My throat is sore and my eyes are red when I finally shut up. My hands are no longer in Hart’s. Instead, I’m lying down, using her knee as my pillow. I don’t know how I got into this position, only that I don’t want to leave it—ever. She keeps rubbing a finger across the top of my forehead and it should be soothing, but instead my dick is waking up and reminding me that we haven’t had any kind of touching in a long, damn while.

Which is why when she bends down and her hair falls like a curtain around my face, blocking out the world, I don’t move away. Which is why when her lips touch mine, I don’t push her aside immediately. Which is why I kiss her back. Why I grab her head, twist around until she’s underneath me. Why I take gather that long spill of hair and tug until her mouth falls open.

When she shoves her fingers into my hair and licks to the roof of my mouth, a trail of heat burns a line from my tongue to my dick. It’s like we’re at the top of the Ferris wheel again, only this time we don’t go around in circles. Our car is sent flying out into the dark night, spotlights provided by the carnival lights.

But the kiss isn’t enough for me. She’s been lonely? Me, fucking, too. I’ve been lonely since my mom died. I’ve been aching since my family divided itself into tribes that didn’t include me. I’ve been dying inside while trying to keep a smile on my face because I’m scared if I let that dark cold spread beyond the box I’m trying to keep it in, I’ll end up doing the same thing my mom did.

I roll over onto my back, grab Hart’s knee and tug it down next to my hip. She does the rest of the work, repositioning herself until she's fully straddling me—a leg on either side. Her lips taste salty and sweet and her mouth is so soft and wet. The blood pounds in my head and my dick screams for some closer, softer, better contact. My fingers dig into that juicy ass of hers and jerk her forward until we’re fused together.

The heat of her body eats away at the fuzzy edges created by all the alcohol until everything in the room is sharp and clear. Her eyelashes are spiked with unshed tears that look like crystal-dotted lace against her soft cheek. The individual threads of her jeans rub against the pads of my fingers. When I take a breath, my lungs fill with her scent—a warm honey spiced with citrus. And when she moves, rocking her pelvis against mine, I can hear the swish of her clothes against mine.

She moans against my mouth and I nearly nut in my jeans from the sound alone. Me, Easton Royal, who has screwed more girls—and women—than fifty-year-old porn stars, is rock hard and close to the big O just from a kiss and a little rub.

I've got it bad. So fucking bad for her, and I haven’t even told her the worst of it yet.

Chapter 21

Hartley

I don’t need any memories to know this is the best kiss I’ve ever had, and if this is to be remembered as my first kiss, I’m a lucky, lucky girl. Easton’s body is hard as a rock slab, but his mouth is beautifully tender. The way he clasps me to his chest, as if he never wants to let go, makes my heart sing.

This is why I drove here. I wasn’t seeking a place, but a person. I’d come home.

I don’t know how it happened, but he’d etched himself into my DNA. Can something like this ever be explained? Doesn’t it simply exist? Felicity had been right about one thing. I’d fallen for someone immediately. My heart knew. Just as my heart reached out to Dylan, it yearned for Easton, too.

He gasps against my mouth. The way he moves against me makes me bold.

My hands slide down to touch his furnace-hot skin under his T-shirt.

“Hart,” he whispers against my lips. I’m not sure if he’s pleading for me to stop or go on, so I push my hands up higher, marking each ridge of his abdomen and the valley between. I feel the hot, smooth skin, the hard, wide planes of his chest, and the solid, sturdy shoulders. His hips move beneath me, urgent and seeking.

I don’t know how long we would’ve gone. How many pieces of clothing would’ve come off, how many parts of his body I would’ve touched, how many of mine he would’ve kissed, because he pulls away from my mouth to bury his head in my neck.

Reluctantly, I hold him there, knowing full well that having sex at this moment would be wrong. We’re both an emotional mess. The recitation of his past misdeeds brought tears to my eyes, not because I was horrified by what he’d done but because of how much self-loathing I’d heard in them. And I suspect that there are more tales that Easton is holding back that are going to wreck me. But the blood pounding in my ears urges me to wriggle down and find out how the hard length that’s pushing into my stomach would feel in my hands.

As if he can sense my dilemma, he gently slides me off his body and scoots a couple hand spans away as if he wouldn’t be able to contain himself if he were closer.

“Your first time shouldn’t be on a cheap floor,” he says.

A gust of relief blows through me. “I haven’t had sex before?”

He hesitates. “I don’t know. We never talked about it. It wasn’t important to me. I mean, I’m no virgin. Why would I expect you to be one? You didn’t sleep with anyone at Astor, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does, actually.” The thought of walking the halls next to guys who have seen me naked was more awful than I could put into words. But the other horror I live with has to do with Easton’s brother. I swallow hard and force myself to ask, “Was the accident my fault?”