Mari stroked the back of Glenn’s neck and shoulders. “I don’t know what I want, except I want to feel you.”

“Go ahead.”

Mari edged closer between Glenn’s thighs and caressed the length of Glenn’s back, tracing the tight muscles along her spine and between her shoulders. She slid her hands inside Glenn’s collar and dipped her fingertips into the delicate hollows above her collarbones.

Quivering, her insides in knots, Glenn stayed as still as she could, letting Mari explore her, every muscle so tight she felt as if they might shred from her bones. When Mari lowered her head and kissed the angle of her jaw, Glenn’s vision wavered.

“Can we lie down?” Mari asked almost dreamily.

Glenn couldn’t refuse her, as dangerous as that would be. She could never remember need so powerful her insides hurt. She swung around, guided Mari down to the bed, and stretched out beside her. Turning on her side, she rested her hand on Mari’s hip. Mari inched nearer, her lips flushed and swollen from their kisses, her eyes wide and dark and moist. Glenn kissed her.

“You’re beautiful, Mari.”

Mari gripped Glenn’s shirt, her hips rocking insistently against Glenn’s. “Do that some more.”

Laughing softly, Glenn followed orders.

Kissing Mari was like discovering water in the desert and greedily filling the barren places inside that had lain parched and empty after the wastelands of the world had drained her dry. Mari arched against her with a moan, and Glenn’s body came alive with a jolt. She eased on top of her, her thigh between Mari’s, her weight resting on her elbows. She kissed Mari’s mouth, the tip of her chin, the hollow at the base of her throat. Mari’s hands scattered over her back, exploring, restless and demanding, setting Glenn’s flesh aflame.

Mari tugged Glenn’s shirt from the waistband of her jeans and found skin. When she skimmed her fingers over the hollow at the base of Glenn’s spine, Glenn stiffened.

“Easy,” she murmured. “You’ll make me forget my promise to just kiss.”

“I don’t care,” Mari gasped. She loved the weight of Glenn’s body over hers, the feel of their legs entwining, the ache that pounded in the pulse between her thighs. “It feels so good. I want you to touch me. Will you touch me?”

Glenn eased a hand under the bottom of Mari’s top, caressed her middle, thumb brushing just below her navel. “Tell me what you like.”

“I…I don’t know. Whatever you’re doing. It’s wonderful. I never thought it would be like this.”

Glenn stilled, her palm pressed to the bare skin of Mari’s stomach. Something clawed at the surface of her addled brain, a warning bell, clear and sharp. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“God, I just want you to make it stop—whatever, anything, I don’t care.” Mari bent one leg over Glenn’s, lifted her hips, pressed full-length against her. God, she couldn’t get close enough. Couldn’t stand the churning fire between her thighs another second. “Anything.”

“This isn’t the first time?”

Mari struggled to make sense of words while drowning in sensation. “What? Oh. Yes.”

“Ever?”

Clarity rushed in, doused the fire melting Mari’s reason. She pulled back, read worry in the lines in Glenn’s brow. “Does it matter?”

“Hell, yes.” Glenn pushed herself off, leaned up on an elbow, and studied Mari’s face. “You were the one who said no involvement, no intimacies.”

“What difference does it make if I’m a virgin?”

“Because this is pretty damned intimate, especially if you’ve never done it before. Why now? What’s changed?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, neither do I.” Glenn didn’t know what she’d been hoping to hear—that Mari had changed her mind, that she’d discarded her self-imposed exile until she was sure she would remain disease free? Maybe, if she was honest with herself, she’d been hoping to hear Mari wanted her enough to say Fuck waiting. But Mari hadn’t changed her mind, she hadn’t even been aware of where they were headed, and she’d be damned if she’d take advantage of the heat of the moment. Not when Mari was likely to regret it before morning. “But I know you ought to think about what you’re doing.”

Mari sat up, anger and hurt twisting in her middle. “Don’t you mean you need to think?”

Glenn frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Mari drew her knees up and folded her arms around them. “You were willing to have sex a minute ago.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Glenn ran a hand through her hair. “Maybe I was, but I thought…I don’t know what the hell I thought.” Only what she’d hoped. She stood up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you. Shouldn’t have started this.”

Mari jumped up on the other side of the bed and straightened her clothes with as much dignity as she could manage after being so soundly rejected. “Apparently I misread things. No need to apologize.”

