“Bro? Bro. Bro!”

Landon suddenly clued into the fact someone was yelling at him.

“Huh?” he responded, glancing to his right. He was surprised to see Velez standing there.

“I've been saying your name for five minutes,” the other man said. “What are you daydreaming about?”

Landon didn't answer. Just smiled and turned back to what he'd been looking at before he'd been interrupted.

Tori was on the beach, maybe a hundred yards or so in front of them. She was wearing a yellow bikini that day – the white bikini was long gone. The top had been used to tie her hands together and was still knotted to their headboard. The bottoms had gone over the railing right after her shorts had.

She was also wearing a pair of denim cut offs. They were long enough to mostly hide the angry scratch marks at the top of her thigh. He'd felt a little guilty when he'd noticed them that morning. However, he then found he had multiple matching sets going down the whole length of his back, so he didn't feel too bad. Plus, she'd laughed when she'd caught him looking at them, so clearly she wasn't upset.

Which he was glad. Things had gotten a little crazy on the balcony. He wasn't sure what had come over him. Dark thoughts and a beautiful girl, they were a lethal combination. He'd wanted to hurt himself, hurt her, hurt something. Had wanted to feel alive.

She'd trusted him. She'd said she'd do anything, and throughout the whole night, she'd proved it over and over again. He couldn't get over it. Why was she single? She had a body that didn't quit and a pussy that could probably win a world war. She was quite possibly the best fuck he'd ever had, which was really saying something.

Beyond that, and he hated to admit it because normally he didn't pay attention to that kind of shit, she was nice. Kind. If he'd woken up in the middle of the night and found her sulking on the balcony, he wouldn't have said anything. Would've gone back to bed. But she'd come outside, had tried to talk to him. Been decent to him. She didn't put pressure on him and she didn't tip toe around him. It was almost refreshing in a way.

It also didn't hurt that she would do absolutely anything he told her to do in bed.

“Man, you've got it bad for that chick, don't you?” Velez chuckled, following his gaze. “You sure you want to do this?”

Landon blinked in surprise and glanced at his friend.

“What? Why wouldn't I?” he asked.

“Because you're staring at her like you're in love with her.”

Landon burst out laughing.

“I'm staring at her like I've spent the last ten hours fucking her, that's all,” he replied. “I still think the plan is perfect, no one will suspect someone like her of smuggling drugs.”

“I don't know, man. She seems like a nice girl. And what if she finds the drugs before you can hide them in her shit?” Velez asked. Landon shrugged.

“It'll be fine, she'll go along with it if I tell her to.”

“You so sure about that?”

He wasn't, actually. While she was shockingly compliant in bed, he knew Tori had a very willful streak in her. He'd seen her deal with drunks, aggressive men, Brighton Stone – she wasn't scared to speak her mind. Or to throw a punch. He was confident he could hide them without her finding them, so it was all a moot point, really.

He wasn't confident about the plan anymore, though. He wouldn't admit it to Velez, and would barely even whisper it to himself, but he almost – almost – felt bad about dragging her into it all. Before last night, she'd just been some chick he'd fucked. Sometime between her finding him on the balcony and this morning, though, that had changed. She'd given him a small piece of herself, and he wasn't worthy of it, not at all.

Silly, ridiculous sentiment. Landon wasn't sentimental, and he hadn't shared shit, nor had he asked for anything. Sex was just sex, and that's all there was to it. He'd come to Bali to accomplish something, and he was going to do it. He was going to help his real friend, his only friend, and he was going to do something exciting. Was going to feel alive again.

Kinda like how you felt last night ...

“Look, if you're having second thoughts, then just say so,” Landon barked, turning away from the beach and facing his friend.

“Hey, don't get attitudey with me,” Velez cautioned him. “I don't need to do this, I have other ways of getting this shit to America. I'm doing this because you said you wanted an adventure.”

“Exactly, so stop talking about the girl and tell me what all I need to do.”

They went over everything. Velez worked as a sort of mid-rank drug runner for a cartel in Indonesia, supplying a lot of the resorts in the island nation. He would bring his boss with him to Bali to meet Landon. If the boss-man approved, he would hand over ten grams of cocaine for Landon to transport back to a distributor in America. If he could do so undetected, then he would be given a bigger amount to come back with, and eventually might get a real job running drugs.

He might just get to lead an exciting life, after all.

“I'll let you know what date we decide to come over on,” Velez wrapped everything up. “You should make sure she's not at the hotel.”

“Yeah, of course. So what happens if I get caught? Or I lose the drugs? Or steal them?” Landon was curious. Velez laughed and clapped him on the back.

“Then they kill you. You wanted excitement, man!”

“What if they can't find me?”

Velez's laughter died down to just a wicked looking smile.

“Then they try to kill me,” he replied. “But don't worry about that – worry about the fact that I know where your family lives.”

Sobering thought. Landon wasn't particularly close to his family, other than his brother Liam, but he didn't want any harm to befall them, either.

