“What the hell do you mean you can’t give him advice?” Dylan hissed.

“Are you serious?” he hissed back. “Mia would freak out if she knew I was encouraging her little brother to f**k his girlfriend!”

“He doesn’t need encouragement,” Seth said, rolling his eyes. “The kid’s clearly got his mind made up. He’s banging that girl no matter what you tell him.”

“At least if we talk to him about it beforehand, we can prevent any disasters,” Dylan added. “I mean, what if he doesn’t use a condom? Someone needs to give him the safe-sex talk.”

Seth nodded gravely. “Think about it, Texas. What’ll make Mia angrier? You giving practical sex advice to her brother, or said brother coming home with an STD or a knocked-up girlfriend?”

Uneasiness continued to flow inside him, but he couldn’t deny his buddies had a point. A teenage boy could be dumb as a bag of rocks when it came to sex. Without guidance, Danny might do something seriously stupid.

“Fine,” Jackson finally mumbled.

The trio strode back to the waiting teenager, who rolled his eyes at their approach. “Are you done freaking out?”

Jackson ignored the quip and crossed his arms over his chest. “So is this for real? You’re actually gonna do this?”

Mia’s brother nodded.

“What method of birth control are you planning to use?”

A blush stained the boy’s cheeks. “Angie’s on the pill.”

Seth narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Did you know that it takes a month before the pill is effective?”

“Yeah, I know. She’s been on it for three months just in case.” The flush deepened. “And I have condoms. We’re going to use those too.”

“Good boy,” Dylan said in approval.

“What exactly are you concerned about then?” Jackson asked carefully. “It sounds like you’ve planned ahead and you’re being smart about this.”

Danny sighed. “It’s not the safety part I need advice on. It’s the…uh…mechanics.”

Son of a bitch.

Jackson got uncomfortable all over again, and from the corner of his eye, he saw his friends fighting back laughter.

“I mean, obviously I know what goes where,” Danny hurried on. “I’m not an idiot, and I’ve watched  p**n  before, so…” He released another breath. “I’m just worried about her, you know? I wanna make her feel…um…good. And I…I just wanted some tips on how to do that.”

Jackson exchanged a look with Dylan and Seth, who were waiting for him to take the lead. But no way could he do that. Danny might have made up his mind about losing his virginity to his girlfriend this weekend, but Jackson couldn’t allow himself to high-five the kid for it.

Preaching safe sex was one thing, handing out sex tips was another altogether. Mia was insanely protective of her little brother—she’d never forgive him if he endorsed Danny’s foray into the world of underage intercourse.

“All right, I guess I’ll be fielding this one,” Seth said when Jackson didn’t speak up. “Uh…” The SEAL’s voice became gruff. “Okay. So. The vagina is a mysterious garden that—”

He didn’t get to finish the thought because Dylan had keeled over in a fit of laughter.

“Oh God!” Dylan choked out, clutching his side. “Shit, I can’t believe you said that.” Another laughter-induced shudder overtook his body, and tears formed in his eyes. “Oh sweet Jesus, I think I just peed my pants.”

Seth glared daggers at his teammate. “As I was saying,” he said loudly, his gray eyes shifting back to Danny. “The vagina is a mysterious garden that requires a lot of tending. You work in landscaping, right? And your sister is a gardener?”

Danny nodded.

“Well, then you know that you can’t just throw any old soil down and then wait for flowers to grow. You need to water them, give them enough sun, play with them for a bit. Oh, and you definitely have to go down on them.”

“Are we still talking about flowers?” Danny said in confusion.

“We were never talking about flowers, dumbass.” Seth let out an exaggerated sigh. “Texas, you take over. I’m all metaphored out.”

Despite the misgivings coursing through him, Jackson joined the conversation. Heck, he was already in this deep. At this point, he couldn’t imagine how his speaking up could make things any worse.

“What this moron is trying to say is that you can’t make the sex entirely about you,” he explained. “You’ve gotta think about the lady’s pleasure first and foremost. Which means a helluva lot of foreplay.”

Dylan, whose laughter had finally died, spoke up enthusiastically. “Lots of foreplay.”

Danny bit his lower lip. “Like oral and stuff?”

Seth gave a decisive nod. “Oral, petting, dry-humping, finger-blasting—”

Jackson silenced him with a glare.

“We’ve done some of that already,” Danny confessed, though he averted his eyes as he did so. “I mean, we haven’t gone down on each other, but the rest—”

Jackson swiftly held up his hand. “Oh Lord, please don’t give me any details,” he pleaded. “Look, just remember that you can’t snap your fingers and expect a woman to have an orgasm. You’ve gotta warm her up, get her nice and primed for it.”