LITMIR.BIZ

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the laundry room demanding things that weren’t fatherly in the least.

      â€œI like the view just fine.” Davis turned toward her with a shy half smile as he switched off the ignition and killed the headlights.

      His attempt at flirting, she guessed. And since he didn’t seem to be undressing her with his eyes, she let the comment slide. If he was warming up for a kiss—that was fine. She could deal.

      Anything more than that and Davis Reed was going to find out what she was made of.

      â€œSeriously.” She debated unfastening her seat belt. Better mobility if she needed to ward him off. But the act of unfastening anything around a teenage boy was like a flashing neon sign screaming “come and get it.”

      â€œMy dad’s night nurse leaves at eleven. I need to get home.”

      Davis wore khakis and a white button-down. Preppy leather boat shoes. With his dark blond crew cut and freckles, he had a friendly face. He got good grades, too. All of which had played into her decision to go out with him tonight to escape the new machines installed at her father’s bedside last week. Machines that buzzed and beeped in a way that seemed to count down the remaining seconds of a life she needed to last for at least another nineteen months.

      When she would turn eighteen.

      â€œFor sure.” Davis made a point of checking his watch in the dark, the little blue light popping on inside the digital readout when he turned his wrist.

      Must be nice to have cool toys.

      She listened to the engine tick as it cooled down, alert to any movement on his side of the pickup. She’d been lost in her own thoughts on the way home from the theater, not really paying attention to what direction he was driving because this was Davis and not some testosterone-fueled horndog from the wrestling team who thought they could take whatever they wanted after winning back-to-back state championships.

      Now she wondered if she’d been an idiot once again.

      She didn’t mind walking home in theory. But she wasn’t even sure which way “home” was. Besides, she’d heard there had been a string of break-ins around Heartache lately. Kids in her school whispered that teenagers might be behind it.

      She didn’t want to run into people like that in the dark.

      â€œWhere are we?” she asked, hating the nervous jitter in her voice. It was important to remain in control in situations like this. Remind the guy you were a force to be reckoned with and not some twit who had been staring out the window like this could just be a normal date.

      â€œAlmost home.” He waved in a general direction. “The main road is just up there. We’re, like, ten minutes from your place.” He slid over toward her, his knee brushing hers. “I figured it’d be a good spot to say good-night.”

      Mia hated this moment. Hated the vulnerability of it. Hated suspecting any guy she ever dated of turning into a creep at the slightest physical contact.

      It didn’t help that she had the genetic disadvantage of sporting the breasts of a stripper by the time she was thirteen. As her mother so eloquently put it with a wink, “Them tatas turn men into animals, honey.”

      Unfortunately, her mama’s moment of wisdom hadn’t been accompanied by any advice on how to tame the male beast. Draw a bitchy line in the sand now? Or hold out and see what happened? If all Davis Reed did was kiss her good-night, Mia would call this a good date.

      â€œI had fun.” She was still trapped by her seat belt. But she wasn’t unbuckling now. She gave him a warm smile but she finally uncrossed her fingers in case she needed her hands. “Thank you, Davis.”

      â€œYou’re so pretty, Mia.” He said it reverently, as if it was something to be proud of.

      Why didn’t guys ever say, “You blew me away with the way you defended your position on the Crimean War in debate today”? Or, “Mia, you make the best chocolate chip cookies ever”?

      Which was true. Her former foster sister, Nicole, had told her so, and little kids didn’t lie the way the rest of the world did.

      â€œPretty is as pretty does,” she drawled, one of her mother’s favorite sayings to be sure Mia never thought too much of herself.

      She hated having her mother’s voice in her head right now. The mother who never lifted a finger to help Mia when she’d really needed her. But she was too busy calculating her next move to think up a more original answer to a supremely unoriginal remark.

      Poor Davis.

      He went in for a kiss with all the finesse of a fullback, more or less ramming her into the seat with the force of his lips. But that might just be youthful enthusiasm. Davis Reed had no game.

      Carefully she pressed the button to free her seat belt, knowing the time had come to ensure she had full mobility if she needed it. Except that was when things went horribly wrong. Because when she tried to grapple with the buckle, her fingers brushed his thigh. And possibly...something more.

      â€œOh yeah,” he breathed against her mouth, grabbing her hand in his and pressing it to a handful of the something more in his pants.

      Turning her blood to ice.

      â€œLet go,” she told him clearly. Loudly. She tensed her hand into a claw and she would have scratched him if he’d been naked, but through the khakis, he probably didn’t even notice.

      â€œI heard you liked this.” Oblivious to her words, Davis all but fell on her, his chest hitting hers while he kept her hand on his crotch. “I was afraid to believe it, but oh, man—”

      She kneed him. Hard.

      Watched as his expression turned from ecstatic to pained. And then, furious.

      But she was already slipping out from under him, her heartbeat thundering so loud she couldn’t hear much else.

      â€œI said, let go.” She levered open the door handle poking into her spine. “I said it clearly. And loudly.”

      She enunciated the words carefully because it was hard to talk when you were scared. She’d learned that way too young. But she wasn’t thirteen anymore. Shoving open the door to the truck, she slid out, half falling before she awkwardly got her feet underneath her. Even through the rubber soles of her tennis shoes, she could feel the crunch of dead, stiff brush. The branches of a sapling clawed at her hoodie.

      Ready to run, she spared one last glance at Davis Reed. Illuminated by the dome light, he was hunched over—writhing, really—in obvious pain. Curled in a ball on the front seat, he clutched his groin.

      Crap.

      She was torn between the voice in her head that said, Don’t be a sucker—suckers end up raped. And the quieter one that said, What if I overreacted?

      Considering she was on her feet and ready to flee while he appeared incapacitated, Mia decided she wouldn’t be a total sucker to at least make sure he was going to live through his injury.

      â€œDavis?” Her legs trembled beneath her.

      â€œYou...grabbed...me.” He took shallow breaths between each word as he turned accusing eyes her way, his cheek mushed against the leather truck seat. “I was only going in for a kiss. It was you who took things to DEFCON 2.”

      â€œI didn’t mean to. I was trying to get to my seat belt buckle so I could unfasten it. I couldn’t feel where it was.” She shivered as a cold gust blew over her. She was going to freeze with only a hoodie on if she had to walk home. “And besides, I told you to let me go.”

      Her heart still pounded fiercely, but some of the fear had leaked away.

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