I didn’t know how this was supposed to go.

Normal college guys probably slept with a girl and tried to run out on her as quickly as they could. But I wasn’t most assholes slipping into some girl’s place to fuck her and leave. And Aly King was sure as hell not most girls. I’d lain next to her for a solid hour before I tried getting up. I managed it despite my large body tousling her on the mattress. Turns out, Aly sleeps like the dead.

The bathroom was obnoxiously small with a stand up shower I knew I’d never fit in and a pedestal sink I had to bend completely over to use. I hurried through my piss and cleaning my face, stealing a bit of her toothpaste to swish around in my mouth before I could make up my mind about leaving.

By the time I left that nothing bathroom, I’d almost decided leaving was probably the best decision, but then a step toward her on the bed, toward my clothes thrown across her dresser and the smell of her skin, the collection of our scents came right at me. It was better than Christmas cookies right out of the oven. To me, that smell was better than Bobby’s Sunday dinner roast.

That scent and the sight of her dead asleep with her wavy hair curled across her face, arm stretched over her head so that one dark nipple peeked out from that scratchy white sheet, had me paralyzed. It had me remembering what it felt like to be inside her. It reminded me that her mouth on my stomach, my skin between her teeth, had bashed away the biting voice that had kept me pathetic company for over a year.

Aly made me feel like I was alive. Aly just made me feel. How the hell could I walk away from that?

She didn’t move when I slipped to the foot of the bed or when I pulled back the sheets, exposing that perfect, round ass. Aly didn’t wake or try to get away from my fingers running along the curve of her ass, up to those two small dimples just below her waist. She only moaned, a sleepy, hungry sound when I ran my tongue up that sweet, perfect pussy.

She’d given me a taste last night, one that I’d craved since she took me over and I followed her lead. I wanted to thank her for silencing that bitter voice. But even more, I wanted to get lost in the taste of her, in the feel of her skin on my tongue.

So, I did.

She arched against my mouth as I feasted on her, letting my tongue dive deep, spreading her apart from behind slowly. Those sleepy sounds she made got louder the longer I ate her, the quicker I moved my tongue against that soft clit. And when I settled closer, when I brought my hand up her leg and moved it over my head to get deeper still, Aly’s voice lost that incoherent, sleepy tone completely.

Then, that sweet, fierce, beautiful woman started cursing like she was trying to invent a new language.

“Oh, ah… kòkòt mwen! Fuck, Ransom…fuck, that modi is so…fuck…”

Yes, it was and I didn’t stop, loving how soft, how damn warm she was, how she squeezed against my tongue, my fingers when I slipped two inside. I reached for that spot, exploring the tight contours, the ridges of her warm heat until I found it, until Aly pulled on my hair, until I pushed her closer with one hand under that supple ass and the other busy moving inside her.

And then, Aly shouted another list of filthy, erotic words and I felt her come in my mouth and took everything she gave me, riding the wave as I kept my lips and tongue on her, moving with her when she bucked her hips off the mattress.

She was tangy, she was delicious, still, it wasn’t enough and I began to think nothing ever would be, not with her, not ever again.

She kept her eyes closed, hand flat on her chest as she came down from her orgasm and I slipped behind her, rolling her boneless body against me until my dick slid between her cheeks. She felt good, soft and warm and so damn wet that slipping inside that tight pussy was easier than dancing, easier than breath and just as perfect, just as natural.

“Ransom,” she breathed, moving on my dick like it would feed her, like our bodies together was the end and beginning and she craved both.

“Look how you fit me, baby.” She did, like two pieces of a puzzle. The top of her head came to my chin, and her curled legs, that sweet round ass fit against me like her body had been made as my perfect parallel. Hand and glove, me and Aly. It was the same, perfectly the same. My thoughts only went as far as her slamming back against my dick as I took her, the feel of her clit under my fingertip when I reached around to touch her and how her skin tasted on my tongue when I kissed her shoulder. “This body was made for mine, Aly.”

I meant it then, not thinking what that would mean to her, if it would mean anything at all. The sensation numbed my mind, her beautiful skin, the soft texture of her hair, the smell of our sweat mixing together—that’s as far as my thoughts went. And when I pulled her up, urging her to her knees in front of me, even those thoughts left me.

“Ransom, anmourèz mwen,” she breathed, pushing back, not letting me control without doing a little demanding herself. God, how I loved that about her. Aly would not be manipulated and she fucked me because she wanted me, she took me even though it was my hand on her hip, my fingers digging into her shoulder. “Harder, baby, do it harder.”

