It burned like a wildfire in my lungs and I immediately began to cough. "Jesus," I said as the car began to spin around me. "Jesus, what is that s.h.i.t?"

From the front of the car, Sonya turned around, took one look at me, and glared at Manny. "You dumb f.u.c.ker," she said, "what the h.e.l.l is wrong with you? Don't give that s.h.i.t to people without telling them what it is."

Panic bubbled up in my chest. "Why?" I demanded, although it seemed like everything was suddenly very far away. "Why, what's in it?"

"Nothing," Manny said. "It's just pure medical grade weed." He grinned at me and his teeth were as white as a shining moon.

"Holy s.h.i.t," I said. The top of my head was trying to unscrew itself and float away. "What the f.u.c.k..."

"You dumb motherf.u.c.ker," Sonya said again, and I had no idea if she was talking to me or Manny. Manny just laughed and Sonya leaned on the horn again.

Time did a weird thing and stretched out very thin before snapping back again when someone opened the front door of the van.

"Me, me, me!" Carter was saying. "I called shotgun before we even left the house!"

I heard Kent heave a sigh. "Fine," he snapped. "Enjoy it."

I turned my head in a haze, just in time to see Carter hop into the front seat. He turned and gave me a huge wink and I realized, with all the clarity of a weed revelation, that he was playing matchmaker. Trying to set me and Kent up.

I burst into the most inappropriate giggles ever just as Kent climbed into the van.

To my pot-addled brain he looked insanely attractive. Not just hot, but panty-melting hot. Which was weird since I had never ever gotten h.o.r.n.y after smoking pot, but suddenly just seeing Kent set my nerves on fire.

Then Kent locked eyes with me and I was. .h.i.t by the sudden, heady paranoia of really good weed.

He knows! my brain screamed at me. Knew I got turned on just seeing him, knew I got off to the sound of him jacking off in the next room, knew that I wanted nothing more than to screw his brains out, or to have him screw my brains out and Jesus, this weed was really good. He probably knew I was high, too. High as the moon. Moon. Mooooooooooooooooooon.

I laughed harder.

"Did you give her a hit?" I heard Kent ask Manny.

"Yeah, man. She looked like she needed it."

Kent sighed. The sound of his breath raked over my senses, setting me on high alert, and my body felt heavy and suddenly I was starving.

Clawing my way out of the giggles, I turned my head to Manny and tried to see straight. "You got anything to eat in here?"

"Always, darling. Always." He turned to the side and I realized there was a cabinet next to him. He opened the door and pulled out a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.

How did he know? "You read my mind?" I asked him.

"Who wouldn't eat these?" he said. He tossed them to me and I was incredibly shocked to find that I was able to catch them, although the sudden jump made me feel as though my face were about to float off my skull. This was some really powerful weed.

"Hey Kent," Manny said, "you wanna hit?"

"No." Kent's voice, always an almost physical presence to me, caressed my skin and I couldn't suppress the shivers that ran up and down my body. This, of course, did not stop me from yanking open my bag of potato chips and cramming them in my mouth. All it meant was that I was now happy on several levels.

I turned to look at Kent and found him sitting tensely next to me, his whole body curled in on itself, his arms crossed and his eyes watching the window across from us, glaring out at the moving landscape. Moving. We were moving?

The van went over a b.u.mp and I fell over, straight into Kent.

So yes. Yes, we were moving.

I started to giggle again. "I'm so sorry," I babbled. "Manny didn't tell me this was medical weed. I had no idea..." My hand was on his thigh, and his muscles beneath the dark fabric of his well-worn jeans were hard as rocks. I stared down at where my hand had landed, marveling at how the paleness of my skin shone out against the darkness of him.

He was stock still next to me, against me, and I looked up to see him staring down at me. His eyes... intensity. Ferocity. Staring straight through me...

The van jostled again and I seemed to wake from my trance. With more force than necessary I pushed away from Kent, not sure how long I'd been feeling him up and staring into his eyes. I scrambled backwards on the couch and decided to keep at least a foot between us. The ride down to San Diego wasn't too long. Two hours at the outside. I just had to ignore him until then.

Inhaling deeply, I turned toward the TV hanging from the back corner of the van. "Let's watch something," I said to Manny.

"Sure thing, darling," he replied, and I wondered, somewhat distantly, why he had started calling me darling all of a sudden.

