We were playing Madden and I was kicking Tade’s ass.

“Dude, you’re making this too easy,” I teased. “You’re thinking too much about pussy and not about the game.”

He tossed the controller down on the coffee table with a thud, surprising me. My guy threw an interception.

“I’m done. I’ve got to go anyway,” he announced.

Annoyed, I glared at him. “Hooking up with Reagan?”

He and Megan’s friend had talked a long time at the bonfire. “It’s not like that with her.”

“Yeah, and I’ve known you how long?”

Though my pushback was more because I was aggravated at myself. I hadn’t hooked up with anyone since I met Megan.

“Maybe you should make nice with her friend and stop pouting about it.”

He snagged his keys from the table and the controller I’d tossed there barely hit his hand.

“Yeah, whatever man.”

His life was roses compared to mine, but he couldn’t know that. Funny, he thought he was keeping secrets from me, but I was keeping some from him. It sucked to have no one to talk to. I couldn’t burden Dad with how oppressed I was feeling.

After he left, I tried watching Sports Center and playing some video games alone, but by ten o’clock, I was crawling the walls. I didn’t feel like a party, but I wasn’t ready for bed. In my room, I changed into sweatpants and a long-sleeve shirt. Once outside, I could finally breathe. It was quiet for a Saturday night. Then again, I’d gotten a text there was a party near the pond by the girl’s freshman dorm. I didn’t go. Instead, I headed to the practice football field.

On the way I asked myself why I was going there. It wasn’t really because I was dying to run laps around the track. Was it because I’d have an excuse to walk near Megan’s dorm? It wasn’t like she was likely hanging out in the courtyard. It was chilly. Then again, was I going because I’d found her here the other night?

As I neared, I saw a familiar, lone figure sitting on the metal stands. My first instinct was to ask her why the hell she continued to be so cavalier with her life. But every time I’d done that turned out disastrous. Instead, I thought a lesson was in order. I kept to the shadows, followed the trees to the back side of the stands, and crept along the perimeter. This would totally suck if it wasn’t her. Her face was buried in her hands and she didn’t hear my steps to her.

I clamped my hands on her shoulders and growled.

She screeched and came up swinging. I had to give her that. She’d almost decked me, but I’d moved just in time.

“Sugar honey ice tea!” she cursed.

Damn, she was cute when she was mad. But it was her red-rimmed eyes illumined by the halogen lights near the field that gave me pause.

“Who the hell hurt you?”

Her fear turned to confusion and then resignation. She waved me off. “Just go away.”

She sounded tired and defeated.

I sat beside her and clasped my hands, resting my forearms on my legs so I could get a better view of her face. “I’m serious, Megan. Who the hell hurt you?”

Tears rolled down her beautiful face. She tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming.

“No one, okay. Just leave me alone.”

“Did you notice how easily I came up on you? Angel, I don’t know what’s bothering you, but sitting out here alone isn’t the answer.”

She glared at me and I reached up to wipe at her tears. She took a hold of my wrist to stop me, but I pulled her close. When she rested her head on my chest and shook with sobs, I placed my chin on top of her head as I held her to me.

We stayed like that for a while. When her cries subsided, she pulled back and ran the back of her hands across her eyes.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

She sniffed and I had to keep my hands to myself, resisting the urge to wipe away more of her pain.

“Do you really want to know, or is this your idea of foreplay?”

I chuckled. “You know everything’s foreplay with us.”

I hadn’t truly meant it, but I wanted to see her beautiful smile. She gave me a half of one.

Her breath came out long. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but what the H. E. double hockey sticks.” She blew out more air. “I found out today who my biological father was.”

If she was expecting a response, I didn’t have one. I waited for the punchline.

“And?”

“And.” She sound exasperated.

“So you found out who he was. Now you have an opportunity to talk to him. I lost my mom. All I have are pictures.”

She gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head. “It’s ancient history.”

“Still, I’m sorry for you. I don’t know what I’d do without my mom.” She wrung her hands. “As far as talking to my father, I don’t know. He’s loaded. You’d think he’d come looking for me, but apparently I’m not worth his trouble.”

If she was only finding out who he was now, there had to be more to the story.

“Does he know about you?”

Her shoulders quickly lifted and fell. “Mom says no, but based on her story he loved her when she told him to take a hike. If that’s true, a man with his means would check up on her, right? He would have found out she was pregnant or had a kid. As rich as he is, he would do the math.”

She was thinking with her heart.

“Your theory is flawed. Mostly likely he took her at her word when she told him to go and granted her wishes.”

I gave her a pointed stare, hoping she’d make the parallels to us.

“Maybe.” Her pause wasn’t long. “The question remains if I should reach out to him.”

It didn’t take long for me to decide on an answer.

“I don’t think you should drop the bomb on him over a text. But yeah. Like I said before, I lost my mom. There are so many things I wish I could have told her. You have that chance.”

A smile brighter than the sun formed on her pretty face.

“Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

She cupped my face and planted a kiss on my lips. I was fairly certain she didn’t think before she acted. She steepled her hands over her mouth in shock.

Unfortunately for her, she lit a wildfire in me that couldn’t be contained. I plunged my fingers in her dark hair and down to the base of her neck. I drew her close and when I kissed her, I sought entrance to take things deeper.

She let out the tiniest of gasps like she felt how right this was. I took advantage.

Her arms looped around my neck as she shifted closer. I continued her forward movement until she was straddling my lap. When she wiggled her sweet center against my straining erection that had been ignited to life at our first kiss, I skimmed my hands down her back. I clutched at her waist to stop her from moving. That caused her shirt to rise and my fingertips to brush over the smallest amount of bare skin.

Before I took things too far, I moved my hands up the sides of her ribcage and stopped at the undersides of her breasts. They were heavy where they rested above my thumbs.

Nothing else mattered but her. I lost track of where we were as I shifted our position. I laid her down on the bench like it was Thanksgiving and she was the feast. I kissed her hard and long, groaning with need.

Her shove wasn’t totally unexpected. It just came a long time after I thought it would. She sat up as I tried to rein in the pressure that had built inside me.

She sat up, swung her legs around, and remained seated for only a second before she was on her feet.

Her finger was like a sharp knife as she pointed it at me.

“We are so not having sex here.”

She spread her hands to remind me we were out in the open.

“I’m game to wherever you want.”

The devilish grin didn’t go over well, especially when her eyes narrowed and she planted her hands on her hips.

“Never going to happen.”

She spoke each word with finality.

“You want to bet on it?” I dared.

She rocked on her feet like she wanted to stomp them. Damn she was too irresistible.

“Look, I’ll be honest, I want you. But I’m not that girl. I can’t…” She waved as if she could find the words in the air.

“Bang me.”

“Yeah, I can’t do that and survive the rest of the semester watching you with other people. One day I want love, family, and the picket fence. I’m not wired to just hit it and quit it.”

That made me laugh and feel disappointed at the same time.

Soberly, she added, “Can you tell me that you want more from me than a hookup?”

I closed my eyes because if I’d ever wanted it and even more than Ashley, I wanted that with her.

“That’s all I got.” I spread my hands in defeat.

She pulled something from around her wrist and bound up her hair in a ball at the top of her head. Was she planning to fight me? I might have smiled, but the invisible steam that was coming out of her ears said she was going to nail my balls to the ground if I did.

“Then why this? Why are you stalking me?”

“I’m not stalking you,” I said, but she continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You keep kissing me and making time stop. I don’t get it. I don’t get you.”

“I wish—”

“Yeah, and you keep giving me mixed signals along with cryptic messages. Are you in the mob or something, because I think we could have something. I’m not dumb. I see how you look at me and it’s not like I’m just a piece of ass. You can get that from anywhere. Is it the chase? Do you get some perverse thrill out of wearing me down until I give in?”

“Megan—”

She held up a hand and I buttoned up.

“I’m just so done. Why can’t you just leave me alone? You’re making this hard on both of us, because I can’t seem to get you out of my head. When I get close, you show up and act like a human being.”

When she finally stopped talking, the silence grew heavy.

Part of me wanted to explain that us bumping into each other was by accident. But what did that matter?

“Well?” she asked.

I couldn’t have what I wanted and never would.

“I’ll stay away from you.”

“Good.”

Although she’d snapped out the word, I wasn’t done.

“But you have to do one thing for me.”

“As if I owe you a thing.”

Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on me.

I planted my elbows on my knees and held my hands as if in prayer. I hid one side of my face while I spoke.

“Stop being reckless.”

“What?”

The word cracked in the air like a whip.

“Sitting out here in the dark in the middle of the night. Getting drunk and walking back to campus and letting strange guys pick you up.”

“So you’re admitting you’re strange.”

She may have thought that was funny, but I was dead serious.

“For all you knew of me that night, I was.”

She bit her lip and got serious. “You’re right. And that scaring the bull spit out me proved I hadn’t been aware of my surroundings,” she admitted.

“Good.”

I’d see her home whether she liked it or not.

“Just one more thing,” she said.

“What’s that?”

I didn’t relish the idea of what she might say next.

“You’re a coward.”

She spun and in Megan fashion strode away, giving me the loveliest view of her ass. That should have made me smile. Instead, her words would haunt me as I tried my damnedest to keep my promise to leave her alone.