When she started giggling, I contemplated jumping back in the shower. This had to have been the worst idea I’d ever come up with. After shopping for underwear, I thought long and hard about dropping her off at an airport. Actually, had she bought real panties, the ones with lace—or worse, thongs—she would’ve been thousands of feet in the air by now. And when she made that comment about seeing me shirtless, I had to put a stop to it before I did something stupid.

I didn’t trust myself.

And she deserved better.

Luckily, I’d managed to set some boundaries with her. It might’ve hurt her feelings for a few minutes, yet when this trip was over, she’d thank me. It didn’t take a genius to tell she wasn’t the type of girl who could spend the night with a guy and then walk away. And with her running away from one bad situation, there was no way in hell I’d put her in another.

It was obvious why she was laughing as soon as I heard the first hiccup, and by the time my eyes landed on the opened bottle of Jack, she was on her way to the bathroom with her hands over her mouth. I wanted to be pissed—actually, I was—but the sound of her vomiting stifled the anger long enough to make sure she was okay.

“Sweetheart…” I kneeled next to her, pulled her light-brown hair away from her face, and held it at the nape of her neck with one hand while I rubbed circles on her back with the other. This wasn’t the first time I had to soothe someone who’d gotten sick after too much to drink. Then again, I hadn’t ever done this with someone who’d only had, at the most, a few shots.

When the retching stopped, I reached up and tugged on the handle to flush the toilet. She had her arms folded along the seat, shielding her face, and all I could think about was how dirty that toilet probably was.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get your face out of there. I’m sure it’s not very sanitary.”

“Don’t call me that.” Her weak voice echoed in the bowl, her throat closing around the hoarse words. When she sniffled, I worried she was crying, then I realized it was more than likely a runny nose from throwing up—the human body had a way of making us completely unattractive when we were sick.

“Okay…I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why she asked me not to use “sweetheart,” though if she told me not to, I wouldn’t. “But hey, listen, Maggie…we need to get you up. Are you feeling okay enough to lie down? Or do you think you’re gonna be sick again?”

“I’m fine. I just need a shower.” If misery had a distinct sound, it would be Maggie’s voice right now. “And since you think we’ll end up doing the naked tango if we joke around with each other, I’m sure you don’t want to be in here when I take off my clothes. Wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable or anything.”

I sighed, unsure how to proceed. It wasn’t clear if she was angry, upset…or just drunk in general. Either way, I needed to find out, because I couldn’t let her sit in here alone. “Can you tell me why you were drinking?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She pushed herself away from the toilet and reached for the shower curtain to stand up. “You’ve been warned, Talon. If you stay, it’s your fault. You can’t blame me.”

I grabbed her hand to keep her from pulling the curtain rod on top of us, which only managed to piss her off. She tried to elbow me, yet she was unsteady and she didn’t seem to have much strength. When she realized she couldn’t push me away, she gave up—or, at least, she gave up fighting me. Her next plan of action was to strip.

Yup…she was definitely mad.

Without the hoodie, she didn’t have a difficult time getting the shirt over her head—even with my determination to stop her. She tried the bra next, which I discovered was light purple. However, I managed to prevent her from unclasping it by pressing her against my chest. When she began to slide the straps off her shoulders, I couldn’t take it anymore. If she wanted to undress, I wouldn’t be able to stop her. If she was this determined to get in the shower, she’d find a way. This was Maggie’s retaliation against my earlier rejection. She was making a statement, and if this was the only way she felt she could do that, then dammit, I’d let her have it.

I wrapped my arm around her waist, stood, and hoisted her off the floor. She must’ve assumed I was taking her to the room, because she tried to twist out of my hold while yelling at me to let her go. If this were any other motel, I would’ve been worried about someone calling the cops. But since the sounds of a woman yelling for help was more than likely a common occurrence around here, I didn’t have much to worry about.

The bathroom was so tiny, I only had to take one step to the side and I had her in the shower stall with her back against the dark, pink tile. Her chest heaved while she stared at me. Anger lined every beautiful feature of her face, her eyes glassy yet ready to burn me with their heat.

Her breasts were full, something I hadn’t noticed before with my jacket hiding her figure. They weren’t too big, though—just enough to fill the bra cups and complement her small frame. And her jeans sat low on her waist, showing off her flat stomach and bringing unnecessary attention to her hips. There was no doubt in my mind that in a couple of years, after she gained those few pounds that life naturally afforded women, she would be a knockout.

