“You disappointed me,” he says, his voice eerily familiar.

I can only offer a small nod, too frightened to speak. I’ve never been more scared in all my life. It’s one thing to know you won’t live forever. It’s quite another to face your mortality and know it’s over.

“You haven’t lived your life like I expected you to.” He pauses, his breathing heavy, the mood, the darkness that surrounds us, foreboding. “You failed so many people.”

“I know.” My voice cracks and I clear my throat. I feel like I’m seven years old again. Facing the facts that my dad doesn’t care about me and that my mom is bitter and angry all the time. That I have no one in my life who is pure and good, with the exception of Danny and Jenny.

I love them like they’re my own family. And I failed them both. I know who this mystery demon is referring to. I don’t need the reminder.

“Look at me,” the voice commands and I glance up, surprise rendering me completely still when he sheds his hood and reveals that it’s Danny who’s standing before me. “You let me down. Then you let my sister down.”

I was so scared, and all along it’s just been Danny standing there. Trying to intimidate me and make me feel bad. For the first time since I can remember, I’m angry. Furious that he’s trying to blame me for everything.

Is it really all my fault? Have I been wrong all this time, carrying the guilt around like a shackle around my neck, constantly weighing me down?

“You weren’t supposed to sign up for the Marines without me,” I point out to him indignantly. We were supposed to do it together. We’d planned it all out, set up a meeting time and everything.

Then my dad showed up, offering me the opportunity I knew would change my life. I’d been so excited to tell Danny, to include him in my good news. We could run the restaurant in Southern California together. Finally we would be able to leave that crap town, have all the women we could ever want, and find success.

Instead, I discovered that he went ahead and signed up without me. No way was I going now. He was furious with me. Disappointed that I wouldn’t go with him.

And then he went away and ended up dead.

“I did what I had to do,” he says solemnly, his expression hard. Completely unreadable. Though his features are the same, he looks nothing like my best friend. The friend I still miss terribly.

“So stop blaming me for your death,” I say, my voice rising.

“Stop blaming yourself,” he returns. Sighing heavily, his gaze narrows as he studies me, his eyes so dark they almost appear black. “It’s not your fault, what Jenny did.”

He called her Jenny. I feel like we’re teenagers again, taunting her with the nickname she one day out of the blue deemed childish and silly. We kept calling her Jenny for a solid year just to aggravate her, until their mother finally stepped in and asked us to stop.

So respecting her wishes, we did. I always missed calling her Jenny, though. It’s a sweet name, for a sweet girl. Who’d eventually grown up into a sweet and sexy woman.

A woman who sold her body and performed sexual acts for money.

Fuck. I can’t get over it.

“You need to get over it,” Danny says, as if he can reach inside my thoughts. “Sometimes, we’re put into situations we don’t know how to get out of. She didn’t know how to ask for help. She thought she was doing what was necessary to survive.”

“I don’t know if I can let it go,” I confess, hanging my head in shame. Who am I to judge? I’ve done many things I’m ashamed of. And Jen has never judged me for any of them.

“Do you love her?” Danny’s voice is fierce, and I glance up to see his expression is thunderous. He looks as if he wants to reach out and choke me.

I take a step back, stunned by his reaction, by his words. “I . . . yes. I do.” Fuck. The admission staggers me so much my knees threaten to buckle. Reaching out, I brace my hand on the wall, breathing deep, trying to calm my racing heart.

“Then fight for her. Tell her how you feel.”

“I can’t.” The words fall from my lips, broken and sad. I fall to my knees, unable to hold myself up any longer. “I want to but I can’t. I said things that hurt her. I might not be able to get past what she did.” Despair consumes me, blinds me. “I’ve ruined it between us.”

Danny kicks at my chest, forcing me to look up at him. I feel small. Powerless. While he’s so tall and commanding, standing over me, radiating power and strength.

But he’s dead, I remind myself. How can he be stronger than me when he’s been dead for nearly two years?

“You keep acting like this and you’ll ruin it,” he says, his voice like a hiss. “If you can’t let go of the past, let go of everything you’ve done and everything she’s done and focus on the here and now, then I can’t save you. She can’t save you either. You need to live for the present. You and her together.”

“I’m afraid she hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She could never hate you.” Danny smiles and shakes his head. “She loves you. She’s loved you for years. You’ve been blind to it all this time.”

The realization hits me square in the chest. Jen loves me. I’ve ignored her, treated her like crap, smothered her with too much attention, f**ked her, yelled at her and called her a whore, and she loves me.

I don’t deserve her.

“I don’t deserve her,” I cry, repeating my thoughts. “I don’t deserve any of the love she feels for me.”

Danny kicks me again, his smile growing. “You really believe that? Then fine. You’re right. You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve anything good in your life. You’re a worthless piece of shit who won’t amount to anything.”

I open my mouth, ready to protest, but no sound comes out.

“That’s right. Don’t bother arguing with me because you know it’s true.” He bends down, his face in mine, his dark eyes staring at me as though he can see that I’m nothing. “Worthless. Just like your father. Just like your mother always said.”

“No!”

“Worthless.” He’s starting to chant, his voice grating on my nerves, and I clamp my hands over my ears, trying to tune him out. But it’s as if his voice has insinuated itself into my brain and it’s all I can hear. “A no-good, stupid loser. Didn’t your mother use to say that about your father?”

“I’m nothing like him,” I protest.

“You’re everything like him. You even look like him. You’re doomed, Colin. You are turning into your father.” Danny kicks me yet again, straight in the gut this time, and I keel over, clutching my ribs. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I wake up with a jolt, my eyes flashing open, seeing nothing but darkness. My lungs ache with my labored breathing and my entire body is shaking.

Fuck. What a dream! Like nothing I’ve ever had before.

