My body’s in flight mode, every sense I’ve got telling me to get out of here. I’ve never seen Blake like this: an animal, baring its teeth. Claiming what’s theirs, even if it’s not.

Actually, I realize, I have seen a glimpse of this Blake once. That night we lost our virginities, when I first started to doubt everything. He lifted me onto the dryer like I was nothing, just tiny prey in his claws. The force of his kiss, his fingers, his tongue—I’d almost forgotten.

When he pulls back and tells me I’m his, I stare at him. Both of us are panting and the rain shatters down around us. His eyes are a fiercer blue than I remembered, steeled and cold.

His new, bulked-up body strains with his strength, every part of me pushed back against the seat. When he kisses me again, he surrounds me. It brings a certain kind of terror with it that I’m surprised to find I like.

Because I know Blake can take anything he wants from me right here, right now. And I’ll give it to him.

“Backseat,” he orders, and leans back just enough for me to wriggle free. As I climb through the seats, he grabs the waistband of my pants and pulls them off. My panties come with them. It throws my balance off; I tumble, naked from the waist down, into the backseat.

Blake climbs back after me. His shoulders slide against the roof of the car. Everything rocks from side to side with his weight.

“Lie down.”

He looms over me, one hand on either side of my head, and undoes his pants.

I have a feeling he’s not going to be gentle, this time.

“Wait,” Mel exclaims. I pause, palming my erection and pressing the tip against her. “Don’t you want to....”

“Want to, what?” I give her an impatient look. “Get a condom?”

“Um—no. I mean, I’m...I’m on the Pill.”

“Then, what?”

“Can we do some foreplay?”

I just stare at her. “Why? I know you’re already wet for me.”

“Well, shit, Blake,” she snaps, pushing her legs shut. “Foreplay’s about more than greasing the wheel. It makes the other person feel comfortable. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“You aren’t comfortable?” I shrug and start to pull away.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t comfortable,” she protests, and gives me this look like she knows I’m bluffing, but isn’t willing to call me on it. Which is probably a good thing, because if she weren’t holding my tie right now, anchoring me in place, I’d bluff my way all the way back to the front seat.

“Fine. Here.” I push two fingers into her at once, no warning. She gasps and pulls me even closer.

Call it petty, but I’m determined to get my way, this time. So when Mel shuts her eyes again and whispers, “Yes, keep doing that,” I stop. Before she can complain, I’ve replaced my fingers with my erection, thrusting inside fast and deeply.

“Oh, God,” she moans, lifting her shoulders off the seat. I catch a whiff of perfume, something like honeysuckle. I don’t recognize it. It makes me furious, a reminder of all those years apart—but excited, at the same time, to learn just how much has changed.

I lean down and bite her collarbone, the tiny section visible at the top of her blouse, as I sink all the way inside. Her entire body shudders.

“You like that?”

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are still closed.

“Hey.” I grab her chin and make her look at me. “Answer me when I ask you a question, Mellie.” My voice lowers. I speak slowly, deliberately. “Did you like the way I bit you…while putting every inch of myself inside you?”

Her eyes, that jewel-toned green I’ve never forgotten, glaze over. Fear, anger, lust. She wants this. She just hates admitting it.

“Yes,” she whispers, finally.

“Sound byte rules,” I correct. “Always answer me in a full sentence. Repeat what I’ve asked you.”

“Yes,” she says again, with just a hint of sarcasm, “I liked the way you bit my neck…” Here, her voice breaks. She swallows. The sarcasm’s gone. “…and put every inch inside me.”

“Not bad.” To reward her, I duck my head and pull her shirt down, the cup of her bra going with it, and work my tongue around her nipple.

“Yes, Blake,” she sighs. I feel her hands wind into my hair, pulling me against her. My hips sway faster. Harder.

“Come for me, Mellie,” I order. “Now.”

Blake’s command puts panic in me. “What? I—I can’t. Not right away.”

He looks up at me. “Did I ask you?”

“Well...I mean, you said—”

“No,” he growls, “I didn’t ask you to come. I told you. Now do it.” His order is punctuated by a bite to my nipple.

“Ow!” I yelp. I start to push him off, but stop: in a weird way, it felt good. Really good.

“Okay, okay,” I relent, “but at least let me touch myself. Otherwise, it isn’t going to happen.”

He smirks. For just a second, I see the old him. “Wasn’t stopping you.”

Blake watches me slip my hands between us. I find my own rhythm quickly. The harder he stares, even though he’s barely moving, the closer I get.

“Looks like you’ve gotten the hang of things,” he says. He looks at me from under his brow. “Been practicing?”

“Yeah,” I laugh, the sound breathy and surreal, “I guess you could call it that.” I tilt my head back again and watch the sky fall, rain coming straight at me and splattering against the glass.