“This is what you want?” Standing just outside the shower’s edge, I tugged my T-shirt over my head and dropped it behind me. I leaned forward, eating up what little personal space the stall had to offer, and asked, “Does this make you feel better about yourself? Being seen as an easy lay instead of a real fucking person?”

She lowered her gaze to my chest and swallowed hard enough to make her throat dip with the effort. It was clear my heated frustration left her unsettled, but I was on a roll. One way or another, she’d see my point and concede.

“What now, Maggie? Huh? Now that you got me here, both of our shirts off, what’s next? Should I fuck you against the wall? Treat you like some one-night stand, use your body to get off, and then walk away?”

Her gaze dropped even further, yet she wasn’t looking at my body. Her eyes may have been, but her mind was elsewhere, and it made me question just how innocent she was if a few swigs of liquor had done this to her.

Just then, her knees began to buckle, her legs becoming unsteady. Without thinking, I stepped in, grabbing her hips to hold her up, keeping her from collapsing to the shower floor. For a second, I worried she might’ve passed out, or was on the verge of it. Then she found her footing. Maneuvering her hands between our bodies, she pressed her palms flat to my chest.

“No,” she argued in a somewhat raspy voice, pushing against me. “Just because I hate the way you look at me like I’m some poor, defenseless child doesn’t mean I want you to fuck me. Just because I say something about the way you look doesn’t mean I’m asking you to fuck me.” She punctuated each argument with a shove, though I didn’t budge. “Just because I take a shower doesn’t mean…it doesn’t mean I’m inviting you to fuck me.”

Finally, I shifted away just enough to give her space without stepping out of the stall. Her eyes found mine, and I couldn’t look away. The tears collecting along the rims made her blue irises light up and shine like the sky—a sad, desperate sky. And in that moment, I broke. Broke more than ever before. Shattered. Decimated. Never to be whole again.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered—well, tried to. It ended up being more air than sound, yet she heard me. “I, uh…I should let you wash up. Maybe the water will help sober you some. I’ll be right out there if you need anything.”

Had it been a tub, I never would’ve left her alone. But it wasn’t, and standing here any longer would’ve done more harm than good. She was right—I’d taken her actions and made assumptions based on previous experiences, and that wasn’t fair to her. Especially since she wasn’t anything like the girls back home, so she didn’t deserve to be treated like one.

I left her in the bathroom with the door closed, and with the bottle of Jack in my hand, I listened to the water through the wall. On the way back to the motel after teaching Maggie how to drive a stick, I’d stopped at the corner store for something to take off the edge brought on by endless hours stuck behind the wheel. I figured a few drinks would make it easier to fall asleep. I didn’t care if she had any—underage drinking was the norm back home. What bothered me the most was her reason for drinking in the first place. She didn’t need to get drunk to prove a point—to herself or to me.

After one swig of the Coke, I tossed it aside. I should’ve known this place wasn’t nice enough to have an ice machine. I gripped the bottle of Jack, noting just how much she’d taken. Honestly, it wasn’t much—definitely not enough to leave any of my friends hunched over a toilet. And it made me wonder if Maggie had ever been drunk before. Where I was from, if you made it to your sixteenth birthday without at least one night you couldn’t remember, that meant you didn’t have much of a social life. If you made it to eighteen without forming a tolerance for some form of alcohol, you likely weren’t from around there. Although, getting sick after a couple of shots wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, it only made me respect Maggie more than I already did.

Without TV or anything other than liquor to occupy me, time dragged on. It could’ve been a few minutes, but based on how much was missing from the bottle, it had to have been longer than that. So, when I noticed the water was still running, I started to get worried. Granted, she wouldn’t drown—it wasn’t deep enough for that. Not to mention, there was no way she’d be able to lie down, regardless of how small she was.

I contemplated giving her a few more minutes, except when I knocked on the door to check on her, she didn’t respond.

I stormed in, panic tightening my throat, and found her sitting on the shower floor. She had her legs pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins, and her head bowed, forehead pressed against her knees. Her bra and jeans were soaked through as she sat beneath the spray, and I had no doubt she’d been that way since I left.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you out of here,” I said, shutting off the water. I grabbed a towel from over the toilet and helped her stand so I could wrap it around her. She needed to remove the wet clothes, except I wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle it in the state she was in, and I certainly didn’t trust myself to undress her. “If I step out and grab your sweats and a dry shirt, will you take these off?”

She nodded, keeping her attention trained on the floor.

