This is an alternate scene from SEDUCED - the prequel to the Lost in Oblivion series. In the original book, this scene was in Nick’s point of view. This is how things went in Jazz’s point of view.

Jazz stared at the closed door of the apartment Nick, Simon and Deacon shared. What was she doing here? She could’ve just called. Instead she’d asked to borrow Gray’s car since hers was on the fritz again and rather than driving to get a salad as she’d planned, she’d ended up at the Fluff ‘n Fold laundromat. Ended up at Nick’s, though she was pissed at him. At herself, for not having any self-control.

For having too much.

She had to be at the waffle house early tomorrow. Coming here wasn’t smart. If she turned around now, she could still get her salad and return Gray’s car. Maybe they’d be able to talk before he went to work—

Yeah, right. Fat chance.

She knocked and eased open the door, then peeked inside to see a bare-chested Nick sprawled on the couch. It was some chest, coiled with muscle and sprinkled with blond hair that led down to the colorful dragon tattoo that scrolled over his torso, but that wasn’t the only reason her heart sped up. The fading bruises on his body somehow matched the way he looked. He’d set his mouth in a hard line and his jaw clenched tight. Frustration poured off of him in waves.

Over her? Over the band? Some from column A, some from column B?

“Hey, you got any—” His features relaxed as soon as his golden brown eyes landed on hers. Drawing his legs up, he tapped the end cushion with his toes. “Oh, hi. Come in. I’ve been calling you all night.”

“I know. I wasn’t ready to talk.” Jazz stepped inside Nick’s spartan living room and tried to keep her feet moving forward even when everything inside her said to turn and run. She edged around the coffee table and sat on the lumpy couch near Nick’s bare feet. Her gaze lingered there for a moment. A guy with bare feet always seemed more vulnerable to her. More exposed. He could have his pants off and it never hit her in quite the same way.

Nick sipped some chunky blue stuff from a bottle with a masking tape label—protein boost. He seemed plenty energetic to her. Certain parts especially.

She searched for something to say. Nothing came.

He set the bottle aside and rubbed his palms on his pajama pants. They looked like they’d been run through the washer on high a few too many times. If they had any more holes, she’d get an eyeful of more than he intended. Or maybe not. Nick obviously had a lot more experience than she did and didn’t mind flashing it around.

Then again, who didn’t have more experience? Nuns and elementary school kids, probably.

“I’m sorry.” His cautious tone made her look at her hands. “I have no defense for what I did.”

“Are you just messing around with me to get at Gray?” she asked, hating that she had to ask.

Thinking that what she’d shared with Nick could just be part of some macho posturing thing made her back crawl. She wasn’t the kind of girl to just get naked with anyone, even if some people believed her clothes and her up-for-anything attitude said otherwise.

“Are you?” he returned, not answering her question.

Answering it unintentionally.

She fought to keep her shoulders from coming up. How could he even think she’d use him? They were just getting to know each other in a very unique situation—bands were like marriages, without the vows—so maybe she needed to spell things out a little more. “No. I don’t have any reason to hurt him or make him jealous. It’s not about that with us. He just gets overprotective—”

“Jazz.” He took her hand and she fought not to yank it back. Whenever people used that slow, careful tone with her, it knocked her right back to her years in foster care when she’d been talked down to so often she might as well have stayed on the pavement. “He told me it was more than that. At least from his side.”

A breath exploded from her lips. Was it from fear? Relief? Excitement? God, all three probably. “What exactly did he say?”

“You have to see how he looks at you,” Nick said, not answering her yet again. Making her think Gray hadn’t really said much of anything at all.

Figured. Another dream crushed. She’d had so many damaged, it was amazing she ever got her hopes up about anything anymore.

In spite of her reluctance to cling to him—to anyone—she wrapped her fingers more tightly around his, taking comfort from his strength. After so many years around Gray, she was pretty sure she could identify a guitarist’s fingers from feel alone. The callouses on their fingerpads, the flexibility of their joints. “What do you see?”