Oh well. That was just Manny being Manny, from what I could tell. He flipped the TV on and I let myself slump in my seat, drifting away on a cloud of pot smoke and potato chips.

I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing.

I kept my eyelids shut. My mouth was dry and my eyeb.a.l.l.s felt like marbles, but even that discomfort couldn't distract me from the fact that it was the last ring tone I wanted to hear right now.

Scratch that. The last ring tone I wanted to hear ever.

Struggling through the post-high haze, I peeled my eyes open.

Things were... different.

For one, they were all sideways. I was lying down. And my head was on something warm. And living. And firm.

And blue.

Oh. Oh, dear.

Adrenaline spiked through me and I sat bolt upright. "Are we there yet?" I chirped as brightly as I could, pretending I hadn't just been sleeping with my head in Kent Hudson's G.o.dd.a.m.n lap, holy s.h.i.t!

"We'd be there if it weren't for this f.u.c.king traffic." I blinked. That was Sonya's voice. Turning my head, afraid that it would fall off, I noted that she was staring intently at the road, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. And the traffic was, indeed, atrocious. But we were here. We were in San Diego. I would have recognized it anywhere.

The post-high haze began to recede and I looked around.

Manny had succ.u.mbed to the pot smoke and was curled up on the couch snoring peacefully while Carter was quiet in the front seat. And next to me...

Next to me Kent was staring at me.

A flush of color and heat went through me, potent and startling, enough to take my breath away. I bit my lip and turned away, raking my fingers through my hair in an attempt to look as though I hadn't just been sleeping with my head in Kent's lap. The brother of my nominal boyfriend.

I remembered Carter's wink.

Okay, my nominal boyfriend's brother, and said boyfriend wanted to hook us up or something. Carter's motives for finagling this seating arrangement were somewhat suspect-if Kent and I were involved with each other it would obviously be harder to keep Carter on our radar, which was the exact reason we had agreed not to pursue anything, entirely aside from the lie that Carter had a wholesome girlfriend and oh my G.o.d when did my life get so complicated?

I put a hand to my face just as my phone started ringing again. Again the dreaded ring tone. Jason's ring tone. The opening bars of one of his songs.

Not looking at anyone I reached into my messenger bag and s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone out of it before mashing the ignore b.u.t.ton as though I could somehow ignore every call from him ever again. Why hadn't I blocked his number? I should have...

"Are you all right?"

Startled, I glanced up to see Kent still staring at me. The intensity of his blue-green eyes pierced straight through me, down into my heart.

I sucked my breath in. "I'm fine," I said. "I've just never had that kind of weed, that's all." Jason had smoked the medical grade stuff, and so had most of his friends. It was easy to get it in California as long as you were white.

His eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything else to me. Instead he stood as far as he could in the cramped quarters of the van and turned toward the front. "Hey," I heard him say to Sonya.

I am not going to scope that a.s.s. I am not going to scope that a.s.s. I am not going to scope that a.s.s...

I sneaked a glance at Manny and found him still asleep. I was safe.

I scoped that a.s.s, for a good minute, and then we were finally pulling up to the hotel.

Check in was swift and painless, and we had a good hour left before the band had to be at the shooting location-the lighthouse, of course, on Point Loma. A great spot, with a beach and the sun and a desolate end-of-the-world feel, even on sunny days. And it was cheap. All in all, I should have figured that was where we would be going.

I breathed the smell of the hotel-clean sheets and floor polish-and took my key from the nice receptionist lady. A block of suites on the fifth floor had been reserved for us, and I was looking forward to collapsing and taking a nice nap or watching some TV. Even though I'd slept in the van, travel wore me the h.e.l.l out. I was staying in Carter's room, but luckily there was a pull-out bed on the couch in the suite, and as the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor with a ding, I made to follow Carter.

"Rebecca."

Kent's voice cut through the quiet, tired shuffling of bags and clothes. I turned to see him still standing in the elevator. "Yes?" I said.

He glanced at Carter who was standing next to me, looking puzzled. "Carter, could you take Rebecca's bag with you to your room? I need to speak with her alone."

He's going to tell me off for getting high, I realized. I knew it. G.o.ddammit. I should have stayed sober. I'd let myself slip because Carter had been behaving himself, but I should have remembered I was here to do a job.

