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No matter how many times I did this, the excitement was always the same. The thrill of parking a block away, sneaking down the street, and knocking on Luke Riggs’ door in the dark.

Maybe because it was forbidden. Maybe because it was fun. I hadn’t stopped to analyze it, even though I’d been doing this all summer. I should probably be sorry, but I wasn’t.

The door opened, and Luke was there. Westlake, Michigan’s bad boy, right here on the wrong side of the tracks. Eighteen, muscled and dark, a tattoo snaking down his right arm. Irresistible, at least to me.

He lived in the guest house on his family’s run-down property. A guest house sounds rich, but the Riggs were far from it. The house might have been nice once, but it wasn’t anymore. Not that I cared about that. I only cared that the guest house gave us privacy.

Instead of inviting me in, Luke leaned against the door frame. He was wearing low-slung jeans and a well-worn black tee. He had the beginnings of a scowl on his face. “I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.

“I almost didn’t,” I admitted. “I still have a lot to do to get ready for tomorrow.”

“Leaving for college is a big deal.” His voice was flat, not his usual sexy drawl, but I barely noticed. I was impatient, distracted, my heart thumping in my chest the way it always did around Luke.

“It’ll be fine,” I said. “The car is mostly packed, and… Are you going to let me in?”

He watched my face for a long minute from his dark eyes. “You sure you want to come in?”

He was in a strange mood tonight. It couldn’t be because I was leaving for college tomorrow, because we’d always known that would happen. We’d hooked up this past summer with high school finally over, and going to college was always in my plan. Besides, Luke and I weren’t serious. No one even knew we were seeing each other. We were just having fun.

“Of course I’m sure, silly,” I said. I put my hands on his flat stomach—I could feel the muscles through his T-shirt, yum—and pushed him backward. He let me, moving back out of the doorway so I could come in. I closed the door behind me.

Now we were alone. We’d done this a lot, Luke and me, over the past few months—starting with making out, then progressing to sex. He was my first, a decision I hadn’t taken lightly and still didn’t regret. Even now, with my virginity long gone, I felt a pulse of excitement between my legs just being near him.

This would be the last time, and then I’d go to college. I was excited about that, too. College was going to be awesome. But I couldn’t leave without seeing Luke again.

I leaned up into him—he was warm and smelled awesome—and kissed him. He kissed me back, cupping my head with one of his big hands, then broke it. “When do you leave tomorrow?” he asked, still holding onto me. There was only one lamp on in the corner of the room, and his face was shadows in the half-dark.

Why was he still on this topic? “Early,” I said, putting my palms on his stomach again, this time sliding them up beneath his shirt. “We have to be quick.”

“I’m never quick,” he said, with a hint of his usual sexy humor. I felt part of me unwind with relief. This was the Luke I knew, and I really, really liked him.

And I wasn’t going to see him again.

I was fine with it. I mean, college. I was going to college, and I was going to kick ass at it, and then I was going to get a big high-powered job. Maybe I’d buy a big house and get a high-powered husband and have a few gorgeous babies. I hadn’t decided on that part. I wanted to get to college first.

“What are you going to do?” I asked Luke. “After I leave, I mean.”

Luke wasn’t going to college. He was a Riggs, and no Riggs ever went to college. He didn’t have the grades, and he didn’t have the money. His dad owned an auto body shop in town. He dropped his hands from me, tilting his head. “You’ve never asked me that,” he said.

That mood again. “Well, I’m asking now.”

“I could work in the body shop, I guess,” Luke said, “but I think I might go for a drive.”

I blinked at him. “Go for a drive? Where?”

“Nowhere. Anywhere. Just get in my car, hit the gas, and keep going.”

I thought about that. “You mean get the hell out of Westlake.”

“Pretty much.”

It was a common feeling. Westlake didn’t have much going for it. I should know, because my mother was a cop here. She thought Westlake was great; I just wanted to put it in my rear view mirror. “You should do it,” I said. “Go see the country. You could work just about anywhere.” Luke knew how to fix cars, so he could get a job in a body shop wherever he went.

He looked at me again, that strange look. “You think I should do it?”

“Of course I do,” I said. “But first…” I stood back with a dramatic flourish and pulled my shirt off over my head. “A proper goodbye.”

I was trying to cheer him up, but he just crossed his arms and looked me up and down, his gaze pausing on my skimpy lace bra. “Is that all you got?” he said, his voice dropped a notch.

“Come on,” I said, pointing to my boobs. “You love these.”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted.

“A lot,” I corrected him, with the authority of a woman who knows. “Now it’s your turn.”

I was trying to get him to take his shirt off, because—oh, my lord. It didn’t matter how many times I’d seen it, it still made me stop breathing for a second. He obliged me by pulling his tee off and dropping it on the floor, and I took in his muscles, his perfect tawny skin, the dusting of hair in a line below his belly button.

You aren’t going to see this anymore, a voice in the back of my mind said. This is the last time.

I felt a pang behind my ribcage, and for a second my throat closed. But that was stupid. This was nothing. It had always been nothing. We were just having fun.

It was hormones and boredom and the lure of the forbidden. That was all it was.

But now Luke was coming toward me, and he tossed me on my back on the bed. “Your turn,” he said, and though the words were playful, his voice wasn’t. His voice said something else.

I put my fingers on the buttons of my shorts, and I looked up at him, braced over me his dark eyes fixed on me. Not on my body, on my face. Always on my face.

My throat was closed again, but I forced the words out. “One last time,” I said to him.

“One last time,” he agreed.

I’d have one last time with Luke Riggs, and then I’d go to college.

And everything would be fine.