“Hmm-mm. My ex-boyfriend, Taylor.”

“Did Taylor do this, too?” He drags his wet finger to my clit, massaging it in slow circles.

I throw my head back, closing my eyes. It’s not that Taylor didn’t know where to touch me. I’ve just always felt too removed from the moment to fully enjoy it. Like I was putting on a sexy act. This? I feel this. Everywhere. I’m delirious, hot and wet underneath him. Mal takes my left nipple into his mouth and sucks. Stars explode behind my eyelids like fireworks. Everything tightens with delight. I like that he thinks about me first. I like that he is still fully clothed. I like that he knows exactly what he’s doing—even if that means he’s practiced on other girls. On many girls, no doubt.

“God,” I moan.

“Partial about him, remember?” Mal jokes, kissing his way up from my breasts to my shoulders and neck, biting and teasing me as I begin to buck my hips forward and ride his hand that’s shoved inside my pants. He rubs my clit back and forth faster, and I prepare to explode. He dips two fingers into me and lets out a groan. Then, when my climax hits me from my toes to the top of my head, he reaches into my bag with one hand, takes the camera out, and snaps a picture of my face as I come.

He captures me in such a vulnerable moment, I want to scream at him, but when he dumps the camera on the quilt next to us and looks down, I let it go. He doesn’t look smug or happy or offhanded about it. He looks…tortured.

“Rory.”

“Hmm?”

“I made you come.”

I blink, looking down at my wrinkled corduroys pushed halfway down my thighs.

“And you’re going to make me come now,” he says. “Hopefully after I put my dick inside you. Feck, I can’t stop staring at you. You’re beautiful.”

He unbuckles his belt, lowers his pants, flips his wallet open, and begins sheathing himself with a condom. I kick my corduroys down, refusing to dwell on the fact that he has condoms ready at any given moment.

I don’t get a good look at his penis, purposefully avoiding eye-to-dick contact. Penises freak me out. Especially uncircumcised ones. They look like sweater sleeves curled inwards after a wild ride in the washing machine.

When he’s all wrapped up, he looks down at me, his arms braced on either side of my head.

I blush, covering my face. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“With a grin that says you pissed in the Jacuzzi everyone’s chilling in and got away with it. You gave me an orgasm; you didn’t discover the cure for cancer.”

“Night’s still young,” he jokes, dropping a kiss at the crown of my head. “Ready?” he asks, angling himself between my legs.

God, yes. I nod.

He thrusts into me, our eyes lock, and when he starts to move inside me, almost shyly—and definitely not as smoothly and skillfully as I’d imagined—we find out Taylor didn’t really do a stellar job taking my virginity after all.

I squirm. Mal gasps. He kisses me with so much passion, I can feel his kiss twisting my stomach in delicious, messy knots.

Without warning, he presses a hand to my left breast, frowning and looking skyward, still inside me.

“What…?” I trail off before realizing what he’s doing.

I told him I’d sleep with him tonight over my dead body. I can’t help but giggle underneath him.

“Still breathing,” he confirms, diving down for another ravenous kiss. “And oh, how alive you are against my fingertips.”

“It hurts,” I moan into his open, welcoming mouth, clinging to his shoulders.

“Don’t worry, Princess Aurora,” he growls, hot and velvety and alive against my skin. “I’ll make sure to rock your castle if it’s the last thing I do.”

2:00 am

I stir awake in Mal’s bed. The room is so dark—no light from lampposts or passing cars or electronic devices—there’s no difference between opening my eyes and closing them. I feel his hot, wet tongue between my thighs, lashing hungrily as it swirls deeper between my legs.

“What are you doing?” I moan.

“Tasting you.” He dips his tongue into my folds, and I squirm with pleasure. “Christ on a cracker, Rory. You taste like heaven.”

“Mal, what are you…”

But then his tongue brushes my clit, and his lips clamp down on it, sucking. I squeeze my thighs against his face and grab his hair, arching against the pillow and moaning as I press his head into me.

“You’ll wake England, darlin’.” He dips a finger into me, flicking my nub with his tongue at the same time.

“What do you care? You have a beef with them.”

He laughs as he French kisses my clit, his fingers curling to find my G-spot as my toes coil deliciously.

I come again, his name on my lips.

3:00 am

“It’s more about enthusiasm than technique,” Mal explains, his penis staring back at me.

It’s thicker and longer than Taylor’s. Angry-looking and purplish. I finally found something about him that’s less than perfect, even though it does feel good inside me.

“Just give it your best go. Honestly, I’ll probably come after twenty seconds, anyway. You’re a ride, Rory.”

I wrap my lips around his shaft, then realize he was right when he pushes me back not fifteen seconds later, coming on my chest. We fall from the bed to the floor, limbs tangled, laughing hysterically.

“Rory!” he thunders. “I pre-ejaculated. Now I must kill you to keep my secret safe.”

“Relax. I’m not going to tell on you.” I roll on the floor, mid-yawn, hitting the door. I can still taste his salty flesh. My mouth feels full of him. “Besides, we’ll have an ocean separating us, remember? Who will I tell? My pet fish?”

“You have fish?” He looks startled, like it hurts that he doesn’t know everything about me.

“I’ll get some to make you feel good about yourself.”

“Just admit that I can kill you, too,” he says from across the room now, both of us lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

“Why?”

“Because you’re stealing my breath, so you’re already halfway there with the killing part.”

I shake my head, zipping my mouth with my fingers.

He grabs a guitar pick from the floor and throws it at me. “I’ll let you hold on to your heart for a little longer. Just don’t get attached.”

I laugh, but then he stops and looks at me, and I swear there’s regret etched on his face.

“Forgive me?” he asks.

“For what?” I scrunch my nose.

He looks away, swallowing. “Good question. For not giving you what you came here for, I suppose.”

4:00 am

“Sometimes you make music. Sometimes the music makes you,” Mal explains. We sit on his bed, sharing a pack of something he calls candy rolls, drinking milk from the carton. “And when it makes you, it changes you, and when it changes you, you never know how you’re going to come out of it.”

“Same with photography.” I nod. “I feel like a director, showing you what I want you to see. I can make the field behind your house gorgeous or creepy, sad or happy. It’s all in the angles, and filters, and composition.”