I cast a pleading look at Carter, but he just looked relieved that it wasn't him on the chopping block this time.

With a sigh I stepped back into the elevator. The doors slid shut behind me and suddenly I was alone in a confined s.p.a.ce with Kent Hudson.

Light lightning, awareness jolted through me. The last time we had been alone together, we had watched each other. I'd watched him stroke his c.o.c.k and he'd watched me bury my fingers in my c.u.n.t until we both came in the darkness. The time before that, he had cornered me in my sister's bathroom and born me to the ground, his mouth finding every soft, dark, secret part of me. And the time before that we had tangled in an airplane bathroom, coming so close to joining the mile high club that really only technicalities kept us from it.

Kent and confined s.p.a.ces mixed far too well. I knew it, and he knew it.

His body went rigid as he stabbed a number on the control panel. Floor seven. The top floor. Why we were going there I had no idea. I forced my feet to take me to the opposite side of the elevator and leaned stiffly against the wall until the elevator dinged again and the doors parted. Then I shot into the hallway as though my a.s.s were on fire.

Breathing hard, I turned and watched Kent step warily from the elevator, his eyes locked on me. I won't say our eyes were locked because he seemed to be quite interested in what my breathing was doing to my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the caress of his eyes caused my nipples to harden, tightening painfully beneath my shirt.

I swallowed. "Okay," I managed to say. "What do you want to talk about?"

His lips twisted and I could see him trying to figure out what to say. Maybe this wasn't about the pot?

And then my phone rang.

Jason. Again.

f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k.

Reaching into my bag, I yanked the phone out and ignored him again.

That, apparently, was all it took to break the ice with Kent.

He crossed the distance between us, drawing close and then taking one step closer, the step that brought him into my personal s.p.a.ce. Startled, I squeaked and looked up at him, nearly dropping my phone. "What?" I said. My voice came out high and wheezy. Like a mouse fart, as my mother used to say.

Kent glared down at me. "Who keeps calling you?" he demanded.

Unable to look away, I shoved my phone blindly into my bag. "No one."

Blue-green eyes glared down at me. "It's not no one. They have their own ring tone. And you never pick up. Who is it?"

I felt my lips press into a thin line.

His eyes narrowed. "Rebecca."

I stared up at him. His dark hair fell into his face as he searched inside my eyes for some clue, and suddenly I just wanted to tell him everything, wanted to throw myself into his arms and lean on him. The lure of a strong man is dangerous, but so hard to resist. The story welled up in me, crashing against my teeth, and finally I had to let it out.

"My ex-boyfriend," I blurted. "It's my ex."

"Jason," he said.

Shocked, I took a step backwards. "How did you know his name? Did Carter tell you?"

Now it was his turn to look surprised. "Carter? No, he hasn't mentioned anything. I looked at the name on your phone when it was ringing off the hook in the van while you were pa.s.sed out." His eyes narrowed. "Why, is Carter keeping something from me?"

"Nothing he shouldn't be," I snapped. "For G.o.d's sake, you're not his dad, stop acting like you need to keep tabs on him all the time." That was perhaps unkind, but I was p.i.s.sed. He shouldn't have looked at my phone.

Those blue-green eyes narrowed even further. "Our father didn't give two s.h.i.ts about Carter beyond the money he could make him, so don't talk to me about concern."

His voice was sharp, and his words were like a slap across the face. I shut my mouth, stunned and hurt.

Almost immediately he seemed to realize he had been too harsh and he closed his eyes. I saw him forcibly relax his body. "I'm sorry," he said. "You don't know anything about that."

I shook my head. "No, I'm sorry," I replied. Yeah, it hurt, but wasn't I sticking my nose in places where it didn't belong? You stick your d.i.c.k in a beehive and you're bound to get stung. Or so my dad always said. When mom couldn't hear of course. "That was out of line."

He almost smiled at that, a small, rueful twitch of his lips. "No, it wasn't, but never mind that. What's going on with your ex? Does he live here in San Diego?"

Pressing my lips together, I nodded. "He does." I hesitated.

Kent saw my hesitation and pressed forward. "Is he hara.s.sing you?"

I looked away. "I don't know. He's left a bunch of messages, but I haven't listened to them."

A large, warm hand alighted on my shoulder, and I looked back to see his face had softened in a way that made my knees turn to jelly. "Would you mind if I listened to them?" he asked gently.