Few words in the English language get a nineteen-year-old guy’s motor revving like “Kiss me”.

Especially when they’re uttered by a hot girl. A hot older girl.

“Kiss me,” Lex said, her silver gaze warm. The lamp on her bedside table cast shadows across her heart-shaped face. Her skirt rode dangerously high on her thighs as we sat cross-legged, close enough to touch.

We shouldn’t be here. Lex, because no girl should spend her twenty-first birthday in her bedroom while her drunk ‘friends’ partied downstairs. Me, because Lex was my older sister’s friend, not mine.

I’d done my civic duty by checking on her after she took off up the stairs. The ‘why’ wasn’t hard to fill in. I’d seen Captain McDoucherson, aka Jake Marsden, rounding second base with some blond on the couch.

Any guy who’d break up with this girl for that one—hell, any other one—wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box.

I had no right to call myself an expert on Alexis Caine. She was two years ahead of me in high school. Our paths crossed when she’d visited my house, glued to Ava’s hip.

Still, she’d made an…impression on me. Where my sister was loud, impulsive and needy, Lex was quiet, thoughtful, and independent.

Every teenage guy has a fantasy. It’s not about money, or success, or fame.

It’s about a girl.

My fantasy was sitting across from me, a red-headed angel asking me to kiss her.

But here’s where reality diverges from fantasy. In all the times, in all the ways I’d imagined kissing this girl, I hadn’t pictured her finding out that I was practically a virgin. That my bad boy reputation was a cover. I definitely hadn’t pictured her laughing, telling me I’d better get caught up on the ‘extra-curriculars’, and offering me a second opinion on my skills before I launched myself into sophomore year of college.

Kiss me. Her request hung between us, perfect and wrong at once.

I rose from the bed, forcing out the last words I ever thought I’d say in the unlikely event I found myself in this situation.

“Lex…You’ve been drinking.”

Lex made a little noise of protest, shifting forward to wrap her cool fingers around my forearms. Her touch burned my skin as she tugged me back down, her copper hair sliding over her bare shoulders.

“I’m not drunk,” she insisted, eyes flashing.

Fuck, please don’t make being a good guy harder.

“What’s twelve times eighteen?” I stalled.

“Two hundred and sixteen.”

Why a display of rapid-fire calculation should make my dick twitch was beyond me.

“The capital of South Africa.”

“Pretoria.”

I’d forgotten Lex wasn’t just older than me, she was smarter too. It was sexy as hell.

“First Democratic president of the United States.”

“Andrew Jackson. Serving from 1829 to 1837.” That silky voice wrapped around me, adding, “You want to do this all night?”

Enduring hours of escalating sexual frustration is not a preferred Friday night activity for me. I stared into Lex’s flushed face, cursing her drunkenness and my chivalry.

“Dylan, we’re both grown-ups. There’s nothing here,” Lex insisted, waving a finger between us. “We’re practically family, minus the ick factor. And you are in desperate need of an unbiased opinion.”

I shot her a look and she rolled her eyes.

“Come on. It’s one stupid kiss. To cap off one stupid, heinous night. What are you so afraid of?”

You’re a good guy, Dylan Cameron. Keep it together. Keep it—

“One kiss.” I heard myself say. “Fine.”

After nineteen years, I’d realized a thing or two. That I can tell when someone’s lying. That it’s safest to assume people are sheep, until they prove otherwise. And that the most fascinating girl ever to star in my seedy teenage fantasies would never play more than a cameo in my actual life.

The same girl who, right now, was looking at me through half-closed eyelids.

Am I a good guy? Yeah.

Am I a saint?

Hell no.

My heart started pounding like a bass drum in my chest. Her smell twined around me like her fingers had twined around my arms. The way her tank top cut low over the curves of breasts I’d imagined more than once. I’d never noticed the tiny flecks of gold in her silver eyes before, because I’d never been this close to her before.

The most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen wants you to kiss her.

So fucking do it.

I closed the distance between us, my mouth brushing hers like a whisper.

