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Shane had worked her body into such a frenzy that she thought she might actually die. It made their little make out session in the truck look like Bible Study.

His dick was rigid against her, his grip was bruising her bones, and she was almost positive she hadn’t taken a full breath in at least half an hour. And all she wanted was more.

He felt enormous, completely dwarfing her on the bed, entirely in control and also entirely not . She tried to rub harder against him, to speed up, frustrated and panting and desperate… The sounds coming out of her mouth were embarrassing, but she didn’t care – he was making her body sing in ways she didn’t know it could. And we aren’t even naked.

It was maddening. He had her pinned so tight that she couldn’t move, tears of frustration burning in her eyes, her muscles shaking and cramping from clenching and unclenching… She wanted to scream, but he just kept at his punishing rhythm, like he couldn’t stop but he was afraid to take them any farther.

Her eyes were screwed shut but a tear slid down one cheek, and then another, and another, until finally he must have felt one because he paused, his lips slowing, his fingers loosening their grip…

She seized the opportunity and her hands shot downward between them, palming his dick as hard as she could at the same time as she nipped his tongue.

Shane’s neck snapped up and a string of curses flowed from him like a fountain as he came. It went on and on, his cock kicking so hard through his jeans she thought the seams of his pants might bust. After a few minutes, his whole body softened against her, his lips tender, and he shifted his weight and rolled off her onto his side. His nose skimmed her shoulder and upper arm, his fingers stroking her hair and his thumb brushing away the streak of a tear off her cheek.

“If you don’t touch me right now I think I’m going to combust,” she mumbled, her voice thick with heat and exhaustion.

“That’s how you make me feel all the time,” he said, a serious look on his face, his thumb still stroking her cheek.

“No wonder you’re always so tense,” she said with a smile, pressing her hands to his chest. He was still breathing heavily, his heartbeat heavy and quick. She wound her fingers through his and tried to drag his hand between her legs, still hot and wanton, but he stopped her, planting a kiss on their linked knuckles before squeezing her and letting go.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

A new kind of tension slithered its way into her body. A cold, scary kind that made her throat tighten.

“Why not?” she rasped, reaching for him again. He nuzzled her neck, but she knew he was distracting her. “Don’t you think I should get a turn?” she asked, pulling back a little to look at him.

He sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face, a light blush creeping across his cheeks. “I need a minute, okay? I need to think…”

“No,” she said, shimmying towards him. “No thinking.”

He groaned needily and scrubbed his hand over his face again, but he sat up and pushed himself to the end of the bed.

“I need to get out of this room…”

She felt pure panic, combined with a jolt of hot, unadulterated rage, and without thinking she sat up on her knees and whipped him across the face with her palm.

“Are you serious right now?” she hissed. Before he could answer, she slapped him again, the sound ringing. “I am done with this bullshit, Shane, you hear me? This isn’t a game. I’m not playing with you any more!”

He was on her again, so fast she didn’t even see him move, both of her wrists pressed to the mattress with one of his hands, his other fiercely gripping her chin as his mouth branded a searing kiss into hers, shutting her up while his thighs locked her legs in place.

He pulled back an inch, his eyes blazing, fingers flexing against her wrists as she futilely struggled to free her hands.

“This is a game, Laney,” he seethed, “only you and I aren’t the only players!” He released her and stood, wincing a little, like his muscles were just as cramped as hers.

“Oh, I see! I’m good enough to get you off but not good enough to fight for?” she spat, the top blown off the silo that she stored her emotions in, all caution thrown to the wind.

“Fight for?!” he shouted. “You’re living in a fantasy! I wouldn’t have to fight for you – I’d have to kill for you! Do you even know who your brother is? Do you have any clue how careless this was?” He ran both hands over the back of his head, his tension so high she thought he might pop his own skull.

“I don’t think you’re scared of Cary!” she shouted back. “I think you’re scared of me! I think you’re scared of being with me so you’re being a pussy and – ”

Shane laughed, cold and bitter. “If you wanted to remind me of exactly why we shouldn’t be together, you’re doing a damned good job!” He was panting. “ Of course I’m scared of you! I’d be mental not to be! This isn’t normal ! To feel this way about somebody! I’m not being a pussy for having reservations about a relationship that has the potential to fucking end me!”

She stopped breathing.

“I’m going to be eighteen this September, Laney. I’m going to be a legal adult, and you’re still fifteen years old. You’re a minor. With a coked-out brother who sleeps with a gun under his pillow and looks at you like –” Shane cut himself off, chest heaving, fists balled at his sides. “You think he wouldn’t use that? You think he wouldn’t see me charged for statutory rape? You think he wouldn’t see fit to dismantle my face, first, before having me locked up? Tossed on a sex offender registry for the rest of my life?”

Laney felt like she’d just taken a tire iron to the knees.

“Of course you wouldn’t have thought about any of this,” he raged, “because you don’t think about anything but what feels good!”

His shoulders drooped, the anger bleeding out of his body, his bottomless grey eyes almost black.

“I needed to get out of this room, that smells like sex and you and is driving me insane . I needed to get out of your bed before your brother showed up. I just needed a minute, Laney. You didn’t have to give me a black eye for it!”

“Like the one you gave me?”

She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. Before they’d even travelled across space and into his ears, she regretted them. Wanted to cram them back inside, shove them down into her gut and bury them where they’d never be found. She clamped a hand over her mouth in horror.

His face crumpled and he let out a low breath, like he’d been winded, his body stooping from the weight of her words.

“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t mean that! I didn’t! I can’t believe I just said that! Shane…”

She was surprised when he stepped towards her and pulled her into a hug. She sobbed into his chest, overflowing with feelings that she couldn’t have named if she tried… He stepped back a few inches, his fingers lightly running over her eyebrow and cheekbone, the ones he’d bruised, before tracing her throat where he’d squeezed while he kissed her, and then brushing his thumbs over her swollen wrists.

“We’re going to ruin each other,” he said into her hair. He sounded wrecked.

No, no, no, no, no… Don’t do this!

But he did. He kissed her one more time, and left her.

She collapsed onto the floor, facing the underside of her bed, body wracked with dry heaves, and that’s when she saw it. The drawing Dustin had made of the two of them. She pulled it out, dust bunnies stuck to the corners, and stared at the two dragons.

Shane was right.

They both looked ruined.