“Don't worry, I'll get them to your guy in L.A.,” he assured his friend.

“Good.”

They both fell silent as they realized Tori was heading back up the beach towards them.

“You should go,” Landon suggested.

“Why?”

“Because right now you're just some dude I know here that she's met once,” he explained. “But if you keep hanging around and she gets to know you, and then we get caught, you'll be the first person she suspects had something to do with it. I can keep my mouth shut, but I have no doubts she'll blab your name the first chance she gets.”

“Shit, good point.”

They didn't talk about it anymore, then, because she finally reached the bar.

“Hey!” she said, smiling big. “I didn't expect to see you again so soon.”

“Yeah,” Velez smiled big right back at her. Landon frowned at both of them. “I just came to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” she repeated.

“Yup. Your vacation is just getting started, but mine's ending. Good seeing you again, Landon,” Velez said, laying it on thick by leaning in and hugging his friend. Landon rolled his eyes and shoved him away.

“Well, it was nice meeting you. Thanks for dinner last night,” she said, leaning forward and hugging Velez as well.

“Oh, no problem. Any time, Tori. And I'm serious,” he started as he pulled back from her a little. “Really, any time you want to ditch this loser and have some real fun, you call me.”

Then he punctuated his offer by grabbing her ass. She laughed loudly, but Landon stepped forward and shoved him away.

“Goodbye, Velez,” he growled.

“Bye, kiddos! Have fun in Bali! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!”

Finally, the drug dealer disappeared around the corner of the bar.

“That was kind of abrupt,” Tori commented as she stared after him. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No. Let's go get lunch.”

She followed behind him as he led the way to a cafe at the edge of a pool. As they walked, he was surprised to hear her call greetings to several people. It seemed she hadn't been idle while down on the beach, but had been making friends the whole time.

“You're popular,” he commented after they'd been seated and a waiter had taken their orders.

“It's because I have a winning personality,” she said with a  smile.

“That or your amazing rack.”

She nodded and glanced around the pool.

“It helps. So what do you want to do today?”

“Huh?” he was completely caught off guard by her question.

“Today,” she tried again. “We didn't do anything yesterday, you spent the whole time with Velez. Want to go on a tour? I think there's a zip line nearby.”

“Do I look like the kind of fucking guy who zip lines?” he snapped.

“No, but I'm the kind of fucking girl who does, so we should go,” she replied simply.

“I'm not going to a zip line, Tori. Go by yourself.”

“This is your vacation,” she said, reminding him that she had no clue as to the real reason he was there. “All you want to do is hang out here at the resort?”

“Yes.”

“That's it?”

“And have sex.”

“You're boring.”

“You didn't seem to think that last night,” he pointed out. She smirked and looked away from him.

“Okay, fine, you're exciting in bed. The other sixteen hours of the day, you're boring as shit. Fine, I will go zip lining by myself. And I'm gonna do a jungle trek, and I want to do a bus tour,” she informed him. He shrugged and leaned back as the waiter delivered her an orange juice and him a beer.

“As long as you're back by 'bed time' I don't give a fuck what you do.”

“You're so annoying.”

“You just now noticed?” he asked, then he took a long pull on his beer before belching loudly.

They sat in silence for a while. Landon sipped at his beer while she pretended to be busy on her phone. But when food arrived, she had to set her cell down.

“So I'm curious about something,” she started.

“Oh god. I'm terrified.”

“Why on earth did you become a doctor?” she asked.

“Because I'm good at it,” he replied.

“C'mon, that's not an answer. You don't just wake up knowing how to be a doctor. You had to go to school for it, take years and years of classes, a whole bunch of bullshit. That's a lot of decision making along the way, and you don't even seem to like it,” she pointed out.

“Who said I didn't like it?”

“You haven't practiced in something like a year, right? Seems to me like you don't like it.”

Landon sighed and leaned back in his seat, staring out over the pool.

“My grandpa was a doctor,” he finally said. “He always wanted another one in the family. I liked him, and when we were in Mexico visiting him, he would take me to work with him. I thought it was neat. He taught me shit, gave me books. When he died, he left most of his money to me, in a trust fund for college. I started taking college courses when I was in high school, working towards pre-med.”

“Liam said that's when you started doing drugs.”

He cut his eyes back to her, but she wasn't even looking at him. She was focusing on shoving a huge club sandwich in her mouth. She could say statements like that and not seem to even care. Like she was commenting about his time playing basketball or the weather or anything.

It was one of the things he liked best about her, he decided.

“Yeah. I guess I was around sixteen? Weed, at first, to help me sleep. That stopped working, so I moved to my mom's prescription sleeping pills. Then I needed something to bring me back up in the morning. A friend gave me some coke one day.”

“Jesus, at sixteen?”

“Not all of us went to private school, princess,” he shot at her. “Besides, I bet most of your classmates were on all kinds of drugs.”

“Good point. Continue.”

