Anthony was laughing and saying something, but I couldn’t quite hear. He took the joint back, sucked on it before passing it off to someone else. Realizing I hadn’t heard him, he bent in closer to my ear, his breath licking currents of warm air across the surface of my skin as he whispered, “I’m scared too.”

The words “Of what?” tripped over my lips.

The hard tip of his nose brushed against the edge of my ear as he spoke. And then I felt it, the buzzing of fear—no not fear, anticipation—rising up hard inside of me. And it felt alive. Addictive.

A shiver made a hard escape down my spine when the soft edge of his tongue traced along the outer shell of my ear, before finding tender places to tease. He switched ears, and as he did, he reached down to take my beer and set it aside.

“Of this,” he whispered as he brought my palm to his chest.

His heart bumped a hard, fast beat. Just like mine.

Like water left boiling too long—a wave of heat blasted past hidden levees inside me, cascading down my ribs, down my belly, down, down, down.

He looked briefly into my eyes, his fingers taking gentle command of my jaw while he kissed me. It was one of those movie-worthy kisses, slow-motion and—cover your eyes, Baby Maru!—full-on. It lasted way longer than it needed to, but (Oh thank God!) it didn’t show any signs of letting up.

I let my hands rove over him, upward until my fingers were pushing into his hair. I wound chunks of it around them and pulled his mouth harder against mine. My world turned in a slow swirl.

“Serena!” Kori shouted in my ear. I snapped to attention, nearly biting off Anthony’s glorious tongue. “Geez, slutty much?” she said, smiling like a proud—yet clearly dysfunctional—parent.

With one strong hand, Anthony kept hold of my face. His eyes shared secret things with mine as the pad of his thumb made a focused swipe of my lower lip, drying it off with a satisfied grin.

Before I could smile back at him, his hand began to travel down my side, stopping just below the frayed denim hem of my skirt. I held my breath, feeling his fingers curl around the back of my thigh, as if they were merely wrapped around my arm or something equally benign and friendly.

Kori coughed, gaining back my attention. She lifted a pierced eyebrow and the guilt flooded me. I confessed to everything. “I had some bud.”

She smirked one of her burgundy-lip smirks. “That’s okay, just don’t talk.”

Kori gave the key around my neck a tug as she told Anthony to make sure her kitten got home okay.