She reaches for my face and smooths her body along mine, settling me against the wall. Her tongue slips past my lips and she tastes like everything I’ve ever wanted. Her softness melts against my hardness and of course we fit. I don’t remember telling my hands to reach around her tiny frame, but they’re sliding under her shirt, anyway. One hand is circling her waist and higher, the other dipping into the elastic at the small of her back and clutching at the smooth skin there. She bucks against me, grinding seductively, and sighs into my mouth. She reaches between us, her hand finding my zipper again. I don’t know how to stop her or if I even want to, so instead I pick her up to get us away from this wall, and cooperative angel that she is, she wraps her legs around me.

“Bed,” she pants, and I can’t help but mindlessly oblige any and all panted requests.

At least for a minute. An entire blissful minute. I carry her down the hall and lay her on the comforter. I press myself on top of her and I savor it—both the feeling of fitting and the little gasps and whispered moans I manage to capture between my lips. This minute will take me years to get over, but right now, I don’t care.

I cover her in open-mouthed kisses from her ear to her collarbone, memorizing the taste of her skin. Before, I didn’t know it would be the last time. This time I do.

And then she hiccups, and I stand because the minute is over.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I … forgot something. I’ll be right back.”

She looks at me, dazed, and while I want to believe—need to believe, maybe—that I caused that look on her pretty face, it’s obvious it’s the alcohol and I’m feeling a little sick and a lot pathetic.

“Okay,” she says, and she curls on her side, a sleepy smile lingering on her kiss-swollen lips. Her soft snores reach me before I even make it to the door.

I walk into the living room and drop onto the couch, elbows on my knees and my hands forking in my hair, willing myself to calm down—all of me to calm down. I’m not sure what to do. I can’t stay. She’s using me. It’s not real, and I don’t have it in me to decipher exactly why I came here, but it’s clear she wanted a rebound and I stupidly flew in from fucking Alaska for the chance. I almost died in a claptrap modified hang glider to be her rebound—to be Lyle Jessup’s replacement fuck.

Jesus. It doesn’t get any more tragic.