“I happen to hold my fuck buddies’ hands.” He grins and stubbornly takes my hand back. I groan, and he laughs.

“What have you got to lose? I know you haven’t been with a man since me. I know that guy at the hotel parking lot was a friend.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know,” he dismisses. “What do you have to lose, letting me hold your hand? I’ve held it tons of times before.”

I hesitate. I want to say something snarky, but the way he looks at me, his face uncharacteristically somber, calls for the truth. “Because you’ll hold my hand, and I’ll get used to the way it feels, and before I know it, you’ll let go of it . . . again,” I say, my heart hurting as I pull my hand free once more.

His hand comes to rest on the wheel, clenching it tight. I stare out the window, then burst out, “You’re . . . it’s not like you’re normal, or me . . . or this is normal. Dude, we’re in the middle of a fucking concert tour, with all your whore dancers licking you up. I’m just the one you’re banging.”

“You are the one I’m banging, and I like my hands on you. Deal with it.” He grabs my hand again, giving me a don’t-test-me squeeze. I hesitate. His hand is warm in mine, and the air swirls around us. He rubs his thumb into my palm. “I fucking like it, Pink,” he growls.

God, he exhausts me. Wears me out. I want to put up my walls, but instead I feel like crashing.

After driving for a while, we stop at a diner. “Everybody’s going to recognize you.”

Uncaring, he puts on his aviators, pulls out a navy blue cap, and pulls me inside, lacing our fingers together. He tugs me into a booth at the back, then sets his arm around my shoulder. “What do you want?”

I flip open the menu, acutely aware of his thumb absently rubbing my neck as he looks at his menu too.

The waitress takes our order, and when she leaves, Mackenna pulls off his glasses, turns my head around by the chin, and starts kissing and nibbling my neck in a way that makes my toes curl. I end up leaning into the nook of his arm and cuddling a little as we wait for our food. “I like driving you around in that Lambo,” he lazily admits, running a heavy hand down my hair. “Getting that pink strand of hair tangled up with your black.”

Delightful little tingles race through my bloodstream. This is how it could have been with us. This is how it could have been if I’d told my mother the truth. If he’d shown up one day. Or we simply hadn’t needed to run away.

“Admit it, you like the Lambo.” He rubs his silver ring over my bottom lip, the smirk on his face adorable.

“It’s so fucking uncomfortable,” I hedge.

“Huh. We really should find other uses for that mouth of yours.”

He shoves all five fingers of one hand into my tangled hair and I arch my body closer, pressing my breasts to his hard chest to let him know I want him to kiss me again. Reading me perfectly, he kisses my lips—softly, as if I’m fragile. As if he wants to memorize taste and texture and shape.

“Guys with bikes kiss their women harder,” he says. “Maybe we should trade the Lambo for a bike? Get something with power rumbling between your thighs?”

Already, there’s something rumbling between my thighs.

His voice.

The way it affects me when it gets all husky.

“There’s no way I’m riding a motorcycle on a highway.”

“No? No bikes?” He chuckles and spares a long, hungry look at me, his eyes laughing too. “I know what you’d enjoy doing. Other than me.” There’s that smirk again.

“You do, do you?” I think I’m smirking too as I raise an eyebrow in challenge. I’m such a good bluffer, I bet he has no idea I’m squeezing my thighs together under the table, fighting to quell the ripple of need running through me.

He prolongs the moment as though to heighten the suspense, his finger rubbing up and down the length of my neck now. “Well . . . do you want to know? Pink?”

God, I can’t stop grinning. I feel . . . young. Carefree. Alive. Sexy. Cherished. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway, Kenna.”

He slips his hand under the table and cups one of my thighs as he nods to my plate and whispers, “Finish your meal and I’ll show you instead.”

Shortly after, on our way to this mysterious place, we pull up in front of a gas station to feed the Lambo’s apparently voracious appetite for gasoline. While I get a bottle of water, Mackenna gets some gum, M&M’s, and corn nuts, and we head out again.

