Page 57 of Spencer and the Younger Girl
He couldn’t handle talking to Hadley’s friends, so he hurried past the table, not sparing them a glance. Space. He needed space.
Heat seared down the skin of his arms and into his hands. His eyes glassed over. He held back the emotion. Spencer Lee didn’t cry.
Victoria was the only person who’d ever seen him with tears streaming down his face as they held each other the day their excitement faded.
They’d been too young, too inexperienced, but that hadn’t mattered. The day she told him she was pregnant, he’d seen it all. The future. Living at the ranch with Victoria and his family. One day teaching his kid to ride.
And then with a single earth-shattering scream from Victoria, it was ripped away. Weeks later, she told him she couldn’t imagine a future with him, not anymore, cutting the last thread holding him together.
Three days after he broke, while his classmates walked across a stage to graduate, he boarded a plane.
He reached the truck and pounded his fist into the side of it.
“Spencer.”
His name from Hadley’s lips spurred him to action. He whirled around, stepping closer to her.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
He glanced behind her to make sure none of her friends followed her. “Tell me this is okay.”
Her eyes latched onto his as silence stretched between them, and her lips parted. When she spoke, it was so low he wouldn’t have heard her if he wasn’t so attuned to everything she said, everything she did.
“It’s okay.”
His lips crashed onto hers, breathing life into their connection. He didn’t know why he wanted her so badly, or if this was just a reaction to Victoria’s news, but whatever it was, he needed more.
More of her.
Her arms wound around his neck as she rose up on her toes to deepen the kiss and try to take charge.
That wasn’t happening.
He pressed a hand to her lower back, bringing her closer. Turning, he pushed her up against the side of the truck.
It didn’t matter they were in public, or that she was so much younger than him. Not when she wrapped him in her presence, refusing to let him go.
Fire raced through him, and he dove into the kiss like he never had before.
Kissing Hadley Gibson was like standing on top of a mountain after climbing through snow and ice to get there. One wrong move, and you’d tumble off the edge.
But the view was breathtaking and worth every risk.
She bit his lip, scraping her teeth along it.
“Hadley,” he whispered.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
“We have to.”
His conversation with Victoria came back to him, flooding him with feelings of guilt. He couldn’t use Hadley to forget about the past.
Whether he liked her or not, she deserved more than that.
She backed away from him, her cheeks flushed and lips swollen. “It’s because of the girl you were talking to, isn’t it?”
How did she see so much? “Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”
She pressed her lips together, nodding her head once, before turning on her heel and walking back the way she’d come.
He leaned back against the truck feeling like the biggest jerk in the world.
Not because he’d kissed Hadley.
But because he wanted to do it again.
