“Yeah. I get that.” He dipped down, his lips touching mine and resting there a moment before he whispered, “But I don’t want Stephanie Witts. I don’t want anyone else.” His eyes were hard on me.

My body warmed. A tingle shot through me.

I grinned, my lips curving against his. “You’re all I want too.”

He pulled back, an uncharacteristic seriousness on his face. No smile. No grin. No smirk. No amusement in his gaze. He was suddenly so serious. “I just want you. I just love you.”

My tongue felt heavy.

I should say it back, but I was still hearing Willow.

Pain sliced through me, and I turned away—I started to turn away.

He caught me, his hand touching my chin, and he moved me back to look at him. His thumb caressed my jawline, and his eyes dipped to my mouth. “I couldn’t have said this a year ago. I couldn’t have said this six months ago, but I can now. It took me that long, Mac. Derek’s death fucked me up, so when I say I get it—I get it. But I want to say it.”

I needed it.

It was like air to me.

I turned my body, my head holding still, and slowly, I crawled until I was straddling him in the darkened hallway. It was empty, but people were probably lingering just around the corner or by the gym. Two steps—that would be all it would take for someone to round the corner and find us there.

I so wasn’t caring at that moment.

I settled down on top of him, feeling him beneath me, and his hands moved to my hips.

I leaned forward, my lips nipping his, and I whispered, “I want to show you what I can’t say, not yet.”

“Oh yeah?” A small grin pulled at his lips, and he watched me with dark amusement.

“Yeah.” I shifted, pushing down with my hips. He was hard for me. His gym pants didn’t obstruct him much, and my jeans were a little baggy.

God.

I glanced left and right, but no one was there.

Biting my lip, feeling all the right tingles and pleasure filling me, I knew I should get up. We should take this somewhere else, but I was not caring.

This was reckless.

This was stupid.

This was dangerously intoxicating, and with that last thought—I stopped thinking. My hips pressed against his, and he pulled me in, holding me against him and lifting his hips a little to grind against me.

“Fuck, Mac.” He pulled back, his eyes so damned dark I wanted to get lost in them. His left hand slid up my waist, up my arm, around to my front, and lingered between my breasts. They were straining for him, but he didn’t go any farther. He just stayed there, feeling my heartbeat and watching me all the while.

He groaned. “You make me feel things I thought were gone.”

He seemed tormented by that, and I shifted back a little and slid my hand through his hair. It was half-dry, so there was a tiny little bit of a messy curl to it. I loved how it was chaotic.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

His hand went back to my hip, and he cupped me there, jerking me back in place. He fit right, perfect.

I was having a hard time not moving my hips again, rocking on top of him.

He rested his head back against the locker, watching me. “Derek was my best friend, not Kirk.”

“I thought . . .”

He shook his head, his eyes still so dark. “Kirk became my best friend after Derek died, but it was him and me. Even the others—Tom, Nick, and Pete—they knew that. It was me and Derek. Then he died, and God—” He let out an anguished breath, closing his eyes as lines of tension formed around his mouth. “I used to think no one got it. No one understood.”

I shifted back even farther.

My gut was sinking. My chest was starting to tear open.

I had a feeling I knew exactly what he was going to say.

He looked at me. “I thought no one would understand what it felt like to hurt so badly that you just wanted to go with that person.” His hand smoothed down my hip, stopping on top of my leg, and he looked down at it. “Until you.”

He lifted his gaze again. The torment was so real, so haunting, that it hurt me to be there. Every bone in my body started to ache, but not from him. Not because of him. Not in a way that made me want to run from this.

It was an ache because someone else understood.

It was almost as if, for a split second, I got her back. Ryan took Willow’s spot. I took Derek’s spot, and we were the other’s mourned loss for a moment.

Then I gasped, and the feeling left me.