The stone was warm from his pocket, a tiny planet of their shared history. He watched her fingers close around it, her breath catching in a way no expensive gift ever provoked. In that silent exchange, the canyon air, the fight, the desperate making-up—it all flooded back, making the cluttered bedroom vanish. This wasn't a present; it was a landmark, and her wide, dark eyes told him she knew it.
She didn’t say anything. She just held it, her thumb tracing the smooth, water-worn surface. The grey was the color of the sky that day, the color of the rocks, the color of the quiet between them after they’d stopped yelling. Her knuckles were white.
“It’s from the turnout,” Johnny said, his voice low in the lamplit room. “Where we stopped.”
Paige nodded, her curls brushing her cheek as she looked down at her hand. She brought the stone to her nose and inhaled, a slow, deep breath, as if she could smell the dust and the dry sage. She couldn’t, of course. But she did it anyway.
“You kept it,” she whispered, finally looking up at him. Her dark eyes were liquid, unguarded. The usual teasing glint was gone, replaced by something so raw it made his chest ache.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, the motion awkward. He’d rehearsed this in his head a hundred times since last night, but now the words felt stupid. Poetic and dumb. “It was solid. In the middle of all that… mess. It just was. I put it in my pocket and forgot about it until…” He gestured to the desk, the paper with ‘FOR PAIGE’ scrawled in his blocky handwriting.
She stepped into him then, her body fitting against his without hesitation. She wasn’t crying, but her breath was shaky against his neck. She still held the stone, her fist pressed between their chests. He could feel the hard edge of it through his t-shirt.
“It’s the best thing anyone’s ever given me,” she said into his shoulder, her voice muffled.
“It’s a rock, Paige.”
“It’s not a rock.” She pulled back just enough to look at him, her expression fierce. “It’s proof. You were there. I was there. We were real.”
He kissed her then, because talking was done. It was a soft kiss, just a press of his lips against hers, but it tasted like salt and something deeper, a shared understanding that bypassed language entirely. Her free hand came up to cup his jaw, her thumb stroking the stubble on his cheek.
When they broke apart, she kept her forehead against his. “I got you something too,” she murmured. “It’s stupid. Not like this.”
“What is it?”
“You have to close your eyes.”
He did. He heard the rustle of her denim jacket, the sound of a zipper on a small pouch. Her fingers, cool now, took his hand and turned it palm-up. Something light and coiled was placed in it. It felt like thick cord, woven. He opened his eyes.
It was a bracelet. A simple braid of dark brown leather, about as thick as a pencil. It was supple, worn-looking already, and it smelled faintly of oil and her.
“It’s just a friendship bracelet,” she said quickly, her bravado trying to stage a comeback. “Marla and I made a bunch last summer. This one was too big for me, so.” She shrugged, but her eyes were fixed on his face, watching for his reaction.
Johnny ran his thumb over the braid. It wasn’t store-bought. The weave was tight in some spots, looser in others. He could see where her hands had worked it. “You made it?”
“Last August. When I was bored.”
He held it out to her. “Put it on me.”
Her fingers were deft, her nails short and unpainted. She looped the bracelet around his left wrist, pulling the end through a simple knot. She adjusted it, her touch lingering on the inside of his wrist where his pulse beat. “There.”
He held his arm up, the leather dark against his fair skin. It looked like it belonged there. “I’m not taking it off.”
“You have to shower, dummy.”
“I’ll shower with it on.”
A real smile broke through then, the one that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “You’re such a dork.”
“Your dork.” He said it lightly, testing.
Her smile softened. “Yeah.” She looked from the bracelet on his wrist to the stone still clutched in her hand. The exchange hung in the air between them, heavier than the objects themselves. They had traded tokens. Made a pact without saying the words.
The charged silence stretched, but it wasn’t the tense, pre-sex kind from the van or the hallway at Jacob’s. This was different. Fuller. It was the quiet of a shared secret so big it filled the room, leaving no space for the clumsy, hungry groping that usually followed a closed door.
Paige broke it by walking to his bed and sitting on the edge. She placed the stone carefully on his nightstand, next to a dusty alarm clock. She patted the space beside her.
He sat. Their thighs touched. He could feel the heat of her through her jeans.
“Tell me about the fight,” she said, not looking at him. “The real one. Not the yelling in the car. The one you had with yourself after.”
