“You’ll see.”

Sig takes my hand and leads me back to the bench that I sat on while watching them play Frisbee today. It’s bathed in moonlight rather than bright sunshine now and it looks hauntingly beautiful, sitting here all alone in the night.

When he stops in front of it, I look up at him in question. He sits down and spreads his legs, pulling me between them.

“Every time I looked at you today, all I could think about was what you’d look like naked, with the sun pouring over your beautiful breasts, your face tipped up toward it, riding me, coming on me. And letting me come in you.” He reaches beneath my short, ruffled skirt and pulls my panties down. “Tell me, Just Tommi, are you on the pill?”

When I feel his hand travel back up my thigh, I reflexively spread my legs. “You don’t have to worry about me getting pregnant.”

“Mmmm,” he says when his fingers find my center. “That’s what I thought. And I’m sure you’ve been tested, right?”

“Yes,” I whisper, my breath already coming shorter. “Regularly. You?”

“Yes, ma’am. Nothing to worry about here. So how about this?” he asks, driving two fingers into me. “How about you let me love you in the moonlight instead?” As he speaks, he withdraws his fingers and urges me toward him until I climb onto the bench and straddle his hips. He unfastens his jeans and then reaches for the laces that hold the front of my shirt together, loosening them enough that it slides easily down my shoulders. He unhooks my lace bra, baring my breasts for him. “Damn, you’re even more perfect than I imagined you’d be. Skin like silk.” He strokes the skin of my chest, teasing the swells of each breast, bringing my nipples into throbbing points. “Nipples like candy.” He draws one into his mouth, his free hand moving the head of his cock between my folds. I feel my body squeezing, a silent plea for the penetration that I know is coming. “A pussy like nothing I’ve ever had before.”

At the end of that sentence, like punctuation, he pulls me down over him like a human sheath. The feel of him sliding into me, smooth as glass, is indescribable.

“God, you feel amazing. Like I knew you would.”

Gently, he urges me up and down in him. Slowly. So slowly, it’s maddening. When I would rush, he won’t let me. When I would drop harder, he won’t let me. He continually moves me on top of him in a deep, languorous rhythm that pushes me steadily, infuriatingly toward release.

Sig leans forward, worshipping my nipples, my neck, the curve of my arm, like he can’t get enough of me. He murmurs words about how beautiful I am, about how he loves the way I taste, the way I feel, about he could never tire of being inside me.

When climax finds me, it finds us both. We move together in a rhythm that never changes, only intensifies, until I am breathlessly calling his name over and over and over, and he’s jerking in my arms, spilling every last once of himself deep within me.

We sit, motionless, for several long minutes after the last waves have passed. Sig doesn’t release me, doesn’t lessen his hold one bit. And I don’t want him to. Something about the way he’s keeping me folded against him makes me think that I will remember this night long after I might’ve forgotten the others. Even though another voice mutters from the far recesses of my soul that I won’t be able to forget a single moment of my time with him. But somehow I know that there will be a significance to this time that I’ll carry with me forever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX- SIG

It’s Sunday and, despite the easy smile she’s wearing, I know Tommi is as aware of Tonin’s return tonight as I am. The fact that we don’t have an exact time is unnerving as hell. I feel like we’re both just waiting for the axe to fall.

Travis seems to be enjoying the last couple of days. I know it’ll be hard on him when Tonin comes back, too. And that pisses me off. It’s not just Tommi that Tonin’s screwing with. It’s an innocent kid, too.

We finish our pancakes and head out to “Shoot the Hooch.” I promised Travis I’d take them tubing down the Chattahoochee today. We are well on our way to the closest entrance when Tommi’s phone rings. A silence steals over the cab of my truck and I know that we’re all thinking the same thing. And even though Travis doesn’t know everything that’s going on, he’s a bright enough kid to figure out that the way things have been will change dramatically when Tonin gets back.

Tommi glances at her phone and then up at me, her heart in her eyes. She looks almost frantic.

She turns her upper body away from me, clears her throat and answers the phone, plugging her other ear. “You back?” I hear her ask, a note of hopefulness in her voice. It’s pretty damn convincing, which bothers the shit out of me.

I don’t even try not to listen to each muted “yeah” and “uh-huh” and “I missed you, too.” It’s when I hear her say, “Today?” that I curl my fingers into a fist.

When she gets off the phone, I see her chest rise with a deep breath and she turns a disappointed face to Travis. “We’ll have to shoot the hooch another time, Trav. Lance is back and he wants to see me.”

“So? What about what you want?” he snaps.

“Travis, you know I–”

“Save it. Just take me home. I’ll go to Trip’s.”

“Travis, we can still go,” I offer.

“Just forget it. I wanna go home.”

On the way back, the atmosphere inside the truck couldn’t be any more different than it was five minutes ago. I could chew steel and spit nails, yet Tommi’s just sitting in her seat, quietly pretending this is all okay.

I drive them home in silence. When Travis gets out, Tommi turns to me, “I’ll be right back.”

I watch her walk stiffly to the front door and let them in. I watch her walk stiffly back to the truck fifteen minutes later, her hair flowing smoothly down her back, her body encased in a knee-length little dress that’s open halfway down her back.

I’m so pissed, I don’t say a word until we get to the garage. I cut the engine and we sit in the strained quiet until Tommi finally speaks.

“I have to go.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“I do. You knew this was how it would be. You knew it couldn’t last.”

“That’s your choice, not mine.”