Too Hard to Forget (Romancing the Clarksons, #3)

by Tessa Bailey

She was doing damage to his peace of mind. Always had.

“Been begging for this since you got here, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know about you, but I just worked up an appetite.”

Well the struggle might have just gotten twice as real, but so had her determination to move on. Because whatever she’d felt for Elliott the man? She was declaring it dead.

I’m over you, Elliott Brooks.

“Looking at you makes me want to forget everything else and never stop. Every time I’m with you, I come closer to giving in.

“I know every time you shake your ass, every time you give some cocksucker in the crowd that smile. You’re the reason they’re all hiding their laps under balled-up sweatshirts, little girl.

I feel everything you’re doing, even when my eyes are on the

field. So remind me again you’re a ...

“When a man loses control of one part of his life, all others follow. All others.”

“You’re scared of feeling anything you don’t understand,” she whispered. “I might be childish, but you’re a fucking coward.”

He watched it drive away with a scream careening through the landscape of his mind, changing its formation, and as soon as it was out of sight, Elliott got into his truck and drove to church. At least the chanting of the prayers helped drown out the horror.

He was fighting to the death. He wasn’t leaving the battlefield until he could walk away knowing he’d given her every breath in

his body.

“I know people tell you all the time—which I really don’t like to consider too much—but I don’t think I’ve ever said it. Not once. And that’s a crime, because you’ve got the kind of beauty that ties me up in eight different knots.”

“Saying the things I should have said the first time you came to me in that locker room.”

“I kept on fighting while you were a country away, and I’ll regret not going after you for the rest of my pitiful life. But I’ll be damned before I let it happen again without telling you.”

“Before you walked into the locker room that day, before you directed a single fucking word at me, I’d fallen for you. I had wanted you and needed you. And I never stopped. I’ll never stop.”

“So when you look at me and hear that filthy word, remember who owns the title.”

“What if I give you bad advice on purpose, because I don’t want someone new around?”

But if you don’t get back in your pre-midlife crisis of a car and burn rubber back to Mama’s house, we’ll test that loyalty and see who comes out on top.”

The problem with moving on from Elliott was this: She still wanted to climb him like

a motherfucking tree.

When he’d been putting O’Leary in his place, he might as well have been thrusting inside her—no exaggeration.

“She’s the interesting one. I’m lucky she ever looked twice at me.” He turned serious. “Trying to figure out how to make her do it again.”

“Because those thoughts, the way your mother sees you, are always accurate. Whether you like it or not. She knows you better than anyone else.”

“And I wondered if you even realize how incredible and selfless you are, Peggy. You give so much of yourself, without asking for anything in return. I wish I could go back in time and make sure you knew I appreciated having you there. I didn’t even let myself acknowledge it.”

“Someday maybe I’ll call you that and it’ll be okay, because you’ll know what I really think. That you’re nothing but sweet and right. Every inch of you.”

“I never could. But I’m seeing so fucking much now, I’m just trying to take in as much as I can.”

“I’ve done a lot of things backward,” he said

“But licking your pussy isn’t one of them.”

“Elliott Brooks. You’re going to have one doozy of a confession this week.”

“Right now, you’re the only one I care about confessing to.”

Ready for a pounding from my cock.

“You left me without a soul. I can barely remember the days since you left. They passed without me feeling a single thing. Because you are feeling for me. You’re the only thing that keeps me from being numb. Twice

in my life you’ve turned me back into a living, breathing man, and missing you…missing you, Peggy, doesn’t even begin to cover it. You revive me.”

“If you never left

again, I would still spend the rest of my life missing you,” he panted.