“I’ll be spending the night with Simon,” Aaron spoke over his shoulder while shoving a T-shirt into his backpack. “So behave while I’m gone, okay?”

Ashton laughed. “When have I ever not behaved?”

“Oh, about seven, eight days ago, when you snuck into Dunk’s car and refused to get out?” He turned toward her, a smirking look of triumph on his face. “How about then?”

“Whatever.”

“Brilliant comeback, Little. Truly, how can I possibly respond to that?”

“Oh shut up. Don’t you have a boyfriend to bang?” She hid her smile, though it wasn’t easy. Aaron’s face, so often full of stress and strain in the days since they’d returned to his apartment, was finally relaxed.

“Don’t you have a best friend to seduce?” he threw back at her, a cocked eyebrow lending his face a mischievous look. “Specifically, my best friend?”

“What? No. No.” She shook her head emphatically, word vomit spilling forth. “No, why would I do that? That would be a terrible idea, we’re just friends, just like you and he are just friends, you know? He’s nice, I like him, but it’s not like anything is happening or is going to happen or whatever. You know.”

“Actually, no, I don’t. I have no fucking idea what you just said, but reading between the lines, it sounded a lot like, ‘I want to bang your best friend, brother, but I’m a giant ’fraidy cat.’ Thoughts?”

“Pfft.” Ashton released a breath and whipped her hand through the air to emphasize her skepticism. “That’s not—no.”

“Really? No? Are you sure?”

“So anyway, have fun tonight, A. Be safe. Use protection. And all that.”

Aaron rolled his eyes at her less-than-cool attempt to redirect the conversation. “Smooth. You know I’m not going to just let this go, right?”

“You will, unless you want to be late.” Ashton started to move backwards, edging her way out of the room, but instead of successfully completing her bid for freedom, she backed into a solid, hot something.

Someone.

Duncan’s breath was warm against her ear as he whispered, “Gonna let me pet you tonight, Kitten?” and Ashton all but melted against him. To her brother, he said, “Hey, man. You heading out tonight?”

“Yeah, Simon’s birthday.” He smiled, the depth of emotion he felt for his boyfriend obvious for all to see. “Take care of my sister, won’t you?”

A small squeak of surprise escaped Ashton, as Duncan’s chest shook with laughter, the feel of it along her back making her thighs want to clench.

Around him.

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that, man.” Duncan ran his hands down the bare skin of both of her arms, leaving in their trail an electric kind of feeling that added to her altogether weakened state.

She was T-minus sixty seconds from collapsing into a lust-fueled heap at his feet.

In an effort to preserve her wits—not to mention, regain control of her runaway hormones—Ashton took one step forward, threw a brief wave at her brother, then spun around and skirted past Duncan as she fled the room.

She needed a minute. Or ten. Maybe thirty.

No more than an hour.

Just enough time to plot her night alone with Dunk.

And research more boys’ names in the hopes of solving that mystery.

“Luthor.”

Duncan shook his head, his mouth too full of chocolate-topped popcorn to verbally shut down Ashton’s latest guess.

She was onto “L” names—having blasted through a few examples of each previous letter of the alphabet, but coming up empty. “Llama.”

“Fuck,” he said around his mouthful, eyes widening in surprise, making Ashton giggle. “How did you know?”

“Dunk.”

He raised a hand. “Hey, that’s Llama to you.” He smirked, swallowing the last of his popcorn before adding, “And my brother’s name is Alpaca.”

“You have a brother?” Ashton asked, narrowing her eyes as she tried to recall getting that information from him in any of the other conversations they’d had over the course of eight days.

“What, you’re fine with his name being Alpaca, but you’re annoyed I didn’t mention him before now?” He rolled his eyes, reaching into the bowl that sat between them on Ashton’s temporary bed. “Women. I’ll never fucking understand them.”

“Why do I feel like you’re not exactly being honest about your brother, Alpaca?”

“You’re right, I’m not. You caught me.”