He stared at his hands, at the new bracelet. “I thought I’d ruined it. That I’d finally pushed too far, been too much of an asshole, and you’d realize you could do better than some skinny redhead with a temper.”
“And what did you decide?”
“That I was probably right. But that I was gonna try anyway. To be better. For you.” The admission scraped out of him, raw and embarrassing.
Paige was quiet for a long moment. Then she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I decided I liked it,” she said, her voice small. “You getting that mad. It meant you cared that much. Nobody in my house gets mad like that. They just get quiet and disappear.”
He turned his head, his lips brushing her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
He didn’t answer with words. He lifted his arm, the one with the bracelet, and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her tight against his side. She melted into him, her body going pliant. They sat like that for what felt like an hour, just breathing together, listening to the distant hum of the TV from the living room downstairs, the creak of the house settling.
Her hand found its way under his t-shirt, her palm flat and warm on the skin of his stomach. It wasn’t a sexual move, not really. It was a claiming. A grounding. Her fingers traced the faint ridges of his ribs.
“You’re so skinny,” she murmured, but there was no tease in it now. It was just an observation, tinged with a kind of wonder.
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“It is. I can feel all of you.” Her hand slid up to his chest, over his heart. “Right here.”
His own hand moved then, drawn to the curve of her hip. He hooked his fingers in the belt loop of her jeans, an anchor. He wanted to kiss her again, but he didn’t want to break the spell of this quiet. This was new. This was scarier than sex.
Paige shifted, turning her face up to his. Her eyes searched his, and whatever she saw there made her breath hitch. Slowly, giving him every chance to pull away, she leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. Then the other corner. Then the center of his lips, a soft, closed-mouth press.
It was an invitation. A question.
Johnny answered by deepening the kiss, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips. She opened for him with a sigh that went straight to his groin. The kiss stayed slow, deep, exploratory. There was no rush. No frantic pulling at clothes. His hand stayed on her hip. Hers stayed over his heart.
When they finally broke apart, both were breathing harder. Paige’s cheeks were flushed. She looked at his mouth, then back to his eyes. “I want to,” she whispered. “But not like before.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Just… different.”
He understood. The frantic energy of the van, the possessive heat of Jacob’s apartment, the desperate quickies in the hallway—that was one language. This, the traded tokens, the confessed fears, the weighted quiet, demanded another.
He stood up, holding out his hand. She took it. He led her to the center of the room, away from the bed. The overhead light was off, just the desk lamp casting a warm, low pool of light that left the corners in shadow.
“Stand here,” he said.
She did, watching him, her dark eyes huge.
Johnny went to his knees in front of her. The carpet was rough under his jeans. He looked up at her, at the slight parting of her lips, the rapid rise and fall of her chest under her tight green tank top. He reached for the button of her jeans.
Her hand came down, covering his. “Johnny…”
“Just let me,” he said, his voice rough. “Let me do this.”
Her hand fell away. He popped the button, dragged the zipper down. The sound was loud in the quiet room. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her jeans and her black cotton panties and pulled them down together, in one slow motion. She stepped out of them, kicking them aside. She was bare from the waist down now, standing in the middle of his bedroom, the lamplight gilding the curves of her thighs.
He didn’t touch her yet. He just looked. The thatch of dark curls, the swell of her hips, the incredible, impossible fact of her trust. He leaned forward, pressing his face against the warm skin of her lower belly. He inhaled her scent—soap, the faint musk of her arousal, pure Paige. He kissed her there, just below her navel.
A shudder went through her. Her hands came down to tangle in his red hair, not pushing, just holding on.
He kissed a path downward, his lips trailing over the soft skin of her mound. He could feel the heat radiating from her. He nudged her legs apart with his shoulders, and she complied, widening her stance. He was face-to-face with her cunt now, pink and glistening in the low light. He could see her folds, the delicate, swollen flesh, the evidence of her want.
He didn’t dive in. He exhaled, letting his warm breath wash over her. She jerked, a tiny gasp escaping her.
“Johnny…”
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against her skin. Then he leaned in and licked her, one long, slow stripe from her entrance to her clit.
Her taste exploded on his tongue—salty, musky, profoundly her. He did it again, slower this time, savoring it. Her fingers tightened in his hair. He found a rhythm, broad, flat strokes of his tongue, coating her, learning her geography. He circled her entrance, feeling her clench around nothing. He traced her folds, paying attention to what made her hips twitch, what made her breath catch.
