Moving her fingers over my chest to the outside of my left arm, I said, “A bullet wound from a drive-by. Age sixteen. Skimmed the outside of my bicep. I was lucky. Another crew member wasn’t.”

A breeze of warm breath flowed over my chest, the source: a sharp exhale from Lexi’s slightly parted lips.

Finally, I ran her fingers down the hills and valleys of my abs and came to an abrupt stop just above my waistband. I left them there for a second and squeezed my eyes shut. My neck strained as I fought to control my breathing. Little Pix was making me real f**kin’ hard, and I was trying like hell to calm down.

“Austin?” Lexi whispered, and I opened my eyes once more, retaking her fingers and running them across the three-inch long scar across my lower stomach. “Attacked by a tweaker junkie with a piece of jagged glass, all for a line of coke. I was sixteen.”

“Austin…” Lexi said almost silently as a single tear dropped from her eye.

“So you see, Pix, I have scars too. It’s just mine are on the outside where everyone can see.”

Taking me by surprise, Lexi launched her arms around my back and her cheek lay flush against my torso. Her nails were digging into the flesh of my back, and I tentatively laid my cheek on the top of her head.

She smelled so good.

Felt so good.

I wasn’t sure how long we just stood there like that, two f**ked-up emo kids confessing our sins, but it was enough time for me to realize one thing: I was falling hard for the little dark pixie.

Real. Damn. Hard.

It had come on so suddenly. I felt blindsided by the emotion.

Feeling the heat from Lexi’s closeness infusing my body, I whispered, “Pix, I really need to kiss you now.”

Every part of her body tensed, and she whispered, “I’ve never been kissed before. Never done anything with a guy before,” like it was the most embarrassing thing on Earth.

My eyes squeezed shut and I felt like a dick. Of course she hadn’t been kissed, hadn’t been f**ked. She hadn’t been around guys most of her teenage life, too busy starving herself to be thin.

I was such a grade-A f**kin’ dick.

But then I felt her soft lips brush against my sternum, and I just about lost my mind.

Slowly guiding her head up with my hand, my lips ghosted across her hair and down along her cheek. “Pix, I need you,” I rasped out once more.

Tilting her chin, she replied, “I think… I think I might need you too.”

If I wasn’t dying of anticipation of her taste, I might’ve smiled, but instead, I dipped down until our lips met. At first, I just let her get used to me, the movement of the kiss, but it wasn’t long before my hands threaded into her hair and I pushed open her lips with my tongue.

Expelling a whimper, Lexi gripped my arms and, a second later, I felt her hot tongue shyly meet mine.

She may never have been kissed before, but she was blowing my f**kin’ mind. She was brave. She was everything I never thought a chick could be.

Each second of her touch only made me want her more, but like a snowflake, she was fragile and I needed to go slow.

Reluctantly breaking from the kiss, I reared back a fraction, enough to catch the glimmer of water in her eyes. I immediately felt a fast rush of guilt.

I’d pushed her too far. She’d told me in no uncertain terms she couldn’t be touched. I’d broken my promise, all to serve my dick.

“Austin…” Lexi sighed, and I stared at her, hoping she could see the apology, the shame in my gaze. Her bright red-stained top lip hooked into a shy smile, and she looked at me like I was suddenly her whole world. I felt that look sear right into my heart. Ain’t no one ever looked upon me with such grace, with such trust before, and I felt humbled that she chose to gift it to me.

It was the strangest of feelings.

All anyone ever saw when they looked at me was the white trash ex-gang member from the Heighter-famed trailer park across town.

But not her.

Fuck knows why, but Pix only ever saw more. Even after everything I put her through.

“Austin… thank you…” she murmured, and once again that embarrassed flush engulfed her face.

“No, thank you,” I replied and, leaning down, pressed one more chaste kiss to her lips, then, gripping her hand, pressed another to the back of her fingers.

“Stay with me tonight, Pix. No sex,” I said and smiled. She slapped my chest in playful admonishment with all the strength of a gnat. “Just stay with me. Sleep next to me. Be beside me.”

“Okay.” She agreed and, taking her hand, I pulled her to the bed, and we resumed the same positions as before. But our hands never let go of one another’s. We’d moved on to a different place.

That thought had me reeling. Maybe we were now together; maybe we weren’t. I didn’t care what we labeled it. She could talk to me and I could talk to her. Boyfriend/girlfriend titles had no place among the truly f**ked up. Just that there was someone else like you, someone to understand. Some of our buried secrets had been brought out into the open, and it felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my chest.

“Austin?” Lexi asked and licked along her bottom lip.

“Mmm?” I replied, watching that circling tongue, my dick twitching painfully in response.

“Could you kiss me again?”

My fists clenched at my sides. I really wanted to do more than kiss her—suck on her tits, taste her clit on my tongue, take her virginity—but I knew that wasn’t gonna happen.