“That's it. No exciting story. Drugs to get me down, drugs to bring me up. Then when I started getting really good at the shit, bringing home all these great grades, I needed drugs just to make me feel normal. My family ... they're great, don't get me wrong, but suddenly I was like their messiah. Do you know what kind of pressure that is? Being on top means a long way to fall down. Liam bitches that they like me better, he should try it from my end. I never got to choose my own path – once you hear your own mother bragging to her church members about her son, the future doctor, that's it.”

“I'm gonna say something, and please try not to be offended,” Tori said around the food in her mouth.

“Oh god.”

“You're kind of a pussy.”

“Excuse me?” Landon shot upright in his seat and pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head. She nodded.

“Yeah. Do you really think your parents would actually care if you'd decided you didn't want to be a doctor anymore? No. Maybe they'd be bummed for a second, but what are they going to do, stop loving you? Should've just manned up and told them it was too much pressure for you.”

“Easy to say, privileged white woman from a wealthy family,” he snarled. “Have you seen my mother's house? Who do you think put the down payment on it? Think of that and then tell me there's no pressure.”

“I didn't say there wasn't any pressure,” she said in a soft voice. “I'm just saying I think they would've been more understanding than you're giving them credit for.”

“Well, try explaining that to a teenager with a drug habit who was on a fast track to medical glory.”

“I wish I could've.”

He glared at her for a moment longer, then pulled his glasses back down.

“Look, why do you even want to know any of this? I was good at it, okay. From the get go. I got better at it as I went along. I don't know anything else, it's what I've done, all I've studied, for almost half my life,” he snapped. She held up her hands.

“Calm down, Ms. Sensitive,” she teased. “I'm just asking questions. Not like you care what I think, right?”

She had him there. Why was he getting upset if he didn't care?

Because if she gets to know me, if I open up, then she might get inside. And then I'm screwed.

“Excellent point. Let's talk about you then, Victoria,” he suggested. She shook her head.

“No way. I'm boring. You're a doctor. You're a messiah,” she laughed. “Why don't you work in a regular hospital? Why didn't you get a job somewhere in San Francisco?”

“Long story,” he grumbled, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Good thing I've got time.”

Liam was the only person who knew the story. Despite growing apart during high school and going their separate ways, Liam was still – and always would be – Landon's other half.

So he was shocked when he opened his mouth and out came the truth.

“I got caught using at work,” he said. Tori's eyebrows shot up, but only for a moment.

“Were you with a patient?” she asked, poking at her fries. He shook his head.

“No. I was done for the day. It was fucking stupid. A guy in the clinic where I was working, he used all the fucking time while on the job. He'd hooked me up with some coke, and we were going out that night, so I just decided to do some right then. Some chick from H.R. walked in on me. Not a very exciting story, but there it is.”

Not exciting, but humiliating. Embarrassing. Ridiculous. But he felt better, saying it all to her. Relieved when her facial expression didn't change at all.

“So you got fired?”

“Yeah. I could've gotten my medical license pulled, but she liked me. Knew I was a good doctor. I'll probably never be able to work in a hospital or a regular clinic again, so she should've just reported me. If I tried to work anywhere else and anyone called to check my references, she'd tell them the truth. I basically can't work anywhere in the U.S.”

“That's why you volunteer!” Tori exclaimed. “I'd always wondered why someone who seems to hate helping people volunteered so much.”

Landon nodded, but she was wrong. It was originally why he'd started volunteering. He got to still practice medicine, still do what he'd been trained to do, and he got to do it in a much looser environment. Nobody's giving drug tests in the middle of Ethiopia, or Haiti, or Syria.

Somewhere along the way, though, it had become a much bigger deal to him. Too much of a big deal. It consumed him much the same way his schooling had. Though they saved lots of lives, it was never enough. There were always too many for the tiny band of doctors to deal with, too much to do and not enough hands. He couldn't possibly save everyone, and it killed him.

So when it became too depressing, he ran away. Not home, though. Never home. Being a doctor had been a big enough deal on its own, but a doctor who traveled to third world countries and risked his own life to save others? His mother had literally built a shrine to him. He couldn't handle it, not when he was hiding in her bathroom to do more blow. So he ran to his one true safe space.

He always ran to his brother.

“You okay?”

He'd almost forgotten she was there. Tori was staring at him from across the table, frowning slightly. He cleared his throat and nodded.

“Fine. Super duper.”

She kept frowning and staring. It made his skin crawl. They really didn't know each other that well, technically. Why was he telling her all this bullshit? Just because she'd asked? Because she was good in bed? Because he felt guilty?

Because maybe I actually do want someone else to know me.

“I'm not rich,” she suddenly blurted out.

“Excuse me?”

“I'm not rich,” she repeated herself. “I may be a 'privileged white woman' but we weren't wealthy. I got into my high school on a scholarship.”

“You?” he was shocked. She threw her napkin at him.

“What, you don't think I'm smart?”

“No.”

Her fork was launched at him next.

“Fuck you, you junkie.”

“I mean,” he chuckled, putting the cutlery back on the table, “no more so than average. I don't think you're dumb.”