“Anything, anything you want.” I drove in deeper, watching my dick sliding in and out of her, working my stomach muscles, my thighs until they ached, loving how drunk the sensations around me had me feeling. That sweet, tight body, the sweat, the sounds of us slapping together, it all left me stunned and sated and so damn eager to finish, helpless because I never wanted it to stop.

That’s when the memories shuffled sideways into the sensation like a specter sneaking behind shadows to keep hidden. They wanted to strike, to leak into my thoughts at the right moment. And they did. My defenses were down, and they saw how I was a little blind, a little numb to what was happening around me, all except for Aly open to me. They snuck in when I wasn’t expecting them, as I moved inside Aly—beautiful, sweet Aly who cared what happened to me, who had cared for years, Aly who loved my family, who they loved, whose heart I was petrified of breaking—and suddenly it was the memory that crippled me. It was Emily’s memory, her body, her heart that I could not stop seeing.

It was her name I called out as I came.

“Em…oh God…”

There was no sound then. No sweet thrust of our bodies because she had stopped moving. Because I had the second I closed my mouth. The name was out there, right in the room with us and I felt the hush of silence and wanted it to end. Empty. That’s what I felt. That was the sensation that blanketed over me, had my orgasm stopping when Aly pushed me away. There was shock, rage on her face, in the dip of her mouth and that bright shine in her eyes.

Hurt and heartache right there in her features and I put them both there.

“Aly…”

“Non,” she said, shuffling off the bed before I could reach her. “Just…no.”

What the hell did I just do?

She was covering herself, hiding from me, pulling on her t-shirt, stepping into her shorts before I left the bed. Aly headed for the bathroom. I knew what she wanted. Distance, separation from me and I didn’t blame her. But my legs would not stop moving, my hands wouldn’t lower from her arms. My hands would not keep away from her face even when she struggled against me, even when she cried out. “Don’t touch me! Non. No, Ransom!”

I wasn’t hurting her, I knew that. I knew it. If Aly wanted, I’d be disabled with a knee to my balls. But the moment was heavy with tension, with sadness and hate and bitterness and not all of it came from me. Not all of it was solely internal. She was hating herself too.

“Aly, please, please, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say…”

“Shut up. Just…please… lage’m, let go of me, Ransom…”

But I couldn’t, not when I needed her. Not when I was desperate for her not to hate me.

“Please,” I told her, pinning her to the wall, keeping her shaking head still with my palms on her cheeks and my forehead against hers. “I am so sorry. I was with you, Aly, I promise. I was only with you. I wanted you. Just you.”

She stopped struggling, but the tears came anyway and when Aly closed her eyes, when her chin wobbled and her nostrils flared as she fought to keep herself from sobbing, I took her against my chest, my skin wet, my fingers tight in her hair.

“It will always be like this, won’t it?” I closed my eyes at her question, wishing she didn’t need to ask it.

“I don’t know.” She stiffened in my arms and my stomach got tight. I didn’t want her pushing away from me, giving up before anything real could begin. “I’m sorry, Aly. I don’t want it to be like this. I don’t want to…”

I felt her nod, a small gesture meant to shut me up. “Ransom,” she started, stepping away from my body. “Have you…have you told anyone about this? About what you’ve been feeling?”

“I don’t do that, Aly.” It was honest. That wasn’t something I deserved. The pain, all of it, it was mine to bear. I created it, I would carry it. My embarrassment, my shame at calling out Emily’s name wouldn’t let me step away from Aly and I didn’t, though I could guess where she was going with her question. “I never have. Music, football, those are my only releases.”

“But you said you hadn’t played in a while and you play football for a free ride to college, right?”

There were still tears clinging to her lashes and I let them distract me, rubbed them away with the pad of my thumb. “Basically.”

“Ransom.” Aly held my hand, pulling my fingers from her face so I would look at her. “Do you want to try this with me? Really try?”

No matter what I’d said, how I’d acted in the past, my body and brain hadn’t let me stay clear of Aly. I wanted her. “More than anything,” I told her, kissing her before she could refuse me again. “More than any damn thing.”

She nodded, holding my face away from her when I tried to touch her again. It was her eyes though that kept me still. They had returned to green hazel and were bright, a little tired, but still alight, searching my face. Whatever Aly hoped to find in my expression, I prayed it would calm her, would have her heart softened, her forgiveness pouring over me.

“Then you’re going to have to talk to me.” When I stiffened, a little panicked, a little anxious, Aly grabbed my arm, keeping me still. “I’m not going to share you with a ghost. You have to tell me everything.”

So I did.

“It was late September.”

