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He always has.

For a second, his body is completely still, frozen in place with what I can only assume is indecision. But then his hands grip my ass and he’s pressing me against the car, rolling his hips and making me moan against his lips.

Oh, I’ve missed his sexy mouth so damn much.

This might be my only chance, so I kiss him with everything I have, nipping, sucking, and licking his lips before he slides his tongue into my mouth and I suck on it.

His cock is hard as hell and I wiggle against it, finally drawing out a rumbling and reluctant groan from deep in his chest.

One of my hands tangle in his hair and the other is at the back of his neck, silently begging him to kiss me harder.

To consume me.

To fuck me and make me forget.

To forgive me.

When I moan his name, it breaks the spell and his body tenses before he disentangles himself, setting me down gently on my feet.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. My body is close to melting into a puddle of need.

He looks starved, his swollen lips parted while he sucks in air. The mouth-watering bulge in his jeans makes everything inside me ache.

Jesus.

And this is the moment I know that I would do anything to make it up to him.

Anything to have him again.

Anything to be his girl.

But the regret and sadness written all over his face make me realize it will never happen.

“We… can’t,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.

When he meets my eyes again, his lips are pressed into a thin line and he’s blinking the pain out of his eyes.

Pain that I put there with my carelessness.

But he’ll never believe that I didn’t mean for things to go down like they did. Like everyone else in this goddamn town, he thinks I planned to betray him and that I was helping my dad all along.

I wasn’t.

I never would have done something like that to him.

“Thank you for… rescuing me. Again. And for… everything,” I whisper, tears pooling in my eyes as all my mistakes come crashing down on me.

“Don’t mention it,” Gavin says, his voice rough.

He looks like a god in the moonlight.

I want to be in his arms again, to beg him to come back to my hotel room with me. We need to talk, to get some closure about what happened all those years ago.

But we also need each other’s bodies tonight.

“Gavin–”

He holds up a hand to stop me from continuing. “Seriously, Ashley. Don’t mention it. The last thing I want is to be associated with you.”