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I’m so into it that I’m pretty sure I could come from simply this—this shameless, carnal humping motion—but a stray thought pierces the heated blur of my pleasure.

Logan’s voice. Asking me if I’ll be careful.

This is exactly what he was warning me about. What Deck and I are doing right now.

The sharp pang of fright is enough to interrupt the momentum of my arousal. I pull back abruptly.

Deck, still lost in the kiss, reaches out to draw me back again, but I choke out, “No. Deck, no.”

He freezes, flushed beneath his facial hair and his body visibly tense.

“We can’t.” I’m fighting against every instinct in my body to get the words spoken. “Deck, we can’t.”

He takes a shaky breath and blows it out. Then taps his forehead and lowers the same hand, making the shape of the letter Y with his fingers.

“Because—” It still feels like I’m going to gag on the words. I cough to clear my throat. “Because Logan said?—”

I break off the explanation, changing my mind mid-sentence.

Deck rears up, using the letterLto indicate Logan as he asks,Logan said what?

“It doesn’t matter.” I’m about to burst into tears, so I start scrambling to my feet.

Deck stops me, pulling me back down.Logan said what?He forms each gesture emphatically as he scowls.

Tears are sliding down my face now, but I control myself enough to say, “He said it’s dangerous. To have that kind of relationship with you. Because sometimes they end bad. And then… and then… one person has to leave.” I swipe tears away as they fall, pausing briefly to shake through a couple of silent sobs. “And it won’t be you who’s leaving. It will be… it will be… me.”

Deck is signing urgently, but he’s too upset for it to be clear. I can’t interpret the specific words he’s trying to communicate, but I know what he means.

Logan is wrong.

He’s wrong, and what he told me is never going to happen.

“But we don’t know how things will go,” I say with that same sob in my voice. “I know we think we can make it work and that we’re mature enough to manage if and when it ends, but we don’t know that. It could be terrible. And I’m so sorry, Deck, but I don’t think I can make it on my own again. Not after I’ve had it so much better with all of you. It’s… it’s too much of a risk. I have to think about my own safety. No matter what I… I want.”

He’s breathing hard and fast through his nose, staring at me. I honestly don’t know what he would have said.

He doesn’t have the chance because we hear a familiar voice calling just then from outside the building.

It’s Micah. He has arrived to rescue us.

Micah brought one of the pickups, and it doesn’t take us long to load all our supplies and wheel the ATV into the bed of the truck. Because I’m still really upset, I sit up in the cab with Micah, letting Deck stand guard in the back by himself.

It’s clear to me that Micah knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t ask about it. He keeps up steady, pleasant conversation as we drive back to the big house, and I feel better by the time we reach it.

Not good. I don’t feel good at all. But I’m resigned and in control.

I made the right decision, and I can see it through.

Logan and some of the others are tinkering with one of the Jeeps as we arrive and park near the house on the grass. A bunch of the others come over to greet us and see what we’ve brought.

Deck climbs out of the back of the truck, strides over to Logan with a scowl, and slugs him.

That evening, I climb into the lower bunk in the princess room and wait for Deck to come up from outside.

It’s been a weird, bewildering day, but I slept for a couple of hours in the afternoon, so I’m not as tired as I would have expected.

I’m jittery. Like something is about to happen that I desperately want and that I desperately fear at the exact same time.

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