I had been telling him the truth—I had made out with a lot of guys, but I didn’t usually go home with them, except for Nathan, so I really didn’t have massive amounts of sexual experience. But that, with Phoenix, had been awesome. It had felt like he was everything, in every inch of me, like our bodies truly were one.

Not to mention that I’d had an orgasm, which happened with a guy like never.

He must have sensed me watching him, because his eyes suddenly popped open, and he jerked forward. When he saw it was me, he settled back on the pillow and smiled. “Morning.”

“Good morning.” I shifted my leg over his and felt a shiver of pleasure, both at the way he felt, firm and rough, and the fact that I wasn’t embarrassed to do it.

Phoenix rolled over so that he was on top of me. With a sigh, his eyes still sleepy, he kissed me. “Mm,” he said. “Did you sleep good?”

“Yes,” I answered truthfully. “You?”

“The best.” He reached over and got a condom off the upside-down crate that served as my nightstand.

Then he was inside me again, and I sighed with pleasure, relaxed and lazy, still not fully awake. When I came, it was an even bigger surprise than the night before. Who comes during actual missionary position sex with zero foreplay first thing in the morning? Holy shit, it seemed I did, at least when Phoenix did that thing, where his thumb stroked over my clit and he moved in a way I couldn’t explain, like stealth penis. A sneak attack, hitting the most perfect spot imaginable.

“Oh, God,” I cried.

The look he gave me was so possessive and satisfied that when he gripped the headboard and came with gritted teeth, my eyes actually rolled back in my head as I had another little mini-orgasm.

When he stopped moving finally and I could think, speak, I swallowed hard and said, “Who has two thumbs and just came twice? This girl. Holy crap.”

Phoenix laughed softly. “Glad to hear it.” He kissed me again. “Best way to start the day.”

“I concur.” The moment was worth busting out extra vocab. And I was feeling more like myself than I had in a million years.

He stood up, pulling off the condom. In the morning light, I studied him. Nice. Very nice. “What does your tattoo mean?” I asked, rolling onto my side, propping my head with my hand, tugging the sheet over me. I wasn’t comfortable just lying there totally naked when he wasn’t actually touching me.

“Which one?” He scratched his chest, flipping his hair out of his eye. He didn’t seem even remotely self-conscious about being naked, but then again, most guys weren’t.

“The bleeding heart.” I wanted to know who had broken his heart. Who I had to compete with, I guess. It was why I had asked him about Angel, which was not even remotely subtle, I know, like none of my actions had been, but I was going with my gut. And my gut said if I wanted to know something, I should ask the question.

But he just shrugged. “It doesn’t mean anything. I just liked the artwork.”

Taken by surprise, I just stared at him as he pulled on his shorts and said, “Be right back,” and left the room. I could hear him go into the bathroom and shut the door.

It didn’t mean anything? A life-size severed image over his own heart, dripping blood all the way down his rib cage and gut? That seemed a little hard to believe.

But maybe he didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t like I didn’t have a secret of my own.

That deflated my lazy contentment, and I got up, pulling on shorts and a T-shirt. When Phoenix reappeared we went down to the kitchen and found Kylie sitting at the table eating oatmeal. I had class in ninety minutes, but she had a nine a.m. and looked on the verge of leaving, to my relief.

“Hey,” she said, with a cheerful smile. “There’s coffee left if you want it.”

“Thanks.” Guilt rose up in my mouth like bile. Just when I started to enjoy myself, to feel human again, it was back, and rightly so. The day I could look at Kylie and not feel a twinge of guilt was the day I officially sucked.

“Catch you later, you cute little lovebirds!” she sang out, dumping her dirty bowl in the sink and leaving it as she rushed from the kitchen, blowing kisses at us.

“She’s a lot of a lot, isn’t she?” Phoenix asked, opening up cupboards until he found the coffee mugs. He pulled two down. “So what time are you done with classes?”

“Three.” I took the coffee he gave to me and took a sip.

“You doing anything? Want to hang out? They don’t need me to work today.”

I nodded. “Yes.” I did. I wanted to spend every minute with him.

Every single second.

Every nanosecond.

Without thinking about it, I put down my coffee, snaked my arms around his neck and kissed the shit out of him.

“I want to kidnap you,” he murmured in my ear. “So that I never have to let you go.”

“Please do,” I told him.

“Classes just started yesterday,” he whispered, mouth hot on my neck as he trailed kisses along my collarbone. “You can’t skip.”

“But I want to.” I did.

“I’ll pick you up at three thirty.” He peeled the top of my T-shirt down and sucked the swell of my breast. “’Kay?”

“Okay.” But I reached for the button on his shorts, thinking that it might be a much better idea to go back to bed.

Phoenix stepped away and shook his head. “Go to school. You’re, what, half done with your degree? Don’t screw it up now, not because of me.”

I saw that he would feel guilty if I skipped, so I sighed and said, “Fine.”

Phoenix laughed. “You’re adorable when you’re being a baby.”

“I’m not being a baby!” Not much, anyway.

He reached out and gently squeezed my bottom lip. “You’re pouting.”

I was. Damn it. But he just replaced his finger with his mouth and kissed me.

I went to class, but I didn’t hear a word my professors said. Instead I daydreamed about Phoenix and me running off to New Orleans and living like hippies on my art and his tattoo work. We would have a dog and a tiny apartment in the French Quarter and I would never wear makeup again and he would always think I was beautiful.

There was nothing wrong with dreaming.

Except when I left campus at three I realized it was the first day for my Tuesday-Thursday classes, and I was already behind.

My schedule was heavy with business courses, and none of it seemed like anything I wanted to do. Ever.

But I didn’t have a choice, did I? So I went to the coffee shop and started in on reading the textbook.

“I have to go to the store,” Phoenix told me when I picked him up at his cousin’s house. “Do you mind going with me?”

“No. What do you need to buy?” I pulled down the street. I had been planning to go in the house and say hi to everyone, but Phoenix had been waiting on the front step and he’d gotten into the car immediately. I felt a little guilty, like I was blowing off Jessica, but then again, I didn’t even know if she was home or not.

“Well, I went into prison with my clothes and five bucks and that’s basically all I have to my name right now since my mom disappeared. I need to buy basic stuff like deodorant and some shirts. I can’t keep borrowing my cousins’ shit.”

“Okay.” I tried to imagine only owning the clothes I was wearing and couldn’t. I had a whole bedroom full of stuff at my parent’s house—clothes and mementoes and old electronics. The thought of all of it disappearing freaked me out completely.

When we walked into the discount store, Phoenix said, “I have forty-five bucks, that’s it. So I need to do some math. I’m getting paid every day under the table, but I had to pay Riley back for my phone, and I still owe them like another hundred bucks, so it’s going to be tight for the next month.”

Forty-five dollars? What the hell was he going to buy for forty-five dollars? But I got a cart and got my phone out of my purse. “We can use the calculator on my phone. By the way, I want to buy some art supplies after we’re done here. The craft store has cheap canvases.”