“Really?” she asked, leaning back in her seat and putting her hands on her hips.

“Well ... I don't tell you how dumb I think you are,” he amended his statement, but he grinned while he spoke.

“Whatever, at least I never got caught doing drugs at work,” she rolled her eyes. “I got a scholarship for gymnastics.”

“Um ... you did gymnastics?” he asked, staring blatantly at her chest.

“Yup. Believe it or not, I did not come out of the womb looking like this,” she chuckled as she cupped her breasts. “I was a string bean for a long time. Late bloomer. Was killer on the balance beam. It's what got me into my school, I was the best in the district. My mother was a bartender and my dad worked crane for a construction company. We weren't exactly rolling in the dough.”

“If you were so good, why didn't you do it in college or shoot for the Olympics?” he asked.

“Okay, I said I was the best in my district, not the frickin' country. And then during the beginning of my senior year, I basically grew tits over night. Got harder and harder to compete, I got into boys and sex, so it was whatever. Anyway, so I'm telling you I'm not what you think I am, I'm not some rich chick from the suburbs who's used to people doing everything for me. I've always had some sort of job since I was fifteen, I had to beg Katya to help me do my homework just so I could pass school, and every other spare hour was spent in a gym. So I know how it feels to have a lot of pressure on you and to have to work really hard,” she finished her rant.

“It's a little different,” he sneered.

“Yeah. One of us didn't handle it like a pussy,” she shot back.

“See, this is where 'you're dumb' really wants to come out of my mouth.”

She abruptly stood up, causing her chair to screech as it scraped across the ground. He was a little stunned as he watched her collect her purse and slip on her flip-flops.

“And this is why you have no friends,” she told him. “I'm trying to be nice to you, trying to say that maybe, just maybe, someone could possibly understand how you feel, and you're still a dick.”

She went to walk past him in a huff. He should let her go by, he knew. He'd thought they'd been bantering. Just having fun. He wasn't here to have some deep soul connection with her, he didn't need her to understand him. He didn't need her.

Yet before she could get out of range, he snapped his hand out and grabbed her arm. She was abruptly jerked to a stop and he leaned back in his chair so he could look her in the face.

“I'm an asshole,” he said bluntly. “You knew that when you came on this trip. Did you think having sex would change that?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I don't think anything will change you. I think you're a lost cause, Landon Edenhoff. And it's a shame, because maybe once upon a time, you had a chance to be a good guy. A great guy. Goddamn amazing. But you ruined it, and maybe it's time you grow up and stop blaming other people. You ruined yourself.”

Then she shook herself free of him and walked away. He watched her until she'd disappeared around the edge of the pool.

Ridiculously, he found himself smiling. At her tenacity and her spunk. Not very many people stood up to him. Even his twin would rather take his shit than risk his nasty attitude. Not Tori, though. She wasn't about to take any of what he was dishing out.

Shit ... maybe I do like her.

*

TORI HAD WANTED TO pout. Had almost called Katya and cried to her. Wanted to blab the whole horrible truth about where she was and who she was with, and could the other girl please come pick her up at the airport?

But then she'd thought about it, and she'd realized the only thing worse than finishing the week with Landon would be admitting she'd lied to her best friend.

This was an amazing experience – an all expenses paid vacation to a foreign country. Why was she wasting it on an infuriating man? Sex was the only thing they seemed to have in common, and while it was earth shatteringly, mind blowingly, toe curlingly good, it didn't mean she had to suffer in his presence more than was necessary.

She would use him at night to distract her from the thoughts and nightmares about her shitty life. During the day, she would use her surroundings.

She went to the front desk of the resort and inquired about zip line tours. It turned out a bus left every half an hour, and she had just enough time to run upstairs and grab a tank top before catching the next one. She bought her tickets, then was off like a shot.

The bus ride took a long time. Enough so she got kind of nervous. She was a single woman in a foreign country. Weren't there like a million dateline stories about situations starting like that? She spent most of the drive with her backpack clutched to her chest, looking at her fellow passengers with suspicion.

But when they finally arrived and everyone got off the bus, she saw the majority of people were aged forty and above, and most were couples. There were a couple teenage girls traveling with their family, and one of them complimented Tori on her bag.

She got to chatting with the girls, then was pleasantly surprised when a young man joined them. Turned out the girls' older brother was also along on the family vacation.

“Where you from?” he asked, twisting his baseball hat around so it was backwards on his head.

“California, you?” she replied, gingerly stepping over rocks as they went up a hilly path.

“Virginia, but going to school in Texas.”

“Texas, nice. What grade?”

“Junior. What grade are you in?” he asked, and she threw her head back in laughter.

“Oh, sugar, you're cute,” she teased him. “But I am not now, nor have I ever been, in college.”

“C'mon, you can't be over twenty.”

“Nice try. Tell me, does this clueless act work on college girls?” she asked, but she said it with a smile, and he laughed back at her.

“Sometimes,” he nodded his head. “Okay, let's cut out the bullshit. How old are you, what do you do?”

