Hard Love: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (7 page)

When she didn’t back away, Kurt placed his hand
at the back of her head and started kissing her. She kissed him back deeper. He
parted his lips slightly to run the tip of his tongue along her lower lip and
she readily parted her lips so he could deepen the kiss. Claire shifted her
body so she could kiss him more comfortably and Kurt responded by placing his
other arm at the top of her back, slowly pushing her in toward him.

They kissed for a while, slowly the entire
time, before finally breaking to take in some air. Claire’s eyes were
glittering even under the dull lights of the little park. Kurt’s heart was
racing. He had spent years fantasizing what that would feel like and nothing he
could have thought up matched the reality of it. He moved his hand from her
back to the curve of her waist and brushed a few strands of her hair off her
face with his other hand. He wanted to tell her how long he had wanted to do
that, but held off on it. He was going to go into this thing strong. He wasn’t
going to make the mistakes the teenage version of himself made.

He stared into her eyes for a couple minutes
before suddenly moving in and kissing her again. This time he held her face
between both hands and kissed more passionately. She leaned in to it after
taking a couple seconds to catch up. Kurt thought of her revealing that there
had been no intensity or craving in her relationship with Tyler. He wanted to
show her what it was like to be with someone where those things existed in
abundance. He craved every inch of her with an unmatched intensity and it
wasn’t just about sex. It was about
Claire
;
it was entirely about all of her. As soon as he started to lament the fact he
wouldn’t be able to explore all that, he kissed her harder. It was the only
remedy he could think of in the moment.
 

Finally, he broke the kiss and drew in a deep
breath, dropping his hands to rest on her shoulders. Claire was breathing
harder than normal. He could see her breasts heaving slightly from the corner
of his eye. He felt another stir in his pants and gulped. The last thing he
wanted was to wind up with a situation out there at the park during his first
hang out with Claire in years. Sure, they had kissed and it had been quite
amazing, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see a bulge in his pants already.

Kurt stood up and reached out. She looked at
his hand and looked up at him. Biting her lower lip and nodding, she stood up
and slid her slender hand in his. They walked back out to the main street, hand
in hand, something he could have only dreamed of as a teenager. But now it had
come so much more easily to him. He had spent the party talking to her and,
before she left, easily asked her to hang out. But still, even with the
newfound confidence only adulthood could bring, all the feelings of his teenage
years came rushing back.

Now he had taken initiative and kissed her. It
was almost too good to be true, at least for his younger self still lingering
in his mind. If she were any other girl this would have been completely normal
to him. But Claire wasn’t just any woman and he was very well aware of that. He
had never forgotten just how much she meant to him. He still recalled the
stinging pain when he found out she was with Tyler and how he hated the feeling
in his gut when he heard the news of her engagement. But now they were
strolling about, almost as if they were an actual couple.

It was almost exactly like old times as they
walked around and looked through the windows of old shops that had been there
for years, some in dire need of an update. They shared memories from their
youth and talked about how they had grown and changed.

“You’re certainly less timid,” Claire said
suddenly as they rounded the corner after looking at the stonework of the local
library’s architecture. “I
mean,
you weren’t exactly
timid back then but you seem a lot bolder now.”

Kurt turned to smirk at her. It was true. He
had truly broken out of his shell when he left his hometown for good. He had
always been a little
more timid
and shy. That all
changed when he went to college and only continued to change from there. Once
he joined the Army he really came into his own as a leader and that helped him
earn his way up to Corporal in as quick of time as possible. After he joined
the Army he really felt like he had found his place and he couldn’t imagine
doing anything else. He loved being a soldier and that was something he made
sure to mention to Claire.

“That’s really good,” she said as they walked
down the street. The street beside the library was a bit darker than the others
since they were now on the edge of the main square and there were no houses or
apartments in the area. “I’ve always admired soldiers.”

Kurt smiled with pride. He squeezed her hand,
“What do you want to do now?” They had been walking aimlessly for a very long
time, completely lost in conversation. Kurt turned just in time to see her
shrug. He pursed his lips together and started brainstorming ideas of what they
could do when he heard her clear her throat.
     

“Come visit my house?”

“But your parents-”

“I don’t live with my parents, silly. See what
happens when you never come around?” Claire nudged his arm. “My parents moved
to a house across town. I convinced them not to sell the old one and I kept it.
In exchange, I pay half their current mortgage.” Claire grinned and he looked
at how happy she looked. He felt his chest swell. That was a pretty sweet deal,
but he couldn’t help but notice the difference between them.

He had left his house the first chance he got
and Claire had instead convinced her parents to let her stay in the house she
grew up in. She was never in a rush to leave, though. That was something he
always knew about her. She had always been much more comfortable and happy in
this place than he was. She had also had much more of an emotional attachment
to the people she lived around and the town in and of itself.

“So you’re going to give me the tour of your
place? I think it should look quite different now that it’s all yours,” he told
her trying to sound as casual as possible. The truth was the idea of going back
to her house and being there alone with her was exciting. It was invigorating.
Then his mind flashed back to the pillows he had seen on the bench swing on the
porch and it all made sense. They had definitely more her style.

