He’s breathing hard, and my stupid brain wonders if he’s maybe a little sweaty beneath the shirt. Wonder if his back would be slick against my palms, his chest damp as he presses me down on the bed, skin to skin…

I rest my forehead on the door, tapping it lightly against the wood.

Damn it, Lucy. Learn your lesson already.

“Open the door.”

His voice is quiet and commanding, and even as I open my mouth to tell him to screw off, my hand finds the chain lock.

A second later, there’s no door between us. Nothing but tension and want separating our yearning bodies.

He steps closer. “Damn it, Lucy,” he says gruffly, stopping a foot away from me. Close enough to feel his body heat, but not as close as I want. Need.

“Why are you always mad at me,” I whisper. “I can’t do anything right.”

“Mad,” he says with a laugh. “That’s what you think this is?” Reece reaches out a hand, slips it into my hair, palming my head as he tilts my face up. “I’m not mad.”

I open my mouth, to say…I don’t even know what. Instead, I shake my head. We can’t do this—we shouldn’t do this.

Reece’s fingers tighten. “Tell me, Lucy.”

It’s a command.

“Tell you what?” I ask, giving in to the heat of his gaze and everything it promises.

“That you want this. That you want me.”

His words are gruff, but his eyes are vulnerable and it nearly destroys me. The part of my heart that’s always been his opens just the tiniest bit.

I meet his eyes. “I want this. I want you.”

His eyes flash in victory, and his other arm wraps around me at the exact moment his mouth takes mine.

Chapter 27

Reece

I’m no philosopher, but if my twenty-five years have taught me anything it’s that every guy hits a crossroads. That proverbial fork in the road.

For me, the moment was when I’d looked down into the eyes of the girl who’d been my everything for ten years, knowing that kissing her would mean losing her. Of thinking that having her once would be less painful than having only a little bit of her forever.

I was nineteen and dumb. And wrong. Dead wrong, about having her once being enough to buffer the pain of having her walk out of my life.

Just a week ago, I would have sworn that I learned my lesson.

And yet here I am, in a shitty motel in the middle of nowhere, making the whole mistake all over again.

Trouble is? None of this feels like a mistake.

Not the way her tongue shyly brushes against mine as her hands settle on my waist, tentative at first, then her fingers clenching the fabric in greedy handfuls, tugging me closer.

She’s too late though. I’m already closer, one arm wrapped around her back, plastering her body to mine, seeming to promise that if I can just bring her near enough, she won’t be able to leave me lonely again.

Just like with that kiss in the rain, her mouth is perfect. Familiar and new all at the same time. A part of me’s terrified kissing Lucy will always be this way—that strange sense of coming home for the first time, every time.

When I’d knocked on her door, I’d intended only this. Just the kiss to punish her for being so damn gorgeous.

Then Lucy’s nails dig into my sides, the shyness in her kiss replaced by a hunger to match my own, and I know I have a choice. Another crossroads.

I can pull away now, save us both from the agony of tomorrow, or…

Or, I can shut the door behind us, and give in to the ecstasy of tonight, tomorrow be damned.

Lucy pulls away slightly, her lips grazing the underside of my jaw. Then her hips move against mine, not a lot, but just enough for her to know that I’m hard, and me to know that she wants this every bit as much as I do.

Sorry, tomorrow. I need tonight too damned badly.

Chapter 28

LUCY, EIGHTEEN, REECE, NINETEEN

Lucy’s hands trembled as they came up to frame Reece’s face above hers. “Why’d you stop?”

Reece’s blue eyes blazed down into hers. “We shouldn’t do this, Lucy.”

Her stomach flipped, the hurt tearing through her. “You’re telling me that now.”

“Shh, no,” he whispered, silencing her with a kiss. “That’s not what I meant. I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But like this? You deserve more….”

Lucy bit her lips and parted her legs further, feeling the hard press of his erection against her naked body. “I have everything I want.”

“Oh God,” he whispered, face dropping to her neck. “I can’t…I can’t resist you.”

“So don’t,” she whispered.

He kissed the column of her throat before lifting his head again, searching her face. “You’re sure? I need you to be sure, Lucy. All the way.”

She met his gaze boldly, the nervousness of her first time edged out by the rightness of doing it with Reece. “You brought a condom, right?”

Reece blew out a breath, then kissed her soft and deep before reaching down to his discarded jeans beside her bed.

A moment later, she heard the tear of a wrapper, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Hey,” he whispered, palms cupping her head as he waited for her to open her eyes. “You are the best thing to ever happen to me. You know that, right?”

Lucy nodded, telling him with her eyes that he was the best thing that ever happened to her too, even as they both avoided the heartache that lay just a couple weeks away. When she would go away to college, leaving him behind, and there’d be none of this intimacy, no more of him sneaking into her bedroom.