“Yes.”

He goes silent for what feels like minutes when he’s looking me in the eye like this. “Kissing you isn’t like kissing other girls.” I cringe, and he curses under his breath. “That came out wrong. I meant it’s different with you.”

Not helping. “Different good or different bad?”

He moves one of his hands away from the wall and traces a line with his fingertip from the bridge of my nose down the center of my lips to the hollow at the bottom of my throat. “Different perfect. The kind of perfect that tells me I’ll never be able to forget kissing you.”

No one has ever said anything like that to me. I repeat the words in my head so I can remember exactly the way Marco said them.

“Do you want to forget?”

“Your dad is investigating me, Frankie. And he’s not wrong.” He shivers, and I touch his arm. He’s freezing.

“I have an idea. But you need to get out of these wet clothes.” I tug on the hem of his shirt.

He smiles—that sexy-sweet bad-boy smile I think about way too often. “Are you asking me to strip?”

“Go in the bathroom and find something dry.” I give him a little shove. “There’s a changing room.”

“I bet.” Marco looks around for the first time. He’s probably comparing it to his modest apartment, and I’m embarrassed by the excess. He kicks off his high-tops and crosses the dark room.

When Marco returns, he’s shirtless and barefoot, still wearing his wet jeans.

“You didn’t change.” Not that I’m complaining. The moonlight skims every gorgeous muscle from his shoulders to his abs.

He tosses the towel into the bathroom. “Whoever wears all those checkered golf shorts in there isn’t exactly my size. This is as close to dry as I could get.” Marco sits next to me on the sofa.

I’ve never seen his tattoos all at once, and I can’t look away.

Black bands encircle one arm, and the sleeve of tattoos covers the outside of the other. I touch the pile of skulls that curves around his wrist and trace the tree growing up from the center, along the outside of his arm. The tree branches out, curving into what looks like a cliff at Marco’s elbow. But it’s another skull, less detailed than the ones near his wrist. I drag my finger over the branch that moves up his arm and morphs into the stem of a black rose. The petals open over Marco’s bicep.

What comes next takes my breath away.

The bottom of a lion’s mane curves up from the center of the rose and spreads over Marco’s shoulder. It’s drawn in a tribal style that’s different from the rest of the tattoo.

“So what’s your idea?” he asks.

“My dad and his partner aren’t really interested in you. They want the person at the top of the food chain—whoever is selling the cars. Catching the people who steal the cars is just a way to follow the chain.”

Marco frowns and clasps his hands together. “Okay…?”

“Is the guy your father owes at the top?”

“As far as I know. He’s the one who moves the cars and has them delivered to the clients. We just drop them at the docks.” Marco frowns. “Wait. I don’t like where this is going.”

“Hear me out.” I touch his knee, and he covers my hand with his.

“If you tell my dad who he is, you can make a deal. The guy who is blackmailing you will go to prison, where he belongs.”

Marco bolts off the sofa and stands across from me, his bare chest heaving like he just ran a mile. “I’m not talking to the cops, Frankie.”

“I’ll talk to my dad ahead of time and make sure you won’t get in any trouble.” The conversation isn’t going the way I hoped. “Trust me, please.”

He rakes his hands through his damp hair. “I’ll find another way out of this.”

“If you had another option, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Marco folds his arms across his chest. “The answer is still no.”

“Why?” A knot forms in my throat.

He moves toward me, arms open. “Come here.”

I want nothing more than to fall into his arms and ignore my fears and forget the pain. But I can’t ignore things anymore. I spent the summer trying, and it didn’t change anything.

I stand and hold out my hand, signaling him to stop. “No. I want an answer. Why won’t you talk to my dad if he guarantees there won’t be any fallout for you and Sofia?”

“What about Deacon? Will your father let him walk away, too? He’s in deeper than me, Frankie. When he was expelled, stealing cars became his full-time job. If we’re under investigation, your dad and his partner have probably figured that out by now.” Marco’s eyes plead for understanding. “I can’t give your dad the kind of information he’ll want without selling out Deacon. And I won’t do that.”

“Is the guy you work for threatening Deacon, too?”

He shakes his head. “No. Deacon wanted in.”

“Then he belongs in jail. Are you willing to throw away your future for him?”

Marco moves toward me again, but I turn my back on him. I sense it the moment he’s behind me, even before he touches me. My body is so aware of him now. He brushes the hair over my shoulder, his fingers grazing my neck.

“Don’t.”

He steps closer, and his breath tickles the back of my neck. Strong arms reach over my shoulders and hug my back against his bare skin. “I can’t help it,” he murmurs against my neck. “Every time I see you, I want to hold you.”

“You won’t be able to if you’re in jail.”

Marco kisses my neck and slides around so he’s in front of me. “Look at me.”

If I do, I’ll break.

I keep my lashes down. “I can’t.”

He cups my face in his hands and gently raises my chin. “Before you kissed me at the party, I imagined what it would feel like. How it would feel to hold you. But I never thought…” He releases me and presses the heels of his hands against his forehead. I hate the confusion and pain in Marco’s eyes. I hate that I’m causing any part of it.

My fingers find his again, tethering us. “You never thought what?”

“I’d get the chance.”

I’m not brave enough to tell him how often he crossed my mind. “I doubt you have trouble finding girls who want to kiss you.” I nudge him with my shoulder, trying to sound playful instead of jealous.