Eventually, Teo slows down at a spot where there’s nobody else, by the fence behind the Hollywood sign up in the hills. He slows to a stop, then kills the engine—making the silence around us suddenly intimate.

We get off the bike, but he barely lets me get away from him, pulling me close once again to kiss me long and slow.

This time, when we break apart, his face looks at me with devotion, eyes darkened with guilt, lips parted as if he’s searching for the right words to express something so deep.

“You won’t like what I have to tell you. But I owe you the truth,” he says. “And you owe it to yourself to listen.”

“Teo,” I say, tensely. I can sense this isn’t going to be good, and though I want to head it off, to bury it again, I know neither of us can bury anything anymore. “If this is about what happened at the barbecue—”

“It’s about way more than that,” Teo says, with a seriousness that grabs my attention.

I take a deep breath, bracing myself. I can see he’s feeling that abstract pain that always rolled close to the surface, the pain that always threatened to eat him alive.

“I’m gonna tell you why I left that night,” he says. “I’m gonna tell you everything. But I need you to trust me.”

My body shudders at the words, at the prospect of finally hearing this. I can barely speak, careful not to say or do anything that might stop this moment from happening.

I nod.

“That night, prom,” he begins, “I always meant to come. Always. Picked up the rental tux that afternoon, had a corsage waiting in the fridge. But something happened. I was putting that tux on—the one you helped me pick out. I remember it like yesterday. I ain’t gonna lie, I was scared. Going back and seeing all those guys from school, with you on my arm. Scared in a good way, though. Scared like you when you’re doing something awesome for the first time. Shit—I never tied a bowtie in my life, and I sure as shit wasn’t getting it right then. But I was going anyway. I never considered backing out.”

He stops himself and takes a deep breath.

“Then my dad came home drunk, hours before he said he’d be there. I wasn’t expecting that—him coming home early, not the drunk part. Soon as he saw me he went wild, baiting me into a big argument.”

“Why?”

Teo laughs sadly.

“Not like it was out of character. But…something about seeing me in that tux…I don’t know. I thought about it a lot, and I think…I think he didn’t like seeing me try to do something better. Didn’t like the idea that I was trying to dress nice, to get a good girl, to live life a little better than him. Jealous, maybe. Or scared that he was gonna lose me—as weird as that sounds for a dad who treated me like shit.

“Anyway, he was spoiling for a fight, and I was already pent-up from all the shit going through my head that night, and we ended up getting into it. Bad. A real big one, maybe the biggest. Trashed half the trailer, blood all over us. He lost a tooth, I had a black eye for a month. Only reason we stopped was the police showed up and hauled our asses to jail. Some neighbor called the cops on us.”

He pauses, as if to swallow down the bad memory. I put my hand on his arm, rub his tricep to let him know he’s not alone.

“Maybe you remember, maybe you don’t—but I was on probation at the time for all those graffiti and traffic tickets the cops loved giving me. It’s not like my dad was gonna press charges, but still—it wasn’t good. I was eighteen—no problem tossing me in for a long sentence now that I was an adult.

“So I sat there in that cell, thinking of what a fuck-up I was. How dumb I was to get into that fight, how I should have just walked away, got my ass out of that trailer and over to you. I thought about how I only ever seemed to realize my mistakes once I’d made them, and it was too late. That’s when your dad showed up.”

“My dad? At the station?”

Teo looks at me, then nods slowly.

I feel my confusion creasing my brow. “What was he doing there?”

“He knew about us, Ash. I don’t know how, or when he found out, but he knew. And he didn’t like it. He came into the cell and gave me this long speech about how I was going to fuck up your whole family. About how well Grace was doing on the city council, and how you were capable of doing great things in your future, but I was going to ruin everything.”

I gasp, needing to look away and take a moment. My dad… And yet as much as I want to think there’s something Teo got wrong, that maybe he misunderstood, I know—from both the look in Teo’s eyes, and the things I’ve always tried to ignore about my father—that Teo’s telling the truth.

“You ok?” he asks.

I nod and take a breath. “Yeah…yeah. Go on.”

