“You’re dirty?” I tried, pretending like Edie hadn’t told me the night she’d babysat.

Talk, Luna. Talk. I’ll take anything, not just words. Not just gestures. Any. Fucking. Thing. Then maybe we both wouldn’t be so fucking lonely in that big penthouse.

“You met her when you were dirty? You had something on your hands? She helped you get it cleaned?”

She shook her head violently, her eyebrows diving down. She pointed at her open palm, then pinched her nose in a bad-smell gesture, her wide eyes begging me to get it.

Say it.

“She stinks? You stink? You had something on your hand? She gave you something smelly?”

The worst part of my week was the moment I saw Luna giving up on our conversation. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed, crossing her arms and looking out the window. Ignoring me.

We didn’t communicate for the rest of the drive until we got home and I asked her if she still wanted that churro. She ignored me for the millionth time that day, just as she did every day.

Nothing had changed.

Sunday couldn’t come fast enough.

Edie Van Der Zee was probably the whitest person I’d ever met. Fact.

I pondered this thought as she sat beside me, cooing over a dog who licked his balls while we were having a picnic in an Anaheim park, which was the last place anyone we knew would be. It was also where Disneyland was, where we’d taken Luna.

Luna was wearing Minnie Mouse ears that were too big and eating the sandwich Edie had made before we got out of the house. Peanut butter, jelly, and a slice of cheddar cheese in-between.

“Are you enjoying the view with your meal?” I snarled, sitting at the edge of our picnic table and not touching any of the food. I wasn’t particularly hungry, and not only because Miss Van Der Zee had invented the grossest sandwich known to man. I was also being a jealous asshole because Edie had managed to squeeze reactions and facial expressions I hadn’t known existed out of my daughter.

The girls ignored me, their huddled heads almost touching as Edie explained to Luna something about how the crust of the bread is obscenely underrated, and how she likes to toast it and nibble on it like a breadstick.

“Trent, are you a crust-eater?” Edie asked me, snapping her head up. I scratched at my stubbled jaw, avoiding a gross sexual innuendo in front of my daughter. Edie had behaved like the perfect nanny all through Disneyland. She’d basically ignored my ass, held Luna’s hand the whole time, and hadn’t even blinked when two young mothers hit on me while I’d bought us slushies.

“I don’t eat bread.”

“Why?”

“Don’t like it.”

“Who doesn’t like bread?”

“Someone who likes their six-pack.” Spoken like the true conceited bastard I was. Luna’s eyes flew to Edie in alarm, and she put her hand on my daughter’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Luna. We don’t need a six-pack. Life is too short to deny yourself a peanut butter, jelly, and cheddar cheese party.”

It was one thing to be a jerk to Edie—an outsider, but I couldn’t do it to Luna. I bent down, tapping Luna’s Minnie Mouse ears. “Hey. Care to give your old man a bite?” The apology to her was in my voice.

She handed me her sandwich, and I took a small bite, watching her face melt into a smile. So fucking worth it.

By the time we got home, it was six. By the time Luna was bathed, fed, and I’d read her a story—Edie took the opportunity to gingerly make a beeline to one of the bathrooms and take a shower—it was after eight.

Then it was just us. Edie, me, and our sinister thoughts.

I figured walking into the bathroom while she showered was too creepy, especially considering I’d already indulged my stalking tendencies to borderline restraining order territory when it came to her.

Reluctantly, I waited for her on the couch, staring at an action movie without really watching it, wondering what the fuck I was doing.

I knew she was still coming after me.

Yet I couldn’t. Fucking. Stop.

Did I have feelings toward her? I didn’t think so. But I liked having her around. Liked how she put a smile on my daughter’s face. How her fuckable ass and lean surfer’s body felt against mine. How she responded to my touch the same way you respond to your first kiss. With uncontained rawness. She was clay. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted with her. And I wanted to do everything. Down to the last, sordid fantasy that sat dormant in my head.

To validate my point, Edie padded out to the living room barefoot, her long yellow hair still wet and in knots. She was back in the clothes she’d worn to Disneyland—a pair of turquoise shorts and a rainbow-colored Rip Curl tank top. She looked like a gift waiting to be unwrapped, and I forgave myself for not confronting her about the stolen phone, trying to remind myself it shouldn’t matter. The only thing with compromising information on Jordan was my flash drive, and she would never get her hands on that. It was currently in my safe, locked away from her sticky fingers.

She could only get her hands on useless things, and we were just messing around, so no harm done. Neither of us had lied about our intentions. It wasn’t as though she’d backstabbed me.

Sprawled on the sofa, I tapped my thigh, dropping my head to the heap of fluffy pillows behind me. “C’mere.”

She peered from under her wet lashes, looking shy for the briefest moment. I wondered if it was because of what we were going to do, or what she thought was going to happen. Bane had said she wasn’t vanilla, but what he really meant was she wasn’t vanilla for him. Me, I was different. A dark, deprived animal lived inside me. Whenever I let it out—and I always let it out in bed—it bloomed. Freedom gave the savage inside me a good buzz, which was why I sometimes got a little carried away.

