“Because I couldn’t get out of it,” I admit. “And now I don’t want to let Chase down.”

She shakes her head. “He’s not the one for you, is he?” she asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never given him enough of a chance to find out.”

She doesn’t say anything. My mom is good like that. She’s quiet when the situation calls for quiet, and she has a lot to say when the situation calls for that, too. “Your dad shouldn’t have pushed this date.”

I shake my head. “What if he’s right? What if Chase is the one for me? I won’t know until I find out.” I heave a sigh.

“The heart wants what the heart wants, Reagan,” she says.

I laugh, but there’s no humor in the sound. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“I think you already know what it means.” She sits on the edge of my bed. “This Pete,” she says. “You trust him, right?”

“About as much as I can trust anyone I met three days ago,” I say flippantly. But Pete’s more than that, and I know it.

“Your heart has known him for a very long time,” she says.

“My heart doesn’t work like everyone else’s heart,” I bite out. “I can’t trust it to lead me anywhere.”

“Oh, Reagan,” she breathes softly. “I f**king hate that man for doing this to you. It’s been over two years and you still don’t trust yourself to move on with your life. It’s like you’re stuck in that moment when he hurt you.”

“You don’t know what it feels like, Mom,” I say quietly in warning. She can’t talk about this. She hasn’t experienced it.

“Did you know that one in five college-age girls will be raped during her college career?” she asks. “One in five, Reagan!” she cries.

“And?” I say. “Life goes on, is that what you’re saying?” I ask. My life didn’t go on. I got stuck in that moment. Until Pete. “Pete makes me want things that scare me,” I admit.

“That’s what love is about, Reagan. It’s thrilling and scary as hell and it makes your heart pound and it makes your insides ache.” She stops and glares at me. “Those feelings are normal. What’s not normal is what happened to you and how you closed yourself off to protect your heart.”

“Well, my heart is officially in danger,” I say drolly.

“So is his,” she reminds me.

Not once in all of this have I stopped to consider Pete’s feelings about our burgeoning relationship. I’ve considered my fears. I’ve considered my feelings. I’ve considered my needs and wants. But I haven’t really considered his. What if he hasn’t kissed me because he’s afraid I’ll damage him? What if he doesn’t want me the same way? What if he does want me but he’s afraid to touch me because I’ll go crazy on him? What if? What if? What if? “Pete’s heart is good and kind,” I say. “That’s all I know about it.”

She smiles. “That’s a start.”

My dad yells for me from the bottom of the steps. “Reagan!” he calls. “Chase is here!”

Mom stands up. “Trust your heart, Reagan,” she says. She kisses me on the forehead and walks down in front of me. At the bottom of the stairs, I see Chase looking up at me. His green eyes aren’t the ones I want to see, but I need to try, right? I need to give this a shot.

“Hi, Chase,” I chirp.

“Reagan,” he says. He’s all smiles. He swivels his hips. “You ready for some dancing?”

“Of course,” I say with a smile. “Sounds like fun.”

I take his arm as we walk out. He opens the door of his obnoxious yellow car, and I slide inside. His gaze roams up my thigh where my dress shifts, and I pull it down. He grins and closes the door. Then he slides into the driver’s seat and peels out of the driveway, slinging rocks in our wake.

Pete

I glance at my watch again and look toward the driveway. Reagan still isn’t home and it has been four hours. That’s plenty of time for dinner and dancing, isn’t it? Why isn’t she home yet?

I hear the rumble of that loud-ass Mustang engine, and my body tenses. I get up from where I was sitting chatting with some of the youth boys and begin to pace. It’s dark outside, and the lights are on at the front of the house. I can see the drive but not very clearly.

“I’ll be right back,” I say quietly. The boys smirk, and one shakes his head. “What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, grinning. “You’re one pussy-whipped motherfucker, you know that?”

