Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Me?” I pointed a finger into my chest. “Try getting over you.”
He smirked a little at that. “You always seemed like you had, like it was easy. I watched you online, living life, dating and traveling and moving on without me. I didn’t think you ever thought about me, about this place,” he confessed. “And when you showed up here, after all that time… God, Jasmine. Just seeing you there in the kitchen with my family… with the same smile and eyes as you had when you left…” Tyler’s nose flared. “It crushed me.”
I frowned, running my fingers through his hair. “I never knew,” I whispered. “I never knew that you told Morgan, or that she’d asked you to stay away from me. I always thought you saw me as a… as a mistake.” The words were like acid on my tongue, and as soon as I said the word, Tyler shook his head. “I know now that’s not what it was, but that’s what I always thought. For the last seven years, I looked back on that day that meant so much to me and thought it meant nothing to you. I thought you were disgusted by what we’d done, that you were ashamed, that you wanted to bury it.”
Tyler was still shaking his head, and he pulled my fingers to his lips, kissing each tip. “I wanted to tell you. But when Morgan explained everything… with your mom, and your break-up with James, and graduating, and getting ready for college… I could see it, you know? I knew it was this hard, life-changing time for you, and I didn’t want to take advantage of that.” He frowned more. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
I nodded in understanding, touching his lips where he still held my fingertips.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” he whispered, his eyes flicking between mine. “Not a single day went by without me thinking of you, Jasmine.”
Emotion surged in my gut, in my chest, and tears welled in my eyes before I could stop them. Tyler leaned down to kiss those tears as soon as they slipped free and slid down my cheeks, and I held onto him, holding him to me, feeling the heat of him around all of me.
What now?
The words were on the tip of my tongue, and I knew I needed to ask them, but before I could, my stomach growled hard and loud against Tyler’s.
He chuckled, pulling back from our embrace with one eyebrow arched high. “Someone’s hungry.”
“Listen, I ran countless miles before we spent all that energy last night.”
He laughed again, kissing my nose and then bounding out of bed before I could reach to stop him. His eyes searched the floor until he found his sweatpants, and he yanked them up to his hips, pulling his t-shirt on over his bedhead next.
I didn’t miss when his eyes paused on the spilled vase of flowers, but he didn’t ask about them.
“Let me go steal us some muffins from the kitchen,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him there, reveling in the taste and scent of him until he tickled me to make me let him go.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised. “And we can continue this conversation without your stomach threatening to hurt us both if we don’t feed it.”
“Hurry,” I said, and he pressed his lips to mine one last time before quietly sneaking out the door.
The sun was hot, warming my bedroom enough that once Tyler was gone, I flopped onto my back in the bed and kicked the covers down to my ankles. The cool air from the fan tickled my nipples, my sore clit, and I smiled like a loon, shaking my head and covering my face with my hands at how giddy I was.
And in the next instant, my stomach took a deep dive like the descent of a rollercoaster, and I scrubbed my hands over my face, letting them fall to my sides as I stared up at the ceiling.
Fuck.
I’d cheated on Jacob.
Tyler had cheated on Azra.
And just a couple of days before they were both supposed to fly in and be at this very house with us.
Guilt seared through me, even though I’d already made up my mind before I ran into Tyler last night that I was going to end things with Jacob, I still hadn’t actually done so. It killed me, knowing he had no idea what I’d done, what I was thinking, where my head had been all this time that I’d been back in New England.
He’d sent me flowers. He called and texted me every day. He reminded me how much he loved me, and missed me, and wanted me.
And I slept with another man.
I groaned, sitting up with a sudden headache that I pressed my palm into as if that would help. As soon as I finished my conversations with Tyler, I needed to call Jacob. I couldn’t go back and undo last night — not that I would have chosen to — and I couldn’t go back and call Jacob before what happened with Tyler. But I could explain everything to him, like he deserved. I could be honest, no matter how much it would hurt.