Tyler (Inked Brotherhood 2)

But then she says, “I missed you all these years.”

Bang. The past is again smack between us like a wall, and all my humor dries up when my memories return.

“You said you didn’t want to see my face again,” I say. “Told me to get lost. That I’m an asshole, and that I don’t deserve you. And you were right.”

Hell. Look at that. Look at all the bitterness you carry inside you. No wonder you’re a fucking bastard to everyone.

“No.” She shakes her head vehemently. “I was wrong.”

I close my eyes. “No, you weren’t. I let you down too many times; didn’t show up when you expected me. Fucked up.”

She feathers her fingers over my mouth, and that makes me look back at her. Her eyes are so sad. “Listen to me. I was wrong and I’m sorry. I never meant those things I said.”

Silence stretches. Her heart beats fast against me where my arm is curled around her ribs.

“You didn’t mean them?” I finall

y ask.

“I didn’t.”

“Then why did you say them?”

Her lower lip trembles. I hate that I make her sad, but this has bugged me all these years—why the moment I needed her most she sent me packing without an explanation, calling me names and cursing me.

“Hormonal issues,” she says. “It was sorted out later, but you were gone by then.”

Hope flares in my chest, so hot it hurts. Girl issues always go way over my head, and I don’t pretend to understand, but… “I would have come back for you,” I mutter. “I wanted to. But I thought you didn’t want me back. I thought I was doing you a favor by staying away.”

“I wanted you back the moment you left.”

My lungs expand, and I feel as if I can breathe in the sky. I stare at her, trying to rebuild my world, to fit the pieces differently than I had all those years ago.

She tucks that juicy lower lip between her white teeth, and desire returns in a mad flood. I want to kiss her until we both run out of air.

A beeping breaks through my sex-obsessed thoughts.

“Your cell phone.” Erin reaches for it on the shelves by the bed—no idea how it got there.

“Let it ring,” I say. If the Pope was calling me, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck right now. All I want is to kiss her again, lay her down and enter her once more. “Erin…”

I reach for her.

Only problem is, she’s now shifting, throwing her legs off my narrow bed and gathering her clothes from the floor. “It’s a message for you,” she says.

“What?”

She says nothing as she pulls on her jeans and sweater with snappy, furious movements.

Have I done something wrong? She knows my story now. She knows why I left, and I know why she told me to fuck off four years ago. Shouldn’t everything be fine again?

“I’m late.” She pulls on her boots. “See you around.”

I shake my head that’s still full of cobwebs. Okay, I admit I’m confused. “Erin?”

“Have to go to class, then see Tessa, and then I have to teach. If you decide you want to tell me everything, Tyler, you know my number.”

My jaw is hanging slack. I can’t formulate any response that isn’t made up of swearwords. I mean, what the fuck? It’s like I’m back to four years ago, her accusations ringing in my ears and I just can’t understand what I’ve done to deserve them.