Pleasure rocked through my body when she ground herself against me. A growl clanged around in my chest and rumbled up my throat. “Aly… ”

And she did it again, holding me close as if she were hanging on to life. “I said… tell me you don’t want me.”

“You know that would be a lie.” My eyelids closed with the admission, and I knew I shouldn’t say it, but I needed her to know. “God, I want you so bad, Aly. So bad.”

I could feel the affection in her touch as she slowly slid her hands down my chest and over my stomach. Her deep green eyes never released mine when she sat back a little to take hold of the bottom of her tank. Slowly she drew it up, inch by excruciating inch. And I was frozen, everything except for my eyes that trailed her movements as I took in the lush flesh she exposed.

Aly wasn’t wearing a bra, and I thought maybe somewhere in my subconscious I already knew that, but this… this was shocking, too much, and I sucked in a fortifying breath because I had no idea how I was ever going to get out of this.

I didn’t want to.

Aly’s hair fell in a tangled mess around her shoulders as she finally lifted the shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor.

And I was trembling, my body losing all control as my attention shot between her face and her full breasts.

What the hell did she think she was doing to me? This was almost as cruel as making me watch her splash around with Dickhead in that fucking pool last night. Although neither time had there been anything callous in her movements, nothing meant to taunt, and tonight it was clear this was spurred by the same need spinning through her that was spinning through me.

“Touch me,” she commanded, her voice low. There was something in the demand, a hidden shyness that only affirmed the goodness I found in her.

“Aly… damn it… you need to stop.”

“Please,” she begged.

My fingers worked deeper into her hips, and Aly sat back, her hands on my shoulders as she bared herself to me. This girl was so unbelievably gorgeous, her skin a creamy color that seemed to glow in the dim light. So soft. Perfect.

My fingers moved, slowly trailing up her sides, dipping into the faint divots between each of her ribs. “Aleena” quietly slipped from my mouth like a prayer.

With my touch, goose bumps pebbled over the expanse of her skin and the rosy buds of her breasts tightened. Her head listed just to the side as she drew in a shaky breath, her dark hair falling all over one shoulder, a silent whimper falling from her trembling lips.

“Aly, I… ” I looked up at her, unable to understand why someone like her wanted to give herself to someone like me.

“Shh,” she begged. “Don’t, Jared. I need you… want you. I don’t care about anything outside my door. Here, it’s just the two of us.”

Gentle fingers swept down my chest and teased under the hem of my shirt. Warm palms flattened on my bare skin, and she slowly skimmed them up my stomach, dragging my shirt with it, pressing harder as she passed over my ribs. She splayed her fingers wide as her hands moved over my shoulders.

I shook, but I was powerless, so I let her take control. In surrender, I lifted my arms so she could tug the shirt over my head. She tossed it to the floor on top of hers.

Aly sat back to take me in. She’d seen me without my shirt on before. I mean, I’d even let her touch me. But never in my life had I felt as exposed as I did right then. Her fingertips softened as they traced along the outline of my sins, as she caressed the markings of every mistake I’d ever made as if this girl somehow found some kind of beauty in them. She explored, caressed down my chest, back up my sides, and over my shoulders.

She should be repulsed because I was every time I looked in the mirror.

But she was gazing at me, touching me like maybe she really did understand, like she wasn’t humoring me with some kind of bullshit pity party. She leaned down and kissed the dying rose at the center of my chest.

A tremor coursed through my body.

I knew it wasn’t feigned. I could feel it. Aly understood me.

And again I was thinking that maybe she and I did fit because she was fucking perfect and good and every kind of beautiful, and I was corrupted and impure and vile, and just maybe piecing two people together so contrary meant we could somehow create a whole.

That kind of thinking, though, was all just a painful delusion. But right then, I didn’t fucking care. I’d be happy to die in this deception.

“You are so beautiful,” Aly murmured as she reached out to touch my face with nothing but sincerity in her words, and I knew she would be happy to live in this illusion, too.

I folded my arms around her waist and lifted her up as I stood from the chair. She hooked her legs over my hips, locking herself to me, and I was kissing her as I walked her to the bed. She cupped my face in her hands, smiling against my lips, kissing me hard and soft and everything in between, and then she was pressing these little kisses to my chin and my cheeks and my nose.

Something that almost felt like joy rose up from the inside and pushed against my ribs.

Another delusion, but I’d take it.

Because right then, taking felt right.

One of my knees hit the bed, and I crawled up with her still clinging to me. I untangled her from my neck and waist and gently set her on her twisted sheets. I edged back to standing, looking down on this girl who I should be running from instead of running toward.

She lay there wearing nothing but her sleep shorts, her feet flat on the mattress with her knees parted and bent. Her bare chest heaved as she stared up at me staring down at her. A faint smile curved her lips while her eyes continued to explore every inch of my skin.

For the first time in years, I didn’t mind.

“Jared,” she said, her hand fluttering up to beckon me forward. “Please.”

I leaned down to unlace my boots, watching her while she watched me. I stood and kicked them off. Slowly I began to work through the buttons on my fly.

Part of me was praying she’d stop me, that she’d finally grasp reality and see me for exactly what I was. But the rest of me screamed for her. It was like I could feel her spirit sinking under my skin, slipping through my veins, taking hold.

A blink of fear shot through my heart.

No. I don’t get to have this.

I shoved the feeling off.

Pushing my jeans down to the floor, I shrugged them aside and stood at the edge of her bed in my underwear while I took in every inch of the girl who had some kind of insane hold over me.

Light filtered in from the window above her. Her stomach was flat and her breasts were full, her legs so fucking long and slender and strong. She lay there with her arms draped out to the side, rocking a little side to side as if she were just as impatient for me as I was for her. The muscles in my chest and arms twitched and flexed as I slowly climbed onto her bed. I nudged her knees farther apart. With one hand I supported my weight and hovered a foot over her while I touched her face and ran my fingers through her hair.

“Look at you,” I said as I cupped her cheek. My gaze rushed all over her face, along her chin and her delicate neck, down the curves and the lines that I was dying to touch. “Aly, you are so incredibly beautiful. Do you know that? Do you have any idea how perfect you are?”

Redness flushed along her skin. She drew her shoulders up and crushed her chest to mine as she splayed her hands across my back, like an embrace that greeted me body and soul, and I couldn’t imagine feeling closer to anyone until the second she covered my mouth with hers. This kiss was slow, just a gentle caress of her lips on mine, a soft breath of air from her nose.

She pulled back. Meaningfully, she gazed up at me. “I’m not perfect, Jared. No one is.”