“He wants you. He…he loves you. And not as a brother, not even in any of those places where brother and sister get way too close.”

She laughed, leaning closer to him to see more of his smile. He always hid half of it, turning his face away so you never got the full power all at once. “I still think you’re reading more into it than is there. He’s had all these chances to tell me and he never has. He doesn’t say jack to me. He’s just possessive.”

Nick grunted. “Possessive. Right. If I didn’t basically dislike him on principle for hijacking my band, I’d dislike him more for making me feel guilty over you,” he added, evidently unaware that she’d lost the thread of the conversation in her quest to put together both sides of his mouth. It was a little crooked. She liked that. Flaws were so much more fascinating than perfection.

“I know, I know.” She sighed. “You want to fuck me. We colored in those pictures already.”

“We haven’t colored in that picture. I’d remember, I’m pretty sure.” When she laughed again, he turned over her hand and traced a circle on the inside of her palm. His touch buzzed like an electric toothbrush, setting off tingles under her skin. “You grew up together. You and Gray.”

Some families adopted stray dogs, Gray’s just preferred stray kids. They’d washed her up, brushed her hair, put her in pretty clothes. She still carried the grime deep down, where fancy soap and shampoo couldn’t reach. Wild hair dye and smoky makeup made her grin when she looked in the mirror, but they didn’t alter anything beneath the surface. She was still that clown pretending to be happy. Doing a damn good job of it too.

“Since we were teenagers, yeah. His parents took in fosters, and I was one of them.”

“So you guys got close?”

“Yeah. Gray was different back then. Not the way he seems now. He used to crack jokes constantly. No one could make me laugh like he did.” She wrapped her free arm around the knee she pulled up to her chest. She couldn’t stay still. “We used to sit in the backyard and play together for hours.”

“With or without clothes?” Nick’s teasing question barely reached her ears.

Now that she’d summoned the past, the reality of Nick and his living room dissolved like smoke. The memory materialized in her mind, so vividly she could hear the birds chirping in the trees and the flutter of palm trees. Grass as soft as a baby’s blanket stretched out for miles under her bare legs, and she sat next to her beautiful best friend, the guy all the girls wanted to date. His long dark hair fell down his back, tangled in loose waves from the salty ocean water they’d swam in that afternoon. Eyes as gray as the fog in San Francisco she’d always wanted to see beamed into hers, filled with a happiness she’d only found in music.

And him.

“When are you going to take me to San Fran?” she asked suddenly, sliding her guitar between her knees so she could scoot closer to Gray. She laid her head on his bony shoulder, breathing in his cologne of teenage boy sweat and sunshine more greedily than the summer breeze. Oxygen didn’t make her giddy. He did.

But that was her own little secret, one she wouldn’t even tell her diary. She’d found the closest thing to happiness she’d ever known with Gray’s family. No way would she mess it up because of the stupid, pointless thing she had for the guy who was kind enough to be nice to her. She was sure he wouldn’t appreciate his foster sister bothering him with a dumb crush.

Gray was a year older than her, sixteen to her fifteen, and those three-hundred-sixty-five days could’ve been a lifetime. He drove around in his sexy convertible with his guitar in the back while she waited to borrow his mom’s sedan to take her oh-so-exciting learner’s permit out for a spin with Gray’s mom securely at her side. He also took out girls in that car and brought them home when his parents were away. Girls with long blonde hair that touched their perfect bubble butts and puffy lips that looked like they’d been pumped up with air. He brought them inside, laughing with them like he laughed with her.

She didn’t do that with anyone else but him. Nothing was that funny, except when she was with Gray.

Every Friday night, she took up her station in the hall closet, waiting for her chance to learn about a world far removed from hers of band practice and math homework. She pressed her ear to the door and listened as he made the pretty blonde girls moan, whispering things in their ears she so desperately wanted to hear.

She’d bet he wasn’t kidding around about the Bourne movies like he’d done with her last night.