I couldn’t look at her when I spoke, kept my gaze on the knotted whitewash floor at my feet, but I knew Aly stared at me. We were dressed, but still on her bed, as though the memory of what we’d done on it would make this easier, keep me from breaking away from the safety both Aly and this place brought me.

“I was a stupid, jealous kid back then.” I glanced at her, unable to ignore Aly completely. “Still stupid now, but was epically stupid then.”

“I remember you being happy.” The look on her face was soft, a little sad, but I got that maybe how Aly remembered me back then, the way I’d been before Emily went away, might have been what caught Aly’s attention.

“I was especially stupid about her.” I scrubbed my face and sighed, figuring Aly deserved to know what I remembered. “I loved her like the sunset when you can barely make out the sliver of light that separates night and day. And sometimes, when I really think about it, maybe the sunset isn’t always the best for you. It means the end. It means that you’ve run out of chances.”

“No, Ransom,” she said, moving her head into a tilt. “It means you get a whole other day, another chance to live to the fullest.” I could only stare at her, blinking back at that soft, slow smile. I’ve never known anyone like her and I wondered how I’d managed to luck up again, to have someone so beautiful, so sweet, wanting to save me from myself.

Shaking my head, I rested my elbows on my knees and looked back down at the floor. “Her father hated me because he didn’t think I was good enough for her. Then he found out we’d sent nudes to each other.” I shrugged, thinking how stupid, how careless we’d been. “And with that damn video of me tossing that creep Mikee Sibley through the window going public, well, he thought I was violent, too.” Another glance at Aly when she leaned back against the headboard and I clarified. “I was very violent then.” She nodded and I continued. “So we snuck around, getting her friend Becca to cover for us, telling her father they were volunteering at the food bank, stuff like that. Hell, we’d tell him anything.” I didn’t blame the man for hating me. I had never been honorable in his eyes and I certainly hadn’t acted that way.

“The week before the accident, her father had made her go on a date with Eddie Parker, some rich punk from Biloxi. She went because I’d acted like a twit about Parker being around so much—at her house, on the golf course with her father. The man was gearing them up for some sort of rich white people marriage that would put him into bed with Parker’s old man’s company. Hell, she was only seventeen and her father was planning out the rest of her life.”

Aly made a noise like she knew what that was about, but then she turned her attention back to me. She wasn’t going to let me off the hook.

“What happened on the lake?” Aly asked me when my voice got a little too loud. Always calming me, keeping me focused. It was natural for her, some smooth magic I’d never seen anyone else ever weave.

“She showed up at the lake house the next day telling me she wanted to talk. I knew what that meant.” If she’d meant to break my heart that day, she’d dressed the part. She’d looked beautiful with her hair pulled away from her face and a thin, green sundress making her look like a wood nymph. “Em was a good girl, for the most part, and maybe she got tired of lying to her father. Maybe she thought I wasn’t worth all the sneaking around and all the bullshit it took to see me. Maybe she actually was starting to hear the shit that her dad was relentlessly spewing about me, I dunno.” I massaged my neck, hoping the tension there was temporary.

“I…I didn’t want to hear it. I thought I knew what she was going to say and it sure as hell didn’t help with my parents there, hanging out with Leann and her husband. Hell, even Tristian was there with his little brother, I just wanted us to be alone if she was going to dump me.”

Getting her on the boat had been easy enough. She’d barely spoken to my family, like she knew being too friendly with them would make cutting ties that much harder.

“We were on the lake for at least an hour. It was windy that day and a storm was coming in. I saw it in the clouds. There was lightning and the thunder sounded too close for comfort.”

The mattress dipped as Aly scooted closer but she didn’t touch me.

“Em was crying, telling me how much she loved me. How she still wanted to see me, but also make things right with her father, but he was so fucking stubborn.”

I could only stare at those roiling clouds, trying to guess how long we had until they were overhead, not really caring if they were. Wondering if Emily ripping out my heart could possibly do less harm than some fucking storm.

“Before she could end it, I sped the boat up, aiming for the middle of the lake, hitting each wave head on, reckless, because I didn’t dare touch her to try to shake some sense into her, I was afraid to stop, afraid that if I slowed down everything would change. Because I didn’t want to hear her telling me she didn’t want the hassle of being around me anymore.”

When I lowered my head, keeping my hands at the base of my skull, Aly touched me, just her palm against my back to let me know she was still there, still listening.

“I kept going faster and faster, a little drunk on her screams, more than a little dazed with the idea that she didn’t want me anymore. I just…I wasn’t myself.” I felt the burn in my eyes and tried to stop the tears with a tight squint. “I wasn’t myself that day, I haven’t been since.”