“Sshh.” A soft, sweetly familiar voice breaks the silence and then I feel her. Her hands slide soothingly over my body, down my chest, pressing against my heart. “You’re okay. It was just a dream.”

Fuck. It’s Jen. After everything I said and did to her, that she would still come to my bed and try to comfort me is . . . overwhelming.

I’m nothing but a selfish asshole, while she constantly gives and gives and gives. And all I do is take.

You give to her too, jackass. You might not let her know exactly how you feel about her but you’re always there. You always want to take care of her.

Yeah, I need to work on that—if she’ll still let me.

I slip my arms around her waist before she can make her escape. I’ve never been more grateful to find her in my bed. She feels damn good, her long, bare legs tangling with mine, her hair brushing against my chin. I breathe deep her scent, holding it, wishing I could keep it with me at all times.

“Was it a bad one?” she asks as she wraps her arms around me and hauls me in close. “You called out my name.”

“I did?” I don’t remember doing that in the dream, but hell. It was all happening so fast, Danny’s words coming at me, carving me up and destroying me like lethal weapons.

“Yeah.” She sighs against my bare chest, I feel the gust of warm breath, and like a bastard, my body tightens in response. “You sounded angry. And sad.”

I definitely experienced both emotions in my dream. But I want to forget them, push them aside and focus on the woman I have in my arms at this very moment.

The woman I love.

“Jen, I need to say something to you.” I take a deep breath, ready to launch into an apology, a plea, to offer her whatever words I can to convince her to stay and never leave me again.

“Don’t. Please.” She shifts up, her fingers pressing against my mouth to silence me. “There’s no need to say anything. I know how you feel.”

The hell she does. I part my lips, fully intending to forge on, but before I can get a word out she replaces her fingers with her mouth and kisses me.

Just like that, I’m lost. In the taste of her soft, hungry mouth, in the feel of her warm, slender body. I roll over onto my back and she follows, lying on top of me, our mouths searching, our tongues seeking.

“Make love to me,” she whispers against my lips. “One last time, Colin. Please.”

One last time? If I have anything to say about it, this is just the beginning. I want to tell her that. I need to tell her how I feel but she’s kissing me again, long, hot, drugging kisses that push all rational thought out of my brain, and I’m done for.

Jen

I know I shouldn’t do this, but I want just one more chance with him before I go. That’s all I’m asking for. I know that together, we’re not going to work. He can’t deal with my past and what I’ve done. I can barely deal with it, so how can I expect acceptance from him?

I’d lain awake forever, unable to sleep, my body too restless, my brain too busy with my thoughts, my worries. I heard him yell, though I couldn’t understand what he’d said. He sounded so angry, though. Until I heard him call my name.

And then he just sounded sad. Pitiful.

Unable to resist, I’d gone to him just like all the other nights I snuck into his room. He lay in bed clad in just his underwear, the sheets twisted around his legs, baring him to my gaze. His golden hair an absolute mess, the strain and worry his dream was causing him written all over his gorgeous face.

Without thought I slipped into bed with him, untangling the sheet and pulling it over the both of us. He turned to me in his sleep, as if he knew I was there and sought me out. My heart flipped over in my chest and I snuggled close to him, desperate to offer him the comfort he needs one last time.

“I love you,” I whispered against his chest, feeling safe knowing he wasn’t awake. “I wish you could see that and accept it.”

When he finally wakes up, he looks so pleased to find me in his bed that I know we’re going to have sex. I want it, literally crave feeling him move within me.

His kisses set me on fire. His hands are all over my body, touching me reverently, as if I am special. I believe that in his eyes, his mind, I am special, and the thought fills me with so much warmth, so much love, I almost want to cry.

I focus instead on him. On his beautiful body, the way he looks at me when I put my mouth on his in a hard, hot kiss. I kiss him everywhere, memorizing his every line and muscle with my lips, branding him as mine.

Because he is mine. We will belong to each other forever, even if we can’t be together.

I strip his underwear off with trembling fingers, touching him everywhere I can. His stomach, his legs, his erection. His hands shake when he reaches for me and helps me shed my clothes. Within minutes we are a tangled mess of arms and legs, our mouths fused, our bodies connected, as he pushes inside me. So deep, I cry out in pure, exquisite pleasure.

I asked him to make love to me, and God, he does, so perfectly. This isn’t a fast, hard coming together for us. He takes his time with me, as do I with him. His touch, his mouth and hands and fingers, are gentle, reverent, searching as they skim over my body, paying particular attention to all the right places. The spots he knows arouse me, give me so much pleasure I’m afraid I might fall completely apart far too soon. I feel worshiped, beautiful, loved.

Loved.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe I’m projecting my own feelings onto him, but I feel so completely connected to him in this very moment. As if he understands me and I understand him. That we’re able to toss aside all past hurts and mistakes and are both finally ready to focus on the here and now.

Wishful thinking, I suppose, since I know it’s not true. But I can’t help it.

And when he moves inside me so deep, deeper, until he’s a complete and total part of me, my orgasm slowly takes over, washing over my skin, through my veins, pulsing through my bones. It feels like an awakening. A realization. My breath lodges in my throat, my belly flutters, and my heart threatens to leap out of my chest.

I’ve never felt so lost, so found, so utterly . . . confused.

So fitting. I’ve been confused when it comes to Colin since the day I met him.

“I hate that I’m taking part in this,” Fable whispers to me when I meet her at the curb in front of Colin’s house. She’d driven Drew’s truck over to pick me up. I’d texted her hours ago, basically begging her to do it. She agreed, no questions asked, but now she’s balking. Can I blame her? It’s five in the morning, the sun isn’t even up yet, and I’m leaving like a thief in the night.