“When do you want to go?” Gray asked, tickling her ear with his warm, sickly sweet breath. They’d shared a hot fudge sundae at the beach, then tossed around the Frisbee and chased Kizer, Gray’s golden retriever, until she’d felt sick from laughing and running and eating so much. Even hours later her stomach still wasn’t quite right.

But that might’ve had something to do with the firm, rock-hard body she was leaning against. Did her best friend have to be that hot?

“I don’t know. Next summer, maybe?” She remembered Gray would be getting ready for college then and shook her head. “Never mind. You’ll be too busy with Berkeley prep.”

“What prep? I pack my bags and throw them in the car. It’s a couple hours away. No sweat.” He flicked her nose. “Let’s do it.”

“Really?” She knew she squealed like a little kid but she couldn’t help it. “Oh my God, it’ll be so awesome. We’ll be like real adults, out on our own—” She broke off and sighed. Dumbass, shut up already. Please? “Of course, you already will be, since you’re going to college and everything. Getting into Berkeley’s as good as it gets. Living your dream, all day every day.”

“My dream’s right here,” he said quietly, and she smiled as he nudged her guitar back into her hand. “Now stop fantasizing about traveling the world and try that chord again.”

Blinking her way back into the present day physically hurt. What hurt more? Looking down at Nick’s hand cradling hers and wishing like hell it was someone else’s. That the boy she’d loved so much still existed.

God, what kind of person was she?

“Him on his guitar, me on mine,” she whispered, pushing the words out. Every moment she’d shared with Gray stayed in the vault of her mind, away from the reality that had destroyed them. “I played that and the keyboards before I moved on to the drums. His mom got me my Sonor. I couldn’t believe she’d bought me something so kickass.” She smiled. “He’s the one who encouraged me. I hated going to class, so he helped me study. When I didn’t have a date for the dances at our fancy prep school because everyone thought I was weird with my lime green Kool-Aid-dyed hair and my obsession with band, Gray took me. He was my best friend.” Hearing herself, she shook her head. “Is.”

“What happened?” Nick asked gently as she clamped her hand around his. If she didn’t hold on tight, he would slip away too. “Why did he change?”

“There were a couple reasons, I think. Maybe more than I know. It’s not like he’ll tell me.” Restlessly, she rubbed their joined hands over her thigh. “Things were different when we were in Montecito. I lasted at Gray’s place a couple of years, longer than I’d managed to anywhere else. I always was that kid with behavioral problems, you know?”

“Yeah.”

From the flatness of Nick’s tone, maybe he really did understand. “No one gave a shit about my past, how it had messed with my head. And Gray’s family seemed so great. They cared about me. Or at least that’s what I thought. They’re mondo rich and stable, but there were…other issues.”

“Like what?”

She pulled her leg underneath her and stared at some spot on the floor. “Gray’s older brother tried to rape me,” she said in a monotone, focusing on the spot. What was it? Alcohol? Food? Some gross bodily fluid?

Knowing the boys of Oblivion, she’d go with the bodily fluid. Probably Simon’s. Gag.

“Tried?” Nick’s voice never wavered. “He didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Gray stopped him.” She bit her lip and scarcely felt the pain. “Both times.”

“Jesus. And you wonder why the dude’s protective of you?”

“No, I don’t. I’m protective of him too. I would kill anyone who hurt him or even tried to—” Shaking her head, she closed her eyes. “He’s not how he used to be. Everything changed when we left his parents’ place together. He stopped being the funny, happy guy I knew. The one I loved. He suddenly started trying to be my father. Always watching me to make sure I didn’t do anything too wild or crazy. Getting mad at the kinds of guys I wanted to date, saying they were all assholes who only wanted one thing.”

“Well, hate to burst your Kool-Aid-colored bubble, sweetness, but they probably did.”

“You think that’s all I’m good for?” The confirmation of what she’d suspected all along—that her main value was as a piece of fresh pussy, only good as long as she put out—made her want to spit. “A quick fuck?”

