‘I don’t want you to stop,’ she whispered, her breath in my ear, temptation incarnate.

For a suspended minute, I let her honeyed words absolve me of the promise I wanted to break, the ethics I was trashing, the heart I was letting her slice open – mine. I rolled us to our sides, unzipped her jeans and slid my fingers down and into her, curling them up and pressing as she gasped my name and gripped my arm like she’d never let go.

I could make her love me. I could be that next man for her …

Ah, I knew better.

‘Jacqueline. Say stop.’ I was begging her, unable to make myself let her go.

‘Don’t stop,’ she repeated, kissing me, and I clawed for solid ground when I wanted nothing more than to sink into her. She opened her mouth, kissing me, hinting at what could be mine if I just let go.

I promised.

Five seconds. I would pull her jeans away and take her right here on the sofa. ‘Say stop, please.’ Three seconds. I would carry her to my room, drop her on my bed, and begin with my mouth on her thigh. ‘Please.’ One second. I would betray the trust of the one person who’d never given up on me.

‘Stop,’ she said.

Thank you, I said. Or wanted to say, before I fell asleep, holding her.

21

Landon

When the sun went down, the temperature cooled and the light disappeared, and spring-break festivities heated up.

The redhead straddling my lap took the last drag off the joint we’d shared, the embers singeing the tips of her index finger and thumb. ‘Ouch!’ Her voice was a mousy squeak. She dropped the last bit into the sand, where it extinguished and disappeared.

‘Hey!’ I frowned, squinting down from my perch on a piece of ragged driftwood and toeing the immediate area like an idiot. The last thing I wanted was to find a possibly still-lit joint with my f**king foot.

‘What? It was all used up anyway.’ Her petulant voice was grating, though I knew damned well there hadn’t been enough left to pull a full hit from it.

I started to retort, but when I glanced up, she was sucking on her injured thumb. The nearly consumed joint dropped out of my mind and my thoughts veered towards other cravings. Pulling her closer, I drew her index finger into my mouth, sucking it gently while she sucked the thumb next to it, eyes lidded, just as high as I was. My jaw rested on the heel of her palm, and I sucked harder when she curled her sharp-nailed fingers into my cheek. I wanted to feel those nails scraping down my back, and I didn’t want to wait or move. A short, loud fight with my dad over another round of failed classes, the long, weirdly hot afternoon and the weed had left me sluggish and lazy, but horny. Opening my lips, I ran my tongue along the V between the finger in my mouth and the thumb in hers. She closed her eyes.

I tugged one thin cup of her bikini top down, liberating one tit. Her eyes flashed open, but she didn’t pull away. If she didn’t mind this, I’d see how willing she was to do me right there, twenty feet from the bonfire and the two dozen or so people drinking, smoking and/or paired off around it. With any luck, she was as lazy and horny as I was.

Releasing her finger with a faint pop, I ducked my head and tugged her nipple into my mouth. She arched into me, gasping, her burnt thumb forgotten. Reaching between us, I moved the crotch of her bikini bottoms aside. She gasped again, her arms sliding round my shoulders like bands, before saying the magic words. ‘Oh, God – yes. Now. Now.’

Hell, yeah. I hadn’t even kissed her yet. Maybe I wouldn’t. A no-kiss f**k – that would be a first, I thought – and I was always looking for firsts. They were getting fewer and further between.

That’s when I heard Amber Thompson scream.

Certain it was her customary attention-seeking shriek, I was determined to ignore her. There was a wobble of panic to it that I hadn’t heard before, but she was likely having a paranoid delusion brought on by her dumbass brother passing her a joint. Scrawny fourteen-year-olds shouldn’t smoke weed. They didn’t know how to ration. The same amount that made me ready to screw this girl on my lap, find something to eat, and then fall into a mercifully dreamless sleep could freak them the f**k out.

I’d just ripped open a condom – the only one I had on me – when I heard another scream.

Goddamn Amber’s useless brother. A tall can of beer in one hand and a joint in the other, he was visible in the firelight, stumbling side to side, laughing with two other guys.

The girl on my lap moaned and pressed herself against me. Clutching the condom in one fist and a thick ponytail of soft red hair in the other, I yelled, ‘Hey, Thompson!’

Rick glanced round once before going back to his conversation. ‘Shit, man,’ I said, and then tried again. ‘Thompson, you asswipe!’ This time he only lurched in the opposite direction, to the other side of the six-foot flames.

‘Why are you yelling?’ Redhead whined.

Then I heard Amber a third time – but this time, her voice sounded both scared shitless and further away. Not one goddamned person was paying any attention – except me.

Standing, I slid the warm, pliable girl off my lap and handed her the condom. I pressed her to sit down and her hands went straight for the drawstring of my shorts. In that second, I knew she thought I wanted her to blow me before I screwed her, and she was totally prepared to do it.

Fuck this night.

Gripping her shoulders firmly, I said, ‘Be right back.’ Her lip curled slightly and she blinked, confused. I couldn’t blame her. Even high, I was fully aware that I’d just said the stupidest f**king thing I’d ever uttered.