When he finally focused on her clit, he did it with the flat of his tongue, gentle pressure, circling. She was making small, choked sounds above him, her thighs trembling on either side of his head. He reached up, his hands sliding under the hem of her tank top to grip the bare skin of her hips, holding her steady.
He sucked her clit into his mouth, gentle at first, then with more pressure.
“Oh, god,” she whimpered. Her hips bucked forward, seeking more.
He gave it to her. He licked and sucked, his world narrowing to this point of contact, the taste of her, the sounds she made, the way her body moved under his mouth. He slid one hand around to her ass, kneading the firm flesh, pulling her tighter against his face. He was hard, painfully so, but that was a distant concern. This was for her.
He could feel her tension coiling, the muscles in her thighs going rigid. Her breathing was ragged, little punched-out gasps. “I’m gonna… Johnny, don’t stop…”
He didn’t. He redoubled his efforts, his tongue flicking rapidly over her clit while he pushed two fingers inside her. She was so wet, so hot, her inner muscles clutching at him immediately. He curled his fingers, searching.
She came with a sharp cry, her body bowing, her cunt pulsing around his fingers in rhythmic clenches. He kept his mouth on her, gentling his touch as she rode it out, swallowing every drop of her release, feeling her tremors subside into aftershocks.
When she finally stilled, he slowly withdrew his fingers and rested his forehead against her thigh. Her skin was damp with sweat. Her hands were limp in his hair now, just resting there.
He heard her sniffle.
He looked up. Tears were tracking silently down her cheeks, but she was smiling, a wobbly, overwhelmed smile. “Nobody’s ever…” she started, then shook her head, unable to finish.
He understood. He got to his feet, his knees protesting. He cupped her face, wiping her tears with his thumbs. “You’re crying,” he said softly.
“Shut up,” she laughed, a wet, hiccupping sound. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, deep and hungry, tasting herself on his lips. He could feel her nakedness pressed against his jeans, the heat of her.
She broke the kiss, her hands going to his belt. “Your turn,” she breathed, her voice still shaky. “I want to feel you. All of you.”
She undid his belt, his button, his zipper. She pushed his jeans and boxers down his hips. His cock sprang free, hard and aching, the tip already wet. She wrapped her hand around him, her grip firm, and stroked him once, twice, her eyes locked on his.
“On the bed,” she commanded, and the old Paige was back in her voice, but softer now. Tempered.
He lay back on his bed, the comforter cool against his skin. She climbed over him, straddling his hips, but she didn’t sink down onto him. She just sat there, looking down at him, her tank top still on, her breasts swaying with her breath. She reached behind her and took his cock in her hand, guiding him to her entrance.
She paused, the head of him just pressing against her wetness. Her dark eyes held his. “This is ours,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. It was a declaration.
Then she sank down, taking him inside her in one slow, inexorable slide.
The feeling was blinding. The hot, slick tightness of her, the way her body opened for him, the absolute fullness. He groaned, his head falling back against the pillow. She was so deep. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, and began to move. Not the frantic, driving rhythm of before, but a slow, rolling grind of her hips, taking him to the hilt with every downward stroke.
He gripped her thighs, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. He could see the leather bracelet on his wrist moving with the motion. He could see the concentration on her face, the pleasure, the ownership. She was riding him, but she was also holding him, keeping him inside her, making him a part of her.
“Look at me,” she whispered.
He forced his eyes open, met her gaze. Her pupils were blown wide, black pools in the dim light.
“You feel that?” she asked, her voice a husky rasp. “That’s you. In me. That’s where you belong.”
The words, the eye contact, the slow, deep friction—it was too much. He felt the orgasm building, a tidal wave starting deep in his core. “Paige… I’m gonna…”
“Come inside me,” she said, never breaking her rhythm, never looking away. “Give it to me. All of it.”
It broke him. His hips bucked up off the bed, driving into her as he came, a raw, guttural sound tearing from his throat. He pulsed inside her, heat flooding his veins, his vision whiting out at the edges. He felt her clench around him, milking him, drawing every last drop from him.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, her breath hot against his neck. He was still inside her, both of them slick with sweat, hearts hammering against each other. He could feel his own release leaking out around where they were joined.
They didn’t move for a long time. The room was silent except for their ragged breathing. The world outside his window—the street, the neighbors, school tomorrow—felt a million miles away.
