mouth working as though she meant to say something

realy awful but could only come up with "…Yeah, wel.

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 caled would come to get her.

Yeah. Some friend.

Chapter 04

"I'm realy 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 puled 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 experimentaly 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 pul away. "Fine. I'm not pretending."

"Good."

"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 footbal 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 puled me closer and brushed his lips

across mine, I was already tense and waiting. He kissed

me softly and puled 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, al the way up the

stairs and down the hal 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 puled 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 smel of fabric softener

was the same, and my heart seized, going stil before it

lurched to life again. His mouth ate my gasp. He

swalowed 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 pilow, he only put

his hand on my bely. The muscles jumped.

his hand on my bely. 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 swel 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.

gently at my opening. That's when he stopped.

I looked at him. "Austin?"

He opened his pretty mouth, but al 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 pul his

shirt over his head. I used the time to pul 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 practicaly 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."

"Did you put those on just for me?" I got up on my elbows

to look at him.

Austin just raised a brow. "What if I did?"

It wasn't the smart-ass answer I expected, and

consequently, I had no answer.

"Paige." His hand went stroke, stroke, stroke, and I was

hypnotized. "Open your legs."

I did, because I wanted him there. I thought he'd use his

hand, but Austin got on his bely on the bed, instead. He

wriggled up between my legs before I knew it, his breath

hot on my inner thighs and finaly, at last, my cunt.

I cried out when he kissed me there, but stifled it with my

fist. When he licked me, I drew in a breath that tasted of

my own skin. It had been a long time since a man had

gone down on me…since the last time I'd been with him,

as a matter of fact.

His lips worked my rigid clit as he pushed a finger, then

two, then three, inside me. Rough but not harsh. He found

my G-spot and I convulsed around his fingers. Pleasure

took my voice away.

I pushed my hips upward in lieu of command, and he

fucked me with his mouth and hands until I gasped and

trembled. Shaking, I looked down at him, nestled between

my legs. Passion had hazed my vision, but everything

became crystaline when he paused to look up at me.

"Don't come yet." Austin's voice had grown impossibly

deeper over the years. Now it went lower stil. His breath

drifted over my hot, wet flesh and the motion of his lips

tantalized me mercilessly.

He moved up my body and captured my wrists with his

hands as he pushed mine over my head. My fingers curled

around the wooden spindles as I stared him in the eyes. I

wasn't the same girl he hadn't taken to the prom, and I

wasn't the same girl he'd married. I was a different woman