“I kind of do, too.” I flipped through the pages and skimmed words that were familiar and delicious. “I like the machines that give you the scented powder. And the crazy porn movies!”

“Yeah, Hamleton a bearskin rug.” He laughed through the cigarette smoke. “And I think it would be cool to see whole groups of identical people, dressed in their own certain color.”

“I always think that I would be an Alpha. Don’t you?” I held my hair up off of my neck and let the cool night air breeze over my over-warm skin, but as soon as the sweat dried, a sudden, sharp chill bit through me.

“Oh yeah.” He flicked ash out the window.“I think every person who has half a brain assumes they’d be an Alpha. You cold?”

“Yeah.” I held my jacket closed tight and folded my bare legs up under me.

I thought he’d close the window, but he jumped down and rummaged through his stuff, then tossed me a clean but smoky thermal top and sweatpants. I pulled the pants on under my dress, shed my coat, put the thermal over, and left the clingy fabric of the dress right where it was.

“I kind of thought I’d get a show.” He bumped his head back against the wall and blew smoke out the window.

“Tough. You didn’t.” I looked at him, so hot and muscled in the moonlight. “I never realized you had tattoos.”

“They’re recent. Maybe two months old.” He looked at them with obvious pride. “Five hours total. They’re not completely colored in yet. Then he pulled his shirt off by the back. I sucked my breath in at his caramel-skinned six pack and bulging shoulder muscles. He had two swooping birds on his pecs and when he turned so I could see his back, there were two mermaids with long, flowing hair swimming up his shoulder blades in addition to the dragons that I had seen partially snaking his shoulders.

“That’s a lot of ink.” I was proud when my voice didn’t wobble all over. “All pairs?”

“It just felt right to get two of each thing done.” He jumped back on the desk and hunched over, his back muscles bulging as he hung his head. The cherry of his cigarette glowed orange in the room. “You like them?”

“Yes.” They were very sexy. I wondered if Jake had ever contemplated tattoos, then put that thought out of my head. Jake wasn’t my boyfriend anymore, just like that. I had broken Jake’s trust, and I knew that Saxon was wrong about the possibility of me winning him back.

Jake once told me about how easy it was to slide into doing something that you didn’t really want to do, but I never believed him. I thought that he was weak or immature because he’d had so much sex. And maybe that was true. But I’d been throwing some big stones from the front door of a glass mansion. In one day I had broken so many of my hard and fast rules, it was daunting to think about it.

“You’re not even considering me as a boyfriend, are you?” Saxon asked suddenly, taking another long drag. His dark eyes glinted in the night.

“I don’t know.” I tried to make out his features in the dim room. “Jake won’t want to date me now.”

“I don’t want to be your damn rebound,” Saxon snarled. He ran his hands through his hair and left it standing up at crazy angles. “Jesus, Brenna. Just don’t date anyone if you don’t think you can get over it.”

“It’s notjust anyone.” I took a deep breath and pulled his thermal closer around me. “It was you, that first day. When I found out you were going out with Kelsie, I was a little crushed. There’s so much about you that I’m attracted to. But there’s also so much that freaks me out.”

He jumped off the desk again and came over to me, his figure lean and powerful in the dimness. I felt my blood thrum in my veins. He sat on the bed next to me, his skin smelling like soap and smoke and Saxon.

“I’m fucked up,” he admitted. “But I could be better than I am. With you, I know I could be. Give me half a chance,” he pleaded.

“I don’t know if you really want this.” My hands itched for his skin, but I was already scared. “Once it’s real, it’s not going to be exciting. It’s going to be so boring, I don’t think you’ll be happy with it.”

“You never bore me.” He took my face in his hands and kissed me, then leaned me back on the bed and kissed me more. And just when I thought I should stop things before they went too far, he pulled me into his arms and just held me. I was nervous that he’d fallen asleep when I heard his voice, low and quiet in the dark. “There are things I want, too. Things I want to change. I’m tired of only being there for a good time, Brenna. I’m tired of being a corrupter of the people I love. No one wants to be the perpetual fuck up.”

I relaxed against him, against the warm body of someone who screwed up a lot. I liked holding our mistakes up against each other, for comparison’s sake, even if it was completely awful of me. It made me come out looking better than I was. It made my own failures feel like they could be overcome. “I know how you feel. I get overwhelmed by it all too.”

He snorted. “Overwhelmed,” he mocked. “That’s one way to look at it.”

I sat up from him. “You don’t think I have similar experiences to you?”

“I think you think you do,” he said carefully. “I like you because we’re the same, Blix. But I want you because we’re different.”

“What does that even mean?” My gut already hated whatever it was he was about to say.

“It’s the virgin/whore thing.” He shrugged. “Don’t get all offended when I explain what I’m talking about,” he warned.

“You don’t need to explain anything to me.” Of course I was offended. I couldn’t fathom any other way to feel considering the crap that just oozed out of his mouth. “Do you really think I don’t know about the whole virgin/whore idea? And how exactly I am supposed to keep from being offended by it?”

“You represent the best possible kind of girl.” Saxon ran a hand down my arm, and I batted it away. “C’mon, Bren, don’t be a prude about this.”

I stood up, hating that I was wearing his clothes. “I’m not being a prude. Maybe it’s just a little freaky that this isn’t really about me at all. It’s about what I represent.”

“It’s about what you think versus how you are.” He turned me by the shoulder, but I shook his hand off again. “You have the ability to see it all, to think it all, but you haven’t done it all. That’s what I like. You and I thinkalike, but you haven’t donethe things I have.”

My face burned hot. It made no sense to be ashamed that I had less experience whoring and drugging, but I felt like Saxon held it over my head that I wasn’t as knowledgeable as he was, or something like that.

I scooted back on the bed, out of his immediate reach, and leaned my head back on the wall. “So you like me because I can think like a rebel, but I act like a good girl?”

“Pretty much,” he agreed. “Of course, when you say it that way, it makes me sound like a dick.”

“Maybe you sound like a dick because you’re a dick,” I suggested.

“Don’t get all high and mighty with me.” He moved off the bed, went to his window, and lit another cigarette. “It’s the same reason you get all hot for Jake, just in reverse.”

“That’s notwhy I like Jake,” I insisted fiercely.

“Yes it is.” Saxon pointed his cigarette at me. “And it’s because you feel bad about it that you’re here, in my room right now.”

“What do you mean?” My words were cold, but I was curious. Like it or not, Saxon said what other people didn’t. That didn’t mean he was right or true. Just worth listening to.

“Jake did all the bad, and in his head, he’s good. Kind of worked the devil out physically, so he can be an angel in his head.” He laughed and took a drag. “That’s why you two never made sense. He did all the bad you’ve only imagined, and you know he thinks he can protect you from doing any bad yourself.”

“But you think bad and do bad.” The crazy logic of it all made my head spin. “If I do what Jake is warning me against, I’ll be just like you. Based on your stupid theory.”