Claire turned around and pulled him in the
direction of where they had parked, soon arriving at the car. They got in and
he sped off toward her house, blasting some old tunes they liked from high
school days as they went along. Kurt listened in amusement as she
enthusiastically sang along to some of the lines and then burst into laughter.
The wind flowed freely through the cars windows and the stars looked like
little dots in the night sky. In his mind’s eye this looked like a dream
scenario from when he was younger. He pulled into her driveway behind her car
and the two of them stepped out. He watched her hips sway as she walked ahead
of him on the walkway and then leapt daintily up the stairs to her front door.
  

Claire unlocked and opened the door before
sticking her hand inside and switching on the entrance light. Then she turned
to face him with a large grin.

“Welcome to my humble abode!” She grabbed his
hand and pulled him inside. She reached around to close and lock the door
behind him, the side of one of her breasts grazed his arm momentarily and sent
the stirring into his pants once again. Claire let go of his hand in favor of
walking forward and flipping on the living room light. It was a somewhat small,
but cozy space filled with lots of colors. She had decorated in a modern yet
welcoming manner, all the mish mash of colors was actually pleasing to the eye.
It was clear she had a knack for what looked good, right down to what looked
good
on her
.

She kept walking forward and walked through an
archway into the dining room. It was very simple and less colorful but the
colors she had decorated with popped. Then they kept walking to get into the
kitchen. Kurt noticed she had completely taken out the den and expanded the
kitchen to make one worthy of a budding home chef.

“I really love to cook,” she said almost
sheepishly as she watched his eyes roam over all the high-end appliances and
ample counter space equipped with butcher-block surfaces. It was definitely a
lot sleeker than the rest of the house but somehow she still made it all flow.

“Do you? Then you’ll have to cook me some
dinner before I leave,” Kurt told her. He walked forward and ran his hand over
the clean, smooth surface of one of the counters. Then he felt her slide up next
to him.

“I’ll be happy to,” she said in a subtly,
sultry voice.

In an instant, Kurt had turned to face her and
pulled her into a passionate kiss. He didn’t want to waste any of the time he
spent with her. It was like he wanted to fit everything he had missed out on
years ago in the span of the two weeks he would be visiting and, suddenly, that
didn’t seem like a daunting amount of time to spend back in his hometown.

He grabbed her waist and pulled her in toward
him until her lean body pressed against his. He felt her breasts smash against
his chest and he kissed her even more fervently. It wasn’t until he was running
out of breath that he finally loosened his grip on her and pulled away a bit.
Claire looked up at him, starry eyed.

“I want to taste,” he said in a low growl of a
whisper as he leaned in close to her ear, “Your food.” He kissed her ear
lightly and felt her body shudder against his. Then he let her go entirely and
took a step back glad there wasn’t yet a tent forming in his pants. “Is that
all?”

“Of course not,” Claire responded rather
breathlessly with her cheeks still flushed a cute shade of bright pink. “There
is the upstairs,” she reminded him.

“Oh right,” he said jokingly, “How could I
forget?”

He was curious to see what she had made of her
old bedroom. Her parents, nice as they were, had always been a bit more on the
strict and old-fashioned side. That meant no boys were allowed in her room and
that rule applied even to him, whom they had known for many years. It was only
when they were out that she would let him go upstairs with her if they were stopping
by to drop off or pick anything up before going to hang out somewhere in town.
He doubted she had kept it the same even as she grew up so he thought it would
be interesting to see what she had done with it now that the house was all
hers.

It was the first door to the right when they
went up the stairs and it was open. She stepped inside and moved to the side so
Kurt could follow. It was a home office, just as brightly decorated as the
living room downstairs. She turned to look at him with a smile. On one side,
opposite the door, was a large desk and where her bed used to be was a loveseat
nestled between two bookcases. It was quite nice and he imagined a great
workspace.

“This is my second favorite room in the house,”
she confessed.

“I can see why,” he told her as he walked in to
look at some of the titles that found a home in one of her two bookcases. He
ran his index finger over some of them as he recalled they were on their high
school reading list. That was when it struck him that he didn’t even have the
slightest clue as to what she did for a living.

“Hey,” he told her as he turned back around to
face her. She was watching him intently. “We’ve talked for hours today and you
haven’t even told me exactly what you do. You’ve only mentioned stuff about
your job.”

“Oh,” she said and then giggled. “Strange,
right? Remember old Jerry’s deli that he opened up an actual restaurant for in
the town over?” Kurt nodded. He remembered how much they had liked going to
that deli on Fridays after school. He even remembered exactly what he ordered
and wondered if it was still on the menu. In all his years he had never come
across a sandwich quite like the one from Jerry’s. “Well, he opened a couple
catering and banquet houses in a few towns over and it has been a real boom. I
help organize the places and the events. So I’m old Jerry’s official organizer.
Well, I
was
. Now his son took over.”

“Did old Jerry-”

“Oh, my gosh, no! He just retired,” Claire said
as she placed her hand flat on her chest and took a deep breath as if he had
said something terrible. Which in retrospect, he kind of had, even if it was a
legitimate question.

“Anyway,” she said a moment later, “I really
like it.”

“That’s good,” he smiled as he remembered
everything she had mentioned about her job. It was all good and she did seem
genuinely happy with what she did. It was just strange to think that such a
career had come out of a place like this and a local deli, of all things. He
walked back up to her and Claire immediately turned to walk out and lead him to
the bathroom. It was clean and modern with pops of color just like he had seen
in the dining room.