Yeah. I know it. And I don’t mind it. I walk slowly toward the front of the house. I stop by the bushes, hiding in the shadows. The car stops, but it’s not the douchebag that gets out of the driver’s seat. It’s Reagan. Her hair is a mess, hanging down her back in tangled waves. When she left, it was a chic knot on top of her head. Her dress is hanging off her shoulder, and she reaches to adjust it before she goes in the house. She stops to fix her hair, too. She’s carrying her shoes in her fingertips by the straps.

What the fuck?

Suddenly, a second car pulls up behind the first, and Reagan turns. She shades her eyes and looks toward the lights. She stomps her foot, and then I see Chase get out of the passenger side of the other car. Reagan doesn’t even stop to talk to him. She goes inside her house and slams the door. The noise of it reverberates around the yard.

Chase limps over to his car. By this point, darkness is crowding the corners of my vision and I can barely think, much less see. He did something to her, or she wouldn’t be so angry. I advance on him and scare the ever-loving shit out of him when I throw him up against the side of the car and get in his face. “What the f**k did you do to her?” I ask, my face an inch from his. He reaches up to wipe my spit from his cheek.

“I didn’t do anything to her,” he protests.

“You did something or she wouldn’t be so angry.” I hold him against the car. If I don’t, I’ll have to hit him, and I really want to hear his story before I hit him. I want to hear him say he’s sorry before I kill him.

“I didn’t do anything,” he swears, holding his hands out like he’s surrendering. That’s when I notice he has a splotch of blood under his nose. I turn him toward the light. His nose was definitely bleeding because there are gushes of it on his shirt. My heart thrills at the thought of it.

“You have until I count to three,” I say. But before I can even start counting down, he blurts out the truth. “We were dancing, and I was touching her…”

“Touching her where?” I growl. I swear to f**king God, I’m going to kill him.

“Just holding her while we danced,” he says. But he won’t look into my eyes.

“And?” I prompt.

“And,” he says slowly. “And I might have grazed her boob once or twice. Then the next thing I knew, she punched me in the face. Then she kneed me in the nuts, and when I bent over to grab for my gonads, she hit me in the jaw with her knee.” He mimics her motions, and I can imagine exactly what she did to him. Laughter bubbles within me. But he’s not done yet. “Then she pressed the heel of her shoe on my nuts while I was lying on the ground and pressed down hard until I gave her my car keys. Then she stole my car.” He points down the road to the other car that dumped him and left. “I had to get my buddy to drive me here.”

She stole his f**king car after she beat him up. I laugh. I can’t help it. I laugh in his face. I don’t need to do anything to him. She did enough. She completely emasculated him. “Are you sure all you did was touch her boob?” I ask.

“That’s all. I swear it.” The as**ole is still grabbing for his nuts and slightly hunches over when I let him go. “That shit hurt, man.”

I chuckle. I can’t help it. “I’m sure it did.”

“That bitch is crazy,” he says, looking toward the house.

“I’ll tell her you said so.” I laugh. I can’t even scold him for calling her a bitch, not with everything she did to him.

“Please don’t,” he begs. “My dad will kill me if her father is mad at me.”

“Too late,” a voice calls from the front door. Her father steps into the light. “Hi, Pete,” he says. He smiles at me.

“Hi, Mr. Caster,” I say, waving at him joyfully.

“Hi, Chase,” he says.

Chase is smart enough to press his lips together and not say a word.

“You may go now, Chase,” Mr. Caster instructs, and Chase scrambles to get into his car. He fires it up and sprays our feet with gravel when he pulls away.

Mr. Caster smiles at me. “I couldn’t even hit the poor bastard after what she did to him,” he admits with a chuckle.

“Me, either,” I say. It wouldn’t have been fair. “Is Reagan all right?” I ask. I really want to see her.

“She’s pissed as hell,” he says. He jerks a thumb toward the barn. “She went out the back door toward the barn.”

I look longingly toward the area where he pointed.

“What are you waiting for, son?” he asks. “Go!”

I smile and reach for his hand. He shakes with me and grins. “Thank you, Mr. Caster,” I say, and I run for the barn.