I couldn’t lose control with Edie. Not with her.

Edie walked over and straddled me like she was a stripper on her first day and wasn’t sure what to do. It was awkward because we weren’t a couple. We weren’t intimate. We weren’t even friendly. I didn’t comment on this, because familiarity was off the fucking table with everyone, but with her specifically.

Instead, I dragged my hands up her thighs to the curve of her ass, and we both watched, her fair skin under the dusk of mine. Lust didn’t have color. But it did have a face and it looked at me, blinking rapidly to the rhythm of her hammering heart.

“I like Luna,” she said quietly, wrapping her arms around my neck, her fingers trying to grasp at my very short hair. For a second there, I wanted to kiss her, just for saying that.

Instead, I squeezed her ass, slamming her body into my erection, my denim and her shorts brushing together.

“She likes you, too,” I retorted.

“Yet, I don’t like you,” she continued, grinding against my cock deliberately, and since when was I doing third base on a regular basis? I’d had multiple chances to fuck Edie, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. To take this girl—so different from my usual mature, curvy type—and do grown-up things to her.

I wanted to bite her lip and watch her bleed on me.

Instead, instead, in-fucking-stead, I locked my jaw, feeling my Adam’s apple bobbing with a swallow. One hand still on her ass, I reached with the other one to the coffee table by the couch, opening the child-proof drawer and retrieving a joint. I tucked it between my lips and cupped the tip with my hand, lighting it.

“I don’t like you, too,” I answered casually, clicking shut my Zippo and placing it back on the stainless steel table.

“But I like how you make me feel.” She rode me through our clothes. The aching need for her escalated torturously slowly, reminding me why sex as a teenager was so much more fun than it was in your thirties. The anticipation made my dick twitch. “You make me feel wild. Fearless. Like I’m someone. Someone strong.” Her lips dragged along my neck, hot and soft.

I exhaled a ribbon of smoke upward, leaning and sweeping my lips against the side of her neck. “What’s your fascination with power?” I ran my hand up her arm, thumbing the hem of her shirt. I wanted it gone. Her nipples were erect under her top, begging to be licked and sucked and bitten. Her tits were so small—so fucking tiny—the idea of kneading them in my big hands made my balls tighten, knowing there wasn’t enough of them, that I’d be left hungry for more of her.

“It’s less of a power thing, more of a strength issue. Why wouldn’t I want to be strong? Isn’t that what everyone’s after?” She tilted her head, slipping her fingers to clasp my joint and take a hit. I let her. I let the eighteen-year-old on my lap, rubbing her wet pussy all over my Diesel denim, smoke with me. It’d been years since I’d given a woman the time of day, and I’d never, ever done anything illegal with a chick who straddled the line between barely legal and hot-as-shit-and-worth-the-self-loathing.

But Edie wasn’t a chick.

Edie was the fucking end of me.

She exhaled the smoke straight into my face, and I took the opportunity to pluck the joint from her hand and place it in an ashtray. I yanked her top off and threw it on the floor, admiring her bare tits for the very first time. Her nipples were two pink coins. She shuddered with pleasure when I cupped one of them, rolling the plump skin beneath my fingers and staring at her like a hungry hound.

“If you want to be strong, be,” I hissed.

“Easy for you to say.” She thrust her tits into my face, losing every ounce of control over her self-restraint. I held her back, my fingers feathering, skimming on her ribs as I took one of her nipples into my mouth, sucking on it ravenously before biting the tip and feeling her pull her breasts away but grind into my dick harder. I stopped when I felt the goose bumps around her nipple and sucked the pain away, and she moaned louder.

That’s it, baby. Pain and pleasure. Playing together, but not nicely.

“Oh yeah, I’m a lucky bastard,” I snorted, brushing my thumb over her blushing nipple. “Going to high school with the richest kids in the state when I couldn’t even afford football gear. Working two fucking jobs after school just so I could buy supplies for my next school year. Being the playboy, the good, casual fuck no one would ever date seriously in this town—because I’m half black, because I’m poor, because I’m the stereotype people want as a friend but never as family. You’re right. I don’t know hardship.” I slapped her tit, not too hard, but not softly, either. She winced and grabbed my head, pulling me into her. We melted into each other and it was dangerous, doing whatever the fuck we were doing in the living room, where Luna could easily walk in. I took one last pull of the joint before putting it out, then tucking both it and the lighter into my pocket to kill every evidence that it was ever there. I grabbed Edie by the ass and carried her to my room, my lips and teeth on her other nipple. Kissing, caressing, licking, making her skin blossom. I didn’t bite her. Not when she was expecting it. Half the fun was not expecting the spank and the bite. She was going to learn. I was going to teach her.