Fuck buddies.

The way his mouth formed the word—the mere existence of the word in his mouth—made every inch of my skin blossom with violent goosebumps. Fuck. Buddies. That’s all we were. Friends who had sex with each other.

Hunter wanted us to remain nothing, and I? I wanted everything.

Sensing he wasn’t going to get a verbal answer, Hunter twisted his hand between us, dipped it under my dress, and shoved my panties down to my knees. I shivered when I realized how wet and ruined my panties were, especially in the middle of our fight.

“Let me make you feel better,” he whispered into my mouth, kissing me once again. Slow. So slow. Designed to seduce.

“They might catch us,” I whispered.

“Let them. That’ll show them how much attention I give you.” He leaned forward and got rid of my panties, pulling them all the way down. I kicked them aside, still in my Vans. Hunter pushed me flat against the wall.

“Spread your legs for me,” he ordered.

“You’re not the boss of m…”

“Swear to God, Sailor, I will fuck your mouth so hard you’ll lose teeth if you disobey.”

I nudged my knees apart, opening myself in front of him. He crouched on his knees in his suit, using his thumbs to open the lips between my legs. He put his lips close to me, inhaled, then blew what I knew was a fresh, minty exhale inside me, peppered with a chocolate-y, M&M’s smell.

I quivered, my hands flying to his shoulders. “Do it again,” I moaned.

He blew into me again, and I clenched against the air, begging for more.

“Tell me.” Hunter spread me wider with his thumbs, and I felt the pressure, the slight pain down there as he stretched me. “Do you really think you can say no to me?”

I didn’t answer, because I didn’t like my answer. I just stared at him defiantly, even as he was close to giving me an orgasm while hardly touching me. Hunter Fitzpatrick is a dangerous habit, I thought. I should be glad to quit him.

He blew into me again, his eyes on mine.

My hands moved from his shoulders to his hair, tugging at the soft, silky strands.

“More.”

He plunged two fingers into me, curling them upwards to hit my G-spot, the sound of my wetness around him filling the air, and began to thrust. Slowly. So slowly I thought I was going to die. His eyes didn’t leave mine as he did it, his expression grave.

“Faster,” I croaked.

He shook his head.

“This is a punishing orgasm, not a rewarding one, Sailor. You should’ve thought about that before you had the idea of breaking this off.”

I collapsed down along the wall, keeping his head between my legs and wiggling my butt on the floor, trying to quicken the pace myself, but he wouldn’t let me. Hunter flattened one of his hands against my lower stomach, pinning me in place.

I moaned. “I want more.”

“Specify,” he nearly barked.

There was a commotion in the scene playing on the big screen that hid us. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were not happy campers. I thought we were safe from being found.

“Have sex with me.” I swallowed my shame.

“Bzzzz,” he said. “Wrong terminology. Now say it like a proper twenty-first century chick.”

“Fuck me,” I whispered, looking down.

He quickened his pace, knowing I was close. “Louder.”

“Fuck me.” I raised my voice.

“Can’t hear you,” he sing-songed.

“Fuck m—” I began to yell, but before I could, he was on top of me, unfastening his belt and shoving himself into me. He went in bareback—the first time we’d done it without a condom—and my eyes bulged at the sensation of his hot, silky flesh inside me. I groaned into his shoulder, clutching his back as he began to move.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I was glad we’d had that conversation. The one about STDs. It wasn’t official or anything—Hunter had complained about his father forcing him into being tested when he moved back to Boston—but still, it was nice to know chlamydia was not in my near future.

He pumped fast—feral, jerky, and completely out of rhythm. Hunter had a few moves I’d become accustomed to. There was what I called the stripper move, where he would plow in and out in one, smooth, wave-like movement, like in soft porn movies. Then he had the frat-boy move, where he nailed me to whatever surface we were lying on and pumped into me in fast, deep, punishing thrusts. This was neither of those things. Tonight he entered me like he thought I was going to evaporate into air any moment and he needed to find his release before that happened.

I felt like he was slicing me, breaking me even more, and I decided to fight back. I clawed my raw fingernails from his shoulder to his chest, pushing him away, but not really.

“I hate you,” I muttered, and he replied by shutting me up with a filthy kiss full of tongue and teeth.

But I meant what I said. I hated that he made me feel, that he’d ruined my plan to sail through life smoothly, without having to get hurt. I hated that he’d invited me to drown with him at his parents’ butterfly garden, and the stupid girl that I was, I had.

Now I needed air.

I slapped his face, hard, to break the kiss. He pulled away, shocked, but when he was about to pull out of me, I grabbed his bare butt cheeks—the only thing bare about him, we were both fully clothed—and drove him into me deeper.

“No. Give me an orgasm, and then leave me alone. I mean it, Hunter. We’re through.”

Something in his face changed just then.

I remembered an important thing Hunter had told me one day, when we were lying together in my bed.

“It’s true that I’ve never stayed with a woman, but it’s also true that women never stay with me. My mom neglected me. The revolving door of nannies didn’t help, either. My only sister used to ask my da for permission before calling me because he’d told her I was bad influence. Any other chick who noticed me wanted to either fuck my face or get access to my wallet. Women don’t think highly of me, but the truth is, I don’t think so highly of them, either.”

I was dumping him without even being with him, playing on the notion he hated the most—women leaving him unexpectedly.

And he wasn’t happy.

Hunter thrust into me again and again and again, the pleasure he awakened in my body at odds with the sharp pain I felt in my soul. I wanted to take the words back, but I didn’t want to sacrifice my happiness for his, either.

When the climax began to rock me back and forth, euphoria washing over my limbs, I felt him pulsating and twitching inside of me. He pulled out, held his engorged red cock in his fist, and extended my neck by tugging my hair back. My heart thundered in my chest. He pressed the tip of his wet cock—that smelled exactly like me—to my hairline and glided it down my face as he came in spurts, creating a line of his cum along my face. He stopped at my mouth, one eyebrow slanted, his eyes daring me to refuse him.

I opened my mouth obediently, and he shoved it in, finishing in my mouth.

I tilted my head back, letting it hit the back of my throat, then swallowed.

Hunter stood up swiftly and buckled himself. He’d opened his mouth to say something—something harsh, something he would undoubtedly regret—when the burgundy-velvet curtain engulfing us swiped open.

“Whoa,” Knight whistled. He stood to the side of the stage, slow-clapping us.

Luna was beside him, cupping her mouth, her eyes wide.

“Is that a thing? A babysitter with a happy ending?” Knight grinned.

I felt so much blood rushing to my face, I thought I was going to explode.

Hunter turned and walked away, not even bothering to answer his best friend or pick me up from the floor, with his cum still dripping from my chin.

The second I was done waving goodbye to Knight and Luna at the airport, I drove back to the apartment in Sailor’s car, applying major-ass self-restraint not to rip the wheel from its socket and throw it out the fucking window.

She wanted to bail on this arrangement now, when we were so close to the finish line? Yeah. No. Fuck this and fuck her.

Literally. I was going to. Punishingly. Because that’s how she liked it, and because I drew the line when her insecurities started messing with my sex life. Damn, I had pre-cum leaking from the tip of my cock, ninth grade-style, just from thinking about what I’d do to her.

When we’d gotten back home from the theater last night, I couldn’t help it. I’d waited until everyone was asleep, picked up the phone, and called Cillian. He sounded like he was at a busy restaurant, only that didn’t make any sense, because it was hella late. Everybody in the background spoke French. When I told him it was serious, he muttered under his breath and went outside. The noise of waves crashing on the shore filled my ears. Where the hell was he? Cannes? Monaco? Fucking heaven?