Finally, she shifted, and he slipped out of her. She rolled off to lie beside him, facing him. She reached out and touched the bracelet on his wrist again. Then she leaned over to the nightstand and picked up the stone. She held it in her palm between them on the pillow.
“I’m keeping this forever,” she said, her voice sleepy now.
“Me too,” he said, lifting his wrist.
She smiled, her eyes already closing. She was asleep in minutes, the stone still clutched in her hand. Johnny lay awake, watching her, feeling the unfamiliar weight of the leather on his wrist, knowing nothing would ever be the same. The gift had been given. The promise was sealed. He closed his eyes, and for the first time in his life, he felt absolutely, terrifyingly found.
Her breath was warm against his neck, her body a soft, heavy line against his side. The stone was a cool, smooth pressure where her fist rested on the pillow between them. Johnny stared at the water stain on his ceiling, feeling the new weight of the bracelet, the old weight of her confession still settling in his bones.
“Remember that time at the bowling alley?” she murmured into the dark, her voice thick with sleep and sex.
He turned his head on the pillow. Her eyes were closed, but she wasn’t asleep. “Which time?”
“El Cajon. Late August. Jim’s tournament.”
He remembered. The air conditioning was broken. The place smelled like stale popcorn and industrial cleaner. Paige had been wearing cut-off shorts so short the pockets hung below the frayed hem, and a white tank top with a tiny, faded rainbow on the chest. She’d been buzzing with a restless energy all afternoon, trailing her fingers along the ball returns, kicking the legs of the scoring chairs.
“You dared me,” she said, a smile in her voice. “The lanes were done for the day. Lights off. You pointed down that black tunnel and said I wouldn’t do it.”
“You did it,” Johnny said. The memory was crisp. The hollow rumble of the ball in the dark, the distant, satisfying crash of the pins.
“Your dad came out of nowhere. Red-faced. Yelling.” Her voice went quiet. “He called me a little hellion. Said I could’ve damaged the machinery. Told me to go sit with the adults and not move.”
Johnny remembered the hot flush of shame that had nothing to do with the broken AC. Mitchell’s voice, loud and sharp in the echoing alley. The way Paige’s defiant smirk had crumpled, replaced by a wide-eyed, trembling lip. She’d looked thirteen then, really thirteen, and he’d felt like a monster.
“I told him it was my fault,” Johnny said. “That I dared you.”
“You did. He just grunted and walked away, mad at both of us. And I was crying. Not loud. Just… leaking. Sitting on that sticky bench.”
He’d sat down next to her. Their thighs weren’t touching. The vinyl was hot. He’d mumbled an apology, staring at his shoes. “I’m sorry. He shouldn’t have yelled like that.”
“You apologized,” Paige whispered now, her fingers tightening around the stone. “And I forgave you right then. I wasn’t even mad at you. I was just… overwhelmed. But you were so serious. Your face was all pale and freckly and worried.”
She opened her eyes. They were black pools in the dim light from his window. “I was praying you’d kiss me.”
The words hung in the dark room. A confession two months delayed.
“That day?” Johnny asked, his voice rough.
“That day. Right there on the bench. I wanted you to lean over and just… do it. Shut me up. Make me forget your dad, the alley, everything. I thought if you were brave enough to take the blame, you might be brave enough for that.”
He remembered the heat of her arm beside his. The salt smell of her tears. The impossible distance of the four inches between them. “I wanted to,” he admitted, the truth pulled from some deep, untouched place. “I almost did.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You were crying. It felt… predatory.”
Paige let out a soft, wet laugh. “Johnny McHale. Gentleman outlaw.” She shifted, rolling onto her back, still holding the stone to her chest. “I would’ve kissed you back. I would’ve climbed into your lap right there in front of God and your brother and the retired league bowlers.”
The image was so vivid, so Paige, it made his chest ache. A different timeline. A first kiss that smelled like popcorn and sweat instead of rain and van upholstery.
“Would’ve saved us two months,” he said.
“No,” she said, firm. “It had to be the van. It had to be… that. Me pushing. You surprising me. That was ours. This,” she lifted the hand with the stone, “this is ours. The alley would’ve just been a kiss. Nice. Not… landmark.”
He understood. The stone in her hand was proof. Some moments were soft. Theirs were carved.
She turned her head to look at him. “Do you regret it? Not kissing me then?”
