Bring Me Home (2 page)

“We were so young. So foolish,” she whispered to the night.

“Yes, we were.”

She jerked at the sound of Shawn's deep voice and bashed her knee against the edge of the table. His tall silhouette moved through the dark, and she fumbled for something to say. “What are you doing out here?”

Chapter Two

“Last time I saw you, your ass was in high gear outta Dodge.” He shrugged and took a step forward. “Just wondered why you ran out again tonight.”

“That's none of your business.” She rubbed at the painful knot forming on her leg. It helped fill the heavy silence while she tried to steady the rapid beat of her heart. Less to do with the scare than the man, she suspected. “And I didn't run out.”

“Sure you did.” He moved closer and the subtle scent of hot male skin and sandalwood wrapped around her like a caress. “That's your style, after all.”

“My style?” she managed, pissed that she could react to him so easily.

He closed the distance between them, brushing a wisp of hair back from her eye. The close proximity made it impossible to breathe. She'd played this moment over and over in her mind for years, and it had never gone this way. In her dreams, she'd walked away. “Yeah, baby. Your style. You run when things get rough.”

“If you're referring to four years ago…” She raised her chin to meet his stare in the moonlight. “I left because you couldn't keep your dick in your pants. That's about as rough as it gets.”

“Shit, Mi,” he scoffed. “At least be honest. Susan was a convenient reason. The out you were always looking for.”

“Convenient?” Even her worst imagined scenarios had
started
with him groveling. Having him try to turn the tables and lay blame at her feet was too much. She'd heard all she needed to hear and tried to push past him. “Fuck you.”

He blocked her path toward the bar, scowling down at her. “What's your problem?”

“Men. Well, you, specifically.” She was pissed, and even if he was almost a foot taller than her and had her by a good seventy pounds, one well-placed knee to his crotch would incapacitate him. Violence wasn't her forte, but if he pushed much more she'd rethink that standpoint. She didn't feel threatened by him, and there was too much history between them. Even if it had gone south in the end.

Mentally shelving her kickboxing lessons, she settled for verbal sparring. “What do you want, Shawn?”

“An explanation would be nice,” he pressed. “You left without giving me a chance. Without a reason.”

“Right,” she scoffed. “No reason at all. Is this where you're going to tell me that I willed you to fuck my cousin so I could get away from small-town hell and its chains?”

“I didn't even know what you believed happened between Susan and me until years later.”

“Then stop playing stupid.” She tried to get past him again, but it was the equivalent of moving a brick wall. No such fucking luck. “You know why I walked out.”

“I get why anyone else might walk away. But not with us. You didn't trust me enough to know that whatever you thought you saw or heard wasn't the truth.”

“I did trust you,” she rasped, furious at the emotion thickening her throat. Why wouldn't he leave it alone? “I did.”

“But not enough?”

“Would you have believed anything differently?”

“Yes.”

He said it with enough conviction that she almost believed him. “Easy to say when you weren't on the receiving end of the heartbreak.”

“You not trusting me hurt. I can't tell you how much. But you didn't tell me that was why. You just left. You'd wanted out of Dead End for as long as I can remember, and what you chose to believe happened between Susan and me was your ticket out.”

“Whether I wanted out or not, you gave me plenty of reason.”

“That's where you're wrong,” he snapped. “That night… was a—misunderstanding.”

“Ha! That's rich.” She remembered that night so clearly it might as well have been four hours rather than four years ago. Coming home to find him in bed with her cousin… She'd clung to that hurt. Drawn on it through years of disappointment in the life she'd hoped to find outside of Dead End. Now he was trying to tell her it hadn't been anything more than a reason to run? The devil on her shoulder kicked ass in that moment. Fuck him and his explanations. “I suppose you're going to tell me you slipped and fell and
accidentally
put your dick in my cousin?”

His hands moved up to squeeze her shoulders. “I didn't screw her, Mi.”

“Sure.”

