“You have some pair on ya, boy.”

“I was about to pay you the same compliment.”

“This is the part where they neck on,” a familiar voice said. “Told ya.” He winked and pointed back, toward where Casey and Alec were mauling the lips off each other.

From the outside, it must've looked like pure chaos—a tangle of arms, faces buried, teeth barely missing ears. I gripped Alec tighter anyway, because hell, I wasn’t about to let him slip even a second.

And yet, in the middle of that chaos, everything felt… slow. Every flick of his tongue, every brush of his lips against mine, sent a shock straight down to my stomach. The world shrank until it was just us, our breaths colliding, his heartbeat drumming in time with mine.

I pulled back just enough to catch his eyes, wild and bright, and I smirked. “You think you can handle me?” I teased, though I already knew the answer. He could handle me. He always could.

His grin was infuriatingly confident, teeth flashing. “Try me,” he said, voice low, a dare tangled in every word.

Time didn’t exist. Every gasp, every groan, every shiver was amplified. I was intoxicated by him—by us. My arms ached from holding him, my lips tingled, my chest burned. And I didn’t want it to stop.

Even as someone shouted a joke from the sidelines, I didn’t care. I only cared about the fire in his eyes, the way he fit against me perfectly, dangerously, thrillingly.

I leaned into him again, letting my teeth graze the corner of his mouth, teasing, tasting, testing boundaries. Alec’s hands moved over me like he was memorizing every inch, and I let him. Let him know I was his, just as much as he was mine.

His laugh—low, breathless, entirely his—rumbled against my chest. “You’re impossible,” he muttered between kisses.

“Yeah,” I whispered back, fingers digging into his shoulders, “but you like it.”

And he did. I could see it in the way his pupils dilated, the way his jaw flexed, the way he pressed himself impossibly close. Heat pooled between us, raw and unrelenting. It wasn’t just passion—it was hunger, it was ownership, it was the kind of connection that made the rest of the world irrelevant.

Finally, I rested my forehead against his again, letting the tremors of adrenaline and desire settle into a slow burn. “God,” I breathed, “you drive me insane.”

Alec’s smirk softened, just a fraction, but the fire never died from his eyes. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “and you love every second.”

Neither of us wanted anything serious, we both knew it—hell, we’d known it for years. Fooling around with Alec had been a constant since I was thirteen. It had started with soft pecks, turned into stolen kisses, late-night making out sessions, and eventually wild sex that left us both a little raw, a little bruised, but always wrapped up in soft cuddles afterward.

And yet, being here with him, right now, I felt every familiar thrill as sharply as the first time we’d kissed. The difference was… we’d grown into it. We’d grown into each other, even if we’d never had the words to define it.

I could feel the weight of his body pressed against mine, the subtle strength in his arms, the way he moved with a mix of urgency and care. It wasn’t just desire—it was knowing. Knowing exactly how to touch, how to tease, how to push me to the edge without ever letting me fall too far.

I leaned back just slightly, catching my breath, my fingers still tangled in his hair. “You’re insane,” I whispered again, this time with a little laugh hiding beneath it. “Completely, ridiculously insane.”

Alec’s grin returned, sharp and devilish, like he’d been waiting for me to admit it. “Insane enough for you?” he asked, tilting his head, eyes glinting with mischief.

“Always,” I admitted, letting myself relax into him, because I could. Because he had me, and I had him. For this moment, at least, that was enough.

The world around us kept moving—someone cleared their throat awkwardly, laughter bubbled from the sidelines—but none of it penetrated the bubble we’d built. Alec pressed a soft kiss to my temple, a promise tucked between chaos and heat.