“No.”
“Good.” She was silent for a minute. “I think about that day a lot. It was the first time I saw you… stand. You know? Not just be a skinny redhead in the background. You stood up to your dad for me. It was a tiny stand, but it was for me.”
“He’s not scary,” Johnny said.
“He’s a dad. They’re all scary.” She sighed. “Mine just yells in Italian. Sounds like opera. Less scary, more… noisy.”
Johnny reached over, found her hand on the pillow, and laced his fingers through hers around the stone. Her skin was warm. “I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you.”
“Don’t be. You made up for it.” She squeezed his hand. “You’ve been making up for it for months.”
A car passed outside, headlights painting a slow arc across the ceiling. The room brightened, then faded back into shadow. In the brief light, he saw the tracks of dried tears on her cheeks, the smudged mascara. The sweat drying on her skin. She was a mess. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“I would now,” he said.
“Would what?”
“Kiss you. If you were crying. I wouldn’t care. I’d do it anyway.”
Paige turned onto her side, facing him fully. She brought their joined hands, still clasping the stone, to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. “I know,” she said against his skin. “That’s the scary part.”
She untangled her fingers from his and placed the stone carefully on the nightstand. Then she slid her hand under the thin sheet, over his stomach. Her touch was cool. He flinched.
“Still sensitive?” she asked, her voice a low murmur.
“A little.”
Her hand drifted lower, through the coarse hair, her fingers wrapping around him. He was soft, spent. She just held him, her thumb stroking the base. Not a demand. A reclamation.
“I like it like this, too,” she said. “After. When it’s just… a thing. Not a weapon. Not a tool. Just a part of you I get to hold.”
He couldn’t speak. Her words, her touch—it was more intimate than anything they’d done all night.
She moved closer, tucking her head under his chin, her breath on his collarbone. Her other arm draped across his chest. She was everywhere. The bracelet on his wrist was a tight, foreign presence. A brand.
“I’m not tired,” she whispered.
“Me either.”
“Tell me something else you remember. From before.”
He thought. His mind sifted through the hazy catalog of Paige-in-the-background moments. The pool party where she’d cannonballed, soaking his jeans. The time she’d stolen a pack of his mom’s cigarettes and tried to smoke one behind the garage, coughing violently. The way she’d always say “Hey, McHale” when she saw him, like she was testing the sound of his name in her mouth.
“Last year,” he said. “The Halloween dance. You weren’t even supposed to be there. It was for the high school.”
“I came with Marla’s cousin. She was a sophomore. I wore a cat costume. It was cheap. The ears kept falling off.”
“You had whiskers drawn on with eyeliner. And this tail.” He smiled in the dark. “You spent most of the night by the punch bowl, just watching everyone. Looking bored. But your foot was tapping. To the music. You were wearing these little black flats.”
Paige went very still against him. “You saw that?”
“I saw you. I was across the gym, leaning against the wall with some guys from the team. They were talking about the game. I was watching your foot tap.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It was… precise. Like you knew the exact beat you wanted, and the music wasn’t quite hitting it.”
She was silent for a long moment. “I was pretending to be older. The cousin, her friends… they were so loud. So sure of themselves. I felt like a kid in a cat costume. The tapping… it was me counting down until I could leave.” She pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “You saw that?”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody sees that.”
“I did.”
She lifted her head. Her eyes searched his face in the near-dark. Then she kissed him. It was slow, deep, and tasted like sleep and salt and her. A kiss with no destination. A kiss that was its own answer.
When she pulled back, her lips were swollen. “Your turn,” she said. “Ask me something I remember.”
He didn’t have to think. “The first time you saw me. Really saw me. Not just Jim’s older brother.”
Paige’s smile was a flash of white. “Easy. Fourth of July. At the community pool. You were with your dad and Jim. You had on those blue swim trunks. The ones with the white stripe. You were so pale you were practically glowing. A redheaded lighthouse.”
“Thanks.”
“Shut up. I was there with my mom. She was slathered in baby oil, reading a magazine. You were standing at the deep end, looking at the water like it was a math test. All serious. Then you just… dove. Not a cannonball, not a show-off dive. A clean, straight arrow into the water. You went deep. You were under for a long time. I remember holding my breath with you. When you came up, you slicked your hair back with both hands. It was dark red, almost brown when it was wet. And you took this huge, gasping breath. And I thought… fuck.”
