I hold my breath, the rocks and fallen sticks on top of this wall digging into my ribs and my tits, scratching me where my tank top’s ridden up. It’s a ways down on the other side and so dark where the moonlight doesn’t shine that I can barely see the ground at all.

This isn’t even the worst you’ve done, I tell myself. Don’t be a fucking pussy.

Before I can think about it, I slide my legs over the other side of the wall and then I’m dangling, torso on the foot-wide wall, absolutely smashing my tits as my fingers clutch the smooth rocks, trying to find some kind of purchase at all.

It doesn’t work. I’m sliding. This was the stupidest possible way to go over this wall, and now all there is it to do is to let go.

I hope there’s not a moat and I hope I don’t fall onto broken glass, and I let myself drop.

It’s just sticks and leaves below me, thank God, and it’s uneven so I stumble a little and then fall to one side, but I’m fine. I’m bruised and scratched but fine, and instantly, I stand, looking for Trent.

No sign.

I should have helped, I think. Not that I know what the fuck was I going to do, since it’s not like I can lift six-foot-something Trent over the wall my own damn self, but I could have done something.

“Trent?” I hiss.

Nothing.

My heart’s racing. I’m still panting for breath and fucking powerless to do anything but stand here, watching the wall. I can’t even get back over myself — there’s no way to climb its smooth, slick surface that I can see and it’s not like I’ve got the upper body arm strength to grab the top and pull myself over.

The fuck was his plan? I wonder. The fuck was he thinking, he can’t climb this, if he tries to grab something he’ll slide off and Jesus I shouldn’t have let him do this, I should have dragged him around to the gate, we’d already be gone by now and he wouldn’t—

Trent’s head appears with a gasp, both hands grabbing at the slick rocks.

I run over, both hands covering my mouth so I don’t yelp, but I don’t know what the fuck I can do.

One of his hands slips and he crashes to his elbow with a grunt, but he finds purchase with the other and pushes himself up, listing to one side. I hold my breath, hoping that the cops can’t see him, hoping that he doesn’t crash to the ground on the other side because they will definitely see that.

Trent heaves one leg onto the top of the wall, then the other. I breathe again and he exhales loudly, his breath whistling onto the stone. Then he heaves himself over, feet first, and he lands better and more gracefully than I did.

And he grins at me.

“Told you,” he says. “You okay?”

I just nod, silent. On the other side of the wall I can hear a wooden thumping, like the cops are stomping back through the house, but then it fades.

“They leaving?” I whisper.

Trent shrugs. He’s still breathing hard, his shirt torn in one spot where something must have caught it.

“I’m on this side with you,” he points out. “Let’s get outta here.”

I glance around, looking down the wall. This side is carpeted with sticks and leaves, all crunchy and loud as hell. We could run through the woods, but I’ve got no clue at all where we’d end up then — most of the area around Tallwood is forest, so we’d be as likely to die of exposure or something as to ever make it to the car.

So I stand quietly. I listen hard, and the night is dead quiet aside from the breeze rustling the trees, the sound of our own breathing, Trent softly clearing his throat as he crosses his arms in front of his chest, watching me. Waiting for the go-ahead, because sneaking out of a situation instead of punching my way through is my area of expertise, not his.

And I’m lost. I’m half thinking about how to get out of here without being seen, about whether the cops will hear us crunching through the forest or whether they’ll catch us walking back down the long driveway to our car, but I’m half thinking that I should just kiss Trent again, right now, because fuck everything else, that’s what I want.

I want him, because I’ve already lied to myself for years and this is where I snapped.

“Well?” he rumbles, a half-smile lifting his lips in the moonlight, and I exhale, shaking off thoughts of me against a wall, legs wrapped around him.

“I think we’re okay,” I whisper. “I didn’t hear the car leave, but I think they’re at least heading that way...”

I stop abruptly.

Voices.

Unmistakably cop voices, and in that second every muscle in my body tenses. I nearly tell Trent to go, run, but I bite my lip because I know it’s stupid.

“Get down,” I hiss instead, lurching forward and grabbing his arm. “Against the wall. Be quiet.”

In a flash we’re there, backs to the cool stone, sitting on the ground that’s half-dirt, half leaves. I’m trying not to move, not to breathe, because I think we’re out of options. If we run they find us and if we make noise they find us and if we do nothing at all, they maybe still find us.

Neither of us breathes a word, just look at each other. It’s long and slow and searching and moonlit, and even though it’s chilly out here it sparks something, and suddenly I’m nervous and I don’t know why, other than the feeling that I’m about to jump off a waterfall.

He reaches out, slowly. He runs his thumb along the skin on my chest, just above the low-cut neck of my shirt, and I shiver, looking down. There’s a long, ugly scratch, blood welling up in droplets. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now he’s looking at me, eyebrows up, the question obvious.

I shake my head.

It’s nothing.

But I run my hand down his torso until I find the hole in his shirt. I poke one finger through, wiggling it.

He shakes his head, a smile around his eyes.

It’s nothing.

I lift his shirt and find a bruised scratch underneath, and even in the moonlight I can tell it’s already purpling. I lift my eyebrows at him, not sure of the game we’re playing now, but knowing that it matters over the cold and over the stones sticking into my back and over the footsteps of the police officers slowly growing closer.

Really? I’m asking.

Trent grins and grabs my wrist, his hand somehow warm as a furnace despite the cold, and he pulls me until I’m facing him and my arm is around him, his face almost against mine.

“I’m fine,” he rumbles, his voice barely audible even to me, an inch away.

“You sure?” I ask.

Trent smiles, and I feel it more than I see it, the faint motion of his face against mine.

