Tess’s birthday is tomorrow and I can’t figure out what to get her. If she were a regular girl, it’d be easy. I’d pop over to the mall and buy her something frivolous and shiny. She’d clap and squeal and that would be that.

But Tess is anything but regular.

Nothing about our situation is regular.

We’ve been doing… this for a month now. During the day, it’s business as usual. If we happen to see each other we keep it just this side of hostile. I’m a cocky dickbag and she tells me as much, every chance she gets.

At night I climb through her window. When I lay down beside her she turns into me. When I pull her into my arms she whispers my name. Lifts her mouth to meet mine when I kiss her. Buries her face in my neck and moans when I make her come.

Last night was no exception.

But this morning it almost went too far.

Mr. C’s alarm clock has become my alarm clock. As soon as I hear it, ringing in the next room, I’m awake. I listen to him roll off the couch, the thump of his feet against the floor. Laying so still I’m practically holding breath, I wait for him to knock.

“Come on, Tess—time to get up.” He says the same thing every morning, his words almost always accompanied by his knuckles wrapping against the door.

He never tries the doorknob. He just shuffles away without waiting for her to answer.

In the hallway, the bathroom door closes and a few minutes later, the shower starts.

My signal to leave.

Turning toward her, I press my lips to her temple before sliding my arm out from underneath her. When she feels me move, she murmurs something, tipping her face up to catch my mouth with hers.

When we do this, we do it my way. I’m in control. Always. It’s the only way I can do this. The only way I can keep myself from hurting her.

Total control.

But I let her kiss me. Open my mouth when she skims the seam of my lips with her tongue. Groan softly when she slips her leg over mine and straddles me.

I’ve jerked off more in the past month than I have in all my nineteen years combined. So much my dick is practically numb. The second I feel her pussy pressed against it, my already stiff cock begins to throb so hard my ears start to ring. Unchecked, Tess plants her hands on my chest and rocks her hips against me like I taught her, tilting them forward to drag her clit up the length of my shaft. She sucks in a breath at the contact, her fingers flex against the thick pad of muscle underneath them, her short, sharp nails biting into my skin.

“Tess…” In my head it sounded different, like a warning. Like I’m telling her no. When her name comes out of my mouth, pushed through clenched teeth and barely above a croak, it doesn’t sound like a warning. Doesn’t feel like no. It sounds and feels a hell of a lot like fuck yes.

Finding the hem of her tank I yank it up over her head so hard and fast I hear it rip, the force of it dislodging her hands from my pecs and she falls forward. Lifting my head, I catch one of her breasts in my mouth, sucking her nipple past my lips, nipping and licking it until it’s swollen and throbbing on my tongue. Until her hands are fisted in the pillow on either side of my head and I can feel her entire body start to hum and tremble with pent-up release. I can feel my own not far behind. The heavy tightening inside my balls. The heat of it spiraling up the length of my cock. I’m about thirty seconds away from coming all over myself.

Letting go of her breast, I lick my way into her mouth. Tangling my tongue with hers, each rhythmic stroke of it matching the pulse and grind of her hips against my throbbing cock.

Shifting my grip on her, I slip one of my thumbs past the elastic edge of her panties, pressing past her slick folds to circle and tease her clit, urging her to come with a deep-throated groan.

For a second I think she’s going to fight it so she can keep torturing me but then she’s coming. Breaking and shuddering against me, she moans long and low into my mouth.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve flipped us over and she’s underneath me. My pants are jerked down around my hips and my fingers are hooked around the waistband of her underwear, getting ready to tear them off.

And I freeze.

Screw my eyes shut against the sight of her beneath me. It doesn’t help. I could gouge out my goddamned eyes and I’d still see her. Flushed skin. Eyes heavy-lidded and glazed. Her long dark hair a wild tangle around her delicate face. Chest heaving like she can’t catch her breath. Swollen nipples, bright pink and wet from my mouth. The head of my bare cock pushing against her stomach.

“FUCK.”

I bark it so loud I’m sure her father heard me, even over the hissing drone of the shower.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I can feel her move under me, reaching for me and I scramble back, leaping away from her and off the bed so fast the entire thing slams against the wall, its springs groaning, the frame shuddering. I stumble back, stuffing myself back into my pants, my footsteps so heavy I can feel the floor shaking under me.

Tess lays there for a second, seemingly as shocked as I am, her mouth hanging open, the flush in her cheeks rising and heating so fast I can barely blink before she pops off the bed.

“What?” she hisses at me, fist clenched so tight I think she’s going to pick them up and use them on me. She’s pissed. She should be. I told her I wouldn’t hurt her and then I—

“What is it with you Gilroys?” She keeps hissing, trying and failing to keep her voice down. “You have perfectly willing girlfriends, practically begging you to fuck them and you—” her voice spikes at the end and I can hear the hurt. The uncertainty. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“No.” I feel my shoulder stiffen. My chest goes tight. “Jesus Christ, no. Why would you even think that?”

She doesn’t believe me.

“Look at me, for fuck’s sake.” I hold my arms out, putting myself on display. I have no idea what I look like, but if it’s anywhere close to how I feel, I look strung out. Shaky and sick. Completely out of control. “Do I look like a guy who doesn’t want to fuck you?”

Her eyes go exactly where I knew they would. To the granddaddy of all hard-ons, currently making a circus tent out of my track pants. As soon as she looks at it, my stupid cock jerks like its being dragged by a plow horse.

She advances on me and I have fight to stand in one spot because half of me wants to run while the other wants to throw her on the bed and finish what I let her start.

“Then why?” she says, not even trying to keep her voice down. Down the hall, I hear the hiss of the shower cut off.

“Tess…” her name scrapes along the inside of my throat, half groan, half whisper. “I have to go. Your dad is—”

“I don’t care.” She shakes her head, planting herself in front of me. “My birthday is tomorrow. There’s no reason we—”

“I know.” I reach up to push her long, dark hair out of her face, call it a small victory when she doesn’t pop me in the mouth for my trouble. “Just trust me.” She still thinks my hesitation is about her age. That I’m just marking Xs on my calendar. Waiting for a number. She still thinks that because I’ve never told her any different. “I want to do this the right way. I want to take care of you.”

Before she can answer me, the bathroom door creaks open. “Tess, you okay? Thought I heard something.”

I can only imagine what he’d do if he knew I was in his daughter’s bedroom. He’s never liked me. Not really. He likes Ryan. The sun rises and set on my brother’s ass but not me. As far as he’s concerned I’m just an asshole kid who steals cars for kicks. It’s never bothered me before now.

She stares at me for a second. Long enough to convince me that she’s going to tell me to fuck off or start swinging on me. She does neither. “Shad knocked over my fan. Everything’s okay.”

He mumbles something before closing himself up in the bathroom again. A second later, the hair dryer snaps on.

It’s not okay. I can tell by the way she’s looking at me but she lets me kiss her anyway before I leave.