“Never said anything about quick,” he mumbled, and she smiled because at least it was honest. Whatever Nick Crandall was, he told the truth.

That attracted her as much as the simple fact that he didn’t know her past. To him, she was just Jazz the happy, vapid bunny who played her ass off and showed it in little skirts. That was what she wanted people to see.

She’d never convince Gray she was that shallow. He’d had the key to the real her for almost a decade now. If she let him inside her any more, he’d gain access to everything. He would own her.

She toyed with the hole on the knee of her jeans. Poking her finger through again and again. Making it bigger. “When I met you, I knew he’d hate it if I started anything with you. But you actually talk to me. You see who I am. Gray just wants to keep me in a box. Safe. Protected. As good as dead.” She sighed and gestured to her lap. “Why do you think I got that crazy piercing? It’s not like I let just anyone down there, and a complete stranger pierced me. But I wanted to rebel so fucking bad.”

She still was trying to rebel. Still trying to be a naughty girl who could blow Nick without compunction like she had last week, because hey, she didn’t have panties on and didn’t care what she did where. Reality was that she often shed her underwear after a show due to extreme heat exhaustion. If she could’ve gotten naked legally, she would have.

And her amazing BJ talents? Honed on a banana in high school at lunch in the cafeteria to entertain her few friends and practiced on the few boyfriends she’d had since.

Hell, even her piercing was a joke. When she thought about the day she’d gotten her VCH, she still blushed. She’d tried so hard to be brave and badass and instead she’d nearly sobbed the instant the needle had touched flesh. As soon as she’d returned home afterward, she’d researched infections and sat all night with a bag of ice cubes on her crotch. Real attractive.

Gray was probably right to be so careful with her. He’d witnessed how well she took care of herself when she was out of his sight. But him wanting to shepherd her like a misguided lamb wasn’t the same as him seeing her as an equal. As the woman who’d loved him longest and best, more than anyone knew.

“You’re the first real taste of freedom I’ve had. When it’s just you and me, I can breathe. I like you, Nick. This isn’t a game to me.” She clutched him tighter and cast her gaze at their joined hands. It was nice to have physical contact with someone again. She hadn’t touched Gray in forever. He’d grown so tense that she feared laying one finger on him would make him shatter. “I’m not using you, I swear.”

She wasn’t. She couldn’t.

“I like you too.”

Nick’s statement barely intruded into her thoughts. “When we’re together, I don’t have to wonder what’s wrong with Gray. Between us, it’s just sexy and fun,” she continued, wrapping that version of the truth around herself like she’d once had Gray’s arms.

She wanted to add, right? You think I’m sexy and fun, don’t you? But she didn’t go there. Desperation was never sexy or fun, and she so urgently wanted to be that carefree girl she’d do whatever it took to breathe her into life.

Who she vehemently did not want to be was the foster child. The person who tore up families right and left. The woman who loved the one person who knew all the sides of her she ached to forget.

“Gray won’t talk to me anymore. Every time I try to figure things out, he shuts me down. Something’s not right with him, and I don’t know how to fix it.” She rubbed her eye, hard. Trying to erase Gray as she’d seen him that morning, up after another sleepless night, his eyes bloodshot and his skin seeming too small to contain his bones. “He walked away from his life for me. His family. And I’ll never be enough to—” She stopped.

Foster children weren’t ever enough. That’s why they got passed around more than a year-old fruitcake. Gray was a good person, but even he had to see the light eventually.

“He’s in love with you. That’s why he’s not right.” Nick brought her hand to his mouth, kissed the tips of her fingers. “You offer a man something he’s always wanted, hold it two inches from his nose, then deny him from having it, he’s gonna get a little crazy, baby.”

“I haven’t denied him anything,” she whispered. There wasn’t any part of her she would keep from Gray and that scared her more than all the rest. With a word, a look, she would be his. Then he would change his mind once he saw what he’d gotten with her, and she’d be utterly broken. “He’s never asked. He hasn’t ever said one word.”

