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“You knew how I felt about Jack!” Kira shouted.

We’d have attracted more attention if it wasn’t Friday night just after the bars all closed, but as it was we were just two more drunk sluts fighting over a guy. In high school I’d have shouted back at her, maybe even done a little hair pulling.

But as we’d already established, we weren’t in high school anymore.

I trapped my tongue between my teeth to stop myself from shouting back, but even then my voice came out clipped and sharp. “I said I was sorry. You weren’t with him. You never even dated him. And you weren’t even speaking to me at the time.”

She faltered for a moment, her lashes batting and her mouth working as though she meant to say something really awful but could only come up with “…Yeah, well. You shouldn’t have.”

I didn’t point out the number of boys I’d liked that Kira had fucked, or tried to fuck, or lied about fucking just to needle me. I said nothing, just stared, and she at last had the grace to cut her gaze from mine. She shrugged instead of speaking.

If you’re lucky, the friends you make when you’re sixteen stay with you for the rest of your life. If you’re smart, you know when it’s time to let them go. I stopped walking. I watched her walk toward the diner, where drunk and hungry people would order eggs and stiff the waitress and steal the silverware. I let her go there, even though she’d been drinking and she needed a ride home and I couldn’t be sure the person she’d called would come to get her.

Yeah. Some friend.

Chapter 04

“I’m really glad you came,” Austin said this as soon as he opened the door.

I said nothing.

He closed it behind me as I moved past him and into his living room. I recognized the chair and the couch. It had been mine, once. The chair had been his and he’d been welcome to it, but I’d paid for that couch.

The couch didn’t matter.

“You want something to drink?”

I turned to look at him, this boy grown into a man. “No. I didn’t come here to drink.”

Austin smiled. “So, what did you come here for?”

I pulled him forward by his belt. Two steps. He didn’t stumble, but he did put his hands on my upper arms. I must have caught him by surprise. I looked up, up into his face. But when he bent to kiss me, I turned my head.

“Let me guess,” he said into my ear. “You didn’t come here for kissing?”

“You can kiss me.” I took his hand off my arm and put it between my legs. “Here.”

I looked at him, then, and his expression gratified me immensely. His fingers curled experimentally against me and pushed at the soft cloth of my skirt.

Austin blinked, slowly. His smile didn’t fade so much as leak away. “Paige?”

“We both know what I came here for.” I curled my fingers around his wrist and moved his hand down to the hem of my skirt, then up again to replace his palm against my panties. “Let’s not pretend anything else.”

I thought, for one brief, strange second, he was going to turn me down. The heat of his hand seeped through my panties, but the flash of ice in his eyes left me cold. Suddenly I had no trouble remembering why I’d left him.

He didn’t let me pull away. “Fine. I’m not pretending.”

“Good.”

“Good,” he said. His fingers slipped inside my panties and found me already wet. Again, his gaze flickered. “Fuck, Paige.”

“Yes, please,” I said.

He’d always been bigger than me, but in the years since we’d broken up he’d gone from a bulky football player’s build to the harder, leaner muscled frame of a man who made his living working with tools. He might have quit the construction job with his dad’s company, but whatever he was doing kept him in tight, hard shape.

At first I thought he might not kiss me. We’d done it before, fucked without kissing each other on the mouth. We’d fucked angry, rough. We’d done it tender-soft, too, and sweet.

So when Austin pulled me closer and brushed his lips across mine, I was already tense and waiting. He kissed me softly and pulled away. He looked into my eyes.

“I was sure you’d bail on me.”

I frowned, not wanting to talk, and when I opened my mouth he took my words away with another kiss and the restless stroking of his hands. I’m not ashamed to admit I stretched under his touch, so familiar no matter how long it had been. We kissed for a long time, all the way up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom. I kissed him with my eyes closed, trusting him to lead me so I wouldn’t stumble. We kissed the way we always had, but it was different, too. We stopped just inside his bedroom door and pulled apart, both of us breathing fast and hard. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since anyone had seen me the way he did.

I was made of feathers when he lifted me, but I became flesh when he laid me down.

It was a new bed, new sheets. The smell of fabric softener was the same, and my heart seized, going still before it lurched to life again. His mouth ate my gasp. He swallowed my breath.

I’d worn clothes he could ruin without me caring, but Austin didn’t tear or rip anything from me. Kneeling between my legs, staring at me on his pillow, he only put his hand on my belly. The muscles jumped.

When he smiled I almost couldn’t remember what it had been like not to love him, but I forced myself to. This was not going to be anything but what I’d intended it to be. I spread my legs a little as I inched the skirt up over my thighs.

Austin put his hands to the hem of my shirt and lifted it to run his fingers over the swell of my breasts. He looked me over as if he’d never seen me before, like he hadn’t once spent long hours cataloging every inch of my skin.

I liked the way it felt when he looked at me.

When his gaze met mine, we both smiled, which was a relief. There had been a moment at first when I thought this might turn awkward. Either sentimental or angry. We’d fucked a few times after I left him, and it hadn’t always been a good choice.

It probably wasn’t a good choice now, but when he ran his hands up the insides of my thighs, and a finger underneath the elastic of my panties, I stopped worrying about it. I arched into his touch, my eyes closing in anticipation. He slid a finger along my clit, then another down to press gently at my opening. That’s when he stopped.

I looked at him. “Austin?”

He opened his pretty mouth, but all that came out was a hiss of air as he pushed inside me. I groaned as he crooked his finger against my sweet spot. He used his thumb on my clitoris at the same time, the familiar double whammy that had always worked for me.

“You like that?”

“Yes,” I told him. “I like that.”

He hooked his other hand into my silk panties and eased them down one side at a time as he kept up the in-out stroking. His eyes left my face to watch the motion of his hand, and I was glad. I didn’t want to watch him watching me.

He stopped only for a few seconds, long enough to pull his shirt over his head. I used the time to pull down the side zip of my skirt, and he helped me off with that, too. My shirt went next. We moved together, coordinated, until I lay naked on his bed.

“Take off your pants.”

I returned his hard stare. We’d never spoken much during sex. Now we were practically reciting the Declaration of Independence. I toyed with my nipples, teasing him as he unbuttoned and unzipped. He wasn’t wearing the loose boxer shorts I’d expected, but tight boy shorts cut high on his thigh.

“Nice underwear,” I told him.

The old Austin smirk came back, and he stripped them off quickly before getting back on his knees again. His cock stirred, half-hard but rising, on his thigh. “Thanks.”