Seriously, when did breathing get so hard?

“I should ask Matt,” I finally say, even though normally I would have turned down a party invite in a heartbeat. “But I’m pretty sure he’ll say yes.” Normal doesn’t appear to be on the agenda for the night.

Matt coughs next to me, and in his cough, I hear a not-so-subtle “YES.”

Silas picks up the end of my braid and curls the dark blonde strands around two large fingers. “Good.”

On a whim, I pick up his other hand, his right, and lightly run my finger across the back of it, just below his bloodied knuckles.

“And you’ll let me help with this?”

“Trying to fix me, too?”

Jesus. That low, teasing tone is like a punch straight to the chest. Or the babymaker. Both, really.

“I’m just not a big fan of blood.”

His lips are still at my ear, and he lowers his volume so that Matt won’t hear. “I promise not to get you dirty. Unless you ask real nice.”

I don’t even . . . I can’t . . . Oh my God.

I plant my elbow in his side and use it to pry myself a little space.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You’re gonna have to use smaller words with me, Pickle. Or better yet, no words at all.”

The girl driving snorts, and I shoot Silas a look. “Does that ever actually work?”

He leans close to me, and this time the words are only for me, soft and seductive and almost vulnerable in my ear. “Am I trying too hard?”

I shrug. “Maybe. I can’t tell if you’re even serious.”

His fingers tug on my braid, and his hazel eyes hold mine. He certainly looks serious. And I wish I hadn’t said anything because a serious Silas is so much more intimidating.

He is a dangerous, dangerous boy, and I might have been better off if they had left me handcuffed to that pole outside the shelter. Then I think about what a guy like Silas could do with handcuffs, and I’m just gone. I can feel my face heating up, and I’m leaning closer to him, and even though all we’re doing is touching, I feel . . . bad. Like I could do some terrible, irresponsible, wicked things.

And like them. A lot.

I stay silent the rest of the ride as Silas directs the girl up front to the bar where he’d left his vehicle. Every few minutes, Matt nudges me with a knee or a finger or an elbow, but I keep my eyes fixed forward because I’m scared that if I look at him, I’ll start thinking again. About how I still haven’t called my father. About the fact I’ve been single for oh, a whopping eight days. About all the ways in which this (like much of what I’ve done today) is an incredibly stupid idea.

Or a brilliant one. Still working on that.

But one thing is decided . . . I don’t feel like thinking.

A few minutes later, we pull up beside a beat-up truck that’s so rusted it looks as if it might crumble under the slightest pressure. In places it’s a dark maroon, but where the paint has chipped away, you can see a layer of gray underneath. Add the rust to that, and his truck is three colors. Four, if you count the mud that the tires have splashed up around the wheels. Silas opens the door, and then reaches down a hand to help me slide out. I hesitate when I catch sight of the unhappy look the driver is giving Silas. I wonder what we took her and her boyfriend away from.

I take his hand, but before I duck out of the car, I tell the girl driving, “Thank you so much for the ride.”

She sends me a smile that’s very sweet, but almost pitying.

“You’re welcome. Hope you get home safe.”

I smile and nod, my stomach tumbling with nerves, and then let Silas pull me out into the warm night air. He keeps hold of my hand as he leans down to the passenger window to talk to his friend.

“You guys coming back to the house or heading home?”

“Home,” the guy answers. “You’ll stay out of trouble? Torres is pretty gone already.”

Silas laughs. “What a lightweight.”

“That freshman that Brookes invited, Williams, is already passed out on your couch, too. Ryan is still there. He’ll try to make sure nothing crazy happens, but you know the guys will listen to you more than him.”

“I got it, McClain. You’ve done your QB duty for the night.” He shoots me a quick look over his shoulder and adds, “And then some. Thanks both of you. Sorry I dragged you out to take care of my ass.”

“It’s cool.”

The girl’s tight smile says otherwise, but I figure there’s some story there that I’m just not getting.

He pats a hand on the top of the car, and then stands back as they pull away. He turns toward his truck and then shrugs at me.

“Sorry it’s not much.” He opens the door, and there’s just one long bench seat, so it looks like I’ll be squeezed in the middle again. The truck is tall, and I pause before climbing in, looking for a place to grab where rust won’t rub off on my hand.

Two big hands settle on my waist, and Silas lifts me up and plops me behind the wheel. My heart turns over at the touch, but it’s gone just as fast as it started. I slide over to the middle section, and I have to put one foot on either side of the old-fashioned stick shift that goes all the way down to the floorboard. The passenger door swings open, and both Silas and Matt slide in at the same time, caging me in with their big bodies.

“You guys have a ride you want me to take you to?”

Matt answers, “Nah. We carpooled with friends.”

He looks at me then. “You still okay with coming to mine?”

I take a breath and hold it in for a few seconds. I wait for the flash of misgiving, the feeling in my gut that should tell me to go home, be reasonable, call my father. It doesn’t come. Quite the opposite, in fact. I look up at him, and I feel that same insistent pull that made me disobey the dispersal order at the shelter.

Finally, I nod. He turns over the key, the engine cranking loudly, and then reaches between my legs to shift into reverse. He pulls the stick down, and it comes much closer to the seat than I anticipated, which means Silas’s hand is between my thighs, his knuckles grazing my skin until I widen my legs another inch. He keeps his hand there as he backs out, and his forearm rests on my thigh. Goose bumps are popping up all around that point of contact, and I hope he doesn’t notice. His arm rubs against me as he shifts into various gears, and even when he could return his hand to the wheel, he doesn’t.