Every muscle in his body locked at the sight of her. At her red lips. Her moss green eyes. Even that small scar on the base of her chin had him thrown back two years.
Damn, she was beautiful. And he’d been starved of that beauty for too long.
Her chest rose and fell, her gaze shifting between his eyes before she whispered one word. “Lock.”
The way his name fell from her lips was like a punch to the gut. He’d always loved the way she said it, but today, he felt it harder. “Hey, Callie.”
Her throat bobbed, and he could hear every whisper of air moving in and out of her lungs.
Two years. Two long damn years without her. It shouldn’t have happened, but it had. His hand twitched to reach out and touch her. Run his fingers down the pink of her cheek.
He clenched his fists to stop himself, forcing words from his lips instead. “How are you?”
Her brows pinched in a familiar scowl, and for a moment her mouth just opened and closed. “Really? It’s been two years, and you just show up unannounced and ask how I am?”
He had a million things to say to her and a million questions, but yeah, the first thing he wanted to know was how she was doing.
He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could get a word out, she got in first.
“You need to leave.”
Leave? He’d only just gotten here. “Don’t you want to know what I’m doing here?”
“Nope. I don’t want to know what you’re doing here, I don’t want to know why you left the military, and Icertainlydon’t want to know why you broke my heart.”
She shoved passed him, and fuck, even that small touch of her shoulder against his was enough for awareness to rush through every limb.
“Callie—”
“I’m not doing this, Lock. I have too much going on. I can’t deal with you too.”
“What do you have going on?”
She scoffed. “You really think I’m going to bare my life story to you?”
Once upon a time, she would have. “You could.”
“No, I can’t.” She spun back toward him, and he just stopped himself from walking into her. “You broke up with me, remember? With barely a reason.Thenyou stopped answering my calls. You didn’t respond to my texts. You cut me off completely.”
That was true. It had taken them two weeks to locate and kill Malone and another week for debriefing and all the other shit he’d had to do before he could finally come home.
She’d tried to contact him every day, multiple times a day, and he’d never responded. Fear had dictated his every move, a desperate need to keep her separate from him and safe.
“So don’t walk in here expecting anything from me,” she continued. “I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
He knew that.Hewas the one who owedher.
She turned again and took a step toward the door, but he couldn’t let her go. He reached out and grabbed her arm. It was the first touch of her skin in years, and it slammed him back in time. Back to a time when life was easy. When it made sense. When she belonged to him.
The second he touched her,she stopped. Stopped moving. Stopped thinking. She wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. It was like his touch froze time.
Her back was still facing him, and it took four long seconds to look down at his strong fingers wrapped around her arm. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. Because it set off a battle in her chest. A need to both run and tug him closer. A fight between her head and her heart.
The thud of his shoes sounded, then his heat spread into her back. He was everywhere. His body too close to hers, his deep sandalwood scent filling the air.
Everything about him was so achingly familiar; it was like he’d been imprinted into her soul.
“Please…” he whispered. “Let me explain what happened. Let me fix this.”
