“You’re dripping,” I breathed. It almost sounded like a cry.

She bucked her hips toward my hand, and I started fingering her, my dick pulsating against my briefs with every kiss and thrust.

I had Luna Rexroth in my bed. Well, technically, her bed. My fingers inside her pussy. Hot and sticky. Naked, save for the panties, which I nudged aside. The unlikely scene barely even registered, even before she did the unthinkable.

She put her hand on my dick through my briefs, curling her fingers around it.

“Please don’t do that,” I groaned into her neck, rubbing her clit with my thumb faster and faster. I was pretty darn proud of myself for finding the clit right from the get-go, seeing as how I’d never fingered a chick. I felt the little nub, and went to town on it. All the shit I knew about sex, I’d learned from porn, so I knew the clit was the end game, and that torturing her with fingering was stage one in chain-orgasms-landia. I did it all by the book. I was a good student, but I had no experience to think of, because I’d been waiting for her.

Only she hadn’t waited for me.

Nope. Your brain’s not gonna go there right now, asshole.

“Why not? Am I doing it wrong?” she half-moaned, half-pleaded.

A lot of football groupies begged for my cock, but it always sounded needy and annoying. It felt like a song coming from Luna’s mouth. Not a shitty song. Not something by Katy Perry. A classic. Dare I say it? An Elvis Costello song.

“Everything you do is perfect, Moonshine, but I don’t wanna come in my briefs .”

“Why not? Is it bad?”

I shook my head, sucking on her nipple. We were so inexperienced. So clueless. This. This was what I wanted. To figure it all out together. And even though I had the notion that coming in my pants was not the studliest trick in the book, I couldn’t hold back.

“Oh, fuck. Fuck.” Without thinking, I took her hand and shoved it into my briefs. Her little fist wrapped around the silky, hot length of me immediately, and she gasped.

“That’s what you do to me, Luna Rexroth.”

“I love it.”

I love you.

Of course, I wasn’t dumb enough to say this. Not when we were in a compromising position and she wouldn’t believe the words.

Her hips began to buck and grind against me, and her eyes popped open in shock. “I think I’m…”

Coming.

She was coming. I could see it on her face. The way her eyes rolled back and she let out little frantic, throaty moans that almost broke my dick in half from all the blood rushing through it.

Smugness spread across my chest like hot wax. It was so pathetic that this was the first orgasm I’d given someone other than myself. It was even more pathetic that by the astonished look on her face, I could see Josh hadn’t been so successful in hitting the big O, and that made me stupidly, ridiculously, tragically happy.

She came all over my fingers at the same time I came all over her hand in my briefs. I’d never come so hard in my life. I was pretty sure I lost a pound or three in the process. I just came and came and came, the stream never-ending. And she was still holding my hard cock in her fist. I pulled my fingers out slowly, still staring her dead in the eyes. Her heavy-lidded eyes flared when I slurped every single drop of pussy juice from my hand.

“You’re insane,” she whispered contently.

“I’m going to eat your cunt until you go numb with orgasms,” I quipped, serious as a heart attack.

It took us a few minutes to pull our shit together and get dressed. Luna combed her hair with her hands, cleared her throat, and dashed toward the door.

“Okay. Yeah. So. The tea and the broth. Oh, and the Advils. Coming right up.”

“Moonshine?”

“Yeah?”

“You already did all those things.” I motioned to the Advil pack and empty bowl and mug sitting on her desk. “You were going to get me a shirt.”

“Of course,” she mumbled. “I knew that, obviously.”

Flustered, she made a beeline to the door, bumping into a wall on her way out. She took her phone with her before she left the room, throwing an accusing look my way. I stayed in her bed, sniffing the scent of her pussy on my fingers and replaying what had just happened on a loop. Her nipples against my tongue. Her clit swelling against the pads of my fingers. I stretched, patting the nightstand for the Cartier I’d removed before I got into her bath yesterday. My hand rested on something. An envelope? A letter?

I knew a repeat offense of getting into her shit was going to get me kicked out of her life for good, so I practiced self-control. I reached for my watch. There. Good boy. But as I did, I couldn’t help but notice FUCKING JOSH’s name on the sealed envelope.

She writes him letters now?

I flung up, ramrod straight, grabbing the letter. Self-control, my ass. This wasn’t a goddamn chocolate cake. The letter was already sealed, so I had to work with what I had. I angled the envelope toward the rays of sun drifting in the window, as far away from me as possible, reading the text through the somewhat transparent, thin paper. I couldn’t make out much, but here’s what I did read clearly:

“…and I want you to know that, of course, I love you.”

Of course, she loved him.

Of course.

She loved him, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to hate her.

Something came to me then. A switch flipped in my brain. Luna and I were never going to be even as long as I was still holding my bullshit V-card for her. We weren’t equal.

FUCKING JOSH was always hovering over our head, just like Poppy.

Only difference was, I knew I would drop everything and be with her. I couldn’t say the same about Luna—especially with this fucking love letter to another guy in my hand…

Fury crackled in my veins, so hot it burned past my skin. My jaw locked, and I felt my teeth grinding. She loved him. I’d drunk her pussy juice like it was the nectar of the gods, and she pined for him, still.

As a friend.

As a lover.

Who the fuck cared?

Were they going to bump uglies as soon as she returned to Boon? There’s no way she would wait for me. She hadn’t before…

I merely passed her time until she got on a flight back home.

She must feel high and mighty, too, since she wasn’t exclusive with FUCKING JOSH and wasn’t technically cheating. I was. I was a goddamn cheater, something I’d hated with a passion.

No matter how pissed I was, this time I wasn’t going to be a pussy about it. I didn’t bail. I didn’t throw a fit. I just placed the envelope right where it belonged, pulled my sweatpants on, and waited for the stupid-ass shirt.

When Luna came back, I thanked her for the tea, the shirt, the soup, and the Advil. I kissed her nose, smiled, and got the hell out.

I was going to kill Luna with kindness.

And dance all over the grave of our friendship.

I spent the rest of my week either with Rosie or in the treehouse, working on Rosie’s project. Guilt gnawed at my gut for not telling Knight about what I was doing with his mom, about how she thought she wasn’t going to survive much longer.

There were better, nicer places to be than in the treehouse. But I went there because sometimes, in the afternoons, Knight would show up with a six pack of Bud Light. Although I could talk now, he still hadn’t asked for my words and was content with silence. I’d drink a beer. He’d drink five. He’d stare into the woods. I’d write and erase. Delete and rip papers from my notebook, working on his project unbeknownst to him.