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“When is there a right time to tell someone you shattered their heart with a cruel lie?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t leave, Tenleigh. You were going to give up that scholarship and stay. I couldn’t let you do that. I couldn’t.”

“There were other ways.”

“Maybe. I couldn’t think of any at the time. I couldn’t think of any way to guarantee you’d leave and never look back.”

She huffed out a breath. “Well, you accomplished that, that’s for sure.” She looked away momentarily. “Why couldn’t you have come with me? Did you even want to? I mean, at the time…did you want me at all?” She looked like she was close to crying.

I moved closer to her. “I just couldn’t. I wanted to, God I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

“Why?” Her voice was breathy and filled with sadness.

I moved closer to her, right into her space, just as I had done the very first time I’d kissed her, the very first time I’d tasted her mouth. “Because I wanted more for you,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask me any further questions. I wouldn’t give her more than that. The rest was mine. And it only ever would be.

Her shoulders drooped, but she didn’t look away. For several beats, there was only silence between us.

I glanced up at the shelf that used to house all the books we’d read together, leaving small love notes in them for each other to find. That’s what they’d been, in my mind at least. “Right here is where I fell in love with you.” I paused and she blinked in surprise. “I tried to figure it out after you left. Where was it that I lost my heart? As if the moment…the place would matter somehow, would make it easier for me to get hold of, to understand. And I did figure it out—it was here. Right here.” Love mixed with pain rose in my throat and my voice lowered to a raspy whisper. “I fell so damn hard, Tenleigh. Standing right at this bookshelf. I gave you my heart and you weren’t even in the room.” I threaded my fingers into the hair at the base of her skull. She closed her eyes for a second, letting out a breathy sigh. “I’ve messed up so badly, hurt you so much, but…I never did take my heart back. And, God.” I shook my head slowly, moving even closer, pressing my body to hers. She blinked up at me, her lips parting. “Someday I hope you might want it again.”

Her eyes moved over my face, large and full of some emotion I couldn’t name.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, please,” I begged her.

Her lips parted, but no words came out. She cleared her throat, but when she spoke, her voice still came out in a whisper. “I was thinking the same thing as the first time we stood here just like this. I was thinking, ‘God, I hope this boy kisses me right now.’”

My heart skipped a beat and my stomach tightened, my body blazing to life with the immeasurable heat and passion I felt for her. I leaned in and took her mouth, parting her lips with my tongue. When I slid inside the warm wetness of her mouth, a primal groan came up my throat and I pressed her back harder into the bookshelf. She tasted like coffee and chocolate and Tenleigh. A small, breathy moan came up her throat and it enflamed me, my erection throbbing.

I took my mouth from hers and trailed my lips down her throat as she leaned her head back. I licked the fluttering pulse at the base of her neck and then just rested my lips there.

“‘You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever…I have loved none but you,’” I whispered against her skin, quoting the words I knew she’d remember.

Her body stilled, but her pulse quickened and I breathed in her scent.

Christ.

I took a second to try to reel myself in. Except for the kiss the night before, it’d been almost four years since I’d touched a woman, since I’d touched Tenleigh. My body was bound to react this way each time I was near her. I murmured her name against her skin.

She threaded her fingers through my hair and pulled my head back until she was looking into my eyes again. “What are we doing, Ky? What am I doing?” she asked almost as if to herself.

“I don’t know. I hope…I hope we’re working toward something? There’s so much… I’ll take whatever you have to give me, Tenleigh. Anything.”

Her eyes moved over my face. “I…I just, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can.”

I rested my forehead against hers and we just breathed for a minute. “Is it because of Jamie?” I had to know. I had to know if he was even part of the reason she was unsure about giving us another shot.