“I didn’t meet my sisters until I was eight years old. So, no, I don’t think I’ve got something psychological going on. But I’ll check with my therapist to be sure.” His eyes are sharpening now until I feel the dangerous press of his gaze through my clothes. “I’m just a regular guy who likes kissing you. And I was selflessly offering myself up as someone you could let yourself be reckless and selfish with.”

I try not to be distracted. “I thought you had three full sisters, and Rose was the half sister.”

“They’re all my half sisters,” he explains patiently like I’m a real dummy. “Didn’t find that little nugget of info when you stalked my dad online? They’re all from his first marriage. The one I kind of ruined.”

“I didn’t stalk … Okay, I did. Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I’m getting a real good picture of who you think I am. Spoiled rich Prescott son, lying around waiting to inherit, completely addicted to attention.”

“You won’t let me get close enough to actually understand who you are. You are real good at sidestepping.”

He continues like I didn’t say anything, “I wish you could get a second first impression of me, but I can’t work out how to do it.”

“You thought I was elderly, and I’m scared your first impression was right. That’s why I’m trying so hard to be twenty-five years old. Tell me why you go to see a therapist. Is it because of your family?”

“Yes, of course it is. Nobody wanted me completely as a kid and now I have this fucked-up reflex to make everybody love me. I’ve done it to you, as well,” he adds, unaware of how the words love me drop through me like a stone into water. “I know what I do, and I want to be different with you.”

“The reason you want your tattoo studio so bad is because …” I leave the sentence hanging in the night air. Again, that hand pats his leg. “No, answer me. I know it’s more than just a thing to write on your résumé. You want it by Christmas so you can …”

He can’t tolerate the silence I’ve left. “I want to see the look on Rose’s face when I tell her.”

“Ah.” Most guys work their whole lives to prove something to their father. But Teddy is trying desperately to impress his sister. “Is Rose the one person you could never charm?”

“Pretty much. The other three, Poppy, Lil, and Daisy, they all think I’m a hopeless dope, but they love me. Rose thinks I’m a talentless homeless person. She despises me for what I did to their family.”

“What did you do?”

“I was born and it all went downhill from there.” Like he’s put an invisible rope around me, I’m reeled in closer without any conscious effort. I’m standing between his boots now. I think he’s got powers. “That kiss in the thrift store? That wasn’t an ordinary kiss. I have had hundreds of kisses, and that one took the cake. Please don’t ask me to talk about the family stuff.” His voice gets gentle and inexplicably my eyes prick with tears. “Just put your mouth on me again.”

I tip his head back with my knuckles under his jaw and the spark in his eyes and the lick of his tongue against his lip is almost too much. I need to ask him to do something important for me. “When you eventually leave, please do it really gently, okay?”

He nods. I now have everything I want in this little courtyard: a willing partner in this exploration I want to make; someone who cares for me, will keep me safe, and will make sure I don’t hurt too much when I’m left behind. This is a greater guarantee than any man on a dating app could give me.

Our kiss feels like relief, like leaning on your closed bedroom door after the worst day. Everything is simple now. We’re letting our bodies do what they need to do. This kiss is a sink-down-deep groan. I move a leg to step over his thigh; my skirt is too tight and I’m hobbled by my own demureness. I pull it up midthigh, and I climb onto his lap, using the square buckle of his belt and his collarbone to steady myself. He wasn’t ready for either touch.

I finally put my hands into his hair. Now my entire world is cool, dark velvet. The groan I make is frankly embarrassing, and he laughs into my mouth.

“You’re so horny for my hair, I knew it,” he tells me on an inward breath, and I kiss that smiling mouth until I eventually take his outward exhalation into me.

He’s not wrong. I slide my fingertips through the dense, silky blackness. I scratch his scalp. I make a fist and tug, which affects him most strongly. He can’t catch his breath, tortured by that soft tugging sting. It turns out that I really like getting Teddy Prescott this far gone, and I have to lean back to check the progress I’m making. His eyes are bright with flecks of green and amber.