“He offered me a deal. Five grand to leave the city and never speak to you again.” Teo pauses. “I told him to stick it up his ass. He said he could give me more, I asked him how much he could fit there. Then he got nasty. Told me if I didn’t leave he’d make sure I did a full bid—ten years, no parole. I wanted to think he couldn’t do that, that there was at least some justice in the system. But I know it would have been easy for him. Shit, he walked into that station like he owned it—and the chief treated him like a king.

“I told him that even if I did time, you’d wait for me. That he’d have a daughter visiting prison two times a week. He laughed at that, and said you wouldn’t be his daughter anymore if that happened. He’d pull everything, he said. The scholarship, your car, your savings, everything he ever bought you. Said he’d rather you weren’t his daughter at all than watch you become trailer trash like me.”

“Fuck,” I say, feeling like I’m about to vomit, shaking so much I have to lean back on the bike. I hold my head, trying to stop the feeling of being spun around.

Teo pushes some hair behind my ear, his cool hands the only thing that soothe some of the tension, his touch the only thing I can orient myself on.

“Go on,” I say, determinedly.

Teo hesitates, just to be sure, before he continues.

“He gave me a few minutes to think about it. Left the cell. I was about as fucked up as I’d ever been, sitting there on that hard bunk, holding a blood-soaked tissue to my nose. I thought about you waiting there, on the corner like we planned. I never saw your dress, but I could imagine how beautiful you looked. In the moonlight, smiling as you waited. A person so perfect all the shit in the world couldn’t touch them—shouldn’t touch them.

“And there I was, in a dirty police cell. Blood all over my tux, bowtie choking me, barely able to look out of one eye, staring down a decade of prison time. Broken. It was pretty damned hard to deny what your dad was telling me—that I didn’t deserve you, that I’d only drag you down. And that was that.

“I didn’t take the money. But I let him bail me out so I could leave that night—just like he wanted. I thought it was what I wanted, too. To save you. I stopped home to change my clothes, pack a bag, and then rode out of there so fast the tears didn’t leave tracks.”

I grab him, hold him tight, as if afraid he’s about to leave me again. Anger swirls through me, anger at my father, enough to wring his neck. It’s drowned out only by the waves of shame, all the times I hated Teo, presumed and doubted him.

“I’m so sorry, Teo,” I splutter desperately into his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Teo laughs sadly again and rubs my back, firm and deep.

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling me away so he can look in my eyes again. “I never should have left you. I’ve regretted that night ever since.”

“What choice did you have?”

“I could have told you. We could have kept it to ourselves again. Or I could have come back, written a letter, waited until you left home and got back in touch with you—but I did nothing. The longer I stayed away, the more I believed that I’d done right by you. I told myself that I didn’t have a choice anyway, but not doing anything is sometimes the worst choice you can make.”

“Teo, I—”

“I fucked up, Ash,” he says, looking torn up. “Every second of those seven years that I didn’t get back in touch…I just let the time pass. Hating your father, my father. Hating the world. Sometimes I even told myself it was your fault for not running away with me when I asked…but there’s nobody to blame but myself. I fucked up—I’m still fucking up—and maybe that’s proof that I still don’t deserve you.”

I let my head drop against his chest, feeling overwhelmed and dizzy again. I let myself catch my breath, let my thoughts settle. Teo strokes my hair, as if knowing I need a minute, patiently waiting.

“Hold up,” I say, looking up at him suddenly. “Is that why you were arguing with my dad at the barbecue? Did he give you another ultimatum?”

Teo says nothing, just clenches his jaw, but it’s all the affirmation I need.

“Fuck!” I shout, pulling away from Teo, my hands on my head. “Are you kidding me?”

“Ash…”

“Take me back there right now,” I say, standing by the bike. “I need to talk to him.”

“Ash, no. Wait a second.”

I fumble in my pocket, so pissed that I drop my phone as I pull it out. I pick it up with shaking hands but before I can find my dad’s number, Teo comes close and puts a hand on my arm, pushing it gently away. His other hand goes to my chin, lifting it so that I face him.

“That’s not going to fix anything,” he says calmly.