“Tell me,” Aly said, resting her chin on my shoulder and I let her, thinking that the warmth of her body, that sweet brush of her breath against my cheek would keep me calm.

“She was screaming at me. ‘Slow down, Ransom! Please!’ and I thought, at first, she was being dramatic. It made me laugh. I fucking laughed at her.”

“You kept going?” Aly asked, her voice even and I didn’t pick up any judgment, anything in her tone that told me she thought I was being cruel, even though I had been.

“I kept going, laughing like a madman, and then she screamed…” The expression was burned in my mind—a photograph of horror, shock that I’d never be able to erase. “I looked at her, asked her what the hell the problem was. I had no idea what she saw. And I’d…I’d never find out. I was going too fast, being too careless in that damned boat. The waves were so big and suddenly we hit something, hard. The cops thought it might have been a pylon. The water was so high that day, I probably wouldn’t have seen it. It…doesn’t really matter to me what I hit.” Rubbing my eyes wouldn’t take the sting away, it wouldn’t make the screams vanish. Nothing would. Not even Aly’s hand tightening on my arm. “We flipped. We…we both smacked our heads on the boat when it capsized. We both went under. I was a stronger swimmer, and was able to swim under the boat, but Emily….. I tried to find her…”

She heard something in my voice then, that crackle of pain maybe, the breaking apart of my composure, whatever it was had Aly pulling me close, had me forgetting about the tears burning my eyes. “I looked…I couldn’t find her. I looked everywhere.”

“Ransom…”

“I tried, God, Aly, I swam all around the boat, I swam under it.” Aly raked her fingernails through my hair, but it didn’t sooth me and I felt that swift pain in my chest, the same one I’d been trying to bury for over a year, sticking sharp. “I dove and I dove, over and over again. I called to her again and again, and then nothing would come out of my mouth. No sound. No breath. I was so damn dizzy, and even after all that time in the water I felt blood on the back of my head and I thought ‘okay, I’m dying now’ and I was so happy. Everything was going dark. I was fucking happy I was dying because of what I’d done. I just, I couldn’t find her and it was all my fault.”

“You passed out?” Aly prompted gently, again directing me away from the pain as I clung to her.

“I don’t remember. I remember the accident, I remember things much later, but a lot of stuff before that, even things that had happened days, months before, and especially the details of how we were found, no.” That had been one of the biggest frustrations, the not knowing. Not seeing her after that boat flipped. “It’s why I didn’t remember you or connect the dots that you were the girl whose father I ran off. My short term memory is still sort of messed up. But passing out? I just don’t know if that’s what happened or what. One minute I was hanging on boat begging God to kill me, praying that somehow Emily was on the shore or somewhere in the marsh, somewhere…and the next thing I remember is my father leaning over me as our neighbor rushed us back to the lake house in his boat.”

Dad had looked so scared. I knew why. He’d already lost Luka. That loss still ran deep, and the cost had been excruciating. And now his son?

Aly kissed my forehead, but I still had more to say. She needed to hear everything. When I moved back, looking down at her, Aly frowned, looking confused by the distance I put between us, but she let me have my space. “I left her out there, Aly. I…I left her alone.”

“That wasn’t your choice, cheri.”

I ignored her, wondering why she wasn’t listening, needing her to understand what kind of man I was. “She died out there alone.”

There was a pause, a silence, and all I could feel was my shame and my self-loathing. But then she spoke, and her voice spanned that ugly void that I carried inside of me.

“Haven’t you been doing the same thing?”

Only Aly could lay it out there for me, could stun me silent. She was right. She saw it, that I had been punishing myself—and I wasn’t done punishing myself. When Aly reached for my hand, I let her take it, still too much of a coward to keep from grasping the lifeline she offered.

“They wouldn’t let me see her…at the hospital…I knew they’d found her body because the cops came to my room and my dad cut them off at the door. My mom with was the doctor, and they wouldn’t let me…” I sat up, wiping my face dry. “I was released from the hospital the next day. But as we were leaving, Emily’s father came up to me. He was so angry. He attacked me. I thought he would kill me with his bare hands. I didn’t fight back. Part of me actually wanted him to kill me, but Kona…Dad, pulled him off and then kept him away from me. Kept telling the man, ‘this won’t bring her back. This won’t help.’” He protected me, had done what fathers are supposed to do for their children. So had Emily’s father, at least that day, because he hadn’t been able to protect her from me before then.

“Aly, when he stopped fighting… when he stopped trying to attack me, well….I’d never seen anyone look so lost in my life. It was as if everything had been taken from him. And it had. I had taken everything he loved away from him. The pain in his eyes….”

