“Still worth it,” he retorts, taking my taunt as permission to saunter deeper into my room. My bed dips, and when his body presses against mine, I’m shocked to find out he is naked except for his briefs. My eyes snap open, and I suck in a breath.

“Whoa,” I say. My hands shoot out to trace his collarbone, chest, washboard abs, and his V without even meaning to. Then they trail his bulging triceps, his tennis-balls of biceps, and all the delicious veins wrapped around them. Every inch of bronzed skin. “Escalation, Scully.”

“Skull Eyes.” His lips are already locked on mine when he speaks, and he is moving smoothly, thrusting his briefs against my clothed groin, even though I’m still in my jeans. “It’s done. So much dirt has been spilled tonight, yours is a drop in an ocean of sins. Don’t get on that plane tomorrow. Don’t fucking do this to us.”

Rather than answer him with my words, I answer him by thrusting my groin back against his erection. He moans and unbuttons my jeans, yanking them along with my panties down my legs and balling the fabrics, throwing them over his back. He then spreads my thighs and dips two fingers into me, curling them and taking them out, sucking on them hungrily.

“I’ve loved you in secret, and I’ve loved you openly in front of both our worlds, and if you think I’ll stop loving you if you put an ocean between us, you’re dead wrong.”

I cry out and arch my back when his fingers re-enter my body, chasing his touch as he fingers me mercilessly. My legs quiver around his arm, and I’m about to come when he stops and lowers himself down, throwing my legs over his broad shoulders. He sweeps his tongue up and down the length of my entrance, flicking against my clit every time he does.

“Oh, Penn. Marx, Penn.”

“Marx.” He laughs into me, thrusting his tongue deeper, penetrating me before licking me faster. “My favorite fucking word.”

He licks between my legs until no more air is left in my lungs. The desire is so sharp, the pleasure so profound, I stop breathing and brace myself for the storm that is the brewing orgasm inside me. When it finally crashes down on me, greater than any physical feeling I’ve ever experienced, he rises on his forearms and enters me in one go, filling me to the brim. I arch farther, clutching his back. He shuts up my moans with a dirty kiss that tastes and smells like me.

“Your dad killing me might be inevitable, but there’s no need to make it happen prematurely.”

I laugh as he starts moving inside me without a condom or a care in the world. I’m on the pill, but he doesn’t know that. I’m having crazy thoughts. Like maybe he is doing this on purpose. Like maybe he wants to chain me down to this place. Like maybe I should stay. And it makes my heart laugh through the tears because it’s too late.

We move seductively, kissing and biting and breathing each other in. I can taste the goodbye on my tongue, and it’s bittersweet. Wonderfully tragic.

I caress his face, his jaw, his lips. I will miss you.

I study every inch of his beautiful face. I will never forget you.

His hands roam and mine caress. This was so much more than first love. It was first hate, too.

And when he empties inside me, I don’t even mention what we did was irresponsible and wrong. I know he is doing it to keep me in his messed-up, desperate way. So I just kiss him long and deep and hard.

“I’m staying the night,” he tells me, hugging me close to his chest. Our hearts are beating in unison. I squeeze his hands under mine.

“My dad really is going to kill you.” I chuckle, bumping my shoulder into his. “Come on. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Promise?” he asks.

“Promise,” I lie.

I breathe your name

Hoping to fill my lungs

With more than just air

The ER doctor unwraps my hand from all the ice packs and observes the red-blue thing that’s swollen to five times its usual fucking size.

“How’d it happen?” The middle-aged, white-haired man scrunches his nose. I know, asshole. It looks nasty, but you ain’t a sight for sore eyes, either.

Via flinches at the question because she already knows the answer.

How did it happen? Let’s see. This morning, I woke up with my dick still smelling like the girl I love. Instead of going to the bathroom to brush my teeth and take a piss, I launched straight into her room to wake her up with an orgasm and my face between her legs, only to find out she wasn’t there anymore.

The stack of suitcases by her door was gone, and so was the girl herself. The only things she left behind were her new and ugly drywall, the sea glass necklace I gave her, and a rusty, tin heart turned human, which she manages to somehow, against all the odds, break a thousand fucking times, over and over again, to a point where I’m still not sure how it is beating.

“He was…he got angry. Lost his cool and punched a wall.”

“A concrete wall?” the doctor asks. Is he a wallanitarian or something? Why does he give a fuck about the wall?

Via nods. I still hate her, but no one else was in the house to drive me to the ER. I sure as hell couldn’t drive myself with the state of my hand, and now it’s pretty clear that I’ve broken a few fingers by the way they hang off my hand. Perfect timing. A day after the last game of the season.

The doctor is talking, explaining to me what happens next. I sit on the white bed in the white room in a hospital that looks more like a fancy hotel and don’t even pretend to listen. My thoughts drift to the house I’m coming back to. A house that is going to feel so empty without her.

Twelve hours later, we’re discharged, and my hand looks like it’s gloved and ready for boxing. When we pull in front of the Followhills’ mansion, I don’t want to go inside. But I don’t want to be that pussy-ass broken guy who can’t deal with the fact his girl just doesn’t want him anymore.

The minute we get in, Melody runs toward us. Her face looks like what my wrapped hand did a few hours ago. Red and swollen.

“Where’ve you been?” She charges at both of us. She’s obviously back from the airport, which means it’s done.

Good, Skull Eyes. Fucking perfect. Watch me rip out all my shirts and walk around shirtless for the remainder of my life.

I’m so tired of the lies and the secrets that I straight up walk past her and open the fridge, taking out a pitcher of iced tea with my healthy hand.

“When I found out your daughter left, even though she promised me she wouldn’t, I got a little creative as far as how anger management goes. In other news, you probably need some work done on your garage wall.”

“Penn.” She gallops toward me, shaking her head. Via is retreating to her room, still staring at us, wide-eyed. She knows better than to assume I’ll fess up to any emotion while she’s around. That shit between us will be much harder to fix than the wall.

As soon as Via’s not around, Mel hugs me. I let her, solely because she is partly Daria in DNA, and I’m a glutton for punishment. I can still smell her daughter on her clothes, which doesn’t make any sense. Knowing Daria, she didn’t hug her mother goodbye today.

“Where is she, Mel?”

She shakes her head in the crook of her neck.

“She doesn’t want anyone to know. I’m sorry. She wouldn’t even let me come with her to help her settle in.”