Without thinking I simply launched myself into the air. In my mind I was graceful, like a gazelle frolicking across the Sahara.

What I probably looked like? A half-naked prostitute with mascara smudges under her eyes strangling a nice young man with good intentions and a kind smile.

“Milo!” Colton grabbed my arms but it was useless, my hands had already grabbed his neck and started to squeeze as I wrapped my legs around his body and fought against him.

I don’t know at what point it happened—but within a few seconds, my body realized that there wasn’t much clothing separating us from each other.

The air shifted as Colton’s face changed from irritated to starved. His hands tightened around my waist as our eyes met for a heartbeat.

“Colt—”

I wasn’t allowed to finish.

Partially due to the fact that the end of his name was drowned out by his mouth. Growling, he threw me onto the poker table and hovered over my body.

Chips went flying to the floor.

Cards fluttered in the air.

And I kissed him back—I kissed him back so hard that my mouth ached. My body ached—every damn thing ached.

Stop! I yelled at my body. Stop, damn it! I was ruining everything! How was I making her suffer if I was kissing her?

Hell, she had a way of discovering every single nerve and exploiting like it was her job to drive me insane.

Her body arched under my hands as I slid them down to her hips. Everything I’d wanted from her was being presented to me—on a literal table. All I needed was the silver platter.

But she was drunk.

Which made it unfair.

It also made it not count.

With a feminine sigh, she wrapped those tight little arms around my neck and pressed herself against me.

Yeah, it was going to take the power of a god to push her away.

She tasted like tequila—and I was pretty sure I was going to kill Max, because all I kept thinking was that she tasted like happiness, which made me think of sex.

And tasting her.

Over and over and over again.

My fingers dug into her flesh as my mouth left hers and started blazing a trail down her neck toward her bra strap.

“Don’t stop,” she mumbled.

Let this be a lesson to every lady out there. The minute you open your damn mouth. Poof. Magic moment? Gone.

It was enough time for me to pull back and realize.

I didn’t want her on the table, not like this.

And if Max was an honest drunk—which I’m assuming he was, considering he’d admitted to eating her pet goldfish—she was a virgin.

To hell with that.

Taking her virginity on a poker table after she’d drunk enough tequila to breathe fire? No. Not her. Not the girl I’d loved for my entire life. Not the girl I dreamed about when I closed my eyes. Not the girl I lived for when I woke up.

“Milo.” I kissed her one last time across the mouth, my lips brushing hers, memorizing her taste just in case it was longer than a day before I would be able to partake again. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk,” she pouted.

“What’s six times seven?”

“Unfair!” She laughed. “You know sevens were the hardest for me to learn.”

“Milo . . .”

“Forty-something.”

“Close enough,” I grumbled, then slowly removed my body from hers, which felt like leaving a part of my soul and walking in the other direction knowing that I would never be fully complete without what I left behind.

But I wasn’t leaving her.

I just didn’t want her that way.

Actually I wanted her in every way—repeatedly. Except this one.

Milo’s eyes snapped open and with a curse she scurried off the table and reached for her dress. “S-sorry.”

“Ah.” I put my hand through my hair. “No worries, I’m used to hot girls mauling me for allowing them to keep their clothes on.”

“What?”

“That’s why I lost.” I shrugged, reaching for my discarded shirt on the floor. “You would have had to take off either your bra or your—” I pointed, yeah, lame, but I couldn’t actually say the word lest I spontaneously combust and lose my shit.

“Oh.” She stepped into her dress. I watched every move. Slowly she turned and I reached for the zipper, cautiously zipping all the way up when my body demanded I tug down. All. The. Way. Down. “So I guess that means, you have to lose an article of clothing.”

“What?”

She stepped away and turned, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well?”

“Uh.”

“The shirt was already off, so take it off again.” I did as she said, mainly because she was so damn hot when she was telling me what to do that if she said that her favorite song was “Kumbaya,” I’d not only sing it but make up my own hand motions. “So.” She licked her lips suggestively and started circling me. Oh, divine. Lovely. Torture.

Her hands reached around to my front and paused on the button of my jeans. “I think these have to go.”

Holy hell.

Was it wrong to thank God in a situation like this? Was it? Really, though? I mean I didn’t want to be blasphemous, but . . . yeah, I was feeling a lot of gratitude at the moment.

“Okay.” I reached for my button and froze.

Happy moment gone.

I wasn’t wearing boxers.

I wasn’t wearing a damn stitch underneath the jeans. I was free-balling.