“What’s his real name?”

“He is a she, as in, my sister. And I’m not telling. Once you figure mine out, I’ll let you in on that secret.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, making her giggles return, and she leaned in to push gently against his shoulder.

“Asshole.”

“Nope, that’s not it either. Though, I do probably get called that more than my real name.” He pulled at the neck of his shirt, as if hot under the collar, a look of “oh shit” on his face.

Ashton leaned in to push him again, but this time, he captured her elbow before she could rock back on her butt. They sat, facing each other, eyes locked, his hand gripping her elbow with enough strength to hold her in place—though she felt frozen, like she wouldn’t have been able to move even had he released her—but not enough to hurt.

“Ash,” he whispered, as he used his free hand to move the popcorn out of the way. “Ashton.”

“Llama,” she replied, just as quietly, a soft smile on her lips at their little joke.

“I love it when you call me that.” He was moving closer as he spoke, rearranging himself so his legs bracketed her body. Then, finally releasing her elbow, he placed both hands on her legs, guiding them from their cross-legged position, so they were bent up and over his.

He’d made it so her center was pressed intimately against his straining cock. Ashton closed what little distance remained between their bodies by wrapping her legs around him and bringing her arms around his neck.

“Kitten, can I kiss you?” he asked, his voice low, his mouth so near hers that she could feel his request as it floated across her lips.

“Yes. Please.”

She expected that her permission would be met with an immediate joining of their lips, but instead, Duncan surprised her, bringing his lips first to her forehead.

She sighed, loving the feel of his kiss. It was sweet and soft and still somehow sexy, and as he moved his lips to the tip of her nose, to her cheeks, to the lobes of her ears, then back to her forehead, she didn’t care what his name was.

He could be Llama or Asshole or Jeremiah.

He could be Sebastian or Walter or Paul.

He could be whoever the hell he wanted to be, as long as his lips stayed on her for as long as possible.

“Duncan,” she murmured, not wanting to break the moment, but wanting to say something, something, so he might know how he was affecting her.

He trailed more kisses over the plains of her face, until he stopped at the corner of her mouth.

The pause felt like it might last forever. Her eyes, which had fallen closed the moment he’d first kissed her forehead, flew open at the touch of his lips to hers. It was gentle but it burned—the heat so much, so good, that Ashton thought she might feel it for days.

Long after she left to go back to her school.

Maybe even forever.

Propelled by the thought of forever, and the fact that it was more than likely not in the cards for them, she pressed in harder, rolling her hips against his cock, letting her tongue slip past her lips to trace his.

His mouth opened, slowly, slowly, giving her the chance to deepen the kiss even more. She grabbed the opportunity, relishing the way their bodies seemed to sync up—his hips pushing, hers pressing, his tongue caressing hers, his hands moving from her legs to her hips, then higher, to her waist.

Oh God. Oh God. There were so many perfect sensations rocketing through her that Ashton didn’t know which one to concentrate on first.

Maybe on the way his erection rubbed along her sex, the sensation somehow not dulled by the layers of material between them, but heightened, like the extra friction was the spark needed to set her aflame.

Or perhaps she should give all her focus to this kiss. This kiss that felt like it was erasing all the others that came before it and tainting all the ones that would come after it.

But then again, she thought, her mind working overtime to enjoy, to appreciate everything Duncan was doing to her in that moment, maybe she should be concentrating on the way his hands spanned her waist, rubbing up and down, up and down in a motion that, at any other time, might have been soothing. But not right then. Not in that moment.

It didn’t soothe. It created a longing that Ashton wanted to have satisfied. Needed to have satisfied.

Drawing back, she broke the fevered kiss, stilled her rocking hips and moved her hands from around Duncan’s neck to lay them over his. “Please,” she begged, “please pet me.”

His smile, oh God, his smile. It was glazed over with lust, yet so bright and real that it was another layer of sensation that she needed to put in order. “I thought you’d never ask, Kitten.”