Make Me Hate You(52)

“That feels nice.”

I smiled just as he creaked one eye open, and then the next, and those warm, brown eyes roamed my face with adoration as the morning sun reflected in the golden specks around his irises.

But then, they shot open wide, and in the next instant he was balanced on his elbows over me, hands and eyes roaming my body with worry etched in his brow.

“Fuck, Jasmine,” he said, touching places on my neck, my collarbone, my hips and thighs. “God. I’m so sorry. It looks like I fucking mauled you.”

I blushed, giggling and wrapping my arms around his neck. His brows were still furrowed when he met my gaze, but I just reached up to press my lips to his.

We both inhaled at the contact, sweet, content sighs coming from our chests in the next breath.

“It was the best mauling of my life,” I whispered.

He smiled, but shook his head, pulling back to look me over again. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, tilting his chin to look at me again. “Better than fine. Sore as hell, yes, but…” I stopped, smiling as our eyes searched one another’s, because I knew I didn’t need to say another word for him to understand.

A relieved sigh left him, and he moved until he was settled between my thighs, his hands framing my face, fingers in my hair, thumbs tracing lines on my jaw. “Last night was amazing.”

I nodded, smiling as a blush shaded my cheeks. “It was.”

“I’ve missed you so much, Jaz,” he said next, his brows pinching together. “When you left, I always thought you’d come back. I just assumed you’d be back for the next holiday, or birthday, or to visit your aunt or Morgan. I thought I’d see you again, and I’d be able to explain, and then we’d…”

He swallowed, and I squeezed where I held his waist over me.

“After a year went by and you didn’t come back, didn’t answer my texts or my calls… I knew I needed to let you go.” He shook his head. “But fuck, I never learned how to. You’re impossible to forget, Jasmine. Impossible to get over.”

“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.