Page 41 of Dance of the Phoenix

Mom and Dad stared at me as if they’d never seen me before. “Logan, honey ...” Mom said, eyes wide. “Relationships at such a young age might not go too far.”

“You have no right to say that,” I snapped, now furious. “You and Dad met when you were our age! So what’s the difference?”

They couldn’t say anything back to that. So reluctantly, after a tense conversation, they gave Aileen and me their blessing.

And the next day, I held Aileen’s hand the entire time we spent at school and glowered at anyone who dared think they could steal what was mine.

Because I wasn’t kidding when I told my parents I planned to marry Aileen. It was the truth. The absolute truth.

I refused to let her go, no matter what.

Until I was forced to, the day her father got out of jail and took her away.

Even after Aileen was no longer a foster child, we arranged meetings in an old shed in the backyard of the small house Aileen’s father rented after he was released.

At first, I didn’t understand why we had to meet in that shed. Why couldn’t she introduce me to her father? Why did we have to hide as if we were doing something wrong?

Aileen had been tight lipped and resolute about her decision, though. All she said was that her father wouldn’t approve and left it at that, no matter how much I tried to push her for answers.

I knew she was hiding secrets. She wouldn’t talk about her father—I’d learned he was in jail through my parents, not her. I wanted to know what he did time for—I believed that after three years of dating I deserved that much—but Aileen refused to tell.

It drove me insane, but I forced myself to be patient. I believed she’d come around and tell me when she was ready.

Even at sixteen, I was still naive enough to think that I knew Aileen at all.

It gutted me that I couldn’t just see her every day like I had when she lived at my house. What made it even worse was the secrecy she forced on our relationship once more. It was only at school when I was allowed to show her affection—thankfully, her father allowed her to stay in school and not go back to being homeschooled, as she had been before being fostered by my parents.

But even that wasn’t enough.

Nothing was enough when it came to Aileen. I wanted everything. I wanted her to submit herself entirely to me.

Because that’s what I did. I was hers. Completely, utterly hers.

And I couldn’t help but feel like she wasn’t mine. No matter how much I tried.

It became more and more obvious when we had sex. When we first started screwing around, I knew we both felt the same. We both felt pleasure. We enjoyed it equally.

But once she returned to her father, things started going awry in that regard.

Suddenly, every time we had sex, she stared at me and faked her orgasms.

She’d never faked them before.

I knew Aileen’s body. I knew what it felt like when she truly came. But suddenly, she wasn’t feeling it. In fact, it almost seemed like she wasboredevery time we did it.

And that hurt.

It hurt so fucking much.

So one time, when I sneaked into the shed, I decided it was time to find out what the hell was going on. Because I wanted her to be the Aileen I knew, who enjoyed my body as much as I did hers, who didn’t feel like she had to fake her orgasms to make me feel good or something.

Little did I know that day would be my ruin.

Because the moment I went in, she didn’t even say hi; she wrapped her arms around me and kissed me long, deep, and wet.

Since I was in love with the girl, all I could do was respond in kind. I was desperate to feel wanted and needed by her, and so I let her do whatever she wanted to me.

The moment we were on the short mattress in the shed, stopping our kiss to catch a breath, I said, “Tell me what you want.”