Nick didn’t answer. He had to be disgusted with this conversation. She was too.

A sigh escaped her. She just couldn’t let the subject go. Dogs with their favorite bone were less tenacious than she was when presented with the slim, unbelievable hope that Gray might…want her. “Let’s say you’re right, that he thinks his feelings for me have gone beyond friendship. With everything that’s gone on in our history, with how he’s protected me, how could he ever be sure that it’s real?”

“I’m sure.”

Her heart stumbled to a stop. Her fingers went boneless in Nick’s. That wasn’t Gray’s voice coming through the door. It couldn’t be. He had no reason to be there.

Unless he followed you…

He’d met her at the salad shop a couple of times. She’d invited him tonight too, but he’d put her off. As usual. What if Gray had taken his work car to the salad shop and discovered she wasn’t there? He would figure she’d go to Nick’s next, especially after that show they’d put on in the isolation booth that afternoon.

God.

Then the doorknob turned and Gray walked in, his eyes solely on her. Nick’s fingers tightened around hers before flexing and relaxing. He was going to let her go.

“I followed you,” Gray said, answering the question she didn’t have balls or breath to ask. “You borrowed my car to come here?”

Gray shut the door and placed a hand on the wood above his head, standing there so long that her heart leaped into her throat. What would he do? Start a fight with Nick? With her? She wanted to jump up and go to him, just rest her cheek against his back and tell him everything was okay, that she was sorry, even if she wasn’t sure why. They weren’t a couple. He’d never said anything to make her think he wanted more.

Gray turned and strode to the couch, his gaze colliding with hers. Holding it as he knelt in front of her, his Adam’s apple rising and falling with every breath. So much was shared between them in that single glance that she feared she’d start to hyperventilate. She clenched Nick’s hand, unable to move a muscle. Waiting. Always waiting.

When Gray finally leaned toward her, her spine locked up in abject panic. She couldn’t do this. She had to.

His mouth clashed with hers, the softness of his lips in complete opposition to how wildly he kissed her. He didn’t give her a chance to open for him, just forged his way in and seized her tongue, sucking ferociously. The pulse in her throat bolted between her thighs, throbbing there. Making her so hot and wet.

Her brain whirled, her thoughts colliding and tumbling over themselves. She didn’t understand this. She and Gray were alone every day. If he’d wanted to kiss her before, why wait until now? Why do it in front of Nick, who he hated?

Understanding whispered through her mind as Gray’s hands dropped to the bottom of her shirt. The reason he was doing this now, this way, obviously wasn’t about her. Or them. He was using her as leverage in his war with Nick. They’d fought over the band, now they were going to each take one of her arms and pull.

If she had any self-respect, she’d push Gray’s hands away from her shirt and get up and leave. She didn’t. Maybe it made her weak, but if this was the only way she’d get a crack at him, she’d take it. At least part of him would be open to her again, instead of closed as he’d been for so very long.

And if Nick wasn’t crazy, if Gray really did have feelings for her…perhaps this could even be some kind of beginning for them. Somehow. She’d had to take the chance.

Gray tugged up her shirt and over her head, breaking her link with Nick. Before she could come to terms with the fact that she sat naked from the waist up in front of two guys—two guys she cared about a lot, in very different ways—Gray was on the move again, his fast fingers flicking over the clasp of her bra. Springing it open, pushing it down her arms.

Goose bumps rose over her skin despite the heat of the day. She felt so exposed, so uncertain. Did he like what he saw? Did Nick? Being with one guy was nerve-racking enough. Two was almost more than she could bear.

Gray’s eyes fired, the gray warming from that arctic chill she’d seen way too long. Then he gripped her cheek and yanked her mouth to his, plunging his tongue between her lips with the same speed he did everything else. They kissed until her breath ran out and her limbs shook from her excitement and need. Easing her back, he looked into her eyes, deeply enough to see everything she hid from the world. The desire she saw made her move back from him, toward the other man who’d shifted away.