“I'm turning twenty-five in April,” she replied. “And – drum roll, please – I work in a sex club.”

“I'm ... wait ... so you're a ...?” he let his voice trail off.

“A ... what? Prostitute? No, have you ever been to a sex club?”

“No, I didn't even know they were a real thing.”

“Yeah, they are, and it's not somewhere whores go to find johns. It's really expensive to be a member, super exclusive. I'm the assistant manager and I run the bar,” she explained.

“That's ... really super hot,” he finally said, chuckling as he rubbed at he back of his neck. “Now I feel young and stupid in comparison, all I do is go to school and play ball.”

They fell into a normal first-meeting conversation. She told him about living in San Francisco, and Chris, as he'd introduced himself, told her about living in College Station, a town not too far from Houston. He was twenty-one and spending his Christmas vacation with his family in Bali. He'd wanted to spend his vacation at home in Texas, but now he was glad he'd come along, he told her.

“You're here alone?” he asked as they stood at the back of the shed and listened to the zip line guide explain the safety instructions.

Tori wasn't sure how to answer that question. Technically, she wasn't, but it sort of felt like she was – Landon had hardly spent any time with her during the days. Didn't seem to particularly care for her presence outside of the bedroom, so her first instinct was to say yes, she was on her own.

But then she'd remembered their night together. That weird, charged moment on the balcony. Him saying her full name, him asking her to trust him. Sitting alone in the dark. And suddenly she didn't know what to say at all.

“I'm here ... with a friend,” she answered carefully while they got in line to pick out their gear.

“Well, I'm glad your friend didn't come today,” Chris replied, smiling down at her.

She smiled back, but felt a little strange about it. She wasn't sure what was going on between her and Landon. She had said it was fine for him to go get his dick sucked by some blonde chick in a bar, but really, it was not fine. She wasn't comfortable with the idea of him sleeping with other people while he slept with her, and she was a firm believer in “treat others how you wish to be treated”.

She tried to keep all her actions purely friendly after that moment. When he offered to help her into her harness, she declined and got herself strapped in before grabbing her helmet. She didn't want to be alone, though, so she stayed between him and his sisters, giving most of her attention to the younger girls. They all gasped and chatted nervously when they saw how high the zip lines were.

“And there's how many?” Tori asked, staring straight up.

“We have to do four of them,” the fifteen year old responded.

“Next!”

Tori stepped up to the edge of the platform, keeping her back to the open expanse behind her. The guide prattled on and on, reminding her of what to do and what not to do. Different straps on her harness were fiddled with and her helmet was checked, then they finally started hooking her up.

While they got her secured to the line, she took a chance and glanced over her shoulder. Blinked as she stared at the ground so far below her. For some reason, though, it didn't make her more afraid. It actually reminded her of the night before, of being some forty flights up in the air, and not being scared at all.

“Ready?” the guide's voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Ready.”

Tori screamed the whole way across, but by the end, she was laughing hysterically. All that fear, and it was amazing. The jungle looked incredible and she was surprised to see a river far below her. She felt like a bird. A guide and Chris were waiting on a platform at the other end of the line, and by the time she reached them, she was out of breath from laughing so much.

It was absurd, but with each trip across the ravine, Tori found herself wishing Landon had come along. He liked excitement and adventure. He liked doing dangerous things. This may have been somewhat tame, but she was positive he would've loved it. Not a lot of things made him smile – not really smile – but she thought maybe the zip line would've.

When they'd finished all the lines and had turned in their gear, she was genuinely sad it was over. After they got back on the bus, Chris and his sibling all sat around her, gushing on about the exciting day.

“So cool, wasn't it Tori?” one sister asked. “I hope tomorrow is just as fun!”

“What are you guys doing tomorrow?” she asked, trying to comb out her sweaty, messy hair with her fingers.

“Rafting tour,” the other sister answered. “Just beginners stuff, but should still be pretty fun.”

“Sounds great! I've gone rafting before, but same, only beginners stuff. I loved it, so I bet you'll have a blast.”

“You should come,” Chris said. “It's not like by appointment or anything, and if we all show up together, I bet we can get on the same boat.”

“Oh, no,” she laughed nervously. “I'm not gonna crash your family vacation.”

“Please!” the younger sister, who seemed to have taken a real shine to Tori, begged. “It'll be so fun, I promise. We're supposed to get out at this great overlook and have a picnic and this guy is coming along and taking pictures. You have to come. You have to.”

“Well, I guess I have to,” Tori teased, and everyone laughed.

Rafting wasn't the only thing they talked her into – Chris and Co. were a persuasive bunch and she found herself agreeing to dinner at the resort. She promised to meet them in the restaurant in an hour, then she hurried upstairs to change.

The room was empty, which she'd expected. What Landon did with his free time, she had no clue, and she really didn't want to. She was just glad he wasn't doing anything bad in their hotel room.