“You thought ‘fuck’?”
“Yeah. I was thirteen. That was the whole thought. Just… fuck. This isn’t a boy. This is something else.” She traced a finger down the center of his chest. “I made Marla go get a snow cone with me so I wouldn’t stare.”
Johnny absorbed this. A memory he had no part of, living in her head. A version of himself he’d never met—a redheaded lighthouse, a deep diver. It felt like a gift.
“You never said anything,” he said.
“What was I gonna say? ‘Nice dive’? Please. I had to make you notice me. I had to be a problem you couldn’t ignore.” She grinned, that wild, familiar grin. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“It worked.”
Her hand, which had been resting gently on him, began to move. A slow, firm stroke. He felt a responding stir, a thickening under her touch. He was tired, sore, but his body was listening to hers, a separate, hungry intelligence.
“Don’t,” he breathed, though his hips lifted into her hand.
“Don’t what?”
“I can’t again. Not yet.”
“I’m not asking you to.” She kept stroking, her eyes on his. “I just want to feel it wake up. I want to know I can still do this. After everything we said.”
He was fully hard now, aching in her grip. She leaned down and kissed the head of his cock, a soft, closed-mouth press. Then she rested her cheek against his thigh, her hand still moving in a lazy, possessive rhythm.
“Tell me you want me,” she said, her voice muffled against his skin.
“You know I do.”
“Say it.”
“I want you, Paige.”
“Even after I cry? Even after I tell you sad stories about bowling alleys?”
“Especially then.”
She lifted her head. Her expression was fierce. “Good. Because I want you. I want your skinny arms and your freckles and your stupid, serious face. I want you when you’re brave and when you’re scared and when you’re lying in bed with me unable to go again. I want all of it. It’s mine.”
The declaration should have felt overwhelming. It felt like a key turning in a lock. A final, solid click.
“Yours,” he agreed, the word leaving no room for argument.
She crawled up his body, straddling his hips again. She was still naked, her skin glowing faintly in the dark. She took him in her hand, guiding him to her, but just held him there, the tip pressing against her wetness. She didn’t sink down. She rocked forward, just a fraction, letting him feel the heat and slickness of her, then rocked back.
A low groan escaped him. It was torture. It was perfect.
“This is what I wanted at the alley,” she whispered, grinding against him in tiny, maddening circles. “This. Not a kiss. This feeling. Of you right here. Almost inside me. The almost is the best part.”
He gripped her thighs, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh. He was throbbing, desperate, but he understood. He held still. Let her use him like this, a blunt, warm pressure against the most sensitive part of her. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back. Her breath came in short, sharp puffs.
She was getting off on the almost. On the promise. On the memory of a kiss that never happened and the reality of a cock that wouldn’t push in.
Her movements became less controlled, more frantic. Her hips stuttered. She was rubbing herself against him, her clit catching on the ridge of his head with every pass. A high, thin sound escaped her lips.
“Johnny.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t move.”
“I won’t.”
She came like that, with him pressed against her entrance, not inside. A shuddering, silent climax that tightened every muscle in her body. She collapsed forward onto his chest, her whole weight on him, her face buried in his neck. He felt the wet heat of her release smear against his stomach.
They lay like that for minutes. Her heartbeat was a wild drum against his ribs. Slowly, it settled.
“Okay,” she breathed, finally. “Now I’m tired.”
She rolled off him, onto her side, her back to him. He spooned against her, fitting his body to the curve of hers. His erection, still hard and neglected, pressed against the small of her back. She reached behind her, patted his hip. “Sorry, soldier. Stand down.”
He laughed, a quiet huff of air against her damp shoulder. He kissed the spot where her neck met her shoulder. She smelled like sex and vanilla and them.
“Paige?”
“Hmm?”
“If I could go back to the alley… I’d kiss you. And I wouldn’t stop.”
She took his hand, the one with the bracelet, and pulled his arm tight around her waist. “I know,” she said, her voice slurring with exhaustion. “That’s why we’re here now.”
Her breathing evened out, deepened. Within minutes, she was asleep.
Johnny lay awake, holding her. The bracelet was a tight, familiar band now. The stone was a dark lump on the nightstand. Outside, the world was quiet. The future was a vast, dark tunnel. But for now, he was not at the entrance, daring someone to roll a ball into the black. He was already in the dark. And she was with him.