Mackenna took my hand going in and out of the store, then he takes it in the car again too. I tell myself I’m too tired to fight him, but the truth is, I like it so much, it gives me flutters every time he reaches for me. As we head down the highway, I watch, hypnotized, as he drags his thumb over my knuckles while he drives. The glint of his silver ring in the sunshine is growing deliciously familiar.

“Where are we going?” I ask for about the third time.

His lips hitch up in one corner. “Paradise, Pink.”

“Mackenna, if this has anything to do with sex . . .”

“No, babe, but you could say it’s damn well close to the next best thing for you and me.” He winks. And not far behind the wink is that sexy smirk of his.

I’m so puzzled, I can’t think of anything close to sex but . . . sex. Kissing and necking. Making out. What’s the next best thing to sex??

It’s not yet dusk when we stop at a school parking lot. I’ve never been in this school, have no idea what he’s plotting, but I let him guide me by the hand to a side entry. Mackenna greets a man by the door, then he quietly leads me to an indoor ice rink.

I stare at the cool, smooth ice surface in the quiet school and I can’t believe my own eyes. Mackenna grins.

“College hockey team plays here. I pulled a couple of strings.”

The strings of my heart? He’s playing those so well too. My chest has never felt so full as I take the skates he extends by the laces, and I immediately kick off my shoes and slide them on.

Ohmigod, it’s been . . . forever.

And a day.

I line up my skates and slide onto the ice with a floating sensation in my legs. I find my balance within a minute, and I slowly raise my hands and spin, my face turned to the ceiling rafters. “Ohmigod, do you realize how long it’s been?”

He ties his own skates and catches up with me fast: as fast as a hockey player. “A thousand and five hundred days,” he tells me.

When he slides his arm around my waist and pulls my body to his, aligning us perfectly, my smile fades, but my happiness doesn’t. He takes my arm and spins me like a top, for the first time in a long time, and I laugh. I laugh and squeal, “Don’t let me fall!”

“Never.”

He catches me when I grow dizzy, and then we skate and spin, skate and play, skate and race each other, fool around until we fall. We get tangled in each other’s legs and laugh as we go down. He catches me every time, always ready to break my fall, and then we sit there, my body slightly on top of his, catching our breath. Just like old times.

But now, he doesn’t need to wear a cap on his head to hide his face, and I don’t need an oversized cap on mine to avoid being seen.

His face is right before me, every angle available for my attention.

I give it my all, while he does the same.

I close my eyes when he traces his silver ring along my jawline, up to my temple, around my ear. “I love your face.” His voice is thick, sexy. Unique.

I feel it in every cell of me.

My eyes open to find his, and his stare is intent. Unapologetic. Reverent and still very, very busy taking me in.

“And your lips,” he murmurs thickly, his ring now rubbing them too. “I love making these lips smile.” I find myself smiling and feeling an intense happiness when he smiles back at me.

No bullshit. This is real. And perfect.

“All right, lady, time to go,” he says, getting up on his feet.

“Good. My butt’s frozen,” I lie.

But I never want to leave this place. I never want to forget how I feel when I’m in his arms, spinning and spinning and spinning like a kid.

♥ ♥ ♥

WE STOP AT a motel, the first we find after sunset. We’re both tired. Mackenna pulls me inside, opens the shower, and murmurs, “Come shower with me.”

My first instinct is no.

Too intimate . . .

Too risky . . .

Danger.

“No funny business. Promise.” He lifts his hands innocently.

My heart seems to lead before my brain can settle on what to do, and before I know it, I’m already peeling off my clothes, aware of the liquid tenderness in his gaze as he watches me.

He keeps his word, but I can tell it’s a test of honor. He’s very hard. His erection almost gets in the way every time we shift around to help each other soap up. I try to soap up quickly so I can finish quickly and stop feeling jittery and hot, but when he soaps me up with his big hands, I just can’t rush the shower anymore. So a quick shower turns into a long shower. He soaps me, and I soap him. We close our eyes. Groan a little. Whisper, “You feel good.” That came from me, and he’s not far behind as he lathers my hair with shampoo, his wet lips brushing my earlobe. “You smell good. I want to taste you tonight.”