Page 120 of June First

A traitor for slow dancing with another boy after kissing that man.

I’m confused, disoriented, and terribly broken.

“I’m okay.” The lie is muffled in the baby-blue corsage tickling my lips. “I don’t feel very good.”

Ryker stiffens a bit as his palm squeezes mine. “Do you…do you not want to go to the hotel with us tonight?”

The cautious disappointment in his tone is evident.

He was hoping to get lucky.

My friends and I all went in on a big hotel room for post-prom fun, but it will be impossible for me to have any sort of fun now after what transpired tonight—after that dare gone devastatingly wrong.

Stupid dare.

Stupid Celeste.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I swallow, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, Ryker. I think I need to rest.”

He doesn’t reply, but his whole body tenses.

And maybe I should feel guilty for backing out of our plans, but I already have far worse things to feel guilty for.

What happened?

What the hell was that?

Brant’s face flashes to mind: the usual warmth of his earthy eyes blazing into fiery passion when he stared down at me, his fist tangled in my hair. My cherry lip gloss smeared across his mouth. The flush of his skin as he groaned with want.

My brother. My brother!

God, how could I? What on earth was I thinking?

And why…why did he respond like that?

It was only supposed to be a dare. A silly, immature dare. Instead, it became a death sentence that will hang over both our heads. Forever.

There’s no erasing the way our tongues ravished one another’s.

There’s no silencing those awful, lustful moans.

There’s no pretending he wasn’t painfully hard and I wasn’t humiliatingly wet.

There’s no going back in time and taking it all back…and I’m sick—absolutely sick—that our beautiful, precious dynamic has been forever altered.

Tainted.

Hot tears blur my eyes as I nuzzle into Ryker’s suit coat, searching for comfort that doesn’t exist. He glides his hand up and down my back, unaware of my moral crisis. Oblivious to the destruction I’ve caused. Ignorant of the fact that I’m wishing it were Brant’s chest my face is buried against while he soothes my ravaged heart and whispers into my ear that it will be okay.

We will be okay.

Sniffling, I force a smile, trying to shake away the sorrow. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” My words trail off when I pop my head up, and my peripheral catches a glimpse of something over Ryker’s shoulder. Something alarming.

Brant.

His face.

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