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I swallow my tears, willing myself to look up at him. “What?”
“Hit me. Push me. Yell and swear at me. Dosomething, Jenna. Do anything but what you’re doing now. Do anything except keep this to yourself.”
I pause for a minute, wanting to hit him, wondering if I’d ever have the guts to slap him square across the face. But as the seconds tick by, the adrenaline soon fades. I raise my fists in another half-hearted attempt to shove him, but instead barely move, resting my clenched hands on his chest for a beat before letting them fall.
He catches my wrists mid-air, pulling my arms up to hold them against his, firmly against his body. We’re close, the thump of his heart audible as I finally mumble the truth. “You broke my heart. I feel like a fucking idiot.”
“Jenna,” he says softly. “It wasn’t like that.”
“But itwas. I moved here for you, thinking we could finally have a real shot at figuring out this thing between us. And all the while you were secretly with someone else.”
He tugs at my wrists, ushering me to look up at him but I don’t. I let my head hang down further, using my hair as a curtain to shield me as defeat sets in.
“You broke my heart,” I tell him again, my voice cracking with honesty. “You broke my heart and in the same moment, I lost the one person I could run to when my heart was broken.”
“Sweetheart, I know.” He lets go of one of my wrists and puts a hand up to cradle the back of my head. “God, Jenna, you have to know how fucking sorry I am. I’ll do anything,anything, to make it up to you.”
His hand moves from my head around to my jaw, gripping it and forcing my chin up to face him. But I close my eyes, refusing to give in.
“Sorry isn’t enough.”
His grip softens but he still holds me, backing me up step by step until my shoulders hit the wall, feeling the thump of the shitty house music reverberating through the cool plaster against my back.
“Look at me,” he demands, voice a level lower than it had been.
I shake my head the best I can with his grip on my chin before I feel his arms fall. Keeping my eyes shut, I assume he’s stepped back, that he’s going to turn and leave, to walk away from me and the immature route I’ve taken. Instead, I feel his hands gently brush the hair behind my shoulders, fingertips tracing up my neck to clasp my earlobe between his thumb and pointer finger. His other hand comes up, and traces a thumb over my brow, to my temple; I feel his breath on my face as he moves into my space.
“I thought of you every single day,” he starts. “I made a huge mistake that caused a detour on my way back to you, and I hate it. Ihatethat I hurt you. But at the same time, it gave me the greatest gift of my life. I don’t wish to undo my past, but I’ve always planned on a future with you.”
I think I stopped breathing somewhere in his confession, and now my eyes are wide open, taking in his pained expression, the passion on his face, and the immense honesty in his words.
“I’m not going anywhere, Jenna. I won’t leave you again. Even if you can’t give me another chance, I won’t ever leave you.”
His head dips, lips pressed to my skin, finding the bare spot on my shoulder where my sweater doesn’t cover. I tilt my head to the side as his nose traces up my neck, not necessarily giving in but letting my body react to his closeness. Letting my senses override everything with him. His cologne, his musk, it all envelopes me and I’m back to that night on his couch when we were seventeen, skin warm from the sun and the summer breeze coming through the patio doors.
I hook a finger in his belt loop and pull him closer to me. Hip to hip, chest to chest, and his hands come to cradle my jaw. The space between us crackles, and I feel my heart pick up, threatening to thump right out of my chest as he holds my face.
I have spentyearswishing we would be in this exact position we are now. Both single, living in the same city, both aware of each other’s feelings and no more barriers to keep us from testing the waters and figuring out if it is the promise of teenage hormones between us or if we are meant to have so much more.
And though I’m still bitter inside, and I’m not ready to know what happened and what took him away from me, I don’t want to hold back from him anymore.
“Emmett,” I say as I tug on his belt loop and inch him closer to me. My ears ring with the tone of the music, skin prickling with his closeness. He hovers over my lips. Like the gentleman he is, I know he won’t kiss me first. He won’t want me to feel pressured, to feel like he’s taking advantage of me. He’s going to be careful, make sure this is what I really want so I don’t run away.
I release the grip I have on his belt and slide my hands to his biceps, up to the back of his neck and rise on my tiptoes to pull him down to me, searing our lips together.
He doesn’t falter, doesn’t hesitate as our kiss erupts. His hands quickly find my ass and he pulls me to him before pushing me against the wall, kissing me with all of the passion he can muster. We taste and tease each other in the alcove of the coat check in the sketchiest club in the city, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
He breaks the kiss to trail his lips down my neck, licking up the hollow of my throat before nipping me. I close my eyes and keep him held close.
“God, Emmett,” I mutter.
“I know,” he says. “I miss you. Ineedyou.”
The kisses turn more frantic, both wanting more, and he mumbles something about getting out of here, about going back to his house but I don’t listen because all I can see is him. I want him; I’m so deliriously wet with need for him that I can’t wait until we are alone. So, I push him back, adjusting his body to completely block the doorway in the off chance that someone comes wandering back here.
I let my hands wander down past his thick waist and to his pants, keeping my eyes locked on his as I slowly pull the belt from its loop.
He immediately stills my hands, briefly looking over his shoulder and swallowing hard before turning back to me. “We can’t do this here.” His words are stern, but his actions tell me a different story as he runs his hands all over me, squeezing my ass and pulling me close to him, letting me feel how hard he is.