I open the door and find her standing in the middle of the lit hallway between stalls. She’s still wearing her pretty dress from the party, but she has replaced her strappy sandals with muck boots and her hair is down around her shoulders. Her dog growls when she sees me, posturing so I don’t get any closer, so she calls her to her and Maggie goes and lies down at her feet. “What do you want?” Reagan barks at me.

“Did you kiss him?” I ask. I wait, unable to breathe until I hear her answer.

She stares at me for a moment and then she shakes her head, and that’s all the prompting I need.

Reagan

I’m so pissed off that I can barely see straight. And Pete wants to know if I kissed Chase Gerald? Seriously?

He rushes toward me and grabs me in his arms, yanking me against him. He looks down into my face. “I’m going to kiss you,” he warns.

I shove him back, but it’s like pushing a brick wall. “Stop it, Pete,” I say. “You’re being ridiculous.”

He holds on tightly, though, and hitches his hands beneath my bottom, lifting me against him. Then he pushes me back against the wall of the stall. He slides a knee between my legs to hold me up, his foot resting on the side of a bag of feed, and takes my face in his hands. His breath smells like mints and Pete, and his exhale tickles my lips. “Reagan,” he breathes softly. It’s no more than a murmur, but he may as well have shouted it. My heart beats so loudly I can hear it in my ears, and I know he can feel it.

“Pete,” I say. His hands thread into the hair at my temples, and his thumbs tilt my face up so that his lips are almost touching mine. “Please kiss me,” I breathe.

His lips finally graze mine, gently at first. His mouth is closed, and he waits, his eyes open and staring into mine as he tests my mouth tentatively. He’s tender and soft, but I don’t want tender and soft. I lick across the seam of his lips, and he opens for me. His tongue invades my mouth and tangles with mine. His hands hold my face still as he takes over the kiss, growling low in his throat as he plays me. Oh, good God, does he play me. He licks into me, inside me, his tongue sliding against mine, thrusting in and out of my mouth. I match him, breathing so hard I can’t catch my breath. I hitch myself higher on his leg, pressing my panty-clad girl parts against him. My cl*tis thumping like mad, and I can’t even think about anything but relieving this most delicious ache he’s stirring inside me. His tongue pulls back from my mouth, but I don’t want him to go.

A whimper that doesn’t even sound human leaves my throat, and I pull him back to me by sucking his lower lip into my mouth. I tongue his piercing, and he growls low in his throat. I rock against his thigh, and he takes his hands from my face and puts them on my bottom so he can tug me forward on his knee. He presses just the right spot, and I lift my face to gasp, trying to find enough breath to keep my runaway heart thumping, my head falling back against the stall door. He’s taking all of my weight now because my legs would never support me even if he did let me go. His lips tickle across my chin and down the side of my neck, and he looks into my eyes as he tugs the tie at my hip and parts my dress. His hands are hot and hard as they encircle my waist, squeezing gently, not asking for my permission, but he has it. There’s no doubt about it.

He looks into my face as he raises his hand and cups my bra, his thumb tracking across my nipple. I take his hand in mine and press it harder against my breast. He growls into the side of my throat and freezes. He stops, inhaling and exhaling. I take his face in my hands and pull him back to me, but he backs his face away. “Just a second,” he pleads. “I need just a second.” He’s breathing as hard as I am.

But I don’t want to give him a second. I tug the cup of my bra down and bare my breast for him. Pete bends his head and takes my nipple into his mouth. He hums as he gives it a tug, his lips insistent as he suckles, his tongue flicking against the turgid flesh. I can’t think. I can’t stop the whimpers that escape my throat. “Pete,” I cry. He grabs my bottom and pulls me further forward, then pushes my belly until I lie back against the stall door. He looks down at my panties, and I can see the wet spot on the pink fabric. I close my eyes.

He takes my chin in his left hand and makes me look at him. “Open your eyes,” he says.