“I love your tortoiseshell eyes,” I tell him honestly, and the way he blinks makes my stomach flip. Did I just give Teddy a strong emotion?

I’ve found someone I can trust myself with, and I decide to toss aside that careful shield I have to maintain around him and his dangerous charm. I can be sure I held out longer than anyone ever did. I look at his perfect bottom lip and think about the way it’s always lifting up on a wicked smile. Now I kiss it. I lick it.

Speaking of teeth, his are white and lovely. I press my tongue on his canine just to feel the pain. He permits me the kind of access I’d never imagined I’d want, putting my tongue against his, everything wet, sharp, soft.

Hair, mouth, and teeth … I’m now adding skin into my luscious free fall into Teddy’s orbit. Men’s skin is vastly different from women’s, I know that now as I cup my hands on his jaw, tingling my fingertips on his stubble before sliding down his throat. It’s a thicker, warmer hide than my own; it can withstand a nail scratch and the soft drag of my teeth.

His hands spread wider, squeezing, like it’s hurting him to not put his hands all over my body. “If you touch me, I’ll get really carried away,” I say into the side of his neck as I find a pulse point. “How flattering,” I remark as I open my mouth over it. The sound he makes is pure sex. I understand vampires now. Above, the sky is black and flecked with gunpowder stars.

“Ruthie.” I hear a note of warning and his hands flex on me.

In my voice there’s just a plea. “Just a little longer. I’m enjoying myself so much.” I go to fit our lips together again, when he puts a hand on my jaw.

“My turn,” he says.

He’s moving his hand. I feel a soft, stretchy tug on my shoulder. He’s put a fist into my cardigan pocket. I laugh into his mouth.

I’m not allowed to be amused for long; he’s got things for me to do.

He wants me to take whatever he gives me with grateful attention. I must tell him he’s gorgeous with every twist of my mouth. I shudder and melt with every change of tempo and every unexpected deepening. He’s sketching on me, that’s how it feels; lightness, the suggestion of shapes, darker lines then digging into the page. Back to shading at the edges. I’m not remotely scared of this bigger picture we’re creating now; my hands are trying to find the edges of his clothes.

“Settle, settle,” he soothes me as he huffs warm air against the side of my neck. It feels like he can’t bear to remove his mouth from me. I’m right— I feel a lick, sliding into a mouth twist and the scrape of teeth. If he wants to do that randomly all over my body, that would be great.

“Ruthie, what the hell,” he says through a mouthful of my shoulder. “Yum.” He’s losing focus, a husky slur to his voice. The shoulder of my cardigan interrupts his progress and he bites the entire thing in his mouth. A big quack of laughter comes out of me, echoing louder off the stone walls of the courtyard.

“Don’t eat this cardigan, please. I need it.”

“I don’t,” he replies, and his hand slides down the sides of my body.

I feel his fists grip the hemline of my skirt and I go completely rigid. What underwear am I wearing? Plain white cotton. Teddy stands, I’m steadied on my feet and he retreats behind the courtyard table to put a physical barrier between us.

“Sorry,” Teddy blurts. “You see?” He’s got beautiful color in his face, eyes glittering, the ink on his arms contrasting with the dusky flush, veins cording and fists flexing. “I always get carried away.”

“You didn’t. It’s okay, I was just remembering that my underwear isn’t sexy.” I have to prove that I’m not crazy-in-love with him, but what I say next is so brutally honest I wince partway through saying it. “That was the best kiss I ever had.”

“Then why do you look so guilty?”

“I probably was too intense.” As I start to rewind what I just did to him, the sounds I made, I begin to curl up into myself inside.

“Hey. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed about. You’re amazing.” He says it in a really kind way. It’s also the start of a sentence that girls like me hear all the time. You’re amazing, but I want to just stay friends.

“Did I come on too strong?”

Teddy laughs and takes out his keys. “I’m a big boy. I can handle you. But we’d better stop here. Close your door on me before I follow you in.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO