“Well, this is it,” Jesse said.

Layla bit her lip. His apartment was Spartan, to say the least. There were no pictures on the walls; no decorative touches along the counters; not even more than one lamp in the living area. It was tiny, too, in such a way that made her feel like the walls were pressing in on her shoulders.

I’m definitely a long way from home, she thought to herself as she crossed the threshold carrying the box of Camel’s belongings.

“Put ‘em on the table,” he told her as he stripped off his jacket. He was wearing a loose, but well-fitting white t-shirt underneath, and as he turned to the thermostat, Layla could see that much of the fabric was sticking to his ribs and abs. She set the box down on the table and removed her own jacket. She couldn’t wait to get it off.

“It’ll kick on soon,” Jesse assured her. She hoped he was right; the apartment was devastatingly stuffy. His eyes settled on the box. “You, uh, find somethin’ worth keeping?”

“A couple of things,” Layla answered, taking a seat on his old suede couch. It smelled like it had been pulled out of a dumpster and doused with Febreze. It probably had been. “Maritza helped.”

“I didn’t even know he had a girl,” Jesse murmured, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his neck. “Hey—can I get you somethin’? A beer? Water?”

“Water for now,” she said, though her gaze remained fixed to the box of trinkets on the coffee table; the material summation of Camel’s life. “Thanks.”

Jesse nodded. “No problem.”

She heard him rifling through the cabinets for a glass, then turn on the kitchen faucet for some tap water. When he brought it to her, the glass still felt lukewarm. Three ice cubes bobbed like little buoys inside it, each one reducing to a sliver right before her eyes.

“Sorry,” he said.

Layla only offered a stiff smile in reply. She lifted the rim to her lips and drank. It tasted tinny.

“What’ve you got?” he asked finally as he sat down beside her.

“Nothing, really,” she said, tipping the side of the box so Jesse could see inside. “Some pictures. A few sketchbooks. A baby book. You wanna see?”

“No,” he answered quickly. “I mean—the baby book, or whatever…” He trailed off, and Layla could see the glint of pain in his eyes. “But he could draw?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, slowly pulling one of the books free from the rest of the junk. “Maritza said he wanted to go to art school, but his dad wouldn’t let him ‘cause he wanted him to be a pastor. Then they had a falling out and Camel wanted to finish what he started with the immigrants. So he got caught up with you guys.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jesse said softly. “I’m startin’ to think I never knew anything at all.”

You’re not the only one, Layla thought, remembering every word her parents had ever said to her as she opened up the sketchbook for Jesse to see.

His breath caught in his throat and his eyes widened as he stared at the first sketch—a human hand contorted into some ethereal gesture, but so perfectly related that it seemed poised to jump off the page. Layla had seen it before back at Camel’s motel room and had much the same reaction.

“This…” Jesse flipped a few more pages, awestruck by each new illustration. “Holy shit…”

“I know,” Layla whispered, smiling at a quick rendering of a little girl.

“I know her!” Jesse said, a big grin stretching over his face. “She was at the fair last year! She had this big red balloon, and Camel won her a stuffed duck…” He paused. His smile faded. “That was the kind of shit he did all the time for people. And I never noticed.”

“I think that’s pretty common,” Layla said, looking into the little girl’s soulful graphite eyes. How had he made them seem so real?

“Back when I was in the system,” she began, “one of my foster brothers passed away. I always thought he was a little shit. He used to fuck with me a lot—brother stuff. But then he drowned, and it was like all the good stuff I’d failed to see when he was alive was right there waiting for me once he died. It made me feel like I never knew him at all.”

Jesse was quiet for a time, his verdant eyes still focused on the sketch in Layla’s hands. When he finally did speak, the strain in his voice was obvious.

“What did you do to make that feeling go away?”

“A lot of things I shouldn’t have,” Layla admitted, raising her gaze from the paper to meet Jesse’s. “I lost my virginity about a week after the funeral. I was only fourteen.”

“I get it, though,” he said, gently plucking the sketchpad out of Layla’s hands. “You wanted to feel somethin’ other than nothin’.” His face was grim. “I know exactly how that feels.”

Layla watched him as he placed the sketchpad back into the box. There was a weariness in his face that hadn’t been there before, like the weight of the world was pulling down on his skin, forcing it past the ridges of his high cheekbones and down over his jaw. Every inch of him looked pale and empty. Jesse King looked like a corpse.

She remembered when her foster brother had died and how she’d felt when she’d let that high school senior fumble his way inside her in the back of his Jeep that same summer. The pain of losing her virginity, however deep it was, was a welcome respite from the hollowness she’d felt every day since losing him.

If she could do it all over again, she might not submit to the guy who was only too eager to take advantage of her. But while she was grieving, it was one of the few moments she could recall where she felt something other than the gaping hole in her heart that her foster brother had left behind.

Jesse was in need of the same comfort. Layla could see it written all over his ashen face. If being a Marauder was about making sacrifices, this was one she was willing to make.

She reached across the couch and softly lay her hand across his, her palm just barely engulfing the peaks of his knuckles. She wet her lips, working up the courage to propose a trip to the bedroom.

But Jesse was way ahead of her.

As if privy to her thoughts, he reached over with his free hand and tangled his fingers in her locks, tears shimmering in his eyes as he fought desperately to hold them back. His breath hitched, and just before he sobbed, Layla leaned forward and covered his mouth with hers, muffling the cry she knew would only make him feel worse to utter aloud.

His grief became a moan instead, shuddering over her tongue as he cupped his face in her hands, his fingers pressing into her flesh as his breath scorched her nose. She tried to grip him with the same ferocity, her hands groping at the flexing muscles of his back, but she couldn’t match him.

He was a raw flame; a wildfire raging over her body. All she could do was let herself be consumed in his wake.

If that was what he needed, then she would accommodate him.

Jesse wound the long locks of her summer-blonde hair into a knot at the back of her head, then gave a pull. As her head swung back toward his fist, his lips clamped down over the hollow of her throat, lavishing it with petal-soft kisses that teased her blood to the surface. She gave a little wriggle and sighed, closing her eyes as the warmth of his breath spread to her ears, tingeing them red as he worked at the soft spots along her neck with his teeth.

She tried not to think of what this meant for them. She tried not to think of Gareth or how Jesse had once bent her over his bike. She especially tried not to think of Camel and his slow grin or his kind eyes.

She tried not to think of anything at all.

He flung her onto her back, crashing down on top of her as his mouth moved once again to cover hers, capturing her lower lip between his teeth as he fondled one of her breasts over her shirt. Layla arched into him, groaning as he pulled aside the cup of her bra to tantalizing the hardening nub that lay beneath it.

Raw, electric currents of desire spawned in her chest, arching toward the moist cleft between her legs where they sizzled and sparked, vibrating her already-thrumming clit against the seam of her jeans.

As if he could see these bolts of delicious torment running through her, Jesse pulled on her waistband, shimmying the unyielding material over her hips to reveal her dampening panties.

Briefly, she wondered if he’d dip his head between her thighs like Gareth had, lapping at her slit with the voracious appetite of a starving dog. Instead, he literally ripped them from her body, snapping the straps as if they were made of tissue paper before plunging two of his fingers into her folds.

Layla yelped in pleasurable shock, writhing as Jesse pummeled into her, his thumb nudging her tortured clit with each pass into her depths. She clenched her thighs, but he pulled them apart with his free hand, growling low in his throat as he tapped mercilessly on her swollen sweet spot.

“Keep ‘em open,” he ordered. “I wanna see…”

She shuddered. She was no virgin, but she’d rarely had sex with anyone while the lights were on. Jesse was the exception, but she’d been half-clothed and her pussy had been lost in the leather and chrome of his motorcycle. She’d never been on full display for anyone before, and despite her wealth of sexual experience, she suddenly found herself nervous; shy.

He slung her leg up over the back of the couch, exposing her pussy for his glittering eyes to take in. Beyond the rapture coursing through her body, Layla felt heat rise in her cheeks.

“Fuck,” Jesse groaned, his gaze rising a moment later to meet hers. “You’ve got one pretty pussy, girl.”

“Jesse,” she breathed in reply, clutching tufts of his hair in her palms as his fingers made her pussy sing.

She writhed and contorted, her ass lifting high off the couch cushions as he drove her toward bliss. She panted heavily through her nose, the noises that escaped her lips limited to desperate moans and impassioned cries.