He kisses me again, and again there’s a slow rush, the feeling that my whole body sings one perfect harmonic note, the wave of disbelief and nervousness as I kiss him back, press my mouth even harder to his.

We move slowly, silently. His lips move against mine and I open my mouth against his, because even here, on the cold ground, in the dark, I want more because I’ve always wanted more.

Trent pulls back, barely, and ends the kiss silently.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he murmurs.

Then his hand is in my hair and we’re kissing again even though I can hear the cops coming closer. They’re talking about something inane, something to do with their sergeant’s kid and how he won’t eat anything but goldfish crackers and milk and I know they’re right there but I don’t care. I can’t even try.

We pull back again. I’m breathing hard and trying to do it quietly, running one hand along Trent’s jaw and down his neck, finding the muscles in his shoulders and digging my fingers in, half just to make sure that this is happening.

“—Ought to make it clear that he’s not getting any dinner unless he eats what the family’s eating,” a female voice says, just close enough that I can hear.

Trent pulls me in again, his hand on my waist, my hip, his fingers pressing into the dip of my lower back. I kiss him again, pushing myself into his warm, solid body, feeling like I need this more than air.

“We tried that with my oldest and she was stubborn as a mule,” the male voice says, getting closer.

He pulls me again, harder, and there’s something urgent and insistent about it, like he needs this now so I throw one leg over his lap and now I’m straddling him, up against the wall. I’m trying to be silent but it’s fucking hard because I’m so turned on and lit up that I feel electric, anything but quiet.

Trent grabs my hips and pulls me down, hard, and suddenly I’m pressed against something hard and thick and big. I gasp into Trent’s mouth and he growls, quietly, his teeth on my lip.

“...just got to show them who’s in charge,” the woman says, and she’s close. Close enough that I should stop, that we should stop if only for thirty seconds but I’ve already passed that point.

Instead I tighten my finger in Trent’s hair and fight down a moan, rolling my hips against him, the heat between my legs sending sparks jittering through every inch of my body. I’m so far past I shouldn’t do this that I can’t even see it in the rear-view mirror.

Trent pulls my head back. He presses his lips to my jaw, my neck, the spot right under my ear and I grit my teeth together, forcing myself not to make a sound as I move my hips again, one hand flat against the cool stone of the wall.

Something snaps under my knee. It’s loud, and the moment it happens we both freeze.

The murmured chatter from the other side of the wall stops instantly. I hold my breath, afraid that’s enough sound to alert them, even as Trent softly takes his lips from my neck, and I lean my forehead against his, one hand on his face.

They have to come around, I think frantically. They’re not going to climb that wall, and while they do we can run for it, they’ve only got guns and a car...

Maybe he’ll get out of it. He’s polite, he’s not a teenager, maybe they’ll let him off with a warning and won’t check his record.

He kisses me again. So softly I barely feel it, but I kiss him back, my heart in my throat.

“Okay,” says the man. “How should we do this?”

“This is your last chance to surrender yourselves,” the woman says.

They pause. We don’t make a single fucking sound.

“Right, thought so,” she mutters. “I’ll go around and you wait by the car, in case they make a run for it the other way? If they run through the woods they’re liable to get eaten by bears.”

She says the last part louder, like it’s for our benefit. We don’t move.

The man sighs.

“Right, let’s get it over with,” he says. “I’ll—”

There’s a sudden burst of static, and he curses.

“Jesus, how come radio silence is the loudest damn part?” he grouses. “Yep, Russell and Jones here.”

I can’t make out what the radio’s saying, but I’m barely breathing. I think my hands are shaking, because I’m thinking frantically: maybe if we run we can make it. Don’t take the driveway, just head downhill through the woods...

It’s fucking stupid and probably dangerous, because careening downhill in the woods is how you do dumb shit like fall off boulders and cliffs, but that might be better than the alternative.

“We should go now,” I murmur into Trent’s ear. “I think we can—”

Trent grabs my wrist, holding me down.

“Wait,” he whispers. “Listen.”

I listen. I close my eyes and strain my ears but I can’t make out a goddamn thing over the crackling of the radio and my own nerves, and I shake my head.

“I can’t—”

“Did you get all that?” the man says.

“Is it that damn 7-11 again?”

“Allen and Main,” the man says.

“Armed?”

“Yup.”

She sighs.

“Let me guess, we’re the closest because Kurzweil and LaCroix are out at some tweaker cabin in the mountains trying to talk someone down off a pile of meth.”

“You said it, not me.”

“At least it’s a real crime,” she says, sounding resigned.

Then she raises her voice and unmistakably shouts at the wall where we’re sitting.

“Don’t trespass!” she calls. “There’s cameras everywhere, it’s not worth your dumb ass spending a night in jail!”

The man chuckles. They walk away, their voices receding away until they’re gone.

It must be a full minute until I can breathe again. Maybe longer. I wonder if it’s some sort of elaborate trap to get us to fuck up and come out, but nothing else happens.

Except slowly, almost thoughtfully, Trent presses his lips to my neck again and my eyes slide closed despite myself. Slowly, his hand makes its way under my shirt, his thumb stroking my belly as I move my hips against his again because even here, like this, I can’t help myself.

Finally, Trent stops me. He pulls me back, panting for breath, and looks at me through heavy-lidded eyes. I tilt my head to one side and swallow hard, suddenly afraid he’s going to say we should take it slow or this isn’t what I want from you or something equally bullshit.

Because I don’t want to take it fucking slow, I want Trent here and now, cold and dirt be damned.

“Yes?” I finally ask.

“We should go,” he murmurs.

I stop for a moment, not sure what he means.

“You’re freezing and there’s cameras,” he points out. “But I’ve got a very warm hotel room.”