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  “You didn’t say anything,” she pointed out.

  Nick gave her a small smile. “It’s different. Is that what you wanted me to say?”

  Bess sat, the earlier, luxurious languidity fading. Now the room seemed too cold, and she got up to push the floor vent closed with her toe. When she turned back to the bed, Nick had sat up.

  Bess gathered her clothes to begin dressing, but before she could even step into her panties, Nick was on his feet, his hand on her wrist. The suddenness with which he’d moved startled her, and she cried out. His kiss swallowed the small noise.

  Bess froze under Nick’s mouth, but his kiss gentled and soothed, urging her lips to open. His tongue dipped inside and stroked in and out as his fingers slid between her legs to do the same. Bess gripped Nick’s shoulder, her clothes falling forgotten to the floor.

  He backed her up a couple steps until her butt hit the edge of the dresser. This was the Nick she remembered, the one who touched her in all the right places. The one who didn’t use pretty words. His fingers slid inside her and she gasped, then again when they withdrew and he slid her wetness up and over her clit.

  He curled her fingers around his prick and they stroked him to full erection together. His kisses got harder, his grip tighter, but she loved it. She always had. She loved how he made her body respond.

  He nudged her thighs open wider and guided his penis inside her. The dresser was just the right height, and Bess used one hand to hold herself steady, the other to grab Nick’s shoulder as he pushed forward. The mirror rattled and so did the small glass dish of earrings and change she kept on top of the dresser. Nick grabbed the hand gripping his shoulder and slid it between them. As he’d used his hand over hers on his cock, he did the same now with hers on her clit. When she was circling it with her fingers, he let go and used both hands to grip her hips so he could thrust into her harder and faster.

  Harder. Faster. Each time Nick fucked into her, Bess’s fingers slipped on her clit until all she had to do was press them to her body and allow him to move her. She tipped her head back, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she tried hard not to moan too loudly. The edge of the dresser cut into the back of her thighs and Nick’s hands squeezed so fiercely she wanted to writhe.

  She came like fireworks, bright sparks of pleasure against the dark sky of her emotions. His name caught in her throat and snagged her tongue, scraped past her lips and left a taste like blood. Her fingernails dug into the wood of the dresser. She opened her eyes. Her orgasm manifested itself in her vision with more bright streaks of color, swirling as she blinked.

  “I love you.” The words whispered out of her just as he closed his eyes and tipped his head, grunting in his climax. She wasn’t sure he heard her. After a second, she wasn’t sure that mattered.

  Nick thrust and shuddered. When he looked at her again, slowly blinking, then smiling, it was as if her heart started beating and she hadn’t noticed it had stopped.

  “Not everything’s different,” he said. “Some things are the same.”

  He kissed her then, but it didn’t take away the taste of blood.

  CHAPTER 32

  Then

  The summer was more than half over. Normally at this time of year Bess would be counting the days until she could hang up her polo shirt and leave Sugarland behind. Leave the beach. Get back to school. To her life. To Andy.

  This year had been different in so many ways already she shouldn’t have been surprised that her feelings about staying and going were different, too, yet when she flipped the calendar from July to August the tears rose in her throat. Bess sniffed them back and stabbed the pin into the corkboard to hold the calendar in place.

  Usually the board would be abristle with tacked up photos, copies of her schedule, messages and pay stubs. This summer all she’d stuck into it was the calendar, each day crossed off in red ink when it was done, and a few takeout menus that were probably out of date.

  And why?

  Because of Nick.

  The days she’d have spent hitting the boardwalk with friends were spent with Nick. The nights she’d have spent going to the underage clubs or simply hanging out with her family…the same. Nick had consumed her summer. And summer was almost over.

  “Bess?” Her aunt Carla’s voice drifted down the stairs. “You want to come have something to eat?”

  “I’ll be right there!” Bess swiped at her face to rid it of any tears that had managed to slip past her defenses. Aunt Carla had eyes like a hawk.

  This week’s beach-house crew consisted of Aunt Carla, Uncle Tony and their three daughters. Angela, Deirdre and Cindy were typical beach bunnies, heading out to the sand as soon as they got up, and spending every day broiling themselves into wrinkles and skin cancer. They stalked the boardwalk at night, on the hunt for cute boys, and pretty much ignored Bess unless they wanted some free diet sodas from Sugarland.

  Aunt Carla, on the other hand, had made a mission out of taking the place of Bess’s mom. It didn’t seem to matter that Bess spoke to her parents once a week, without fail, or that she’d been working at the beach for the past three summers and going to college for the past three years, and therefore hadn’t actually lived at home with her parents since she’d been eighteen. Aunt Carla had a habit of mothering everyone, so Bess shouldn’t have been surprised her aunt was doing it to her. But considering she allowed her own daughters to stay out until all hours, Bess thought it was a little unreasonable of her aunt to expect Bess to check in with a daily schedule.

  The food was good, though. Unlike most of the other family members who came for vacation, Aunt Carla didn’t believe in eating out for every meal. Not even at the beach. Breakfast and lunch were casual, but she cooked dinner almost every night. Tonight it was steaks on the grill and baked potatoes, corn on the cob, green salad and fresh biscuits.

  Bess’s stomach was already rumbling as she followed the good smells up the stairs and into the living room. Uncle Tony snored on the recliner. Bess heard the muffled chatter of her cousins in their room, along with the blare of a radio. They’d be getting ready to go out right after dinner, while Uncle Tony and Aunt Carla read books on the deck or went for a walk along the beach.

  Bess, on the other hand, had no plans.

  She hadn’t seen Nick in three days, not since Eddie had interrupted them behind the shop. Nick hadn’t been home that night when Bess stopped by after work. He hadn’t come by the next day, either, and she hadn’t gone to his apartment again. She wasn’t stupid, or so desperate she had to chase him down wherever he might have gone.

  All right, so she wasn’t stupid. After three days without Nick, desperation didn’t seem so…desperate.

  “You look pretty, honey.” Aunt Carla, her curly blond hair piled high on top of her head, beamed as Bess came in. “Can you grab that bowl of coleslaw? I thought we’d eat on the deck. Tony! Get up!”

  Uncle Tony, snorting and blinking, lumbered out of his chair. “Huh? What?”

  Aunt Carla rolled her eyes as Bess grabbed the bowl of slaw. “Tony, dinner. Call the girls.”

  Bess took the bowl to the picnic table out on the deck, where her aunt had already laid out plates and silverware. The napkins fluttered under the weight of a large shell. She put down the bowl and looked through the glass doors, behind which she could see her aunt, uncle and cousins getting the rest of the food and bringing it out. She could see herself, too, with clouds and sky behind her. Her reflection shimmered, like an illusion. Blink, and see the family inside. Blink again, see the girl standing in front of the window. It was a mind-fuck, truly, and she turned away from the sight of her own ghost.

  That’s when she saw him, on the sand. Nick, hands in his pockets, staring up at the deck. Bess had raised a hand to him, her heart skip-thumping and her lips spreading into a grin, before she realized it. He didn’t wave back.

  “Bess, honey?” Aunt Carla’s voice hovered so close to Bess’s ear she jumped. “Is that a friend of yours? Why not invit