She hopped in the shower and rinsed herself off. When she came out of the bathroom, she was stunned to see the troublemaker himself sitting just outside the open balcony doors.

“That was a long pout,” he commented before lighting a fresh cigarette. “Where'd you go?”

“I told you I wanted to go zip lining,” she replied. He raised his eyebrows in surprise while blowing a stream of smoke outside.

“Yeah, but you didn't say you were doing it today. It's been four hours, Tor.”

“Awww, did widdle Wandon miss me?” she asked, grabbing some clothing before heading back into the bathroom.

“No, he didn't,” he corrected her, raising his voice to be heard. “You should've told me – just because we're in a nice resort doesn't mean bad shit doesn't happen. I don't want to get in trouble because your stupid ass got kidnapped and raped.”

“If you're not careful, you'll make me swoon,” she warned him. She dropped her towel and stepped back into her shorts. Then she grabbed her bra and put it on, adjusting her boobs so everything sat right.

“I'm not trying to make you swoon,” he said, and she jumped when his voice was right at the bathroom door. She turned to find him standing there. “What are you doing?”

“Getting ready,” she replied, leaning over the sink and examining herself in the mirror.

“For what?”

“Dinner.”

“We're going to dinner?” he asked, moving so he was standing behind her. She snorted and grabbed her brush, dragging it through her tangled locks.

“You're not invited,” she told him. “I made some new friends on my little excursion, I'm meeting them.”

“Ah, but who said you could go?”

She held still for a moment. Landon used his voice as a weapon of sorts. Or a warning system. In his day to day life, it was low, much like his twin brother's, and serious, completely unlike his bother's. He sounded bored a great deal of the time, like he was over everything. It could switch lightning quick to angry, however. Or to frigid and cold, freezing someone where they stood. He could snap and he could lash with his tongue, she'd seen him do it.

There was another voice he used, though, one she got a feeling not many people got to hear. It was soft and deep and very authoritative. She'd never heard it before their night together in the club, but now it was imprinted on her brain. Like Pavlov's bell to her libido. It meant he had one thing on his mind, and all of his intellect and intensity was now focused on getting it. She took a deep breath, then cleared her throat.

“I don't have to ask your permission to go to dinner, Landon,” she challenged him, then she flicked her eyes down to her watch. She had forty minutes before she had to be at dinner. Was that enough time for a quickie? Did Landon even know the meaning of that word?

“Hmmm, I think you do,” he said softly, and she felt his fingertips against her back, gently smoothing their way down to her shorts. “If you're hungry, don't worry, I definitely have something you can put in your mouth.”

“Smooth,” she chuckled. “Maybe we can play when I get back, but I don't have time -”

Her breath got caught in her throat as his hand raced across her hip and dove down the front of her shorts. Then she gasped when he cupped her crotch.

“I have plenty of time,” he informed her. “And I'm all that matters right now.”

“Landon, I can't ... I promised ...” she began to stutter as two fingers found their way inside her body.

“I don't care,” he whispered back.

Tori shook her head. Sex was awesome, and sex with Landon was so good it should be illegal, but she wasn't some chick who was controlled by her vagina. As turned on as she was and as badly as she wanted to finish what he was starting, she couldn't imagining standing up those two teenage girls. She would feel awful.

“Please,” she moaned, licking her lips and bracing her hands against the sink top. “I swear, when I come back we can do whatever you want, but I promised these people I'd meet them.”

“People?” Landon questioned her word choice, and his fingers stopped moving.

“Yeah, as in other humans beings,” she replied, confused.

“As in not just one sex,” he clarified.

“Two sisters and a brother.”

His fingers disappeared altogether as he pulled his hand free of her shorts. They stared at each other in the mirror.

“Ah, I see now. There's a guy,” he said. She barked out a laugh.

“Yeah, and two girls,” she pointed out.

“They don't count.”

“Oh my god,” she gasped. “Are you jealous, Landon?”

The hand that had been in her shorts was now on her jaw, forcing her to turn and face him. He didn't respond to her question, just kissed her roughly, shoving his tongue deep in her mouth. When he finally pulled away, his lips were replaced with his fingers, still wet from her. He slid them into her mouth, letting her clean up her mess.

“Never jealous. Have fun.”

And then he was gone, marching out of the bathroom like he was completely unaware of the fact she was a flooded wet wreck.

So unfair that he can do that!

Tori was able to make it downstairs only a couple minutes late to her dinner date. Both the teenage girls had clearly made an effort to sort of dress up for the occasion, and she almost felt bad about her ripped cutoffs and plain white tank-top. Chris was still in the clothing he wore to the zip line, though, which made her feel better.

It was a fun meal. She liked to meet new people and she liked to laugh, so she had a good time. She learned more about the two girls, how the one was big into band, and the other was applying to go to Dartmouth next year. As it got later, though, the girls grew distracted by a gaggle of pro-kite boarders. They eventually took off to hover around the boys with a bunch of other girls their own age.

“When I left for college, Kimmy was only thirteen. Freaks me out seeing her like this,” Chris chuckled, gesturing to the older of the two girls.