I sighed, helpless to do anything else but remember his haunted expression. But Aly, she needed to hear it all.

“Then he told me that I was weak, that I was nothing.” I curled my fists tight, closing my eyes so I could see the expression on his face again, remember it for what it was: my first punishment. “He said, ‘The only thing you’ll ever bring anyone in this life is heartache.’” Aly didn’t follow me when I left the bed. She let me pace; I stopped in front of the window but didn’t look beyond it. “It was a curse,” I said, leaning my palm against the glass. “And I accepted it as my fair due. In fact, I cradled it. I let it sink its teeth into me and allowed it to be my enduring punishment for what I had done. It fed me. It still feeds me.”

“It’s a crutch, Ransom.”

I glanced at her, shrugging. “Maybe.”

I didn’t tell Aly about the days, weeks afterward. I didn’t tell her about sneaking into the salvage yard to see the boat, how I found Emily’s small cross charm and chain under the wet carpet. I didn’t say anything about my parents asking that I talk to them, to anyone, so that I didn’t sink into the abyss of what I’d done. So that it wouldn’t keep me stuck out on that lake, selfish and reckless, hopeless and weak, just like I’d been the day Emily died.

I didn’t tell Aly anything else about how I gotten to where I was now, still lost, but wanting to find my way back, wanting more than anything to take back saying the wrong name when I was with her. I should have. But I didn’t.

Aly’s feet were silent as she moved away from the bed, but I caught the hint of her shampoo when she stood behind me. “You let this keep you, it always will.”

“You don’t get it, Aly.” I turned and faced her, curling my arms across my chest, not reaching for her like I wanted. “What I did, who I am now, I deserve it. You don’t see…”

“Then show me.” She pulled my arms apart, gripping my face between her hands. “Tell me how I can…”

“You want to help me,” I told her, moving my head to get her to release me. “Everyone does. There is no helping me. She’s in my head. I hear her all the time. She tells me how to serve my penance.”

“Ransom…”

“I serve,” I said, cutting Aly off. “Until you, I only serve. I serviced so many girls I couldn’t get hard anymore. My body failed me and I let it. I was glad for it. I didn’t want to fix it because I knew how much I deserved it. What I did to Emily, to her family, it’s the least I could do, to never take pleasure from anything. I killed my first love. It’s the only way I could also kill myself.”

“You have to forgive yourself. You have to let her go.”

“No, I don’t get that.” When Aly stepped closer, I moved away from the window, not wanting her comfort just then. “I deserve to be punished.”

“You think I do?”

“What?” I jerked my gaze to her.

She stood in front of me, her chin lifted like she was laying down a challenge. “I killed my mother.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I did.” She worked that small shrug like she meant to be flippant, but her eyes were tight and I wondered how she managed to look guilty and proud all at the same time. “She died having me.”

I lowered my shoulders, managing a smile I knew was likely more sympathetic than she wanted to see. I’d caught on quickly that Aly didn’t like pity. “It’s not the same, sweetheart. Not remotely. You were a baby. You had no control over what happened.”

“You were a kid, too.” When Aly reached me, it was to hold me again and I let her, too selfish still, too needy to keep her from me. She leaned into me as I lowered onto the sofa, helping her move over onto my lap. “You were angry, you were scared but did you climb in that boat intending to hurt her?”

“Of course not.”

“People get into cars every day,” Aly said, smoothing her fingers over my brow. “They act stupid with their friends, they text and drive and I bet not one of them sets out to get into accidents. Sometimes they do. Sometimes those accidents end lives.” She reminded me a little bit of myself when I was younger and had brushed aside every negative thought, ever doubtful word I came across. My mom used to call me Pollyanna, always eager and ready to see the good in every situation. God, I wanted to be that innocent again.

“It’s tragic, yes, incredibly, horrifyingly tragic. They all are, every single one of them, those things that take our loved ones away from us because of chance, circumstance, bad decisions. The point is, you were a kid too. You didn’t know that messing around like that would cause all of this damage, otherwise, you would have stopped. Sweetie, you can’t keep paying for it. You’ve punished yourself enough.”

Her advice, well-meaning as it was, was flawed wisdom, and had me shaking my head. I wished it was that simple. And I wished that Aly wasn’t looking so hard to rescue me. I didn’t need a savior. Maybe I just needed her. “I’m not the bad boy who needs saving, Aly.”

“Non, cheri,” she said, scooting closer as though I hadn’t hurt her twenty minutes before, as though she’d already forgotten how badly I’d fucked up. “You’re a good man who needs to forgive himself.”