Bailey turned toward him as she fished her quarter from the garbage disposal. “Yes. I don’t really wanna pay extra just to have this place cleaned.” Jess was too busy staring into her shot glass, and Trinity was too busy checking her makeup in a compact to care about what they were talking about.

She watched as Darren set his quarter down on the countertop and walked to the doorway that separated them from the living room, which they’d kept closed to shut out the commotion and the loud sound from the stereo. He opened the door and stepped through.

“Get out! Everyone out! Cops are at the front door!” he hollered to the room, and as his complete lie sank in, the group of party crashers could be heard hustling, panicking, and running out the sliding door to the large deck that spanned the beach side of the house. They scurried down the steps as Bailey laughed, and when Darren finally walked back in, he was chuckling. He took a quick bow as Bailey applauded. Jess pulled her head up from her somewhat drunken stupor and mumbled something incoherent. She was almost down for the count. “I think it’s time for you to hit the sack, little sis.” Darren walked to Jess, helped her up, and supported her weight as he led her upstairs, tossing over his shoulder. “I’ll be back to kick your ass in a minute.”

Trinity wasted no time abandoning Bailey and the disastrously messy kitchen, and Bailey started collecting shot glasses and bottles of liquor. When Darren walked in on her as she was standing at the sink rinsing glasses, he walked up behind her, snatched three shot glasses from the counter that she’d just rinsed, and grabbed her hand, pulling her back to the island. “We’re not done.” She smiled. She couldn’t help it. He might not be her boyfriend, but he was damn good at making her wish he was.

He was wearing his worn and faded University of Arkansas T-shirt, and she trilled with warmth as he filled their glasses, placed the empty one between them, and took the abandoned quarter from the island countertop. He was across from her with the corner of his lips pulled up seductively. “What do you think of Trinity?” He watched her carefully.

“You can’t really want me to answer that.”

“Sure I can.”

“How long have you been dating?” She wasn’t ready to give him an answer.

He smiled. “Nice avoidance. Month and a half maybe. Now answer my question.”

“Fine. Vapid. Beautiful. Very beautiful . . . Vain.”

“Fun-with-words. I like this game. So what words would you ascribe to me?”

“I don’t like this game.”

“Really, Ms. English major? I know you do.” He was taunting again. “I make this one, you play the game.” He held his quarter up again, but he refused to look away from her.

He’d been kicking her ass all night. Did she really want to do this? Hell no. Was she going to? Of course. “Fine.”

Ping.

She knew that was going to happen. “So?”

“Umm . . . nice?” He smirked. She was holding out, and he knew it.

“Come on. You can do better than that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine . . . Moral, decent, honest, kind, caring, toying, playful, laid back, smart.” Brilliant was likely closer to the truth. “Handsome.” Stunningly handsome in fact, but there was no way she was going to admit that. “Very handsome.” It came out whisper quiet. He watched her impassively, but the deep and steady rise and fall of his chest said something else. She wasn’t sure what, but there was more to his calm reaction than he was showing her. “Your turn.” She still couldn’t seem to get her voice to rise higher than a whisper.

He finally broke his expressionless stare and smiled gently at her. “Perhaps another night. I might get myself in trouble tonight with this game.” He winked as he snatched the quarter from the glass between them. “Drink.” Now he was whispering.

She wasn’t sure what to make of his words. Was he afraid he’d hurt her feelings by describing her? Or was it something else entirely? She wanted to think it was something else entirely, and there were times . . .

As she took the quarter from his outstretched hand, she tried to let go of her curiosity. If she pushed it, he wouldn’t give in. She knew him well enough after years of being his sister’s friend to know that much.

“How’s your junior year been?”

She looked up from her aim to see him studying her.

“Boring, pointless, easy . . . penniless?” She rolled her eyes with that one. It was a bit of a stretch, and he started chuckling. She obviously wasn’t done with the game. “And you? Second year of medical school?”

“Hmm . . . Hard, busy, interesting, long, exhausting . . . terrifying.” His gaze dropped from hers momentarily with his last word, but when he looked back up to her, he was smiling again.

“When do you start killing people?” She gave her best smirk, and he laughed.

“Next year. I’ll spend my last two years in the hospital for the most part and then a few years of residency after that. Hopefully not killing people, but we’ll see.”

She took her aim again, bounced, overshot the shot glass, and his hand snatched the quarter midair. “Drink . . . twice.”

“Twice?” Her voice was incredulous.

“Uh . . . yeah. One for missing and one for my catch.”

Bailey downed her shot glass and then shook her head. “I have to go to bed. Too much for me.”

“Chicken.”

“Yep.”

They stood at the same time, abandoning the last three glasses between them. They were both swaying slightly as they walked upstairs together.

“Good night.” His voice was quiet as he stopped at her bedroom door with her.

“Good night.” She slipped through the door, sighing as it closed behind her. He always left her body flushed and shivering in his wake, and warmth was pulsing through her groin—also very normal around him.

Bailey pulled the large slider open that led to the second-floor balcony that ran along the beach side of the house just as the first-floor balcony did. It allowed a person to walk between the three beach-facing bedrooms on the floor. She might be drunk, but she wasn’t ready to sleep, and as she walked out onto the deck, she stared out to the bright moon over the ocean. It was beautiful here. She could live in such a place. Maybe someday. She was only a junior after all, just as Jess was at the University of Arkansas. Darren was enrolled there as well, but he was far beyond them—medical school after all.

