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“This is a bad idea,” Dill murmurs, and I shift my hips closer, wanting to feel his voice vibrate my entire damn body.

“I think it’s a great idea. We kiss. I realize it was just a simple kiss, nothing special. We move on.”

“And if your theory is wrong?” The way my body shudders when he walks his fingers up the outsides of my thighs should be a red flag.

Warning! Retreat! Red fucking alert!

I should take a moment to consider how badly I ache to feel the callouses of his hands across my skin. I should wonder why my lips tingle and my breathing is choppy and my heart races when I feel each word spoken with my nose pressed against his throat.

But my mind is buzzing, and his skin under my hands is soft on the surface and solid with muscle underneath. His shoulders are strong, and they flex when he grabs me by the hips and pulls me flush against him.

His chest hair is soft.

His lips are softer, parted under mine.

“It can’t be wrong,” I finally answer, then nip his pillowy bottom lip between my teeth.

Dillon groans, and then it’s just like I remember.

And completely different. Because I already know that he will dominate the kiss, even if he doesn’t mean to.

I already know he likes to sink his fingers into my hair. I already fucking know how strung tight I’ll feel as soon as his tongue brushes against mine. I know he likes when I use teeth, and he shudders when I run my nails over his chest.

But that’s all I know. Nothing else matters when he holds my head still to devour my mouth. When he swallows my moans and feeds me my next breath.

I whimper when he pulls back enough to rumble, “You taste like wine.”

I grab the back of his neck, pulling him back to me. It takes his lips a moment to soften back into our kiss, but when they do, I melt over him. Flatten myself to his big chest and tighten my thighs around him.

It’s not until my fingers trail down his stomach that he yanks his head back again, holding my hands still against the band of his pants.

“Emery—”

“Not now, Dillon.”

He groans, rubbing his face against mine. He trails kisses across my jaw and sucks gently at the tender spot just below my ear. False sense of security. He was just getting his mouth close enough so he could speak.

“If you want to fuck, Emerson, you’ll have to come back when you’re sober.”

Dillon

It was a lot easier to get Emerson to stay the night than I had anticipated. I dropped him on my bed and bolted like he was a grenade about to detonate.

He whined when I told him I wasn’t letting him walk back home. He tried to coax me back into another kiss, biting my lip so hard I can still feel the sting when I press on it with my tongue.

I heard his soft, sleepy noises after only half an hour, and I never fell back to sleep. I was too busy reliving every touch. Licking my lips to chase another taste of him. My skin was on fire, and I was hard for way longer than is probably healthy.

The level of screwed I am is so obscenely high, I can taste the goddamn clouds, and they’re full of a shit storm I don’t know how to deal with.

For starters, like what I’m supposed to do now.

Penny toddles closer, taking the remote off the coffee table and banging it repeatedly on the surface.

I curse softly, scooting forward to gently pry it from her stubby little fingers. Sabrina dropped her off earlier than usual this morning. I would normally love the extra hour with her before dropping her off at daycare, but Emery is still here.

He’s sleeping in my bed, and I have absolutely no way to know how he will react when he wakes up.

The last time he woke up in my bed and came out here, I saw a version of him I had never seen before. And then…