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Laney read out loud to him for all of July.

She devoured books the same way the woodchipper at Jerry’s went through the saplings he was pulling out to make room for a vegetable garden. She’d read him The God of Small Things, American Psycho, The English Patient, Angela’s Ashes … He’d laughed out loud despite himself at Bridget Jones’s Diary . They’d suffered through half of Infinite Jest before giving up. She’d read him Fight Club twice.

They’d gone to the beach one day, Shane fighting off a headache from staring down all the guys who kept checking Laney out in her little pink bikini, Dustin building a strangely intricate sandcastle with multiple towers and a very realistic-looking drawbridge, dragons carved into the sand with the skinny end of a plastic shovel. She’d read him The Giver all in one shot, his back burning in the sun.

The second Harry Potter book came out that summer, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. She’d read it herself on a weekend while he was with Jenna and he begged her for spoilers that Monday when he got back, but she refused, reading it to him late into the night after dinner, until her voice was hoarse and her eyes were drooping, the book tipping over in her hands and flopping against her chest as she nodded off.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes, “can we finish tomorrow?”

He scooped her up off the couch and she cradled into him, her arms snaking around his neck, just like she used to. He inhaled the smell of her as he walked her into her room, and it set his nerve endings on fire.

Her hair was longer now, almost to her chin, wavy and shiny and smelling like lavender. As he placed her down in her bed, their faces so close he could feel her breath on his cheek, he caught a lock in his fingers and tucked it behind her ear. She made a gentle humming noise and he saw goosebumps rising on her neck.

He traced them with the back of his hand, his forefinger stretching out and mapping the line of her jaw before lightly tracing her lips… and he couldn’t help himself. He brushed his mouth over hers, soft and sweet, once… twice…

She sucked in a breath, shifting her body slowly, slightly, like she might scare him off.

His heart was pounding, but he didn’t pull back.

They stayed like that, eyes closed, lips unmoving and barely touching, frozen in place... And before he could get a grip on himself, her lips parted. It was so soft, like a question, like she was asking if it was okay.

Please let me, she was saying. Please…

He wanted to say no. He really did. He wanted to push her away and tell her he got carried away and had to go. But his fingers drifted to her throat, aching for the feel of her skin, her pulse thundering, and then she started to move her lips against his.

When she slid her tongue into his mouth, he felt his body buckle onto her bed, sinking into her like sinking into a pool.

It wasn’t fireworks, fast and desperate, like that time in the truck. It was volcanic. A slow-moving, devastating heat that was going to exenterate his insides.

And he didn’t care.

Her hand found his chest and she smiled against his lips, tapping her fingers rapidly in time with his thrumming heartbeat.

Fast, she thought.

He tapped his fingers against her carotid.

You, too, he thought back.

A little moan came out of her mouth, and he fought to keep his lower body away from her, to keep himself from pressing his throbbing erection against her tiny frame. Alarm bells were going off in his ether as he tried to keep his distance, but she wasn’t having it.

Her hands slid down his back and firmly gripped his ass, pulling him close, her legs falling wider apart to accommodate the width of his body. He half-heartedly tried to pull away, but she wriggled beneath him and he started to pant against the friction.

Sensing him losing the battle, she hooked her ankles over his calves and pushed herself up into him even harder.

Something in him snapped.

His grip tightened around her throat as he sank his body weight fully into her, his free hand snaking around one of her wrists, pushing her arm above her head and pinning it down.

His hips jutted into her, his cock screaming against his fly. He could feel the heat of her through her shorts, through his jeans… his body involuntarily shoving at her, hard. Her other hand was digging into his ass cheek so hard he could feel her nails through his pocket… He reached back and grabbed it, snapping that hand up above her head too, both wrists pinned and locked in place, his hips driving her into the mattress, their tongues at war…

Too good.

Nothing should feel this good.

His blood roared, cock kicking, his brain flooded with her smell and feel and taste. She was raising her hips to meet his with every push, the friction of his clothing unbearable. He couldn’t stop, his tongue frantic, body urgent, the speed of their bodies rocking together increasing to straight-up dry humping even though he was desperately trying not to.

He could feel the points of her nipples against his chest, the pulse in her wrists, the heat between her legs, and the tension in his body intensified to a nuclear level. His vision almost white, he kept himself right on the edge, refusing to let go of her so that his hands wouldn’t find their way under her shirt, or into her pants… He rode that knife’s edge for fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes, until his balls were pounding and she was trembling, right there with him, mewling like a kitten, claws out and ready to swipe.

I could die like this and it would be worth it, he thought.