Page 15 of Tangled Up

“I think you two know each other, don’t you?” Mr. Callahan is enjoying this way too much.

“Of course, we do.” My voice is low, controlled. “I thought you were in Pensacola.”

“Oh, I am. I just came here to visit my aunt for a few days.” She blinks rapidly, and her smile is hesitant, like it used to be when she was hiding something from me.

“I’m just going to walk inside and check on sister-girl.” The old man walks to the screen door. “You two feel free to catch up.”

Catch up? Where do we even begin? I’m staring at the girl who has haunted my dreams for seven years. The girl who owned my teenage existence. The girl who nearly broke me…

And I nearly broke her in return.

“What are you doing here?” The hesitation is gone, as if she tucked it away, but I saw it.

“I didn’t know you were here.”

“Would that have made a difference?” Her eyebrow arches, and it’s all back, the familiarity, the defiance, the push and pull we’ve always shared.

I want to put my hands on her arms and squeeze them. I want to shake them and tell her she knows goddamn well it would have made a difference. Then I want to kiss her hard, until she makes that little moan, until her body tells me she wants more.

Instead, I smile confidently, not giving anything away. “Of course not.” I put the coffee mug on the small table beside the old man’s chair. “Mr. C was in a pretty bad wreck last week. For a few seconds he coded.”

Her pretty eyes go wide. “Oh, my God…” She looks to the door quickly, swishing her hair around her shoulders. “I had no idea.”

My eyes travel down to her small breasts, her taut nipples piercing the cotton of her tank. I think of how they feel in my hands, how they bounce when she rides my lap, rolling her hips like a dancer.

“Yeah, well, I’d better take off.” Turning, I head for the fence. The last thing I want to do is spring a boner the first time I see her again. Fuck that.

“Did you want to check out Mr. C?” She calls after me, but I don’t answer.

I’ve seen enough. That old man is doing fine, and when I came here to face the past, the last thing I expected was to be caught in a riptide.

I need a minute to swim to the side, find my balance, and get back on my feet. I’m not ready for this.

CHAPTERFIVE

CARLY

“He’s here.” I’m pacing my bedroom at Aunt Viv’s, holding the phone to my ear and doing my best to calm my breathing.

“No way—Beck Munroe?” Jessica’s voice goes high on the other end. “What the hell is he doing back in Eden? He hasn’t been here in years. Not since…”

Her voice trails off, and I can’t go there. Not right now.

“This is some kind of fucked-up, cosmic joke.” I’m on edge, picking at the skin on my forearm. I haven’t done that in years.

“To reunite you with your childhood sweetheart, a.k.a., the king of your tween-aged spank bank?”

She thinks this is hilarious, but I do not, especially in view of how I reacted to seeing him. He’s gorgeous as ever. When I walked out the screen door and saw him standing there, so tall, dark hair curling in the breeze around his temples, blue eyes, broad shoulders stretching that white tee. I almost dropped Mr. Callahan’s coffee.

Out of habit, I hugged him, like an idiot.

His clean scent of sandalwood and sweat surrounded me, and his firm body filled my mind with memories of sitting behind him on the bike, my arms around his waist, my chin on his shoulder. I could still feel his strong hands gripping my arms, pulling me to him with possessive need. I could still feel his lips covering mine, his teeth grazing them as we kissed, consumed with hunger and desire.

My entire body flushed with heat, and it took all my years of professional control to act calm, unaffected.

Why should seeing him affect me? We’ve moved past the past. We’re not those kids anymore. We haven’t been in a long time.

Jess’s voice is quiet when she speaks again. “Are you going to see him?”

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