“Mari, I didn’t mean—”

“Let’s not embarrass each other anymore. It was just a kiss, after all.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Glenn left Flann’s truck at the end of one of the back rows near the fairgrounds exit and texted Carrie and Abby with the location so they could find it when they were ready to leave. After locking up and sliding the keys between the front wheel and the wheel well, where they always stashed the keys, she cut across the dusty lot and threaded her way through the crowd. The celebration was in full swing and every few steps someone would call out her name. She waved and kept going, making a beeline for the big Future Farmers of America tent. The smell of grilling hamburgers hung over the crowd along with the almost palpable sense of good cheer. Neither penetrated the careful lock she kept on her thoughts and feelings. Her mind was a blank, her body registering neither hunger nor the heat of a mid-July afternoon. She spoke to no one as she stood in the line that slowly inched forward, and something about her air of indifference must have reached those around her. No one attempted conversation, and finally she reached the counter.

“I’ll have a beer,” she said to the balding, heavyset EMT she saw on average three times a week in the ER. When he wasn’t on shift with the local emergency response unit, he was a volunteer with the local FFA chapter. An all-around good guy.

“Hey, Glenn. Coming right up.”

A shoulder bumped hers. “Make that two, Jimmy.”

His smile broadened. “Sure thing, Doc.”

Glenn glanced at Flann. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

Flann grinned, not even bothering to pretend she’d shown up by accident. “Abby said she got a text from you and you ditched your designated driver status. I figured I’d catch you here.”

“Uh-huh.” Glenn took her beer and turned to go.

Flann grabbed hers and fell into step. “You just get here?”

Maybe if she ignored her, she’d go away. Glenn grunted.

“Big crowd.”

Glenn saw no reason to comment on the obvious. All the hospital gatherings drew big crowds. More than half the people in town either worked there, had friends who did, or came out to support what was essentially a fundraising event for the place.

“Where’s Mari?”

“She’s got a shift tonight and decided not to come.” Glenn didn’t have any better explanation, at least not one she intended to share. She’d offered to drive Mari home, but Mari had insisted she’d wanted to walk. She couldn’t object and had stood by wordlessly while Mari gathered her things and left with a hasty and abrupt good-bye. The silence had been cutting, but what could she say? She couldn’t apologize for the kiss, pretend it hadn’t mattered. She also couldn’t ask Mari to change what she wanted, and didn’t want, in her life. Both of them had been riding a wave of insanity, fueled by passion and finally beached by reason. They worked together, they were already friends, more than friends, and jumping into bed together would be a huge mistake. Mari didn’t want a relationship, didn’t even want any kind of intimacy that might lead to one, and neither did she. There’d been nothing else to say.

“You know what we haven’t done for a while?” Flann said conversationally after they’d walked in silence and ditched their empty plastic cups in a recycling bin.

“What?”

“Gone one-on-one. Let’s go shoot some hoops.”

Glenn stopped and stared at her. “Now? In the middle of the hospital barbecue?”

Flann lifted a shoulder. “I said my hellos to just about everybody, Abby’s hanging with Carrie and the others, and I had my two obligatory cups of lukewarm beer.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

“Out of practice, I guess.”

Glenn cut her a glance. “When’s the last time you played?”

“I kicked Margie’s ass just a couple days ago.”

Glenn snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Everyone knew Margie had a wicked jump shot, and even though she was a couple inches shorter than all the other Rivers sisters—and Glenn, for that matter—she was whippet fast and had hands of gold. “That’ll be the day.”

“Come on. Two out of three.”

The night stretched endlessly before her. Mari was working nights all week, which meant she couldn’t drop by the ER and hang around at night. She had nothing to look forward to for the rest of the weekend. Hell, for the week, when it came to it. She caved. An hour of sweating and listening to Flann taunt her about how slow she was getting might chase some of the dark from her head. Maybe. Worth trying anyhow, since the prospect of drinking lukewarm, weak beer for the rest of the night held no appeal. “Sure. Why not.”

“Lend me some clothes?” Flann added.

Glenn nodded, Flann texted Abby she was leaving, and fifteen minutes later Glenn pulled around behind the high school where the Rivers siblings had all gone to school. The basketball courts adjacent to the parking lot were empty. The whole place was empty. Everyone was at the fairgrounds. They piled out and silently strode to the court.