And then Harlow is coming, clenching around my cock and I’m holding on by a thread, riding her through it with my jaw tight and my body so tense just to hold my own release at bay. She gasps, pushes up into me, claws at my chest until her arms slide down my torso, feeling where I’m moving in her. With a groan I pull out, hand moving over my length in a blur and my orgasm is there, so close that I can’t hear anything but static in my ears. Her name is on my lips and I wish I’d thought ahead to turn on a lamp so I could see her face as I cover her stomach, her tits, her neck.

Harlow looks down at my come on her skin, runs a finger through it and around her nipple. The action is instinctive, and possessive... and I know in that moment that I am absolutely, thoroughly fucked over this girl.

I fall to the mattress in a heap of boneless limbs, my heart racing so hard that I actually have to work to breathe, to gain control of my arms and my legs.

“You’ll stay the night?” Harlow asks, and I lift my head just long enough to look at her.

“Yeah, I have breakfast with the guys in the morning, though. I can’t stay too late.”

Harlow yawns, reaching for a discarded T-shirt to wipe the mess from her skin. “I have to pick my mom up, anyway,” she says absently. “I’ll wake you before I leave.”

I nod, kissing Harlow’s jaw and then her cheek, feeling the flush beneath her skin against my lips.

“Love you,” she says, eyes already fluttering closed.

It has to be coming up on three in the morning, and I say, “I love you” back as I pull her close, molding my body to the shape of hers. I’m so tired, but alert enough to know that something doesn’t sit right. I just wish I were awake enough to figure out what it is.

HARLOW LEAVES BRIGHT and early like she said she would. She wakes me with kisses and invites me to take a shower. I fuck her against the bathroom wall before we ever manage to get in.

San Diego smells like the ocean in the morning, like salt and wind and something sharp that wraps like an old blanket around everything. It smells so close to home some days, that if I close my eyes I can almost forget where I am, over a thousand miles and a lifetime away from where I’m supposed to be. It’s a little unnerving.

Even scarier? How much it’s starting to feel right, and how many times I’ve considered not leaving at all.