“You know,” I tell him, “I think about you every time I do this.”

“Really.” He seems pleased, but not surprised. Like he never doubted that I still think of him that way, that I’m still attracted to him. Like he knew, even before I got in this car, I’d let him inside me again.

I nod. “You were the one who taught me how, after all.”

“You would’ve picked it up, one way or another.” He pushes all the way inside again. I forget to breathe, I’m so focused on it: just when I think he can’t go deeper, he does.

“Blake,” I groan, because it’s happening; my vision starts to black out at the corners, and my ears ring, and all I can think about is him pushing deeper, so far inside me that I can’t remember what it was like to be empty. What it was like to be without him.

“Come for me,” he says again. He doesn’t thrust, not once. Just pushes, millimeter by millimeter. It starts to hurt but God, it feels so good.

Noise spills from my throat. My hand moves faster and I force myself to stare back at him, unblinking, as it begins.

She screams.

It’s so primal and loud, filling up the car and echoing back and forth between flesh and metal, but I don’t think she can even hear herself. She stares at me and through me at the same time.

“That’s it,” I say, over and over, swallowing back my own moans when I finally tip over that edge and empty myself into her. I stroke her hair as she drifts down from the high. I owe her at least one gentle gesture, after so much force.

“Oh, my God,” she says, when it’s over. Then, she starts to cry.

I don’t know why I’m crying. My nerves are shot to hell in an instant and I just lie there, sobbing underneath him.

He doesn’t seem surprised by this, either. He brushes the tears away with his thumbs, hands holding the sides of my face as he says, “Shh, it’s all right, Mellie. You’re okay. I know.”

“So much,” I manage, half-sobbing.

Blake pulls out slowly, chuckling at the whimper I give when I’m empty. “Yeah? Too intense?” He tucks everything away and zips up his pants, sitting beside my feet. So casual, too casual, the way he fixes his hair in the rearview and straightens his tie, like he’s already forgotten what we did. What he did to me.

Meanwhile, I can’t even sit up. My thighs are shaking and my vision is blurry, like the whole world’s in watercolor.

“Blake,” I say, speaking to the roof as I catch my breath, “what happened to you?”

He laughs again. This one is heavy and low. It scares me—and not in a good way.

“You,” he says.

“Me? How?”

“When you left that day,” I explain, picking her loose hair off my dress shirt, “I realized...I put myself in that position. The passive, quiet, super friendly approach put me there.” I shrug. “So I decided I wasn’t going to do that anymore.”

“That wasn’t an approach,” she argues, finally able to push up into a sitting position. “It was your personality. It was you.”

“Was,” I emphasize. “Not anymore.”

“But why?”

“Because I was tired of not getting what I wanted in life. If you want something, you’ve got to decide it’s yours and claim it.” I look at her. “Otherwise, you’ll never get it.”

“That’s not true—”

“Sure.”

“—and even if it were, you…you can’t just change like that, overnight.”

“Oh, it wasn’t overnight.” I grab her pants from the front and pass them to her. “It took a while. Practice.”

Mel shakes her head, trying to make sense of it. “So you’re saying it’s my fault you’re like this, now?”

“Like what, exactly?”

“I don’t know...commanding, I guess.” Her foot jumps, fidgety. “Controlling.”

“I just go after what I want, now,” I say, watching her struggle back into her clothes.

“And you still want me?” she asks. Like she can’t believe it. Like I didn’t just fuck her to tears in the back of my car.

I tuck her hair behind her ear and hook her chin in my fingers. This time, I don’t make her look at me. I just guide.

“You’re mine. Remember?”

“I guess I just...don’t know why you’re forgiving me, already. You seemed pretty mad, a few minutes ago.” I shut my eyes as he kisses me. It’s gentle, like the Blake I knew before—but confident and dominating, which is not.

“I didn’t say I forgive you. But this....” He holds my face in his hands again and stares at me, our foreheads touching. “It’s a good start.”

I smile. The silence settles between us, and I wait for him to ask if I forgive him, too.

He doesn’t. This New Blake doesn’t seem like the apologizing type, and I don’t dare mess up the moment by asking. There’ll be time for that—I hope.

The rain’s letting up. I climb back into the front seat, Blake right behind me.

“Okay,” I say, as I buckle my seatbelt, “where do you want to eat? I’m actually pretty hungry after....” I smile, heat rising to my face. “Well.”

Blake doesn’t answer. He shifts around in his seat, looking out the windshield with his brow furrowed. I notice he’s rubbing his chest; his breath is hoarse, like the asthma attacks he got when we were kids.

“Blake?” I touch his arm. “Are you okay?”

“Um...yeah,” he says, just before his eyes slide shut, and he falls against the door.