This time, when I left her alone in the bathroom, I only cracked the door. And assuming it’d probably take her a while to pull off the wet denim, I took my time gathering her new clothes from the Walmart bag. It was easy to remain focused on the task at hand when I removed the tags and stickers from the sweatpants—not so much when I had to open the package of panties. They weren’t as old-lady as I would’ve liked, and now that I’d seen them, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to look at her without picturing her ass filling them.

When I checked on her again, she was perched on the edge of the toilet seat with the towel wrapped around her shivering body. Her bra was on the floor and her jeans were mostly off; it looked like she couldn’t get them past her ankles. So I dropped to my knees and yanked them off the rest of the way.

“I brought you a clean pair of panties. You’ll need to take off the wet ones so you can put these on.”

Her shoulders shook uncontrollably and her teeth chattered. “I’m not wearing any.”

I regarded the jeans I’d just removed, noting there weren’t any underwear with them, and there was no way she could’ve taken them off with her pants stuck around her feet. Which meant my earlier assumption had been right—she hadn’t worn any all day.

My chest vibrated with my wavering restraint and I wiped my face, hoping I could buy myself enough time to get a grip. It wasn’t that I was on the verge of hauling her to the bed and having my way with her. She wasn’t in the right state of mind for that. I may have fucked around with women far more intoxicated than Maggie, yet it wasn’t the same. No. I needed to get my shit together, because if I didn’t, I wasn’t sure I’d make it all the way to Florida without doing something we both might regret. And right now, I’d settle for jacking off at the memory of her body, as long as it kept me from hurting her in the end.

“Okay…well, here. Take these and put them on.” I handed her the wad of white cotton and turned away to offer her some privacy.

Come to find out, crouching on the floor next to her only served to torture me more. I heard every sound and could practically see her every move play out in my head. The way she bent over to step into the leg holes, the fabric sliding up her smooth skin, the toilet seat shifting when she lifted her hips just enough to pull them over her ass, and the snap of the elastic as she released it around her waist.

She reached over to take the shirt off the pile next to me, and again, it all played out in my mind as if I were watching her dress instead of sitting with my back to her. Next were the sweatpants, and by that point, I couldn’t take it. I stood, picked up the towel from the floor, and hung it on the hook. Then I took her wet jeans and draped them over the shower rod to dry. Luckily, she took care of her bra, hanging it on the door handle inside the bathroom—which meant it would taunt me every time I had to take a leak.

Maggie didn’t bother to brush her wet hair. Instead, she grabbed a blanket and pillow from where I’d set everything after coming in, and began to make a pallet on one of the beds. Not once did she look at me or even utter a sound. Everything about her from her posture to her movements emoted sadness, depression almost. I longed to make it right, except I wasn’t sure how. All I could do was watch her and hope she’d sleep it off.

However, as soon as she laid down—on her side facing away from me—and curled into a ball, there was no way I could wait until morning. I grabbed the other blanket and spread it over her, and then slid onto the bed to lie behind her. For a moment, she stiffened, yet she didn’t say anything. I slipped my right arm under the pillow, beneath her neck, and then tucked her against my chest with the left.

What the fuck are you doing, Talon?

I ignored my conscience and relaxed behind her. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I didn’t mean to upset you,” I whispered into the wet hair clinging to her neck.

“I’m sorry I took your liquor.”

Normally, that would’ve made me laugh. Not this time. Sorrow hung in her voice, begging me to make it go away. She hadn’t said it, but her tone had implied that she’d somehow let me down. If anything, I was the one who’d disappointed her.

“I don’t care about that, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.” Initially, when she issued this demand, she was face-first in the toilet, pissed off and ready to fight. This time, she’d lost the anger and will to argue, so hearing her say it again left me confused.

“Why does it bother you all of a sudden?” I held my breath and waited for an answer.

“It’s patronizing, like I’m a kid or something.”

I blew a sigh against her shoulder and closed my eyes, curling into her until my brow met the back of her head. “You’re taking it the wrong way. That’s not how I mean it.”

“You said so yourself earlier today. You said I’m young.”

I held her closer, wishing I could tell her exactly what I thought of her; except I couldn’t, because I wasn’t even sure what the answer was. It was more than finding her sexy. She was beautiful and powerful in her own right, an angel among sinners.

“That’s not the same thing as saying you’re a child, Maggie. Not at all.”

“Whatever, Talon. I don’t wanna fight about it.”

Her defiance only added another punch to my gut. Rather than irritate me like it would have if she’d been anyone else, it simply reiterated how different she was from anyone I’d ever met. She had an innocence about her, a naïve, desperate need to be seen as someone or something else. And while her determination to make that happen was impressive, all it did was prove yet again that nothing could happen between us.