When Lex didn’t scramble for the door, my hand found the curve of her cheek. Just touching her had my head spinning, even before I slanted my mouth over hers.

Suddenly it wasn’t Lex’s experiment, it was mine. Every sensation was captured and filed away. The curve of that full lower lip, yielding under mine. The high I got from her smell. The feel of her cheek beneath my thumb.

Shit. Maybe there’d be a day that this girl didn’t affect me, but that day just got a hell of a lot further away.

“Well,” she said when she finally pulled back. I waited for the sarcastic remark that would mean the universe was back to normal.

Nothing came.

I’d watched this girl for years and I could read her like the damned dictionary. Her silence had always meant more than her words.

The way she was looking at me right now? That look spoke fucking volumes.

My whole body tightened and I reached for Lex, dragging her surprised mouth back to mine. I ate any protest, my hand cupping the back of her head, my fingers threading in her hair. Her fingers wrapped around my wrist. But she didn’t push me away.

On a groan, my tongue pressed against the seam of her lips. I needed more, was desperate for it, and her ambivalence was killing me.

Just fucking kiss me, Lex. We both know you want to.

I sunk my teeth into her bottom lip, hard enough to make her gasp. Lex moaned into my mouth, and suddenly she was all around me. Her taste, her smell, her touch.

Because, yeah, that was her hand sliding up my chest and making every muscle along the way leap. It was her fingers on my neck and tugging me closer—not that I needed any convincing.

Did I know what I was doing? Not really.

Did it matter?

Not one fucking bit.

I hauled her against me, pulling her up on her knees so I could fit her body to mine. My greedy fingers found her hair, jerking her head back so I could taste more of her sweet mouth.

A sound I’d never heard came from her throat, at once demanding and needy, and reminded me we weren’t anywhere near close enough.

I imagined this a million times. But I’d never imagined her this wild. The little moans in her throat. The way she clung to me.

My cock was hard enough to cut rock, and she had to feel me against her. When she arched into me, I nearly died.

I was in control—at least as much as either of us was—and the knowledge had me dropping my hand from her hair to stroke a finger up the back of her bare leg. She didn’t offer up a single protest, and my heart stopped when I reached the curve of her ass. Only smooth skin, right up to the band of lace across her hips, and my fingers dug into her hipbone like I could plant my damn flag there.

I wanted to press her into the bed with my body. To shove that skirt up around her waist and see the tops of those endless legs. To watch her cloudy eyes change color when I—

I fell back, barely catching myself before sliding off the bed.

It took a moment for me to realize she’d pushed me away. Finding myself sitting on the edge of her bed, sucking air instead of her exhales, was a cruel reality check.

Lex’s eyes were wide and glazed as she sprawled back on the bed, one knee tucked under her awkwardly and her hair a tangled mess. She looked like she’d been through a hurricane.

“Well,” I said, throwing her word back at her, “scientific enough for you?”

I rubbed a hand over my face, not bothering to try and hide my arousal. She knew I was hard for her. Hell, ten seconds ago she’d been rubbing on me like she was hoping my jeans would disintegrate.

“That was…” Lex cleared her throat. “You definitely have the right foundations.”

Her cheeks were pink, from embarrassment or the way we’d been climbing each other. I wanted to show her exactly what I thought of her cool assessment, with my hands and my mouth and every damn part of my body. But the look in her eyes—big and alive and almost fearful on mine—had me holding back.

Some things weren’t worth it.

I lifted myself off the bed and crossed to the door. “Well, thanks for the ‘experiment’. It was good catching up.” I took some satisfaction from the way her lips were swollen from mine. My voice softened. “And Lex? Happy birthday.”

I shut the door after me, taking a second to adjust myself.

The party downstairs washed over me in degrees. The fifty-plus people who’d taken over Lex and Ava’s house off campus. Nothing had changed in the students drinking, the music pulsing, the laughter. The only thing different was me.

Not just me, I realized, remembering Lex’s face. I’d learned something tonight. Lex Caine wasn’t just Ava’s.

From now on…she was mine, too.

Whether she was ready to admit it or not.