“You already know why.”

“I’m starting to think I missed out on an important detail.” Her hips rolled forward in a wave-like motion, hitting my erection once, and slightly, and so fucking teasingly, it was the last nail in the age gap debate coffin. This woman knew what she was doing. She knew how to work her body, work a man’s body, and it killed me that fucking Bane—what kind of name was that? Was he a Vicious knockoff?—knew all the secrets to her silky, sun-kissed flesh and scarlet lips and probably very sweet pussy.

I stepped away from her, leaning on the still-running car with a smirk.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t do children.”

She moved closer to me, her inner thigh pressing against the side of my leg. She smiled, her grin dazzling with white teeth—one of them crooked and slightly chipped and imperfectly sexy—and purred, “Don’t make promises that will make you feel like a pervert when you break them.”

“I won’t break them,” I deadpanned, but I still let her press her small, perky, braless—shit, braless—tits against my lower pecs. The notion that I could slam her against my hood and fuck her from behind was too much. Or maybe I could spread her and eat her out before I fucked her in the middle of the reservoir. She would let me, and that was the worst thing about our situation. Edie would let me do that to her, and not because she was a naïve girl with daddy issues.

But because she’d come here to fuck, and I was a willing body to her. Nothing less, nothing more.

“Interesting,” she said, bending her knees and grinding against me, clasping my whole thigh between her legs. Her bare skin scraped along my denim, her puckered, hard nipple brushing my forearm. I didn’t move. Just stared at her like she was a fucking health hazard, hoping she would stop or take my dick in her mouth and put me out of my misery. “You know what my favorite word is?” she hissed, clenching my thigh, feeling warm and damp.

Fuck? I wanted to retort. Because I’d gladly give you some synonyms, facts, and hard examples of how to do it.

But I was too fascinated with the direction she was taking this—us—to interrupt her little speech. She had a point. That much was for sure. For the first time since we’d met, I let her express herself and speak her mind. Not only because she was rubbing her sleek pussy all over my thigh and I didn’t want to break the spell, but also because she needed it. Kid jumped out of a moving car five minutes ago to make a point.

Not a kid, I reminded myself. A woman, Trent. A woman.

“Sonder.” The word rolled between her luscious lips like an illicit proposition. She took my hand and pressed it against the swell of her ass, on the border between her thigh and cheek. Her warm flesh made the dull ache in the pit of my stomach disappear somehow, and the weirdest thing about it was that I hadn’t even noticed that it was there before. I didn’t squeeze nor withdraw my palm. My mind was racing, knowing this shouldn’t be happening, and again, I fired excuses at myself.

It was nothing.

We weren’t actually doing shit.

We weren’t kissing, or making out, or fucking, or sucking each other off. We were barely touching, even though it felt heavier and dense, even more than being completely naked in a room with a woman who already had a condom ready in her mouth.

“Sonder is the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own. I have a feeling you think you’re the only one to know hardship, Rexroth. It doesn’t sit well with me. Not at all.”

“Tough luck, sweetheart, because you’re working under me, and that’s the only thing you’ll do in that compromising position.” I dragged my hand from her ass to my pocket, making a teasing stop at her hipbone, brushing it with my thumb. She pushed into my touch and I denied her, not only to stay in control of my hands, but also because seeing her burning for me was a visual that could very likely set what few morals I had on fire.

“We’ve started on the wrong foot.” She ignored the gesture, but her goose bumps gave away her reaction. Her nipples were so erect they looked sore, in need of relief. “I apologize for mugging your mother. Can you apologize for bullying me? We can put all of this behind us. Start fresh. I’d like that.” Her voice was honest and soft, genuine.

But what Edie hadn’t realized was that the day I would stop giving her shit would be the day we’d be indifferent toward one another, because there was no way we could communicate inappropriately on any other level other than taunting. And hating. And despising one another.