“She's seventeen, I'm pretty sure she's done more than just gawk at boys,” she pointed out.

“Please, stop, I'm going to be sick.”

Tori laughed loudly, then something caught her eye. They were eating in the same restaurant she'd been in the night before, near the same table. Across from them was the bar, and at the end of it was Landon. He was talking to a girl – not the same blonde as before, but a brunette this time. He glanced at Tori once, then did a double take. Toasted his beer to her before getting back to the girl in front of him.

“Friend of yours?” Chris asked when her laughter died down.

“I wouldn't call him a friend,” she said slowly.

“Ex?”

“Oh god, no.”

“Then ...?” he prompted her. She shrugged.

“He's just a guy I know, his brother owns the club I work for. The two of us sort of had a shitty holidays, so when Landon offered me this vacation, I took him up on it.”

“Homeboy offered you a vacation and he hasn't tried to date you?” Chris laughed. She nodded.

“It's ... complicated.”

“It must be.”

They switched the topic afterwards, with Chris telling her all about life as a junior varsity football player. She smiled and nodded and exclaimed at all the right parts, but she was only ever halfway paying attention.

The other half of her attention was always with Landon. It shouldn't have mattered if he was chatting up some girl, but it did. And it shouldn't have mattered that Tori was alone at a table with another man, but clearly, it did, too.

Of course, maybe she was reading too much into it. Landon had hit on a girl the night before, and Tori hadn't been with anybody then. It also hadn't come to anything – he'd gone back upstairs to be with Tori. So maybe this was just more of the same. She'd finish eating and go back to the room, then Landon would come up after her and turn her world inside out.

All solid assumptions to make – right up until the brunette stood up and Landon put his hand on the small of her back. While Tori watched, he propelled the other woman out of the restaurant and towards the elevators.

“So you gonna come rafting with us tomorrow?” Chris asked. She licked her lips and tried to straighten out her thoughts.

“What? Oh, I don't know. I'll try, I don't know what else I have planned. Could you excuse me?”

“You're leaving?”

“Yeah, I don't feel too well. But I'll be here for another couple days, we'll hang out again, okay? Tell your sisters I said so. Bye!”

She dropped some money on the table, enough to cover her meal, then she was taking off. She barely heard his goodbyes as she hurried out of the restaurant.

She didn't know why she was freaking out. She paced around inside the elevator as it made its slow climb up the inside of the building. She had no right to freak out. Landon could do whatever he wanted, with whomever he wanted. It was fine. Totally fine.

Except if he wanted to do stuff with anybody else, then he shouldn't have invited me. He shouldn't have talked to me on the balcony. He shouldn't have opened up to me at lunch.

When she got to their room, she could already hear giggling through the door. He'd brought the girl to their room. To their bed. The bed they'd spent all morning in together. As she slid her card into the lock, she was positive she was going to be sick, and she tried to mentally prepare herself to find him in bed with someone else.

He wasn't, though she didn't know whether to be thankful or not. He was sitting on the couch and looked up in surprise at her entrance. The brunette girl was leaning over a mirror and a line of coke, and while Tori stood in the doorway watching, she inhaled the line.

“What the fuck is going on?” Tori blurted out, a little stunned. She was a party girl, but hard core drugs weren't her thing. She was pretty sure she'd never even seen cocaine in real life. Landon was somewhat of a coke head, but he kept it very low-key. He never brought it to the hotel room, as far as she knew, and he'd never done it in front of her. Made it kind of easy to forget he had a problem.

“Oh my god!” other girl squealed, sitting up right and pinching her nostrils together. “What are you doing? Shut the door, shut the door!”

The door slammed shut behind her and Tori moved to stand in front of the coffee table. She didn't look at the other girl at all, didn't acknowledge her once, just stared at Landon.

“I don't give a shit what you do on your own time, but don't bring your trash into our room,” she snarled, gesturing to the coke and the woman.

“Excuse me?”

“I'd rather have trash in my room than sit down to dinner with it,” he replied.

“Oh, hell no,” brunette growled and climbed to her feet. “I'm no one's trash! Fuck both y'all.”

Landon and Tori continued glaring at each other while the front door was opened and slammed shut.

“I sat down to dinner with a nice family,” she finally countered. “You brought some whore up here so you could get stoned and fucked. Hardly the same thing.”

“Nice family, huh? All I saw was some no-neck giant sitting across from you. Did you warn him you weren't cheap? A trip to Bali is expensive, I'd like to see him top it.”

Tori gasped, then stomped her way into the bedroom area.

“Fuck this, and fuck you,” she yelled over her shoulder as she grabbed her bag and tossed it onto the bed. “I'm not one of your pieces of trash, and I am definitely not your whore.”

She was cramming and shoving her clothing back into the bag when Landon got to her side. He watched her for a second, then simply grabbed her suitcase and put it on the floor.

“You're being over dramatic, stop it,” he said. She snorted and snatched the small suitcase back, putting it on the bed again.