Since this twisted, territorial scenario was fueling Gray’s longing, she’d do her part to make him remember it.

Without letting herself think, she crawled into Nick’s lap and rubbed her hands over his chest, feeling the muscles bunch and ripple under her palms. Testingly, she brushed her breasts against his skin. Looking back at Gray, aching for that reassurance that she wasn’t reading this all wrong, she released a breath at his minute nod.

Yes, this was what he wanted.

She wanted it too. After so long of having no one touch her, she craved this. Two pairs of hands on her flesh might finally warm up the solid block of cold deep inside.

Jazz slipped her hand under the waistband of Nick’s pajama pants and gripped his cock, grateful that he was hard. Really hard. She’d been afraid she’d find him barely aroused. She was no pinup model. Yeah, she had curves, but they were as small as the rest of her. Compared with all the long-legged, summer-tanned-all-year-round blondes in her midst, her pale skin and petite features seemed horribly out of place.

But judging from Nick’s erection, he didn’t find her lacking. At all. Unless he was turned on by watching her and Gray make out…

A near-hysterical giggle tried to bubble out of her throat so she shimmied down Nick’s body to distract herself. She pulled out his length, startled a little to see the pearl of wetness at the tip. He really liked what was happening.

So did Gray.

Obviously she was the slow one. She took her mind off her worries and focused on how much she wanted to be touched. She was as tactile as a kitten, and she longed for those strokes even more than she wanted to come. Orgasms were easy. Feeling loved, cherished, wanted—even for an instant—that was precious.

Gray shifted behind her and she stiffened until his warm, rough palms covered her breasts. She couldn’t suppress a moan. God, this was what she needed. His hands on her. All over her. He licked her shoulder and she pressed back against him, pleading for more. Please touch me. Don’t stop. Ever again.

Nick ran his thumb between her breasts, sliding upward and easing his finger between her lips. Gray made some noise behind her, approval or disapproval, she didn’t know. She sucked on Nick’s thumb, closing her eyes to try to lose herself in the moment. Gray massaged her breasts harder, increasing the pulsing waves of heat through her core. He switched to stimulating her nipples, plucking them between his long fingers, causing her to arch and moan.

Nick undid her jeans and shoved them down. “Up,” he growled, the husky urgency in his tone prodding her to her feet.

She swayed and fought to get off her panties, jeans, socks and boots, her jerky movements faltering as Nick pulled open the drawer of a side table and took out some condoms.

A lot of condoms.

Enough to have more sex than she’d had in the whole of her life up to that point.

Behind her, Gray was getting naked too. Knowing he would be as vulnerable as she was helped steady her hands. It wasn’t the same for guys, of course, but it still helped. She was used to having him at her side, and he would be with her tonight as well.

Nick kicked off his pajama bottoms, pushing them down his long, athletic legs, and grabbed his cell phone to make a call. To Simon, maybe. They were best friends, she’d gathered. Like she and Gray had been once, though he’d never once called her his. She’d been the one to label everything, to try to make it more real. More hers.

Foster-kid syndrome reared its head in weird ways.

She didn’t look at Gray as they waited for Nick to return. When his hands encircled her waist, she leaned back into him, hoping he’d take the hint and bundle her up in his strong, safe arms. He drew her back toward the sofa, pulling her onto his lap with his typical gentleness in her direction. This time, though, his viciously hard cock dug into her butt and back as he parted her slick—God, so slick—thighs and put her on display for Nick while he chatted on the phone. Gray ran his thumbs up the sensitive insides of her legs, lightly skimming her skin, taunting her with what he might do next.

Gray’s long fingers met up with the piercing that caged her clit and his hand stilled. She sucked in a breath, too scared to move. Oh, God. Would he freak? Would he love it?

He grabbed her chin with his other hand, making her look at him. “What the hell is that?” he growled against her lips.

“I just—it’s only—” she began.

