I just breathed on her lightly while she tried to catch her breath.

Moments later, she was facing me again, our chests pressed together, her lips mere inches from mine. I could feel her heart beating in time with my own. I kissed her softly. On the mouth. On the tip of her nose. Underneath her eyes. Her forehead. I could feel my cock in her hand below, and even though I knew she was about to put it inside of her again, I focused only on her gaze.

“You don’t have to—” I started to say, but she shook her head gently and touched her lips to mine again.

While I ached to get off, I never wanted her to feel that my need was as necessary as hers was to me. I would make her come again and again without expecting her to return the favor, if that was what she wanted.

But something always told me that she felt the same way.

She slipped off her shirt and unfastened her bra before laying her bare chest against mine. Instinctively, I reached down a hand and found her, moving my fingers against her softly, before she finally slid herself back onto my cock.

I arched my head back a little against the floor. “Oh goddamn….”

“We could’ve been doing this for seventeen years,” she said in a soft voice as she rode me with slow, precise movements, her breasts heaving against my chest.

I thrust my hips upward, burying myself inside of her, my hands fitted firmly against her ass. I nudged her chin up with my mouth and dragged the tip of my tongue upward to the center of her throat and found her lips. “We’ll make the most of the next seventeen,” I said and took her bottom lip between my teeth, tugging on it before I kissed her hungrily.

I pulled out of her moments later, every muscle in my body hardening by the intense pleasure searing through every nerve. My eyelids were closed, but I could feel my eyes rolling into the back of my head as I came, both of our hands moving against my cock. My body shuddered and trembled, and Bray’s breath was hot against my lips. And when I began to calm and my muscles began to relax, she kissed me before lying down, her cheek pressed against my chest. I speared my fingers through the top of her hair.

We fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.

* * *

It was a tight squeeze by the time we made it to Miami. Tate and Jen occupied the front seats while Bray and I shared the back with Caleb, Grace, and Johanna. And it became clear to me that Bray did, in fact, have bones in her ass somewhere, despite me always assuring her that she didn’t have a bony ass.

Tate and Jen were an enigma, needless to say. After that so-called fight they had in the hotel, the very next morning it was as though it had never happened. They were like an entirely different couple. Jen was all smiles and flirtatious with Tate, and they couldn’t keep their hands—or mouths—off of each other.

Liam, Tate’s roommate, was a hardcore-personality type with a Mohawk who reminded me of Mohawk Guy. Except Liam wasn’t your average systems engineer who made the ladies “swoon,” as they call it. No, Liam Foster was another kind of animal who enjoyed making the ladies come. Worse than Caleb Roth ever thought to be, Liam was the reigning king of womanizing.

He was screwing some chick on the couch when the seven of us walked into their apartment in Miami.

The light-haired girl looked up at us in horror and tried to worm her way out from underneath him, but Liam wasn’t having it and pushed her back down.

“Fucking be still, girl,” he said, thrusting in and out of her.

“Liam, there’s people in the fucking room!” she said through her teeth.

“So what?” he said. “They’ll get over it. I’m almost done.”

“Fuck, Liam!” she shouted.

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” he said in return.

“Ugh! You know what I mean!”

Liam stopped midthrust. He looked over at us.

“Is this bothering any of you?” he asked.

“Fucking yes it bothers me!” Jen spat. She pushed her way through us and went into the kitchen.

The rest of us pretty much shook our heads and averted our eyes. Tate waved it off and headed into the kitchen after Jen. Bray and I started to follow, while Caleb sat down in the recliner and brought Grace down in his lap. Johanna just stood there.

Liam looked down into the girl’s aghast face. “Are you satisfied?”

“Hardly,” she said with a sexually sarcastic undertone.

“Well, you will be soon, but you’ve got to let me finish.”

As if that was enough reason for her, she said “Fine” and dug her fingernails into Liam’s back.

We entered the kitchen before he returned to business.

“Sorry, I know it’s really not my place to ask, but doesn’t he have a room?” Bray spoke up.

“Dammit, Tate,” Jen snapped, “that’s fucking nasty. Why do you let him do that shit?”

