“There isn’t anything to apologize for,” I said, because there wasn’t. “I wanted you, too,” I admitted.

Preppy looked up at me with glistening eyes, his pupils the size of the moon. “I know what will make me feel even better,” he said, releasing me. He climbed over my body, his face hovering just over mine.

This time is was him taking my head in his hands as he looked down at me, his thumbs tracing lightly over my lips and my cheeks, his fingers threading in my hair.

“What?” I asked.

He lowered himself on top of me, the bridge of his nose brushing mine. “This,” he said, pressing his lips against my lips in the softest, most demanding kiss that ever existed. He opened his mouth and I followed, moaning into him when our tongues finally touched. The softness quickly turned to furious passion when he molded his lips to mine, and I know he was giving me everything he had in that kiss because I felt it all. His frustration, his sadness, his hurt, his desire, his anger, his confusion, but there was something else there.

Something stronger. More powerful. More everything.

Above all else, I felt his love.

He’d said he couldn’t keep me.

That didn’t mean I wouldn’t always be his.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

PREPPY

Even when Dre was at her worst, a strung out junkie on the verge of suicide, she was still a better person than I’d ever be. I knew that now, more than ever before. She didn’t need to come to my rescue, but she did. She rescued me from myself and sacrificed her own safety and happiness for mine.

I also knew now, more than ever, that I wanted to keep her. Unfortunately, I also knew now, more than ever, that I couldn’t.

I don’t know exactly how long we stayed there in my bed, locked away up in my room. For days we got up only to eat or shower. We fucked, watched movies, and we fucked some more. I couldn’t get enough of Dre or her tight as fuck pussy. I spent my time coming in and on every part of her body.

We left the house once for me to take her over to Mirna’s so she could grab some of Dre’s things and then visit Mirna, who was still in stable condition. After, we’d come right back to my place where she taught me how to make pancakes properly, using one of Mirna’s recipes while wearing this lacy red apron… and nothing else. I’m not a religious man, but I saw Jesus when I tasted those pancakes and almost cried when the fluffy deliciousness touched my lips. I vowed to her right then and there that I’d never make pancakes from a box ever again.

And then I bent her over the counter and fucked my gratitude into her.

There was no way I could ever repay her for what she did for me, no way to tell her “thank you” in a way that would accurately convey how much I appreciated her dragging me back from the depths my mother’s visit had sent me down into. So instead of using my words, I dragged her back to my bed and used my cock. My fingers. My mouth. My tongue. I made her come with everything I had, until my dick was a deep shade of purple and about to burst with need, before I would even think about tickling her woman cave with my man meat.

We did something else I liked.

We talked.

We talked about almost everything. Her family. Her school. Books. Movies. I found out she played the violin in the sixth grade and she had to talk me out of going to the 24 hour pawn in the middle of the night to buy her one, because the image of her playing for me naked wasn’t an easy one to shake.

Seeing her face light up as she was quoting Anchorman was an entirely new level of weird turn on for me.

I knew I needed to come clean with her. Things had changed. Shifted. The feelings I had for her were more than friends and more than just friends who fucked. They were just…more.

She deserved to know the truth about her dad and I planned on telling her.

Later.

She also needed rehab. Proper rehab.

But instead of bringing up what would inevitably break us, I did what I’d always done. I was selfish. I’m savoring every moment with Dre, although I knew we were fucking on borrowed time.

There was no better reminder of how short that time was when reality pulled up, in the form of roaring bike engines rattling the walls like deep thunder.

I knew we didn’t have long.

What I didn’t know was that time was already up.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

DRE

Preppy took off downstairs when he heard the bikes and told me to stay put, and so I did. But when I got out of the shower and realized that an hour passed and he still hadn’t come back up, I threw on some clothes and went down to find him.

I padded down the stairs in my bare feet. My hair slicked back, still wet from my shower, soaking my tight, white tank top and making my red bra visible underneath. When I pushed open the back door the music hit me first, and I realized that the bikers hadn’t wasted any time. A party was already in full swing. Leather clad men were everywhere. Topless women strewn about their laps. Laughter and dancing surrounded the raging bonfire in the pit in the center of the yard.

A giant of a man with blond hair stepped in front of me, obscuring my view of the party down below. He looked very much like a tattooed viking. His blue eyes were the brightest I’d ever seen. “Hey, beautiful,” he said, with a slow southern accent. He glanced up at the house and then back to me. “Any special reason why you think you’re allowed in there? House is off limits. The party’s out back.” He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder to the people down below.

“I was changing my clothes,” I explained, taken momentarily off guard why this stranger was questioning why I was there. Why was he there?

“In the house?” he asked, as if he still couldn’t believe it.

“Uh…I mean…yeah,” I said, unsure why he was so confused. That’s when the recognition hit me. I’d never seen him before, but there was no mistaking who he was from Preppy’s description. But before the words “You must be Bear” could slip from my mouth, Bear’s hands were on me, patting me down.

“You steal anything from in there?” he asked, running his hands over my skirt and up the sides of my tank top. He didn’t stop when he came to my breasts, squeezing them roughly.

“No!” I said, stepping away and smacking his hand. “I was invited by Preppy, asshole. Before you so rudely frisked me, I was about to tell you that I know who you are. You’re Bear, Preppy’s friend, right?”