My fist clenches the sheets and my hips buck.

“Fuck,” I mumble sleepily, my hand moving down to thread through the dark hair of a girl that’s already rocked my world the entire night.

She groans, cupping my balls and I really hope she wasn’t down there long before I woke up. It’d have been a shame to miss any of this.

I’ve never had an alarm clock blow job, but damn if it isn’t the best way to say good fucking morning.

She licks up and down my shaft, teasing my balls with her hand as she swallows me until my tip hits the back of her throat.

After sleeping together for the first time, we had sex in the kitchen, I ate her out on the tequila-covered bar, then bent her over the edge of a chair and still my orgasm rushes forward so fast that I can barely contain it.

As if her mouth wasn’t enough, she fists the base of my dick, pumping at the same speed as she’s sucking me. All the muscles in my body constrict.

“I’m coming,” I announce, my eyes focused on the ceiling.

She doesn’t relent her steady rhythm, and the ceiling goes black, my mouth dry, from my panting breaths. My entire body feels like a stretched rubber band, and I use every damn trick I have to keep my orgasm at bay, but Skylar just took her finger off the rubber band, and I explode in her mouth, flying high until I’m like Jell-O and lay limp on the mattress.

Moving the sheet from over her head, she lips pepper kisses along my torso, hovering above me so her weight isn’t on my arm, and presses her lips to mine. “Good morning.”

“That’s one hell of a wake-up.”

“Want that sponge bath now?” She rolls over, her fingers grazing along my waistline.

“Nah.”

I watch her ass when she stands from the bed. “I have to shower. Zoe’s coming in a little bit to help me clean up and I don’t want to smell like sex.”

“It smells good on you,” I call out after her.

A big boom from the pipes rattling in the wall when she turns on the water interrupts her giggling.

I sit up in my bed pulling the sheet to my waist on the off-chance Zoe brings Molly and Caiden with her. My phone dings next to the bed, but I ignore it, clicking on the television.

Skylar is in the bathroom, music blaring and the faint sound of her singing along. Last night’s events rise in bits and pieces until my sober brain solves the puzzle of what happened last night and the gravity of what that might mean for us.

My phone dings again and I pick it up, ready to send Dax a fuck off text message back. The man thinks it’s hilarious to razz me about being injured and whether Skylar’s been giving me blow jobs along with her nursing duties. If I try to deny it, he’ll know. No one has better hook-up radar than Dax.

But it’s not Dax with his smart-ass jokes, it’s an alert from Instagram. A shift of energy flickers through the air like a big, dark cloud hovering above the room.

Summer.

I’m staring at my phone, and my heart beats faster with each message she sends. She always was impatient. Always demanding. Her and Skylar couldn’t be more different. But Summer and I share a history that would shake Skylar’s solid foundation of a loving family like an earthquake.

“Beck.” Skylar stands with a towel wrapped around her torso, another towel twisted in the hair on top of her head. The smile drops from her lips when she registers the expression on my face and my heart cracks.

“Don’t hate me,” I say past the lump in my throat.

“Nope. I’m not hearing it, Beckett. Don’t you dare say it.” She stomps off toward her closet and I rise from the bed and come to stand behind her. She doesn’t comment because she already knows I’ll follow. I’ll always follow her.

Well, not always, not down the aisle.

I lean my shoulder on the wall beside the closet. “I loved last night. Having you after so many years of wanting you.”

“Don’t even bother saying but,” she says loudly to her closet full of clothes.

“But we’re so much more than that.”

She stands in the middle of the room, drops her towel. “Am I not hot enough for you? You don’t want the girl next door type, but would rather some supermodel?”

I swallow deeply, my dick shooting up to full salute.

“That’s not it. You’re gorgeous and when you consider how many times I was inside you last night you know that’s the truth. Hell, look at me now.” We both stare at my dick tenting my boxers.

“Don’t give me some bullshit about me being your family because if we did cross that line, we’d actually be family.”

I shake my head. “Not if we don’t work out.”

She pulls on yoga pants, no panties and throws on a workout shirt and then a sweatshirt.

“And why wouldn’t we work out?” She starts packing a bag.

“Because I’m fucked in the head. Because I’m incapable of having a serious, lasting relationship. I’ve been by myself for so long…I’ll ruin you before you see how I’m not worthy of you. Believe me when I say I’m doing you a favor. I’m a better friend than a boyfriend.”

“And how do you know that? Ever since I met you, you never had a girlfriend.”

I sit down on her bed and pat the spot next to me. “Come here.”

“No.” She sits in her desk chair with a corkboard of pictures from her loving childhood behind her. As if it was placed there to make sure to remind me that she’s perfect, she grew up with the perfect family and she needs a future with a man who has the same. I know my place in her life and it isn’t with matching wedding bands. Even if I wish it could be.

“When I was seventeen, I met a girl named, Summer. We were foster kids in the same home during my senior year. It was the first time I really gave any thought to my future. I had one more year left in the system and I’d already made arrangements to move to Park City and spend every winter riding with the hopes of getting noticed somehow.”

She remains silent, so I carry on.

“We were super close. She was having nightmares when she first showed up, so when she’d wake up, we’d sneak out the window and take walks until she calmed down. Eventually we shared stories about what we’d been through. Her story was much worse than mine.” I cringe and push my hand through my hair remembering some of what she told me. “We made plans for her to come with me, even though she had one more year of school left after me. I mean, kids leave the system and run away all the time and we figured we’d hide out. Not like anyone would really go looking for her.”

She stands up and joins me on the bed.

“Obviously, since hormones control teenager’s actions more than their brains, I don’t have to tell you what happened. We slept together, and I thought maybe it could work, but it was like a light switch was flipped. She turned into a person I didn’t recognize as soon as it was over.” I turn to Sky, cupping her cheek in my hand. She doesn’t pull away. I’ve shared a few things about growing up in foster in the past but nothing to this extent. “You have this great family. Your parents, Zoe, Mikey, Chelsea, they’d all protect you from anything. I have you, Dax, and Grady. That’s it. Dax and Grady are about a minute from getting married and if I lose you.” I push back the tears threatening to fall.

“Beckett,” she sighs.

“I can’t lose you, Sky. I just can’t. You deserve so much in this life and I want to be next to you to experience it, but taking a chance at a relationship, I just...you’re asking me to jump out of a plane with no parachute and only a net to catch me below. Who knows if it will support us? It could very well break.”

“But it doesn’t—”

“Sky, I’d rather have you as a friend than not have you in my life at all.” I blink my burning eyes again, praying the tears there don’t fall.

She nods slowly, licking her lips. “Okay, we’ll forget last night.”

“No.” I rest my forehead to hers. “I’ll never forget last night...ever.”

She draws back, covering my one hand with both of hers. “If friendship is all you want Beckett, then you’ll need to forget it. I can’t say I didn’t wish this morning went differently. I love you, and not just as a friend, so I’m asking you to please give me the space I need the next few days. I can only make one promise and that’s that I’ll try to move past this. I agree I’d rather have you as a friend than nothing at all. But, you’re breaking my heart right now.”

She stands, picks up the duffle bag she was packing and walks out of the room.

In time, she’ll understand I’m doing this for both of us.

I reach for my phone, pull up Instagram and type out a message to Summer.

It’s true. There’s no room in my heart for anyone but Skylar. Even if I can’t be with her.