I grin, tracing down her collar-bone. “When I’m done with you, you’re going to be begging me for more,” I tell her, circling her nipple with my fingertip. She shivers, and I feel another wave of lust. “You don’t even know what you’re body’s capable of yet. But I’m going to teach you. You’re going to come so many times, you won’t remember your own name.”

Juliet blushes, and I have to laugh. She’s still so innocent, it’s like a drug to me. I get to be the one to show her, every inch of her body, all the hundreds of ways I’m going to make her come, screaming my name.

A noise comes, from further down the beach. Yells, and the sound of an engine. Light comes cutting through the dark, a flashlight, coming our way.

“Shit,” I curse, and move to cover Juliet’s body with my own. She scrambles to pull her shirt back on just as the stranger reaches us.

“Who’s there?” A voice demands from the top of the dune. He beams the flashlight right at us, blinding us with the light.

I relax, shielding my eyes from the glare. “Hell, Larry, get that thing out of my face.”

Larry lowers the beam so I can see him, our town deputy, swinging a confiscated six pack from one hand. “Emerson Ray,” he drawls, smug.“I should have known you’d be mixed up in this trouble. Who's that you've got with you?”

“None of your business.” I growl, but Juliet steps out from behind me.

“Hi,” she waves awkwardly. “I'm sorry, we were, uh...”

There's silence as we all fill in the blanks of what we've been doing.

“You over twenty-one?” Larry demands.

I sigh. This is what happens when you give a failed football star some power: they want to throw it around any chance they get.

“Relax. She wasn't drinking.” I answer for Juliet. “And you don’t have to get your panties in a twist. I'm taking her home now.”

I check Juliet's got all her clothes back on, and then take her hand. I start up the dunes towards the parking lot, but Larry steps in my way.

“I don't think so,” he stops me. “You’ve got her in enough trouble tonight. I’ll get her back to her parents.”

Larry stares me down, waiting for me to bail—or for me to try and tell him no. For a split second, I think about ignoring him and his uniform, and marching Juliet right on past, but Larry reads my mind.

“Just try.”He tells me with a smirk. “I’ve got a drunk cell at the station with your name all over it.”

“I’ll be fine.” Juliet says quickly. She puts a soothing hand on my arm. I don’t even realize until I feel her touch that my muscles are tensed and ready for a fight. “I promise, my parent’s will be fine.” she says again. “What can they do? I bet they never even noticed I was gone.”

I force a breath out and stand down, even though everything in me is screaming not to leave her alone. “Text me when you’re back,” I tell her, taking her phone and programming my number in.

She sends me a final shy smile, and then follows Larry back to his patrol car, but I don't head home like I was told. I get in my truck and drive behind them, following Larry’s car all the way back to her house.

After everything we shared tonight, I have to see her home. I need to know she’s safe.

I leave the engine on idle down the driveway, watching as Larry takes her up to the front porch. The lights are already on, and when the door opens, her mom rushes out, looks panicked. She hugs Juliet tightly and drags her inside, but her dad stands, kidding around with Larry for a moment, a drink in his hand. He offers one to the deputy, but Larry shakes his head, and walks back to his car.

I wait until the lights go out inside, and my phone buzzes with a new text.

Safe and sound xx

I exhale. Sweet dreams, I write back, and finally turn the truck around and head for home.

Back at my place, there's nobody waiting up. The house is dark when I let myself in, and I'm halfway to the closet I'm using as a room when I see mom’s door is open, and the bedroom is empty inside.

She didn't come home again.

I sink to the floor in the hallway and lean my head back against the wall, staring at the dark room and the unmade bed, and everything it represents.

I've slumped here before: waiting for her to stumble home. I don’t know how many nights I’ve spent in this exact same spot, cursing her, and god, and anyone else I can think of for all her f**ked up failures. It burns at me through the long night, all the guilt and failure. A heavy fire that never seems to die away.

But this time, it doesn't hurt so much.

I can still feel Juliet's soft touch, still taste the sweetness of her kisses. My salvation. Because now I know there's her goodness in the world, the rest of it doesn't seem like such a bleak wasteland.

You're a good man

Me? A good man? I could laugh, if I didn't hope so desperately for it to be true. My whole life, nobody’s seen anything in me but a waste of space, a bad influence. That Emerson Ray, they say. He didn't even know his daddy, but the man was no good. And you know about his momma. That boy will sure enough wind up just like them one day.

You hear something long enough, you start believing its true, until soon enough I figured, why not prove them right? It was in my blood, after all. Poisoned. Worthless. If they thought I was past saving, then I wouldn’t waste my breath trying any other way. I would fight and screw and do what I damned hell pleased.