I knew he wouldn't come after me, but my pace quickened until I was half running to the patio. The breath shot from my lungs in hard bursts. I longed to forget what I had just seen, but the image of Hardy with the blond girl was permanently seared in my memory. It shocked me, the fury I felt toward him, the white heat of betrayal. It didn't matter that he'd promised nothing, owed nothing to me. He was mine. I felt it in every cell of my body.

Somehow I managed to find Luke in the crowd on the patio, and he looked at me with a questioning smile. He could hardly fail to notice the burning color of my cheeks. "What's the matter, baby doll?"

"I dropped my drink," I said thickly.

He laughed and laid a heavy arm around my shoulders. "I'll get you another one."

"No. I..." I stood on my toes to whisper in his ear. "Would you mind if we left now?"

"Now? We just got here."

"I want to be alone with you," I whispered desperately. "Please, Luke. Take me somewhere. Anywhere."

His expression changed. I knew he was wondering if my sudden desire to be alone with him could mean what he thought it meant.

And the answer was yes. I wanted to kiss him, hold him, do everything Hardy was doing at that exact moment with another girl. Not out of desire, but furious grief. There was no one I could go to. My mother would dismiss my feelings as childish. Maybe they were, but I didn't care. I had never felt this kind of consuming anger before. My only anchor was the weight of Luke's arm.

Luke took me to the public park, which contained a man-made lake and several wooded copses. At the side of the lake there was a ramshackle open-sided gazebo lined with splintery wood benches. Families went there to picnic in the daytime. Now the gazebo was empty and dark. The air rustled with night sounds, an orchestra of frogs croaking among the cattails, a mockingbird's song, the flap of herons' wings.

Just before we had left the party, I had chugged the rest of Luke's tequila sunrise. My head was spinning, and I reeled between waves of giddiness and nausea. Luke laid his jacket on the gazebo bench and pulled me onto his lap. He kissed me, his mouth wet and searching. I tasted the purpose in his kiss, the message that tonight he would go as far as I would let him.

His smooth-skinned hand slipped beneath my shirt, over my back, plucking at the clasp of my bra. The underwire garment loosened across my chest. Immediately he reached around to my front, finding the tender curve of a breast, capturing it in a rough squeeze. I winced, and he loosened his grip a little, saying with a shaky laugh, "Sorry, baby doll. It just...you're so beautiful, you make me crazy..." His thumb rubbed over the hardening tip of my breast. He pinched and chafed my ni**les insistently, while our mouths moved together in long unbroken kisses. Soon my br**sts were raw and sore. I gave up any hope of feeling pleasure and tried instead to simulate it. If something was wrong, it was my fault, because Luke was experienced.

It must have been the tequila that gave me the sense of being an outside observer as Luke pushed me off his lap and onto the jacket-covered bench. The impact of the wood against my shoulders struck a flare of panic in my midsection, but I ignored it and lay back.

Luke tugged at the fastenings of my jeans and pushed them down over my h*ps and off one leg. I saw a section of sky from beneath the gazebo roof. It was a misty night with no stars or moon. The only light came from the distant blue glow of a street lamp, flickering from a moth storm.

Like any average teenage boy, Luke understood next to nothing about the more subtle erogenous areas on a woman's body. I knew even less than he, and being too timid to volunteer what I did or didn't like, I passively let him do what he would. I had no idea where to put my hands. I felt him reach beneath my panties, where the hair was warm and flattened. More rubbing, a few times roughly grazing the sensitive place that made me jump. He gave an excited half-laugh, mistaking my discomfort for enjoyment.

Luke's body was broad and heavy as he lowered himself until my legs stiffly bracketed his. He groped between us, unzipping his jeans, using both hands to accomplish some hurried task. I heard the sound of crackling plastic, and felt him pulling at something, arranging it, and then there was the unfamiliar taut, bobbing length of him against my inner thigh.

He pushed my shirt and bra up higher, bunching them beneath my chin. His mouth was at my breast, pulling tightly. I thought we had probably gone too far to stop, that I had no right to say no at this point. I wished it was over, that he would finish soon. Even as that thought crossed my mind, the pressure between my legs became bruising. I tensed and gritted my teeth, and looked up at Luke's face. He didn't look back at me. He was focused on the act itself, not on me. I had become nothing more than the instrument by which he would gain relief. He shoved harder, harder into my resistant flesh, and a pained sound broke from my lips.

It only took a few searing thrusts, the condom turning slick from blood, and then he was shuddering against me. groaning in his throat.

"Oh, baby, that was so good."

I kept my arms around him. A ripple of revulsion ran through me as I felt him kiss my neck, his breath like steam on my skin. It was enough—he'd had enough of me—I needed to belong to myself again. I was relieved beyond measure when he lifted away, my flesh raw and hurting.

We dressed ourselves silently. I had held all my muscles so tightly that when I finally relaxed, they began to tremble from the strain. I trembled all over until even my teeth chattered.

Luke drew me against him. patting my back. "Are you sorry?" he asked, his voice low.