Tate opened the fridge and leaned over inside. “I’m sorry, babe. I’ll talk to him.” He looked at me then. “Yeah, he does have a room. But Liam is… well, he’s hard to explain.” He came out with a bottle of mustard and a package of sandwich meat and set it on the counter.

“Liam’s a sick man-whore. Simple to explain, really,” Jen retorted, got a bottle of water from the fridge, and left the kitchen.

“He’s moving back to Phoenix in a few months,” Tate said. He reached inside the bread bag that had been pushed up against the toaster and pulled out two slices. “I love Liam and all, but I look forward to having this place to myself.”

“Does Jen live here?” Bray asked, probably trying to imagine how that would work with Liam’s broadcasted activities.

“Want a sandwich?” Tate cut in real quick.

Bray shook her head and I did, too, when he glanced at me.

“No, Jen has her own apartment not far from here. We can’t live together. Tried it once. Didn’t work out. She can’t stand my shit bein’ all over the place, and my biggest fear is getting so used to each other that she thinks it’s OK to take a shit with me in the bathroom. Not. Fucking. Sexy.” He pointed the mustard bottle at us to emphasize each word.

“So, we’re going to a party tonight,” he added. “A great underground band is playing. Liam’s brother is the bass player. You up for it?”

Another party. I had a feeling we’d be doing a lot of that from here on out.

“Yeah, definitely,” I said and Bray agreed.

Miami ended up being more a drop-off place. After watching Liam’s brother’s band play we spent only one night there, most of us laid out on beanbags and furniture in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. The next day, Tate drove Caleb to some guy’s house, and the rest of us sat outside in the Jeep while Caleb went inside and did business with the drugs he brought back with him from Norfolk.

I liked our new friends, but something about Caleb kept me on edge. Part of it was the drug dealing, but there was something else, too. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I got really bad vibes from him. He never talked much. Mostly he gave his attention to Johanna or Grace, or both at the same time, and at times he spoke to Tate. But he wasn’t the kind of guy to warm up so easily to someone new. Maybe never. But he left us alone, and that was good enough for me.

It seemed that my and Bray’s problems—the small ones, anyway—had been solved now that we were with Tate. Jen and Grace both shared clothes with Bray. And Tate, realizing that I was just as needy in the clean clothing department, offered me some of his extra stuff. We had a ride and always a place to go, whether we were crashing at some random beach house with friends of Tate’s, or in a hotel room somewhere on Tate’s dime, or just on the beach in places Tate knew we wouldn’t get caught. Bray and I were finally able to breathe since Jana’s death. Life became more relaxed. Our safe zone had started to cocoon us. And we had only been with them for a little over a week.

Things were going smoothly—so smoothly, in fact, that the changes I started seeing in Bray didn’t concern me as much as they would have if I had been in a more alert frame of mind.

It took one night in a waterfront beach house to know that I didn’t know my girlfriend, the love of my life, as much as I thought I did.

And it broke my fucking heart.

Chapter Fifteen

Elias

The beach house was one of the most immaculate I had seen, overlooking the ocean. It had a massive boat dock just steps away from the backyard, which itself looked like something you’d see in a landscaping magazine. Every room in the house was like walk-in luxury, with expensive ceramic tile floors and intricate paintings and designer furniture that I was afraid to touch and leave fingerprints on. I thought that a place like this, so rich and clean, couldn’t possibly belong to any of Tate’s friends. The last few houses we had visited looked more like my apartment did back in Georgia: a bachelor pad.

Turned out, this was Jen’s parents’ house, and they were in the Bahamas on vacation. So, naturally, we turned it into a party spot.

The music bumped through the speakers in the living room ceiling. Bray and I were sitting together, kicked back on the couch with a mixed drink in our hands while Tate and Jen and a few others danced to “Pony” by Ginuwine in the center of the room. There were people sitting on every piece of furniture, and as I got up and went into the kitchen to trade my mixed drink for a beer, I saw that even the countertops were occupied.

Caleb was one of the occupants. He sat near the sink with a half pint of Jack Daniels between his legs. Johanna was on his left, leaning her head against his shoulder. She had a dazed look in her eyes, but with her that wasn’t unusual—she always appeared dazed even when she was sober.