Page 132 of Our Scorching Summer

“You are.” Nico’s scent of firelight, sandalwood, and musk envelops me despite the mass of bodies around us. The familiar stir of hunger for him awakens.

Will the feeling ever go away, or am I damned to erupt like a grenade around him for the rest of time? We lock eyes—it’s one of those things that’s impossible to avoid—and I drape my hands over his shoulders.

“I’ve always wanted to try something,” I tell him.

“What’s that, pretty girl?”

I rip open the front of Nico’s shirt, sending the buttons onto the floor and exposing every inch of his mouth-watering chest.

Yeah, that was as hot as I imagined.

Nico beams, wrapping the strap of my dress between his fingers. “What if I repay the favor?”

“I’m sure everyone would enjoy that because I’m not wearing any panties.”

His eyes are shadowed by a lust-filled darkness. “You’re killing me, Lil.”

The song’s tempo boils over into a satisfying drop, and everyone in the club sings wildly to a familiar chorus. Nico chases each movement of my body, caressing all of me at once. I soften into sap beneath his touch. We dance around, exchanging liquored kisses and dirty talk that has me moments from abandoning the night out.

That is until Ren waves her pale hand in front of my face, motioning toward the long line for the women’s bathroom in the far corner of the nightclub.

“Take someone else,” I shout, disregarding girl code beneath Nico’s touch.

She shakes her head back and forth, a pleading expression in her eyes.

Alright, there’s no way I can let her go by herself.

“Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.” My voice is airy in Nico’s ear. I give his lobe a slight nip before breaking our sensual vortex.

The line at the bathroom has multiplied.This is going to take hours.I crane my neck around the other side. Of course, the men’s bathroom is empty.

“Come on.” I take Ren’s hand in mine and push open the door. Random guys whoop when our heels clatter toward their sewer-smelling toilets. We shove ourselves into a big stall. Ren pulls down her underwear and crouches over the seat.

“You’re a lifesaver,” she beams.

The room spins around me. “Seven years of bartending puts some tricks up your sleeve.”

“Sixteen-year-old me would cringe if she knew I was wasted in a club, pissing in a men’s toilet.”

A snort chokes out of me. We never truly grow up. “Sixteen-year-old me would probably have a heart attack.”

“What?” Ren continues to hover over the mildewy bowl. “You weren’t always a rebellious hottie?”

Not at all. The girl I was over ten years ago feels further from me than I do from home right now. “The middle child of two successful sisters. I barely had a voice, let alone a personality.”

“You mean boys weren’t dropping at your feet?”

There has to be a universal rule for women congregating in bathrooms on a long night out: we spill secrets and make friends for life. All the other bullshit doesn’t matter as we bitch about all the people who broke our hearts along the way to this moment.

“I dated my first boyfriend for three years before the asshole cheated on me,” I confess. “Nothing like walking in on the love of your life getting sucked off in your kitchen.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“Let me guess, he was the perfect combination of gorgeous and asshole.” Ren flushes the toilet, tugging her panties on.

“Are you a mind reader?” I swap places with her to hover in my unsteady heels over the bowl.

---