And then he was kissing her, so hungrily that she could only be grateful she hadn’t researched infections until after she’d gone through with the whole piercing deal. He groaned and she groaned back, reduced to that level of communication with him. They’d sunk to their most basic level, and she’d never felt more alive.

Nick tossed aside his cell and stalked forward, kneeling between her knees and staring up at her with a damn near worshipful expression on his face. Gray’s fingers finally climbed high enough to brush between her legs, his thumb slipping into her with a hesitancy that increased her need. She twisted in his hold, already feeling so hot and flushed. Shivery heat crept over her skin, dampening her with sweat that coaxed out more goose bumps. She couldn’t figure out if she were warm or cold, scared or exhilarated.

Turning her head, she closed her mouth over Gray’s, desperate to have more of him inside her than just that single invading thumb. He groaned again and pushed his fingers inside her. Using both hands, using two fingers, maybe three. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was they filled her up, almost too much. The stretch and burn increased her inability to sit still and she writhed, trapped by his hand, his mouth, and then, finally, Nick’s lips seizing one of her sore nipples. He gripped the other one, pinching it, and she grabbed Gray’s hard, tensed thighs to center herself in the center of madness.

Nick joined in the action between her legs, holding his thumb to her clit. Rubbing hard. The unexpected surge of friction overwhelmed her system and she fell, fast and deep. The sharp pinch of Nick’s teeth on her breast only prolonged the bliss.

She wasn’t fully aware of Gray lifting her, spreading her legs even farther apart. When she realized her ass was in the air, she glanced down and met Nick’s liquid golden brown eyes a second before his tongue pierced her. Still shuddering from her orgasm, she reached back and embedded her fingers in Gray’s short, spiky hair, needing that link with him even as Nick licked into her and fanned the flames once more.

As soon as Nick slipped his fingers into her, sliding them over oversensitive flesh, she broke again, lurching forward from the force of the aftershocks. In the midst, Gray’s fingers encircled hers, drawing her boneless hand to his erection, helping her pump him up and down with violent strokes. Her shudders increased at his groans, because she knew he wanted to come. On her back.

Not inside her.

Nick was already grabbing a condom, his anticipation over fucking her clear. But Gray chose not to. As hot as he’d gotten from all this, he wouldn’t go that far.

Warm, wet moisture erupted over her side, ending in Gray’s long, unsteady grunt. It didn’t sound like pleasure, but frenzied pain. So sharp and poignant it brought a sting to her eyes.

She glanced over her shoulder at the boy she’d known, now closer to a man with dark scruff roughening his jaw. His mouth soft and abused, his heavy storm cloud eyes barely slits. Before they could make eye contact, he closed them, leaving her to lift her fingers until they hovered above his beautiful lips, still reddened from their kisses.

No. He’d made his choice. He hadn’t wanted to be inside her, when she’d never wanted anything more. Even knowing the danger, she hadn’t cared. She was long past the point of sense.

Unlike him.

She settled for swiping her fingers through the heated wetness on her skin, bringing it to her mouth. Tasting him that way as a substitute for everything they wouldn’t share.

Her gaze caught Nick’s. Her contacts were burning her eyes. She wasn’t crying. And when Nick pulled her off Gray’s lap and into his arms, she didn’t wrap herself around him just to keep from falling apart. He was so strong and hot, his body firm under hers. Then he was inside her, and she couldn’t think about all she would never have because she had this.

Nick. He wanted her, and she wanted him right back.

He thrust into her again and again, the pumps of his hips deep and powerful, blurring the lines between wrong and right and love and loss. Pleasure claimed her once more, taking over her thoughts. Scattering them. She clung to Nick, riding him for all she was worth. Determined to return even half of what he’d offered her just by plainly revealing his desire.

Arching up, she gave herself over to the clamoring sensations inside her, throwing aside her torment in favor of the ecstasy she chased. She moaned, lost in the blinding heat. Sounds flew from her lips and with them came the name she’d never meant to say.

“Gray.”