She pulled back suddenly and stared at me. Really looked at me. Her eyes were filled with confusion and even some regret.

Had I said the wrong thing? Didn’t she want reassurance that what we’d been doing was okay? That it was only temporary?

Fuck, even I didn’t know anymore what this had become between us.

I opened my mouth to speak, but her features had transformed into something unreadable. She seemed to be struggling to smile.

“Yeah.” She nodded and the moment felt lost on the wind. “That’s exactly what this is.”

“Rach . . .” I said, trying to find the words.

“Let’s get going,” she said, straightening herself and reaching for the handle of the door.

My shoulders slumped as I slid into the driver’s seat. Rachel stared out the side window, rubbing her temples. My stomach was in knots. I felt as if I was already losing her.

“Hey,” I said, reaching for her hand. She didn’t resist. “You okay?”

“Totally.” She took a deep breath and then turned toward me. “Just horny as hell, Kai. Because you make me . . .”

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, my brain spinning, trying to make sense of the change in her. “Make you what?”

“Make me . . . forget that what we’re doing is off-limits,” she huffed out. “If Dakota was here, we could never stand so close or . . . or touch like that.”

“Do you not want to do this anymore?” My heart was crashing out of my chest. Maybe this was it. This is where we’d end, after an amazing day together. “Are you done . . . pretending?”

I was asking her two things at once. I was ragged with the effort of holding it all in. Everything I was feeling for her. I knew what we were doing was confusing as hell—for both of us—because of who we had been to each other.

Sometimes she seemed to be on the verge of having stronger emotions for me, something more than just lust, but then her eyes would clear, and I’d wonder if all of this blurring of lines was just fucking with my head.

“Pretending,” she whispered, as if testing out the word. She stared straight ahead at the streetlamp, which was illuminating her face. Her eyes looked sad, weary—and I didn’t want to be the one who’d put such a drain on her.

I wanted to be her light, her release, her salvation.

I probably needed to end it all right here. Right now. But I was too weak. I wanted her too much.

Then she turned and offered the slightest shake of her head. “The end of the summer is coming soon enough.”

And there it was. She was laying it out. Setting the parameters for what this was between us.

I nodded, feeling completely numb. My brain was having trouble keeping up. One the one hand, I was already grieving. On the other, I was on a high from being given the additional time to touch her.

I swallowed the boulder lodged in my throat. My heart was dying, practically on its last leg, and I didn’t know if it would make it until the end of summer and beyond.

But I had created this situation, the one that now resembled a shallow grave. And I was going to lie in it, whether I liked it or not.

“These last few weeks have been great,” she said. She was still grasping my hand. My palm felt clammy and cold. The finality that hung in the air between us was so thick I was almost choking on it. It was filled with unspoken things. And it had never been this way between us. We had always been more open and real.

But a deeper part of me was certain that we had wrecked all of that this summer and I had no earthly idea if there was any way back to the people we once were. Or if I would even welcome it.

“Mostly because of you. Talking to you,” she said, finally releasing my fingers and folding her hands in her lap. “You’ve made me braver. Better, Kai.”

“You’re way braver than I ever was, Turtle,” I said, trying to get back there. To that place where we were on the same page. Friends. Confidants.

Lovers.

Fuck.

I turned the key to start the ignition. I had the strong urge to vacate this place. Leave these heavy feelings behind. Get on the open road and just drive.

All at once her warm hand was on my leg. “And I need to think of a way to thank you.”

“There’s no need for that, Rachel,” I said, meeting her eyes. “That’s what friends are for.”

As I crawled along the lot toward the exit, Rachel’s fingers stayed on my thigh. They ran lazy circles while she talked about the grand opening of her mom’s boutique in a couple of weeks. “You’ll be there, right?”

“Of course I will,” I said, in an effort to catch my breath.

Her fingers skimmed higher up my leg, and I stilled them with my own. “If you keep that up, I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.”

She scooted over on the seat, biting her lip, suddenly unsure of herself.

My fingers reached for her face and I traced her forehead, the hollow of her cheek, the outline of her lips. She was all beautiful curves and sharp angles. I longed to protect her and hold her. Whisper sweet promises in her ear.

But she was a contradiction beneath my touch. Her eyes were now alight with flame and desire. Her touch seductive and playful. But in the very depths of her heart were hesitation and doubt, and that made me shrink back with uncertainty and fear.

She leaned over to kiss my neck, and her hand tugged at my hair.

“Are you trying to run me off the road?” I whispered.

“You’re just going to have to pay better attention,” she mumbled as she caught my earlobe between her teeth. “I trust you.”

My heart swelled painfully in my chest. “Good thing I’m taking the back roads,” I mumbled, turning left onto Bailey Boulevard.

Her hand reached lower to flick open the button on my pants.

“Rach . . .” I said in warning, but it was a deflated effort, because I was already hard as goddamn marble just from her lips being near me.

She pulled down my zipper, and her warm hand skimmed beneath my waistband. It was a struggle to pay attention to the road, with her scent wrapped all around me. But it was late and dark and there were no cars ahead or behind us.

Her fingers moved downward and when she gripped my head, I groaned.

She pulled my dick out of my pants and ran her fingers over the underside of my shaft as if examining it. I gasped for air and gripped the steering wheel tighter. “What kind of piercing is this, anyway?”

“Why, are you taking notes?” I said, slowing down at a stop sign. “It’s called a frenum, and it’s pretty tame in comparison to some. I hear sex can be mind-blowing with the other kinds.”

“Is that why you got this?” She slid her pinky finger through the hoop of my piercing, making me insane with need. “So that you could have better sex?”

“Not exactly,” I huffed, as she began pumping her fingers up and down my shaft, pulling the sensitive skin near my piercing taut.

But maybe there was some truth to that. If I was being honest, I got some of these piercings so that I’d actually feel something besides numb. And they did the trick, for brief snatches of time. “Sex can be terrible no matter what—you know that.”

“I do know that,” she said. And I gritted my teeth because I hated hearing it.

I was still at a crossroads and there were no cars in sight. Even so, I didn’t want to be reckless, not with Rachel. Not when she always put so much faith in me. So I decided to drive ahead, until I found someplace safe to pull over.

Her mouth moved to my ear. “I’m getting worked up thinking about how this would feel inside me. How you would feel inside me.”

“Fuck, Rachel.”

“So maybe you should find somewhere to park.” And then her head was between my legs and I felt the flick of her hot tongue running over my piercing. I groaned and clutched at her hair.

“What the hell are you up to?” I considered asking her to stop because I was wound too damn tight. But I was pretty sure if she pulled away now, I’d die a slow and painful death.