“The hell it will! My dad is the reason I suffered all those years. And he’s still trying to control my life?”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna tell him exactly what he made me go through!” I say, lifting the phone back up. “I’m gonna tell him to stay the hell out of my life!”

Teo pushes my arm down again.

“And then what? You fight and you fight. You end up hating each other, and nobody gets anywhere. Trust me, Ash, I know what I’m talking about.”

Something about his eyes now holds me, keeps me from lifting my phone again.

“You can’t fix your parents. You can spend your whole life blaming them, hating them, fighting them—but you’ll never be happy.”

I shake my head. “So what exactly am I supposed to do?”

Teo shrugs nonchalantly, smiling a little like we’re just talking about a bad roll of dice.

“At some point you’ve just got to accept them the way they are. Even if they never really accepted you.”

I stare at him for a few seconds, then breathe, nowhere else for the nerves to go. His answer diffusing the anger inside of me somehow, none of it mattering anyway now that we’re together.

“You ok?” Teo asks.

I nod slowly.

“I think. My whole world just turned upside down, but…I think I am.”

Teo looks at me like he’s trying to decide between hugging me, comforting me, or kissing me. Then he makes up his mind.

“You can put the world right later,” he says, as he grabs my hips and yanks them against his, half-smiling as he moves in for another kiss. “Let’s put us right first.”

Minutes later and we’re back on his bike, our bodies throbbing and growling like the engine between us. My fingers tease between his shirt buttons, and I squeeze my thighs around his. Even the whip of the wind at this high speed not enough to stop my body from burning for him now, for that physical confirmation of us being one again. As if my body needs to learn what my mind already understands—that he’s mine.

He takes us to my apartment because it’s closer, and from the moment we get off the bike until we reach my door we can’t keep off of each other. He takes my hand and spins me back up against a wall in the hallway so he can sink his tongue into my mouth, grind that thick cock into my hip, press those heavy pecs into my melting body. I moan loudly, my knees weak, not caring if the neighbors hear. When the elevator doors open I shove him back into it, hands desperate to unbutton his crisp white shirt, thighs sliding up against his legs until the hands cupping my ass are so frantic they’re carrying me against him. An entirely different kind of prom dance, less a waltz and more like some red-blooded South American tango.

Half-drunk on the taste of each other’s mouths, bodies twisting with desire for skin-on-skin, we stumble out of the elevator toward my apartment. I turn my back to him to get the door open and he wraps his arms around my front, hands rolling over my stomach, kneading my breasts through my shirt as he bites hungrily at the nape of my neck. Somehow I manage to fumble the keys out and unlock the door, pushing through as soon as it’s open.

I turn around to see him watching me with eyes narrowed and on fire, trapping me in their intensity. He slams the door behind him without looking, then roughly tears off his tuxedo jacket and tosses it aside.

“Nobody drives me as wild as you do,” he growls, as his eyes flick possessively down the length of my body, eyes so intense I can feel them, can read the intent, all the lustful thoughts behind them.

I smile a little and step toward him, then hook my fingers in the top of his belt.

“Good. Because I like it wild,” I say, as I pull him by the belt backwards into the bedroom.

I sit back on the bed, his body broad and powerful before me. My eyes go from the bulge in his black tux trousers up to the hungry look on his face, and he responds by tearing his shirt the rest of the way off. It hangs loose, framing the taut muscles underneath. I’m thirsty for him, my nails scratching down the indentations of his abs like I’m deciphering them, feeling his hard muscles tremble beneath my touch. I need my mouth on him.

His fingers bury themselves in my hair as I tug off his belt, whipping it off and working his pants open. His cock is already stiff and thick in front of me, the veins pulsing with need. All I can think about is sucking it. I trail my fingertips along him softly as I drop to the floor and get on my knees, my mouth watering, ready for him. I lick the drop of pre-cum off the tip, enjoying his sharp intake of breath, the way his eyes narrow even more, the determined, muted groan that he can’t help letting out.

“Ooh, you like that,” I tease. “You want more?”

