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn’t, but either way it was me. Georgia Bennett loved me.
The stormy sea of blue in her eyes seemed to calm as we stared at each other. Something about hearing her say it back to me, gave me the rest of the determination I needed to make our relationship work. We had love. What more did we need? I cradled her face in my hands and kissed her. I didn’t want to go, but when I heard the final boarding call for my flight, I knew I didn’t have a choice.
“I’ve got to go, baby,” I said before pressing my lips to her forehead.
“I know.” She nodded. I saw her throat clench as she swallowed. I knew she was trying her damnedest not to cry. We’d talked about all of this. She’d cried. I’d almost cried. We knew I had to leave and she had to stay, but it didn’t make it any easier on either of us. “Call me when you land?”
“You know I will.” I took a step back, tugging my carry-on bag along with me. I was going home, so I didn’t need much for this trip. Something inside of me was arguing that I was leaving my home as I backed away from her. It didn’t matter that I had an apartment full of things waiting for me in Texas. Or a job. Or even my actual family. The one thing, the one person, I needed was going to have to stay behind for the time being. “Love you,” I said it again.
Just as I was about to turn away from her, she jumped into my arms and kissed me one last time. We were that couple. The over the top, can’t keep our hands to ourselves, shut up and say good bye already couple. It was everything I didn’t know I always wanted to be a part of.
“Bye,” she whispered against my lips as I lowered her back to the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the stewardesses moving around at my gate, getting ready to close the doors. I had to go or I was going to miss this flight.
“Bye.”
* * *
“Hoyt Travers,” I said as I walked onto the track at Mill Valley training facility. It was the real place in Texas that I called home. Sixty acres of dirt. Just the way I liked it. I’d been coming here since I was ten. My parents figured that since they didn’t get the sport, they might as well send me to people who did. The Wilson family owned and operated a state of the art compound, complete with a full track, gym, lodging and everything else a rider needed to be at the top of his career. When I was seventeen, I graduated from just camps and weekends at the track to living there full time. Me, my bike and an AirStream I purchased on Craigslist moved onto the property. Reid Travers moved in a few weeks later. “Aren’t you glad to see me, dick?” I asked when he didn’t look up from the iPad he was holding in his hands.