He traced his fingers down her arms, kneading at the muscles bunched with tension. Warm tingles followed every inch of skin he touched. “She came to me after the party that night. I didn't even know she was in the room until I woke up. I thought it was you.”

“Is that supposed to help?” Panic gripped her. She shouldn't be responding. Shouldn't fucking care what he had to say. It would be so much easier to walk away in that moment than to relive the memories. Color her a glutton… “I mean, really? You thought she was me? She might be my relative, but there must have been
some
distinguishing differences you could have noticed.”

“I did.” He nodded, his gaze intent. “Maybe too late to stop all of this from happening, but I did. She was already naked, touching me—and when I realized it wasn't you, I was furious.”

“Enough to finish what she'd started and then promise not to tell me?” She couldn't help wanting to hurt him. She'd been heartbroken, angry—relieved? No. That couldn't be right.

His grip on her arms tightened, the line of his jaw tensing. “
Nothing
was finished that night. I kicked her out once I realized what she was up to. I promised not to tell you what
she
'
d
tried to do. Her reputation was bad enough, but adding that stupid move would have killed her mother. Hell, her dad had threatened to send her away, and things were so bad in your family already, I thought it would be better—”

“What?” she interrupted. “Better to lie to me?”

God, she wished he didn't sound so sincere. Wished he wasn't saying all the things she'd thought he might say, over the years, when her pride had been too bruised to let her come crawling back home. She wished more that his touch didn't affect her as much as it did. She'd spent a lot of time trying to hate this man, and he was breaking down her reasons without much effort. Evidently, New York hadn't hardened her the way she'd hoped. “If that's all true, why didn't you just tell me?”

“Miya,” he breathed. The warmth of his hand soaked into her skin as he cupped her cheek. “You always stuck up for her, always rooted for her and believed in her when no one else would. I knew it would destroy you to find out she'd tried to do this to you. I made a bad decision when I chose not to tell you what she'd done. At the time, I thought it was the best way to handle it all.”

“So you did it for me?” Nausea rolled through her stomach. He had no idea what his stupid decision had cost them, and the old anger sparked deep in her heart. “You didn't think I'd be hurt more believing you'd fooled around with her?”

“The way you say it makes it sound stupid.” His eyes narrowed. “I did it for us. For your family. I thought I could keep it a secret.”

Miya stared at him. Did it matter now? Four years was a lifetime when your life ended and began again in one night. She'd picked up the pieces alone. There was no way she would let his reasoning scatter them around again. “It doesn't make any difference now anyway.”

“It does to me.”

“Your feelings stopped being my concern four years ago.” Damn, this was hard. If the feelings she'd buried long ago would stay where they belonged, it would be much easier to walk away. “I've moved on, Shawn.”

“So did I, at least for everyone else to see.” He let out a slow, measured breath. “But I couldn't. I can't. Not knowing that the moment I saw you again, everything I ever wanted had walked back into my life.”

Tears welled in her eyes. How many nights had she wished to hear him say these things? She shoved the thought aside and buried it deep in her mind. She couldn't. Couldn't consider…

If what he said was true… She'd left without reason and lost much more than he knew, for nothing. That was a fear she only admitted, in her weakest moments, was possible. “That was our past. It's over.”

“If that's so…” He leaned closer until his words caressed her cheek, the light stubble on his chin prickling her lips. His voice was barely a whisper as he continued, “then why did you run away when your friend would have fucked me right there on the pool table? You're going to tell me it didn't bother you to see me touch her?”

She tried to force air into her lungs. Damn him and her lack of control. Everything about him made her body hum in reaction. She was furious to want nothing more in that moment than to experience his touch again. Of course it bothered her, damn him.

“That's right,” she lied instead.

“Liar.” His lips brushed her jaw with a barely there touch that delivered the shock of lightning. “I saw it the moment your eyes met mine. You think of me, dream of me, like I dream of you. I can't smell vanilla without your image popping into my head. I wake up at night, sweating, needing you so badly it hurts. You can't tell me you don't feel the same.”

