“We won't be out late,” Ash told her sister, and I was reminded for a moment of what television described as typical-family-behavior. It felt like I was about to take my stepsister out for an all-American date, to the drive-in or something. The QB gets the girl...

Ash jerked me out of my reverie by tugging on my wrist. The door slammed behind us, and suddenly it was just me and her sharing the moist Texas air with a trillion chirping cicadas and the kind of humidity that could make a hummingbird slow.

“So where are we going?” I started—but Ash was already tearing towards shotgun, a feverish look in her eyes. I loped over to the driver side of the Saab, trying to keep the highly inappropriate memory of the last time we'd been in this car together at bay.

“You're a senior and a minor celebrity. Don't tell me you don't know a bar that'll serve me.” Ash turned her attention to the radio dials, just as I eased off the brake. “And don't forget—I'm one part legal now.” Some particularly angry Green Day tune seemed to sate her. I watched her mouth along to the lyrics as we pulled back toward school, where—as it happened—I had managed to think of a place or two that would serve us.

“You're a little young for these guys, aren't you?” I asked, eyebrow cocked at the radio. Ash fixed me with a sullen stare. And I couldn't help it. I knew the situation was serious, the stakes incredibly high—but something about that chick made me crack a smile. We drove on in a rock n' roll silence.

But soon, Green Day gave way to commercials. Ash sighed. She knocked her pretty head gently against the headrests. “What I don't understand is, how could anybody do that to someone they love?” she asked suddenly, her voice thick with emotion. Her tone reminded me that she was a teenager, and that there were still some things of which she remained innocent. The things people would do to one another, under guise of love. I didn't have the heart to offer my own cynical explanation, so I just shrugged.

“I don't understand it, either.”

“Like—you love someone, you should want them to be safe and happy at every second, right? When you're not with them, even. You should be taking seconds out of every minute to wish them the best. Even when they make you mad or make you crazy, the right kind of love should be enough.” Her eyes were boiling again. Tears were hovering on the tips of her long lashes.

“It should be,” I said, fighting to keep my attention on the clogged roads. We were hitting some post-game traffic.

“She's a good person.”

I could feel her eyes on me. Was this some test? Was she waiting for me to rush to the Pastor's defense? I waited to feel the love she spoke of for my father, the unconditional concern. But I didn't even know where my old man was. I'd called him once from the car on the way over, and hadn't even left a voicemail. My fury with him remained blinding.

“Some people learned to show their love in kind of... crooked ways,” I finally ventured. No sooner were the words out than I started to feel anxious. Was it possible that I was this kind of person? Had the Pastor passed his wickedness onto me? I hadn't loved Zora the right way. It wasn’t a stretch that I would always have this problem with women, that I would always seek out the people who I could never love the right way, the people who could never truly love me back.

“Turn here,” Ash said, in sotto. We were coming up on the nightlife-y part of town, but she pointed toward a cul-de-sac loop that veered back toward residential Austin. I was confused, but didn't question. All I wanted was for her to feel safe.

“Will you stop the car a second?” she asked, as soon as I'd eased off the gas in front of a pretty green clapboard house. I'd never been in this part of town before, but I did as the lady asked and slid the emergency brake into position. We sat in silence as the city sounds pressed in around us. The clicking of the car ceded back into the anxious whirring of cicadas.

I turned to Ash, who had closed her eyes and was now rolling her head back and forth across the headrest. I smiled. She was beautiful. The best part of her beauty was how un-self conscious it was. Unlike Zora, even unlike Yvette—Ash walked around like she didn't give a fuck who was looking at her. And as a result, it could have been everybody. I was grateful, in that moment, that it was me.

“What can I do?” I whispered after a beat, half-hating how wormy I sounded. But I was in a position to worm. She had reason enough to never give me the time of day again, and yet here she was, waxing poetical in my Saab. Her eyes slid open. They were bleary and desperate and warm.

Without thinking, I lurched towards her, faster than I could even unbuckle my seatbelt. I held her face in my palms, tilted it gently up so some stray moonlight could fall on her pale cheeks. I held her for a moment like that, heart beating like a jackrabbit's, until she nodded. Very slightly, but just enough so I could feel her certainty. I tentatively slid my thumb over her warm, slightly dewy lips. Her mouth parted, as if to welcome me. Then her neck seemed to collapse forward, and we fell into one another.

I remembered kissing her, on that happier day in our past. I remembered the shape and feel of her bow-like mouth. Her tongue was anxious and grasping, it wouldn't let me go. I tilted my own face so I could wriggle deeper inside her. The car made shifting sounds as we moved together, straining against our seat-belts. I wanted to break away the strap so I could climb on top of her, but I was worried that if I pulled away—if even for a second—when I came back she'd have changed her mind.

But minutes passed, and she didn't seem interested in changing her mind. Her skinny, long fingers wormed their way toward my torso. She seemed to stutter on my muscles, and made carving gestures around them as I flexed for her benefit. I wanted to be strong for her, I wanted to be the reliable, sturdy guy. I also wanted to fuck her, good and long, soft and hard, for as long as it took. Until she quivered with pleasure. Until her beautiful mind was stripped of anything that could cause it pain.

Chapter Twenty

Ash

Even before we'd moved to the backseat, his cock was rigid in his pants. I brushed against it by accident, while tugging on the fabric of his flimsy t-shirt. I found I wanted to touch this taut expanse of a football player, this body so contra to Nate's. I wanted to sink into the arms of someone strong enough to hold me up.

He continued to kiss me, fingers moving through my hair. He was gentle. I waited for the moment to reach a natural conclusion, or for some reason to seize us both and pull us apart—but I couldn't stop. I was hungry for him. I kissed harder. When I came up for a brief lungful of air, his eyes were pinned on me with such an intensity I might have swooned right then. I directed my mouth to his neck, and began to suck. He'd liked that, before. This time, I heard him whimper with want before digging lightly into my scalp, drawing me further in.

“Doll,” he gasped, chest rising and falling fast. “Oh fuck, Doll. You're so fucking amazing. You've got me so fucking hard.” Then, as if to prove this last statement, he lifted my hand from his coiled bicep and placed it on the bulge of his jeans. I opened my eyes and read a question in his gaze, an arched interest in taking things slow. A part of me wanted to be the reasonable girl, the no-we-can't-you're-my-stepbrother-girl—but I couldn't. I nodded my head firmly: yes.

Then my eyes swiveled towards the beast between his legs. My own stomach was rising and falling with a desire I'd never experienced before. I was feeling what I'd only read about, or seen in movies. A pure, unadulterated thirst for another body.