Page 52 of Home Town

She nodded. “Staying in the city for the night. They’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”

“You tell him about the compass yet? Since you’re in a confessing mood.”

She shook her head. How could she admit to her brother what a failure she was? But she was going to have to. When he and Bailey got back. He was going to find out anyway, just like the rest of the town.

Tomorrow was going to be a really shitty day. Following a really shitty night because there was no way she’d be able to sleep.

And as long as she was miserable—she might as well get this over with too. “When I said I was sorry before, it wasn’t just for dragging you?—

He opened his mouth to interrupt her. She held up her hand.

“Let me do this.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded, standing silently in the front hallway, probably thinking she was the ugliest crier he’d ever seen. She couldn’t worry about her no doubt red and blotchy face now. She had to get through this.

“I’m sorry I blamed you for what went down after that summer. It wasn’t your fault. I’ve been hateful to you since you’ve been back. Harsh. Hard. You didn’t deserve it.”

He stared at her for a moment before saying, “I might have deserved a bit of it.”

“How?”

“I’ve spent every night since I’ve been back reliving that time from that summer with you. Pretty shamelessly abusing those memories.” After staring at the floor in the front hallway, he raised his gaze to finally meet hers, but she had to think he didn’t look all that upset with himself as he cringed and said with a barely controlled grin, “Sorry.”

She slapped at his chest and realized she’d soaked his T-shirt with her tears. “You jerk. I’m here apologizing to you and you’re?—”

“Picturing you naked?” He grinned. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

She wasn’t angry. Didn’t have room inside her to be. Not with all the emotions swirling around. And eclipsing that confusion of feelings was the fact she wanted him.

Wanted him to make her forget the compass and the impending confession and the upcoming event that was going to humiliate her in front of everyone she knew and some she didn’t.

Something seemed to possess her. Had her rising on her tiptoes and leaning in until her mouth touched his. Softly at first.

She heard Corey’s quick intake of breath. Then felt his hands settle on her waist.

He tilted his head, angling his mouth over hers more completely. At the same time his fingers tightened, circling her, pulling her closer against him.

The kiss went from zero to sixty in a matter of moments. Before she knew what had happened his tongue was wrestling with hers. He took possession of her mouth as surely as he’d had possession of her heart all those years ago. Still did, if this kiss was any indication.

What did people say? There was a fine line between love and hate. That the opposite of love wasn’t hate but indifference.

The intensity of her feelings for him hadn’t changed. She’d loved him as hotly, passionately, as she’d hated him. Her feelings for him were obviously still there, just cloaked in a coat of a different color.

Her breath came fast and hard—and this was just a kiss. At this rate they’d burn the sheets if they dared venture to a bed.

Had sex with him been this intense all those years ago? With her inexperience then, she doubted she would have even known what was good, bad or otherwise. She just loved being alone with him. Being the sole object of his attention for those stolen hours.

She was older now. So was he. And every part of her wanted to know what being with Corey now would be like.

If only she could catch her breath and calm the thundering of her heart that had her hands and her legs quaking.

“We still have to tell your mother,” she whispered when she’d pulled back far enough to take a breath.

“Tomorrow,” he said before closing in on her mouth again.

Tomorrow.

That word held a warning. A niggling in the back of her brain where common sense still resided.

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