“This was a mistake,” she continued packing. “I don't know why I thought this would be a good idea. Good sex isn't enough to keep anyone with someone like you.”

She was aware she was babbling, but she couldn't stop herself. She was confused and upset. She knew Landon did drugs, it wasn't a secret. He'd just talked about it earlier in the day. And he wasn't her boyfriend, so it shouldn't matter that he brought another woman up to his room.

But it did matter. It all mattered, so much so that she was upset and she couldn't explain why, so she was reduced to a babbling mess.

Landon watched her for a couple seconds longer, then grabbed her suitcase again. This time, though, he didn't put it on the ground. He carried it into the bathroom and before she could stop him, he'd dumped the whole thing in the bath tub and turned on the shower.

“Dramatic enough for you?” he asked when she shrieked and tried to shove him out of the way.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing!?” she demanded, trying to get him to move so she could save her clothing.

“Whatever I fucking want,” he laughed, staring down at the mess he'd created.

That was it. He wanted to play hardball? Oh, then she would fucking play.

Tori rushed out of the bathroom and made a bee line for the living room. She grabbed the mirror with his stash of coke on it, then hurried towards the balcony. He came out of the bathroom and let out a shout when he saw what was in her hands, but she was too far ahead of him. By the time he caught up to her, she was holding the mirror over the edge of the railing.

“You're an asshole!” she shouted at him. He held up his hands, his eye never once leaving the mirror.

“We established that a long time ago,” he said in a low voice. “Tori, just put it down and we can talk calmly. I'm sorry about your clothes.”

“Fuck you!” she snapped. “You're not sorry about anything.”

“Please, just put it down, okay? I'm more afraid that you'll drop it and cut yourself.”

“Yeah, right,” she laughed. “Like you'd care. Like you care about anything. Why did you bring me here?”

“I told you, you were having a shitty week and the sex was good,” he said simply. She glared and tilted the mirror a little, causing a smattering of white powder to trickle into the air.

“You were just about to bang some random chick you met in a bar, you don't need me for sex. Why won't you let me leave?” she demanded.

“I'm not stopping you, you can go if you -”

She tilted the mirror some more and he shut up.

“I can't exactly leave with a suitcase full of water, can I?” she shouted. “What the fuck is your problem? I try to be neutral to you, you're an asshole. I try to be nice to you, you're an asshole. I try to ignore you, you're an asshole! What do you want from me!?”

All of a sudden, Landon looked very, very tired. His rubbed his hands over his face, then dropped them to his sides.

“Nothing, Tori,” he sighed. “I don't want anything at all from you. You can leave.”

Inexplicably, she felt her eyes well up with tears. It had been a shitty week.

“I tried to understand you,” she sniffled. “I tried to like you.”

“Why? I never asked you to. I know what I am – why would you want to be a part of that?”

She took a deep breath. She hadn't really thought about it, so when she opened her mouth, she said the first things that came to mind.

“Because,” she breathed. “You're the only person left who understands me. If I leave ... then I'll be all alone.”

The tears couldn't be stopped then and she fell into a lounge chair. She held the coke mirror in one hand and used the other to cover her face. God, she felt like an idiot, crying in front of someone like Landon. She certainly hadn't wanted to, hadn't planned on it.

But what she'd said ... what an awful thought. She'd rather be with this horrible human being than be alone? How sad was that? How awful was she? Did she really have no identity beyond her friends and Liam?

She hadn't cried much since she'd tried to quit her job, and all of it poured out of her now. The stress and the depression and the self-loathing. She hunched over and she sobbed into her palm, wishing she was anywhere else. Wishing she was someone else.

She was surprised when she felt him grabbing her arm and yanking her to her feet, then downright shocked when he knocked the mirror out of her hand. She looked just in time to see his precious habit hit the ground and scatter, the mirror breaking into tiny pieces. He didn't seem to care, though. Didn't even notice. Instead he hauled her up against him and let her cry into his chest.

“My brother's an idiot,” he sighed, and she cried even harder.

“He's not, I am,” she replied.

“You both are,” he said in his blunt manner, and she actually laughed a little. “He missed out on a great girl, and you set your heart on a guy who's an idiot.”

“I know,” she whispered, taking deep shuddering breaths and trying to calm down. “I know all that, I really do. It just ... it hurts, you know? To not feel good enough.”

He chuckled, and she was surprised to feel his hand on the back of her head, his fingers gently massaging her scalp.

“You wanna know what's worse?”

“What?”

“Not being good enough,” he told her. “He may be an idiot, but I'm human garbage. Don't even think about setting your heart on me.”

“Jesus,” she groaned. “Don't worry, I won't.”

“You're not as bad as I thought you'd be,” he whispered in her ear. Ridiculously, she felt like crying again. Instead, though, she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.

“Neither are you,” she whispered back. “I'm sorry I wasted all your coke.”

“Don't be, it belonged to that girl.”

She started laughing again and she didn't stop until he'd tucked them both into bed.