He leans back, and he looks so delicious, so calm and powerful, I’m weak.

His hair is a little disheveled and the shadow on his jaw a little darker as he sits with his back to the bar, facing me. He pulls out a cigarette. Watching me very predatorily and scanning the room to see who else is watching me.

I don’t think it’s legal for him to smoke in here—but he doesn’t seem bothered by that at all.

He lights up.

He wants me, I know that now, and as I smile at him and swirl my hips and move to the music, all I want him to see is the woman he wants tonight.

I love the playful sensuality in his eyes—like he’s relaxed and nothing else exists but the drink in his hand, this bar . . . and me. Definitely me. Dancing and looking at him. Because there, right under the playful sensuality, is a heat I’ve never seen before.

A heat that makes me hotter than the sun.

He takes a drag, the tip glowing bright pink as I head back to the bar. When I reach him, he offers it to me. I can’t take it, it feels too intimate now. I shake my head, and he only studies me as I drop to my seat, a little breathless.

He turns his high-backed stool a bit to face me, a silence between us as he smokes his cigarette and seems to take in my features, one by one.

I watch him take a hit.

“I think about kissing you,” I hear myself say.

He exhales the smoke through a line between his lips and pushes the cigarette down on the ashtray and peers into my face, moving the curtain of my hair aside. “How do you kiss me?” he asks.

“I put my hands in your hair and . . . go up on my tiptoes and press my mouth against yours.”

“No tongue?”

“I . . .”

I raise my head.

I’m used to guys looking at me. They stare when I walk down the sidewalk, when I’m on the dance floor, when I’m at Starbucks. I suppose I’m pretty, though I’ve always tried to downplay it by wearing minimal makeup and simple hairstyles like a bun, my hair loose, or a ponytail or a braid. I haven’t gotten my hair professionally styled my whole life. I have good, manageable hair. Long legs, a slim form, perky breasts and an ass that’s where it’s supposed to be, thanks to yoga and running and squats. I’m natural, and I like it like that. But compared to the women I saw with him at the club, I feel plain and uninteresting.

And yet I know that, as plain and different as I am from those women, my Hot Smoker Guy wants me.

He has a hard-on.

He wants me, and he has no idea what I’m about to do.

Oblivious to the fact that I plan to strip him to his bones tonight, he smiles when the bartender asks if we’d like another and sips the last of his wine, chatting with him for a second, then sliding a credit card over the counter, facedown.

“Think I should take you home,” he says.

His eyes meet mine. He’s the hottest man I’ve ever seen. Down to earth and very centered for a mail guy. I think of the basket of condoms at my place. And especially of the tingle between my thighs. I’ve never felt it like this before. I need to suppress the urge to squirm under his appreciative hazel eyes, really.

“That would be nice.” I walk without glancing back, my heartbeat pounding faster and harder as I step outside. I’m trembling, but I don’t want to spend another night wanting and waiting. I mean to take what I want from him.

“We can just take a cab,” I say.

He clicks something on his phone and says, “I got it.”

“Uber? Oh.”

A car arrives almost instantly, and I climb in the back. My heart is galloping in my chest all the way to my apartment building. I have never done something like what I’m about to do. I want to feel the freedom of making my own choices, of being grown up, feeling grown up, doing something that I want—really, really want—without worrying about the consequences.

“Would you walk me up?” I clutch his fingers and look at him.

He follows me into the building and up the elevator, my pulse fluttering madly at his nearness. I open my apartment door and bravely reach out to pull his hand and tug him inside.

I let go when he steps inside and shuts the door, and I turn to find his eyes on me, gleaming in the shadows.

I step forward and press my breasts against his chest. He grabs my hips and pins me in place with his firm grip, studying me with hot eyes. “What are you doing?” He drags the back of a finger down my cheek. “For someone afraid of heights, you like living on the edge.” He grabs my hair and pulls my head back, his eyes fierce.

I slip my fingers into his hair. “Don’t you want this?”

He lowers his head, and I go up on my toes and raise myself to meet his kiss. His lips capture mine, our tongues moving slowly to meet. It’s like two lightning bolts crashing. His tongue flicks inside, and the touch sends shivers of desire through me.

We start to kiss more deeply, more wildly.

God. I’m being kissed from the inside out. His hunger only feeds mine.

His mouth, his hands, the heat of him, the scent of him, the feel of him, the taste of him. Sensation stimulation overload, and the slow buzz of the wine turns into a full-on high from a drug called Hot Smoker Guy.

No guy has ever kissed me like this, or made me feel this way.

He tears his mouth free and a gasp of protest leaves me.

His breathing is heavy, his pupils deliciously dilated.

“If I had any decency at all, I’d leave right now.”

I shake my head. “Because we work together? We’re not even in the same department.” I rub my hands over his chest and his whole body tightens. “I want to be a woman. I want to be the woman that the man I want wants back. Don’t you want me?”

“You know the answer to that,” he says in a gravelly voice.

He’s hard as steel against his slacks and my mouth waters. Emboldened by the feel of his erection against my stomach, I go up and start raining kisses on his jaw. “Then please. Look, I don’t know the first thing about you, but I feel like I know you. Are you married?”

“God, no, I thought we cleared that up.”

“I’m not either. You’re not gay, judging by . . .”

“What department are you in?”

“What does it matter? Are you pulling a Mike Harris on me? Please don’t pull a Mike Harris on me.”

His eyes shine tenderly on my face, and he slides his fingers around my nape and holds my hair.

My throat closes as I look into his eyes. “I’ve always believed you regret the things you don’t do more than the things you do.”

“I’m actually a member of that same club.” But he still seems hesitant, a battle in his eyes.

“Well, see! And we’re both single, we’re both consenting adults . . .”

He presses his thumb to my lips to quiet me.

My breath catches when the look in his eyes registers.

He places his fingers on my cheek and rubs them sinuously down my face. My breathing becomes erratic as he slides lower. I hear the rustle of fabric as he caresses his hand down the side of my clothes.

My hand steals into his hair and I set my lips on his ultra-sexy mouth, softly, and the second my lips touch his, I realize that he was waiting for my lips, for my kiss again. The moment our lips touch, he immediately turns what was my kiss into his kiss. Again.

He pulls my leg up by the knee and nestles his erection against me.

I press closer. “Oh god.”

He holds my face in one hand. He opens my lips wide and his tongue flashes, irreverent and unapologetic and tasting of wine, into my mouth. “You taste so sweet.” He tastes me deeper, as if he wants more, and holds me even closer. “You’re so sweet,” he says in an even huskier voice, his every thrust stoking the fire burning between my legs, every flick of his tongue hardening my nipples.

His kiss is warm, wet. He pops open the top button of my shirt and turns his head, lowers it and kisses the upper swell of one of my breasts, squished against him. He licks it and groans and squeezes me tight.

We embrace as we kiss, his hands on my back now, his fingers spread. I feel everything, front to front, his frame swallowing mine in a cocoon of muscles, strength and warmth.

He edges back in the darkness, and pulls me down on the couch and draws me over his lap to straddle him.