Oh, did she ever. “I don't,” she maintained.

“I don't believe you,” he breathed. “I knew everything about you. What made you laugh, cry or turned you on. I know every inch of your body, the smell of your skin, the taste and texture of your mouth. Worst of all, I remember the way it felt being inside you, the way you held me, kissed me… You're the only woman I've ever loved, Mi. I haven't forgotten a thing about our past or what could have been.”

Sweet mother of mercy. How did he still have the skill to say everything just right? Tendrils of arousal inundated her senses. He wanted her. He'd thought of her all this time. The intensity of his gaze spoke volumes, and Chloe's statement inside the bar floated through her mind. A weekend in his arms wouldn't be so terrible. Would it? Spending a few days swamped in the feelings of being wanted, needed, cherished would do her sore heart some good.

Miya crushed the momentary weakness. Too much time had passed. There were things he didn't know… Reasons he should have to hurt as much as she had. “If you knew me so well, Susan's touch should have felt different.”

It should have been as effective as ice water, but he just shook his head.

“I knew something was different. I woke up with her touching me. I knew the way she kissed felt—wrong. I'd had a lot to drink too. It took a minute to process what was happening.”

The image his words created should have been of Susan doing those things to him. An image that would set her blood boiling and give her the strength to say
fuck you
. Instead, all she could focus on was his touch, here and now, and how tantalizing it felt.

Pulling on New York-learned reserves of self-preservation, she crossed her arms. He didn't know what boiled inside her, and she focused on the reason she'd walked away. Motives that were safe, solid and made sense, unlike the indecisive emotions simmering inside of her. “Fine. You want to hash this out? Did she kiss you?”

“Yes.” He slashed a hand over his face. “I knew it wasn't you when she—”

He broke off, a silent shudder of tension gripping his shoulders. “What, Shawn? You might as well tell me. I'm a grown woman now. You're no longer the only man I've been with, and I'm far from the fragile country girl you knew. I need—no,
deserve
—to know what she did that made you realize it wasn't me. Did she hop on and ride you, maybe gave you a little head first? Couldn't be those options, because that's what I would have done.”

“Stop it,” he growled.

“Why?” she pushed.

“I hate that night and those memories. It cost me everything.” He gripped her arms, the touch rough and erotic at once. “I don't want to hear about other men. I don't want to know what you would have done.”

He stepped away and she followed. Having him on edge was better than examining her own feelings. “The past is the past. We all have reasons for doing what we did. But you seem to need to explain this all away. So here's your chance.”

“Why?” he roared. “Do you really want to rehash every nasty detail?”

“You started the conversation. You're the one who feels like talking.” The bite of tears stung her eyes, and she closed them to stem the flow. She was not going to fucking cry in front of him. She would not. “I walked in on the two of you, Shawn. Can you imagine the pain I felt? I ran out, unable to process what I'd seen. I was sitting on the ground next to your porch, a sick, broken teenager, when you both came out on the porch and added to that pain by promising each other you'd never tell anyone.”

“I didn't know,” he whispered, his expression strained. “You never told me. I thought—hell, you were so convincing that next morning. I thought you didn't love me anymore. I thought you'd finally decided to make good on seeing the world.”

“I did.” What else had he expected her to do? “Why not, when there wasn't anything holding me here anymore?”

“You could have talked to me, given me a chance to explain.”

She met his gaze with a strength that surprised her. His intensity had always scared her. His thoughts of what their life should be and hers had run different tracks. But she'd loved him. She would have stayed with him—even if the life he'd planned for them was so close to her parents' staid existence she'd wanted to puke.

She might have dreamed of more, but she would have stayed if not for his night with Susan.

Exhaustion took over then, and she sighed. “I really don't want to discuss this anymore.”

“You think you're the only one who suffered?” Moonlight sparkled in the depths of his eyes. “I've waited to talk to you forever.”

“For what, so you could sweet talk around what really happened?”