“Ow!” A branch rakes across my forearm as I climb, drawing blood.

“Shit!” A thin, leaf-covered limb boomerangs into my face.

“Fuckin’ hell almighty!” I smack my head on the underside of a particularly solid bough.

Why was this easier when I was seventeen? Maybe the horniness made me immune to pain. Eventually, I make it to the top—to my golden, glowing goal.

Jenny’s bedroom window.

It’s unlocked, like I knew it would be. I open it and brace my hands on the ledge to pull myself through.

“Christ on a fuckin’ cracker!” Jenny screeches from her vanity chair—where she sits, clad only in a tiny pink nightgown with thin straps. “Just scare the everlovin’ shit out of me, why don’t you?”

“Kiss your nana with that mouth?” I grunt. “Explains a lot.” When she just continues to sit, arms folded, I frown. “You’re not even gonna give me a hand? That’s pretty cold, Jenn.”

She rolls her eyes and exhales loudly—but then she gets up and helps pull me in.

I stumble forward, gripping onto her hips to keep us from falling—and we both freeze when we realize our faces are just millimeters apart—sharing the same breaths.

Then Jenny blinks and backs away. “You can’t be here, Stanton.”

I ignore her and glance at the bed. “Where’s Presley?”

“She fell asleep on the couch downstairs. I’ll carry her up in a bit.”

And then my gaze falls behind Jenny—to the flowing white dress hanging on the wall. And every bone in my body turns to Jell-O, held together by loose, shredded straps of tendon.

“Is that it?” I whisper.

“Yeah,” Jenny says—so softly. “That’s my weddin’ dress. Isn’t it pretty?”

I see her wearing it in my mind. Delicate lace, embroidered flowers wrapped around the body I know so well. Pretty doesn’t even come close.

“It’s beautiful.”

Then I remember she’ll be wearing it for someone else—and my heart squeezes so hard, it feels like it’ll evaporate in my chest.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Stanton.”

I turn to her—desperate now. “Then don’t do this. Talk to me—listen to me.”

“I have talked to you! It’s you who hasn’t been listening!” she claims, wearing a fallen face. “You’re so stubborn—you’re so stuck on what you think is supposed to be, that you’re missin’ what’s right in front of you.”

I sit down on the edge of her bed, pushing a frustrated hand through my hair. “You sound like Carter.”

I notice a pile of boxes near my feet, opened with ribbons hanging off. “What’s this?”

“The girls from my club threw me a little weddin’ shower.”

I notice a scrap of material peeking out from the closest box. Black and . . . leather?

I pull it out and hold up a set of black binding cuffs with shiny silver locks. Attached to the cuffs is a matching black flogger.

What the hell?

“Stanton, don’t—”

But I’m already looking. Blindfold, ball gag, riding crop that’s definitely not meant for a horse, cock ring, and a wide array of dildos—purple, blue, glass, and a particularly huge battery-operated sucker.

My near-speechlessness is clear in my tone. “What the fuck kind of club are you in?”

With a scarlet blush, she takes the giant dildo from my hand and sighs. “I told you there were ways JD knew me better than you.”

“He’s into this kind of stuff too?”

She nods.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

She doesn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t know—do you tell me everything you like to do these days?”

Jenn and I have always had terrific sex—but it’s a familiar, practiced kind of awesome. Asking her if she wants to be fucked hard, making her beg to come, bending her over a desk and nailing her without bothering to take off our clothes just because it’s dirtier that way—has never, ever crossed my mind.

“No, I guess not. Thought you’d slap me if I did.”

“What would you have said if I told you?”

I take the dildo from her, turn it around in my hand appreciatively. “I’d have said . . . make sure you have extra batteries.”

She giggles, drops the dildo back into the box, and rests her head against my shoulder. “I love you.”

That brings me back to serious. “So don’t do this.”

She just smiles sadly. “There’s all kinds of love, Stanton. Ours is what makes the best kind of bond, one that will last our whole life. But it’s not the marryin’ kind.”

“That’s not true.” I take her face in my hands. “I’m in love with you, Jenny.”

Her eyes are dry, but there are tears in her voice. “No, you’re not. It’s an echo. Of who we were, the promises we made, the passion we had. But an echo’s not real—you can’t build a life on it. It’s just a memory of a sound.”

I stroke her cheek with my thumb, hearing her words but not really listening. “I just wish . . . I wish I had known that the last time I kissed you was gonna be the last.” I trace her lips with the tip of my finger. “I would’ve taken more care to remember. Let me kiss you now, Jenn. Give us that. And after, if you still want to marry him, I swear I’ll stand aside.”

I see it in her eyes. Desire. Maybe she regrets not cherishing that last kiss more, too. She stares at my mouth and her hands cradle my jaw. I lean in closer—giving her time to say no.