“I—” My voice broke.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

His hand slid to my cheek. “Don’t.”

I forced myself to open my eyes.

“I liked it,” he murmured.

He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t ask for more. Just held me, touched me, reassured me. Then, after a moment, he whispered, “Beverly, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

He laughed softly, pressing a lingering kiss against my temple.

I swallowed hard, still breathing unevenly.

Blake’s thumb brushed my hip once.

Then he sat up. Pulled away.

And just like that—it was over.

I blinked, stunned, confused.

He was already standing.

I stared at him. “You’re…” My eyes burned. “You’re leaving?”

Blake let out a deep sigh, speaking more to himself than to me. “I need a cold shower.”

Oh. Oh.

I bit down on a laugh, still lightheaded, still breathless.

He glanced down at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Don’t give me that look.”

I blinked up at him, all wide-eyed innocence. “What look?”

“That look that says you’re trouble,” he muttered.

I stretched out on the bed with a smile on my lips. “Hurry up, Loverboy.”

Blake shot me a look, but he didn’t argue.

And when he finally came back, fresh from the shower, his skin warm and damp, I curled into his arms without hesitation.

He shifted, adjusting me slightly, wrapping the blanket around us before letting his body sink into the bed.

He smiled, his fingers slipping into my hair, tracing lazy patterns against my scalp. “You okay?”

I nodded, my body still buzzing. “More than okay.”

Something unreadable flickered across his face.

He shifted again, carefully maneuvering us until I was curled into his chest, my body molded against his like we had done this a thousand times before.

And maybe we had, in ways we didn’t realize.

Maybe we had always been leading up to this.

I grinned, pressing my face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. He smelled like soap and something warm, something undeniably Blake.

His arms tightened around me, his fingers tracing slow, absentminded circles against my back.

“Sleep, B,” he murmured against my hair, his voice lower now.

I closed my eyes, my fingers curling into his shirt.

And when sleep finally found me, it wasn’t alone.

It was with Blake’s heartbeat in my ears and his name stitched into every beat of my own.

27

BLAKE, 1998

18 years old