Her cheeks flushed sweetly. “Good morning. You’re the first person to ever call me beautiful. It feels weird when you say it.”

“Then I guess I’ll say it over and over again until it’s not weird anymore,” I said as I fingered a strand of her soft waves. “You’re beautiful, Faith.”

She smiled sweetly and then leaned up and kissed me. I kissed her back with all that I was and tried to stay in control of myself. Not only was it morning and my morning wood hurt like a bitch against my jeans, but she was pressing against me in ways that she couldn’t know were making me crazy. I wanted her, more than I’d ever wanted a girl, but I also wanted to make sure she was ready.

She brought out a side of me that I hadn’t known existed before. I wasn’t usually a patient man, but she made me patient. She was slowly transforming me into a better person, a person worthy of her.

I gasped when I felt cool fingertips against my stomach. She fingered the creases of my abs slowly, as if she were memorizing me. Even though it was killing me, I restrained myself and allowed her the freedom to roam my body.

“You’re so hard,” she said as she pressed her palms to my chest.

I couldn’t help myself. “In more ways than one.” I grinned down at her.

Before she could figure out what I was saying, I kissed her again and chuckled against her mouth. Time slipped away as we made out in the back of my mom’s Jeep like normal teenagers. The waves crashed against the shore outside and the birds flew above us in the warming breeze.

I felt something cold against my chest. I stopped kissing her and leaned back to find her necklace had escaped her shirt and was lying against me. She’d always worn the silver cross around her neck as far as I knew, and there had been many times when I’d see her pull it out of her shirt and hold it in her palm as if it soothed her.

I picked it up to inspect it. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

She looked down and pulled the small cross from my fingers. It disappeared in her tiny fist as she wrapped her hand around it. “My grandmother gave it to me when I was little.”

“Do you ever take it off?”

“Never.” She shook her head. “It saved me when I was little, so I never take it off.”

She looked up at me. Her deep-brown eyes swirled with some profound emotion I wanted to know more about.

“What do you mean it saved you? Did something happen to you?”

I knew I was pressing her, but I was worried there was something going on in her life that she wasn’t telling me about. I wanted to know everything when it came to Faith.

“When I was little, my dad used to tell me that if I was bad, the devil would come and steal my soul. For years, I worried that my soul was never safe. So whenever I felt like I’d done something bad, or when bad things would go on around me, I used to pretend that I could hide my soul inside my cross and keep it safe. I panic when I even think about taking it off. It’s engraved in my head that I have to keep my soul safe.”

When she looked up, a tiny tear clung to her cheek. I kissed it away before kissing her. When I pulled back, she smiled down at me.

“I’d never let anyone take your soul. It’s too precious… You’re too precious.”

This time, she kissed me and I let her, but just when my body relaxed into her, she suddenly pulled away from me, leaving my lips burning and my breath stuck. She stared up at me in confusion and then as if released from a spell, she jumped up, her eyes wide with fear and her breathing deep and fast, as if she were in a panic.

“Oh my God, my dad’s going to kill me.” She gripped her cross with one hand and pawed at the door to open it with the other.

A salty breeze wafted into the car when she finally pushed it open. I followed behind her and my shoes sank into the thick sand beneath our feet.

“Don’t freak out. This is my fault. I’ll tell him it’s my fault.” I tried to calm her.

“No, this is my fault. I knew better than to leave the movies, but I did it anyway. Please, Finn, just take me home. I might as well face the firing squad. It might be a while before we get to see each other again, though.”

Panic seized me. I hadn’t thought about the consequences of my actions the night before. I never really thought about consequences ever, but not thinking was biting me in the ass. Because I’d practically forced her to the leave the movies the night before, I’d made it ten times more difficult to be able to see her. Of course once her dad knew she was with me, he was going to forbid her to see me again. I had to remember that I wasn’t dealing with the girls from around my way, whose parents didn’t give a shit about them.