I’d end up soiling her wings.

“You’re not much older than I am.” She may have said she didn’t want to argue about it, but that hadn’t stopped her from speaking her mind. “I hate it when people put such importance on age, or how many years divide two people. That shouldn’t matter. You were, what…learning the alphabet when I was born? Yet you act like you were performing surgery by the time I took my first breath.”

“Sometimes, the lives we live can make five years feel more like ten—or even two. You’re the girl who found herself at a house where people were more than likely doing drugs, and you were uncomfortable. You ran out of there. Not too long ago, I used to spend every weekend in places like that.”

Her body became rigid while she held her breath. “Do you…do drugs?”

“No. I used to. Granted, I never did anything hardcore, but there’s no telling what would’ve happened to me if Tony hadn’t stepped in. That’s what I’m saying, Maggie. I’ve lived things you haven’t. The things I’ve seen and done fill far more than those five years.”

“I get that. Except, it doesn’t make it better. You made me feel like shit today.”

I fought against the need to roll her over so she could see just how sorry I was, but holding her this way, unable to look her in the eyes, proved to be best for both of us. “I don’t want to hurt you. I refuse to do something you’ll end up regretting. I’m trying to be the good guy here, Maggie. I’m trying to do the right thing, and you’re giving me a guilt trip for it.”

“Well, the mud’s on your face. I never offered it.”

If I could’ve gone back in time and kept my mouth shut in the Walmart parking lot, I would have. Had I known that those words would cause this kind of reaction, I never would’ve said anything. And now, I wasn’t sure how to make it right.

“I never should’ve assumed. That’s my fault, and again, I’m sorry. Anytime a female has made a remark about my body, it’s never innocent. So when it came from you, I didn’t stop and think about your intention. In my world, where I’m from, what I’m used to…when a woman says something like that, they’re looking for more.”

“Maybe I was, too. Not sex. Maybe I was looking to have a little fun with you, needing something playful to mask what’s going on in my life right now. That doesn’t have to lead to sex. People can flirt and have fun without getting naked.”

There was no way I could explain to her that while I agreed, that didn’t mean she was right. Because ultimately, my brain didn’t work that way. Maybe she could tease or flirt with someone she found attractive and never take it further, or even think about taking it further. I couldn’t. If I entertained flirtatious comments or sexual innuendos, I acted on them.

I wished I could’ve lived in her world, because then, maybe I would’ve had a chance with her—a chance that didn’t start in a getaway car. “Hey, Maggie? Can I ask you a question?”

“I can’t stop you.” Her words were softer, slower, as if she were on the verge of falling asleep.

“Why is it such a big deal if we flirt or not?”

She shrugged in my arms, lifting her shoulder closer to my face. “I’ve never felt more alone in my entire life—and between my dad dying while fighting for our country in Afghanistan and my mom running away and never hearing from her again, I’ve had plenty of experience feeling lonely.” Hearing that broke my heart, but this wasn’t the time to learn more about her past. “Now, I’m running away from my entire life to stay with my elderly grandfather who more than likely won’t even remember who I am. So, it’s not really so much about flirting as it is my need to feel a connection to someone…because I’m not sure when I’ll get another chance to have that.”

My heart slammed against my sternum as if I could physically experience her pain. And in a way, I guess I could, only it was the complete opposite. I’d gotten attention my whole life, always had a list of people I could call for any number of reasons. However, it wasn’t until she spoke her truth that I realized just how lonely my life had been, despite the number of friends I had or how many women were ready and willing to warm my bed at night.

“Well, I don’t have a clue what your life will be like once you make it to Florida. All I can say is between here and there, I promise you…you won’t be lonely.” I wasn’t sure how I’d keep that promise, but by God, I’d do everything in my power not to let her down.

She didn’t respond, and within a few minutes, her body had relaxed and her breathing evened out. I closed my eyes, blocking out the rest of the world, forgetting about where I came from or where she’d been, and for once, I let myself imagine what it would be like to have something good. To have someone like Maggie. To be worthy of her, deserve her.

And just before I let go of the last bit of consciousness that kept me in the moment, the cold, hard realization hit me. I would never get the chance to experience that. Not with her. Not with anyone. My fate had been sealed the night we’d met. Unfortunately, I’d dug my grave less than thirty minutes before running into her at that gas station, and there was no going back.

If only I’d met her first…