Thanks for the reviews. I do not own any of the characters.

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He slid into the car and kissed Marissa on the lips. Lately he'd felt really guilty. He was still very mad at Summer for picking that moron over him but he wondered if he was in a position to talk. Yes, she'd dumped him first but was it right to enjoy being with another woman when his heart clearly belonged to her?

It had been one of those days -her mother was bugging her again, Kaitlin was being a bitch and all her boy-crazy friends were just so juvenile and annoying. She'd already secured the keys to the jeep before she called Seth- she wasn't taking any chances this time. She'd packed a picnic basket and knew the perfect secluded spot. Heck, maybe they could reenact that scene from nine and a half weeks… if she should manage to stuff that much food down her throat.

She was wearing the tiniest skirt he'd ever seen and he just wanted to reach across and touch her supple skin. She noticed him staring and after seeing that twinkle in her eye, he knew it was okay. Sometimes, with her, he didn't quite know what was going on. On some days, she could be the sweetest person he'd ever met and on others, she could be downright mean. So he'd pretty much learned how to gauge the waters so as not to upset her. They'd never actually had a fight -as they weren't even a couple - but sometimes, Seth wished that they talked more -just like they did in the early days. He knew he didn't have a right to, but he wished sex wasn't their only form of communication.

She felt his hand slide toward her inner thigh and she smiled - she really did enjoy his touch. There was something childlike about the way he caressed her skin that she found quite adorable. Ryan was mostly gentle but was always in control but with Seth, there was always a little bit of the unexpected. Not that she enjoyed the moments he dug into her skin a little too deeply, but overall, she enjoyed the feel of his fingers.

Seth inched closer so that he wouldn't have to stretch his hand so far but as he was about to touch the seam of her underwear, Marissa's knee jerked up and hit him.

"Ouch!"

She mocked-frowned at him. "Hey, I'm driving. What's the police report going to say when they interview us after the accident?"

"That we were having a little fun?"

She giggled and turned her eyes back to the road. He was still nursing his hand when she quietly said, "Seth, I didn't say you should stop.".

He was about to put his palm back on her when she added, "Just stay away from the interesting parts."

He groaned. "What's the fun in that?" He lightly touched her knee then let his fingers travel further down her leg till he felt some roughness. At the same time, her leg moved uncomfortably.

"What's that?" he asked, referring to the uneven skin. He took his hand back and stared at the leg covered with tiny scars - scars he'd never seen before. When she didn't reply, he repeated his question.

"It's nothing, Seth."

"No, it's something Marissa. What's that? Did you fall and hurt yourself?"

She shook her head. "No. When I get nervous, I scratch." She showed him her longish nails. "I guess that's another reason I should keep my nails short, huh?" she continued, trying to make a light of it, but Seth was worried.

"Why are you so nervous? Is everything okay at home? Or it is something else?"

No and Yes she didn't want to say. Of course everything wasn't okay at home - and it never will, not with Caleb as her stepfather, but that wasn't what was really bugging her. She couldn't say that even though she loved talking to Ryan, she didn't like the new-daddy version of him and that scared her shitless. It made her feel shallow and immature and forced her to hold on to her memories even tighter because a future with him now seemed unlikely. She couldn't tell him that she felt like a fool for not fighting hard enough for what could have been the greatest love of her life and as time passed by, and the more she thought about it, she felt that it may never have been reciprocated in the first place. If it had, it wouldn't have been so easy for Theresa to come between them. She'd begun to question their relationship and wondered if all she'd ever been was a warm body to him. After all, she and Ryan hadn't talked any more than she and Seth did. Maybe it wasn't that Ryan didn't say much but that he just didn't have much to say to her. And if he wasn't who she thought he was, what would that make her?

Seth looked at her and watched her do that thing. She probably didn't realize it but she was a terrible actress. She always tried to mask her feelings but instead, only managed to reveal them all. She was so different from Summer, who had no problems expressing the way she felt, but on days like this, he somehow found Marissa's inner torment appealing because it made her seem that much more mysterious. Or maybe it wasn't that at all but that it fed into his masculine need to solve her problems.

"I packed some strawberries. And some chocolate," she said with a glint in her eye.

He suspected that the casualness of their relationship had stripped all shyness away from them. Sometimes, it almost felt like they were experimenting so that they could write their own version of the Karma Sutra. As she drove out of the city and the smells of the ocean became stronger, Seth wondered if it would hurt if just for one night, all they did was spend the night talking about what made her scratch her legs raw.