Page 49 of Hometown Touchdown
But right now, we’re kissing like we’re fighting, like we’re proving something. That we still feel this. That we still want whatever’s left. That the space that time created between us hasn’t dulled a goddamn thing.
And as her fingers slip under my hoodie to skate along the ridges of my back, I know with full, brutal clarity—
This? This could be the worst kind of mistake. But I’m not walking away from it.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I know this changes everything.
I just don’t care.
Chapter twenty-two
Brynn
Hismouthcrashestomine with such intensity that it feels like six years of distance never happened.
I don’t know who moved first. Maybe it was both of us, like some invisible cord between us finally snapped and slingshotted us together. All I know is one second we were throwing accusations, and the next I’m gripping the soft cotton of his hoodie like it’s the only thing keeping me standing. His hands are on my hips, fingers flexing like he doesn’t know whether to pull me closer or push me away—but God, I hope it’s closer. I want closer. I want all of it.
My brain goes blissfully quiet. No noise, no doubt, no common sense. Just heat and memory and the wordmoreechoing in my chest like a damn drumbeat.
I’m gone for him. Stupidly, recklessly, irrevocably gone.
He kisses like he’s furious. Like he’s still hurt. Like he wants to punish me and himself in the same breath. But underneath all of that is something else—something fractured and desperate. Like he’s trying to taste the version of me he used to know. Like he’s searching for home in a kiss.
And when I moan into it—when I shift, pressing into him, fingers trailing up the back of his neck into that too-long, too-sexy hair—he makes a sound low in his throat that sends a shockwave straight through me. My knees nearly buckle. It’s hot and dirty and fucking dangerous.
He pulls back just enough for air, and I’m immediately lost without his mouth on mine. We’re still so close our noses brush, and his breath fans over my lips like a tease. His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them—stormy, wrecked, hungry.
“Brynn…” he rasps, and his voice is gravel and regret and something I don’t know if I can survive. “There’s so much that’s wrong with this.”
I blink, my pulse still a riot in my veins. “Oh.”
His hand is still on my waist, his thumb dragging slow, almost apologetic circles into my skin. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve wanted to do that since the second I saw you again. Hell, if I’m honest—long before that. But this…” He shakes his head like it physically hurts. “If we’re going to figure this out, we’ve got to do it right. If that’s what we’re doing.”
“I don’t know if we know what we’re doing.”
“Then let’s figure it out, instead of doing anything foolish.”
I pull back just enough to raise a brow. “Right. Says the man who barged into my apartment and kissed me like we were on the movie poster for a Nicholas Sparks adaptation.”
That huff of laughter escapes him, quiet and annoyed and stupidly attractive. “You told me to kiss you like I was mad at you.”
“And you did,” I murmur, my voice catching halfway between heat and heartbreak.
Silence stretches between us again, but this time it’s heavier. It’s full of all the what-ifs, all the things we never said, all the ways we ruined each other and still somehow want more.
His hand finally drops from my waist, and it feels like losing something. He steps back like it costs him. Like it physically hurts to put space between us.
“I want to talk,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his jaw like he’s trying to scrub away whatever just happened. “Actually talk. No yelling, no pretending. No kissing until we forget everything again.”
I nod, throat tight. “Not a date. A talk.”
He gives me this crooked half-smile, all dimple and sincerity. It cracks something open in me. “Not a date.”
I nod slowly. “A time and place to clear the air.”
“Exactly. You pick when.”
Then he turns toward the door, slow and reluctant, like every step is a decision he doesn’t want to make. He pauses with his hand on the knob, head tilted like he’s still working up the courage to say what’s next.