Her pleasure was burgeoning in her tummy, threatening to sweep up and consume her at any moment. If Jesse had any indication that it was going to happen, it certainly didn’t stop him.

But there was a different sensation there, too; an unfamiliar pressure like a dam ready to burst. She recoiled from him a little bit.

“Jesse, something feels weird. I…”

“I know,” he told her, ruthlessly fingering her spot. “Just relax.”

But she couldn’t do that—not with his fingers knuckle-deep inside her cunt.

“Mm, Jesse—no. Stop. I… I…”

But it was too late to object now. Jesse wasn’t stopping, and neither was her orgasm.

It ripped through her like a freight train through the fog, splitting her at the seams as she screamed toward the ceiling. Her limbs flailed, her knees buckled, and a deep spasm suddenly pulsed inside her, her muscles clenching down all at once as she squirted her lust right into Jesse’s face.

She moaned, mortification threatening to dampen her mind-numbing pleasure. But as Jesse grinned, she realized he didn’t mind.

In the blink of an eye he was on his knees between her thighs, his hard dick free of his pants and plunging inside of her still-contracting sheath. Layla squealed, marring his skin with her frantic nails as he began to thrust into her thrumming depths.

“Fuck!” she hissed as another wave of her desire crashed into his hips. “I don’t think I can take this…!”

“You’re gonna,” Jesse declared, biting hard into his lip as he squeezed into her cunt. It was a snug fit, especially with her walls still clamping down onto his shaft. At his pace he wouldn’t last long, and neither would she.

Layla swept her hands down to his buttocks, gripping them for dear life as he bucked into her. The slight upward curve of his dick was the perfect torture; each time he moved, his smooth, velvety tip crashed right into her aching spot, and Layla once again felt that delicious pressure mounting in her core.

She whimpered and sobbed in pleasure, resting her head in the cradle of his neck and shoulder. “Jesse,” she whispered. “Jesus, Jesse…!”

He wouldn’t stop. He was a beast, hilting inside of her with every stroke, every plunge into her depths. His hands roamed her, coiled in her hair, pulled back her head to stare into her eyes as he took her better than anyone else ever had.

He wouldn’t stop. Not that she wanted him to.

And then his head was at her breast, his lips capturing one of her stiff, rosy nipples and twisting it between his teeth. His tongue flicked, circled, and made her back arch up off the couch as he drove into her sweet spot at exactly the same time.

Layla’s head was reeling. She was adrift in a sea of passion, pulled down into rapturous depths by a pleasure she’d never experienced before. Jesse took her like she was his and his alone—like she was made for the dick he thrust inside her, her body molded to fit just right into his hands.

“I’m gonna cum again,” she told him, wrapping her legs higher around his back. “Oh, fuck, Jesse. Baby, please. Don’t stop…”

Nestled in the hollow of her throat, Jesse let out a guttural moan. He dove into her one more time, then again, and Layla buried her face in his golden hair as she came once more, this time all along his throbbing shaft.

“Yes!” she cried, her hoarse screams muffled against his scalp. “Oh, yes! Yes! Fuck, Jesse—yes!”

And then Jesse was grunting, shaking, his hips bucking to a rhythm too quick for Layla to pin down. He raised himself up over her, one hand on her face.

“Look at me,” he begged. His voice was strangled.

As she did, she saw that spark in his eyes, that need glimmering at the surface of his burnt jade hue. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized there was something more there, too. Maybe it was the sunset shimmer of her orgasm making her see things, but she swore she recognized desperation in Jesse’s eyes that far surpassed the carnal need for him to cum.

“I…” he started to say, then shut his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers as he began to cum.

She almost told him to pull out. But for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, it felt like she’d be breaking some kind of sacred trust between them, one only just established. She closed her eyes, pressed into him, and opened her legs wide to receive him.

She shuddered. She’d never been filled by a man before, and even though she was on the pill, it felt wrong in all the right ways. It was so warm, so satisfying. She wondered if Jesse had ever done it before.

Then she realized: of course he had. He was the president of a motorcycle club. No way Layla was his first—for anything.

As his spasms finally stopped, Jesse opened his eyes again and searched hers. His expression changed, every muscle tensing, his brows furrowing.

“Why the tears?” he softly asked her.

Layla frowned. She honestly didn’t know.