She stood staring endlessly with her palms rested on the railing, and it wasn’t long before she heard noises. These noises were arousing, masculine, and there was no question what they were. Occasionally she’d hear a female moan, and it stabbed her dignity every time. The sound was wet, laving, and sloppy, and she knew without seeing that his dick was in the pretty girl’s mouth. She might not need to see it, but she wanted to, and at the same time, she didn’t. It hurt to consider what that woman had and she didn’t.

Were she sober, she’d never have the nerve to look, but drunk, and her feet just seemed to tiptoe on their own. The curtains were billowing out through the open slider of his room. There was a sheer layer inside the heavier curtain, and she walked slowly to the gauzy fabric, stilling it with her fingers, and slowly, as though she knew what she was doing was wrong but she was powerless to stop it, she lifted her eyes to look.

The shudder that ran through her body made her knees feel as though they were collapsing beneath her, but she was frozen in place. He was sitting on the side of his bed, facing the slider, and his head was dropped back. Trinity was between his parted knees, and she was sucking on him. Every time she released him from her mouth, Bailey was given the most perfect view of his hard, rigid length. He was large, incredible, and aroused was an understatement.

Trinity’s lips parted over the head of his cock again and pushed down, and Darren’s groan was loud and unrestrained as he dropped his head down. His eyes stalled, staring out the slider and leaving Bailey certain he’d seen her, but then they dropped to Trinity as his fingers pulled her hair back to watch what she was doing. “Fuck.” He moaned the word, and Bailey held her breath. She knew what she was doing was wrong—even drunk, she wasn’t fooling herself, but she was powerless to look away. It was painful to see, but it was also so fucking arousing she was practically dripping.

Bailey ran her hand up under the bottom of her shirt, pushing under the waist of her short cotton shorts, and then past the waist of her underwear and down to her hot, wet center. Her finger slipped between her lips, and she had to bite her tongue to stifle her own groan. She watched Darren get his dick sucked by his beautiful, vapid girlfriend, and Bailey did the only thing she could. She stroked her peaked and aroused nub, letting her mind see herself touching, sucking, and pleasuring him.

When he suddenly stopped Trinity, Bailey gasped and his eyes flashed toward the slider for a moment before returning to Trinity between his legs. “Hands and knees.” He didn’t need to say anything else. It was like a well-rehearsed dance between them. She crawled onto the bed as he circled to the far side and climbed up behind her, but she didn’t bend over. Instead, Bailey watched as his fingers trailed slowly down over her perfectly flat stomach to slide between the lips of her shaved sex. Bailey’s own finger was in exactly the same position, toying with herself as she watched. Trinity moaned, she cussed, and she cried out his name, but his eyes remained oddly emotionless as they gazed out the slider toward the ocean. They weren’t near Bailey’s own hiding place at the edge of the slider, but she had no problem seeing the lifelessness in them. It was odd after such a charged and personal conversation between them in the kitchen.

“Please.” Trinity started begging, and it was only after many long seconds that he finally seemed to come around. He grabbed a condom off the nightstand, tearing the packet quickly. His hands moved between them, and moments later, he pushed her chest down to the bed, running his hand over the turgid length of his arousal. Her head and long, blonde hair hung over the side of the bed, and as Bailey watched, his tongue passed over his lower lip, and her finger pressed harder against her own desire.

He thrust hard with a grunt, his fingers gripped tightly into her hips, and when he started pounding into her body, Bailey’s fingers moved, circled, and enticed her own need until she was panting silently. She watched as he plunged and pulled from her body. He remained upright, his strong, contoured stomach muscles rippling as his body moved and plowed harshly into Trinity. She was jolted forward with every thrust, but she was moaning, whining in that perfectly seductive way. The ceaseless rhythm went on as Bailey neared her release, and in just the same moment he let out a loud and ferocious “Fuck!” followed by a moan, her own release hit like an explosion that didn’t only leave her legs shaking but left her crumpling to the deck, smacking her knees hard on the wood surface below her. Her hand still gripped her own sex harshly as the last of her unrequited need passed.

“What was that?” Trinity’s voice trailed out to Bailey in a shocked whisper. Bailey held her breath—afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

“I’m sure it’s nothing. Can you run to the kitchen and get a glass of water?”

There was silence for a moment until Trinity agreed, and as Bailey listened, she heard the bedroom door open and close. She climbed up from her crumpled place on the deck floor and darted toward her own room, but not fast enough, and as a hand gripped tight on her shoulder moments before she’d have passed within the safety of her own room, she froze.

“Enjoy yourself, Bailey?” Fuck.

She stayed silent, huffing deep breaths of terrified air as his fingers gently gripped her shoulder. One finger slowly caressed along her collar bone before she felt his body close in behind her. When his forehead dropped to meet the back of her head, it was a deep sigh that she felt on the back of her neck.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, but it didn’t help steady her voice, and it lurched in her nervousness.

He said nothing for many long moments. He held his grip on her shoulder, and she stayed trembling in place. When she heard his bedroom door open again, he released his hold on her shoulder. He took a deep and steadying breath, and Bailey listened as his footfalls retreated from her. The speed with which she threw herself into bed, pulled her blankets up over her head, and closed her eyes tight was staggering. Her breath continued to lurch as she inhaled and exhaled through her absolute humiliation and horror, and eventually, the catastrophe turned into troubled dreams that took her away to the land of hellish embarrassment and unimaginable shame.