My pulse speeds up at the mere mention of what we did back then. “I thought we knew each other well enough.”
He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Maybe conversations aren’t really our thing.” Then he spears me with a sharp look that makes my insides go molten.
“Maybe not.” My heart pounds so hard it’s difficult to breathe. My feet have a mind of their own when I start to walk again. I pass by him, feeling his gaze on me all the way as I head around the corner and through the door to the locker rooms. The space smells musty and old, a mix of stale sweat and lemon cleaner. There are no showers—just two rows of lockers with benches in front and a restroom with a trio of toilet stalls and a row of sinks beyond another door. The boys’ side is a mirror to the girls’ side, though less used due to the majority of students being female. The gleaming chrome of brand-new locks on the lockers catches the sparse light from a high window.
I pause in front of the locker at the far end. This was where it happened. My eyebrows twitch at the etched lines engraved into the metal in the center of the locker: M + C. Reaching out, I trace the letters. They weren’t there before. Did he come back? Or did these initials belong to some other lovesick teenage girl?
His intense gray eyes are fixed on my fingertips. He closes the distance, takes my hand, and raises my fingers to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, finally able to say to him what I never had the chance to until now. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for a more detailed apology, but all thought disappears when he hauls me close and slams his mouth onto mine.
7
Maddox
I’m a fucking reckless fool. Kissing Celeste might be the worst decision I’ve ever made, if I don’t count making love to her in this very spot twelve years ago. But something about the way she touched our initials made me snap, and there’s no going back.
A hungry growl rises up inside me when her lips part and she slips her arms around my neck. I didn’t lie to Leo—she really was my first kiss, but she was more than that. She was my first everything, and I want so much to revisit that sweet moment. Ever since that night, I’ve wondered if we really fit together as well as I remember or if it was just a fabrication of my teenage hormones and the fact that I was fucking a girl for the first time.
She molds her body to me, her tongue decisive as it plunges into my mouth. I back her up against the locker hard and she gasps, dropping her hands to steady herself. Curling my fingers into her hair, I pull back to look at her. I want to fix this moment in my mind because there can never be another. She was off-limits then, and after Saturday night’s events, I’m positive that hasn’t changed.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” I breathe. Her hair is lighter than it was, a cascade of burnished bronze that fades to gold at the ends, so silky I want to bury my face in it. Her eyes blaze with need, and her chest heaves.
I dip my head, kissing her more slowly. I glide my tongue along her lower lip, tasting her and savoring the moment, then slide my lips along her jaw and inhale her scent. She smells like honey and ginger, and her skin is sweet when I graze my teeth at the base of her neck and lick.
She arches into me, her hands coming up to rest against my chest, and her nails dig in as I make my way lower. I slide one hand down her side, resting it at her hip. With the other, I cup her breast, heft and squeeze. Her pupils dilate when I drift my thumb across her nipple through the fabric of her dress.
The dress is wrapped across her torso, tied at the waist. I tug at the end of the belt and it falls open, baring one breast covered in deep-blue lace. I sink down onto the bench and pull her between my legs, press my lips to her sternum, and nuzzle the edge of the lace, nipping with my teeth. Her nails graze through the short hair covering my scalp, sending zings of awareness down my spine. Our first time was like this, just as desperate, but back then I had no idea we’d be ripped apart so fast and for so long. This time I want to remember every second because it’s unlikely I’ll get another chance.
I tug her bra down and her breast emerges, pushed up and toward me by the underwire. Her nipple is hard and dusky pink against her golden skin. I capture it between my lips, my dick pulsing with the dig of her nails into my scalp and the desperate moan that reaches my ears. Tearing at the other side of her dress, I pull it aside and free her other breast, nip the tip with my teeth, then suck while I pinch the other between my fingers.
Her body arches toward me, head banging back against the metal bank of lockers behind her. I keep teasing her breasts with tongue and teeth while I slide my hands beneath her dress. The belt slips free and the sides fall open as if in answer to my unconscious prayer.
She isn’t the teenage girl I remember, the one who was so self-conscious of her budding curves she didn’t see how beautiful she was. She’s confident and unapologetic now, not the least bit modest about how much I’ve revealed. When I lean back to take her in,