Instead of waiting for an answer, I lick him again as his hand grabs a fistful of my hair, as he fucks my mouth. I almost choke on the length of him, he’s so big, the head ramming the back of my throat for a few short, quick thrusts, before he pulls out with a gasp. I remember this Teo. Aching for me but doing everything in his power to hold back, stay in control. I grin and lick my lips, making eye contact as I let the head of his cock roll over my tongue, taking my time as I slowly trace the underside of his shaft. Then I open wide and take all of him into my mouth. He groans, his body already swaying a little to the rhythm of my sucks and the pulse of his desire. I start to work him faster, increasing the pace, but he pushes hard into my throat again, impatient for me to deep throat him.

“Nuh-uh,” I hum with my mouth around his cock. I ease up now, just to punish him for rushing, and then start back at the beginning with just the tip of my tongue lapping his head. I lick him all the way down to his balls and then back up again, keeping him there on the edge. Sucking softly and then harder, letting him thrust shallow and then deep into my mouth, alternating the pressure as I bob my head back and forth. He’s pulling my hair hard now in his fist, sending tingles through my scalp and a wet throb through my pussy. I could do this for hours.

“Fuck…Ash…” he growls, like some powerful prayer. I smile with my eyes, then moan, long and low so he can feel the vibrations against his cock. He lets out a half-laugh half-sigh, his body too under my control for him to do anything else.

With one hand rolling up and down his wet shaft, making him pant with tense frustration, I use my other hand to undo my blouse. Then I let go of him just long enough to shrug out of my shirt and bra, listening to him sigh with pleasure.

“God, you’re good,” he gasps at the ceiling, before looking down at me again.

I sit back on the bed, smiling devilishly as I cup my breasts in my hands, knowing it drives him crazy, and then pull him toward me. I give his cock one last suck, then roll it from my lower lip, down my throat, down between my tits, listening to the way he murmurs and hums between his clenched jaw. I squeeze him between my tits, pushing them together to give the friction we both want.

“You like that?” I tease.

“Fuck yes,” he groans, and he starts to thrust harder.

I arch my back and roll my soft tits around him.

“Fuck yes,” he repeats, locking eyes with me now.

He glares down at me with grim determination, his icy blue eyes boring into me as hard as the cock against my chest. Eyes that can’t hide the unbearable longing in his body, the lust that goes almost soul-deep. I can hardly control myself.

“Fuck!” he roars, unable to bear it, unable to let me toy with him anymore.

In seconds Teo is straddling me, teasing my slit with his cock.

“Fuck, you’re wet,” he groans. “I need to be inside you.”

He pulls away from me, sucking my tits one at a time before trailing his mouth down my body. When he laps at my pussy, I’m already on the edge. He slips inside me, filling me up.

He thrusts into me and in no time, I’m so turned on I can feel myself clenching around him. He sucks my nipple into his mouth and I feel an electric pulse in my clit.

“Fuck,” I moan.

He slams into me, so deep, hitting all the right spots. I’m grinding against him, faster, losing control, until I come so hard I see stars. Teo hugs me closer to him.

“Ash, you’re so tight,” he whispers, slowly pulling out of me.

I need him in my mouth.

“Come back,” I say, motioning to my tits, and he moves back over me.

I open my mouth and let my tongue drop, lapping at the head of his cock. It tastes like us together. I knead my breasts around him as he slams forward and back, faster and harder, until I can feel the beating closeness of his orgasm.

So close I feel even the moment of hesitation, the second he starts pulling himself back like he’s reining in some wild beast.

“Don’t stop. I want you to come all over me,” I say, almost a whisper, but it’s enough.

His head thrown back, his front like some glorious statue of a Greek god above me, he comes over my tits, my chest, my neck. All that mental frustration, those days of pain, that longing for me, turned physical and exploded out of him. I watch the hard, beast-like tension of his body turn back into his normal relaxed swagger.

He leans down, elbows on either side of me, bringing his face to mine to kiss me softly and then pull back just to look at me. I bring my hand up to that sharp cheek, feeling the sweat under my palm, and he smiles back.

“You’re mine,” he tells me.

“I am.”