The room seemed to tick in the silence.

“I’ve thought about this so many times,” she said, hands running up my stomach and then lightly tickling through the hair on my chest. She traced the patterns of the tattoo on my left shoulder, trailed her fingers down my arm. “God, it feels like I’ve been thinking about this forever. But actually having you here . . . I’m nervous.”

“You have no reason to be nervous.”

“It helps me when you tell me what to do,” she admitted in a small voice.

I cupped her breast, lifting it and bending my head to suck the tight peak into my mouth. She gasped, hands sliding into my hair. I smiled into a sharp bite at the full curve below her nipple. “You could start by taking off my pants.”

She unfastened my belt, tugged the buttons free on my jeans. I’d grown obsessed with the memory of the way her hands shook when she was excited like this, a little nervous, too. I studied her almost-naked body in the dim street light filtering in from outside: her neck and br**sts, the dip of her waist, curved hips and long, soft legs. I reached forward, ran two fingers down her navel and between her thighs, gliding over the fabric of her underwear.

Sliding a knuckle beneath the lace and through the heady slickness there, I whispered, “I love your skin, love feeling your wet.”

“Step out of your pants,” she said, coyly. “You can touch me all night.”

I blinked, realizing my jeans were pooled around my ankles and I stood only in my boxers. She hadn’t taken those off; whether she was nervous still, or just wanted one more chance to remove something, it was all fine with me. I pulled my feet free and walked her backward to her bed, urging her down. She inched back, pushing toward the headboard as I crawled over her. Hanna’s gray eyes were wide and clear—my thrilled, breathless prey.

Her panties were light blue, accentuating the creamy color of her skin, making her look like she was made of blown glass. Only the tiny freckle on her navel hinted that she was even remotely real.

“Did you wear these for him?” I asked before my brain had time to think better of it.

She looked down at the lace, and I moved my eyes up to her full, plump br**sts as she said, “I didn’t even let him take my shirt off. So, I don’t think I wore them for him.”

I kissed down her belly to the elastic hem of her underwear. Hanna had never been timid, or flighty, but this was all new. She was propped on her elbows, watching. Beneath where I was braced over her, she was trembling, her heart beating so fast I could see the trip of her pulse in her neck. This didn’t feel like our standard game of How to Play Sexbomb, didn’t have that veneer. This felt too real, and Hanna looked too perfect lying almost naked in front of me. I’d kick my own ass for an eternity if I ever f**ked this up. “Well, then I’ll pretend that you wore them for me.”

“Maybe I did.”

I pulled at the elastic with my teeth, releasing it with a sharp snap against her hip. “And I’ll pretend that whether you’re naked or clothed, you’re always thinking about me.”

She looked up at me, gray eyes wide and searching. “Lately, I think I am. Does that worry you?”

Looking up the length of her body, I asked, “Why would it worry me?”

“I know what this is about, Will. I don’t expect you to be anything you’re not.”

I had no idea what she meant; in truth I had no idea what this could or couldn’t be, and for once I didn’t want to define it before it even started. Inching up so my face hovered just over hers, I bent to kiss her, whispering, “I don’t know where to start.”

I felt wild and a little rough, wanting to eat her and f**k her and feel those lips around me. I had a flash of fear that this was all a fleeting moment, a single night, and I had to find a way to condense everything into a few hours. “I’m not going to let you sleep.”

Her eyes widened, and she gave me a tiny smile. “I don’t want to sleep.” Tilting her head, she said, “And start with the first thing I told you in the elevator.”

I kissed my way down her neck, chest, ribs, stomach. Every inch of her was tight and smooth and twitching under my lips, wanting. She never closed her eyes, never once. I’d been with women who watched, but it had never felt like this, so f**king intimate and connected.

As I got closer to the space between her legs, I could see her muscles tense, heard her breath hitch. I turned my head, sucked on her inner thigh. “I’m going to lose my f**king mind with my mouth on you.”

“Will, tell me what to do,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ve never . . .”