His gaze lifts abruptly. “Shit, sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.” He starts to straighten up, but I catch his wrists now, keep him from moving too far. “It’s fine,” I say. “Really. It doesn’t need to be weird.”

“I think it’s just because we kissed,” he says.

“I think so too,” I tell him.

Still neither of us moves.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it too much,” he says.

Realizing he’s been thinking about it at all is enough to raise my body temperature a few degrees.

“Same,” I get out.

It’s been almost three weeks, and instead of the kiss fading in the rearview, it feels like every day since, I’ve been sliding closer and closer to an invisible ledge, more and more desperate to know what lies beyond it.

He meets my eyes, jaw muscles working as he swallows. Heat unfurls over me, starting where my palms are ringed around his wrists, climbing up my center.

I need to let go of him.

Instead my hands scrape up his arms. They feel amazing. Not gym arms, just arms that get a fair amount of daily use. For such a scruffy man, his skin is smooth, the hairs on his forearms fine and soft. My fingers instinctively follow the ridges of his veins up to his biceps, the anchor tattoo on one and the old-school bird on the other. I follow the curve of his shoulders, carried by an unstoppable current.

When I reach the back of his neck, he folds over me, slowly, one of his hands coming to press lightly on my waist. There’s a moment of hesitation as our mouths hover close.

I should say something, break this tension that’s been building.

Instead my chin tips up to him.

The first brush of his lips is faint, not the fevered, vengeful kiss we had against his truck. Not at first. But then my hands glide down his back, and he’s shifting to lower himself over me, and I think my nervous system might overload from the sensations: his hips heavy against mine, his chest pressing me flat, the low, hungry sound that emanates from him as the kiss deepens, more honest with our want.

He drags one of my knees up against his hip, and I see stars, little blips of color popping against my eyelids. My hips tip up to his, and my shyness disintegrates as his mouth skates down my jaw, his teeth scraping my neck.

There’s no space to worry about what he’s thinking or how I’m coming across. Because now I’m sure that he wants me, like I want him. Nothing else matters.

My hands move down to his ass and he licks the skin beneath my ear. I gasp, and he tilts his hips against mine, making me arch. This no longer feels like just making out. It’s the prelude to something bigger.

“We really shouldn’t have sex,” I hiss.

“I know,” he agrees, kissing my throat.

“I’m not ready for that,” I say, more for my benefit than his.

“Way too soon,” he agrees.

But we’re not stopping either. His hand sails up from my hip bone, his fingertips catching the bottom edge of my breast. He keeps kissing me, his fingers teasing the curve but not going higher.

Then his hand skates to the top button of my shirt. When he slips it free, a shiver passes through me. “Always so buttoned up,” he murmurs softly, teasingly. His fingers drag down my chest, and I lift under them, a wave being pulled by his tide. He undoes the next button and touches the sensitive skin there, tracing the crease of my sternum.

When I can’t take it anymore, I twist under him until his hand is over me, his grip tightening, his thumb running over my nipple.

“Thank fuck,” he says.

I grind myself against him. He hastily undoes the next button, kisses the space between my breasts, his hand still tight on me.

We try to shift, him going in toward the back of the couch, me sliding out toward the front. I almost fall off. He catches me and yanks me back against him, both of us laughing, vaguely hysterical. “I’m out of practice,” he says huskily. “Making out on couches.”

I don’t think he means it as an invitation, but it would be so easy to turn it into one. We’re twelve feet from either of our bedrooms.

If we go anywhere near a bed, I’m going to sleep with him.

I want so badly to sleep with him.

I only want to not completely destroy my living situation, like, one percent more.

What am I doing? I think.

Then he hauls me up on top of him, my knees straddling his hips, his eyes dark and glimmering and all over me, and the only thing I’m thinking about now is him.

The throw pillows have wound up under his neck, his head pushed up at a weird angle. I shift forward over him to pull two out from under his head, and he takes hold of my hips and lifts himself enough to kiss the lowest part of my chest he can get to with only the top buttons undone. The sound that comes out of me is borderline inhuman, but it only encourages him. He sweeps his mouth over me and draws my breast into his mouth, the heat of his tongue moving against me through the fabric, leaving it damp and clinging to my skin as he shifts to my other side.

I lean into the pressure, pitching my weight forward into my hands on either side of him. His palms scrape down me, and we rock together in slow, heavy waves. He pulls the open center of my shirt to one side so half of my chest is bared. “God, Daphne,” he says, dragging the open neckline back the other way, lifting himself enough to catch bare skin in his mouth this time.

I cry out from want. His cool hands climb my feverish skin under my shirt, his touch almost painfully light as his tongue moves over me more urgently. His hands slide down to squeeze my waist and he draws back, cold air stinging my skin. “You’re so sexy,” he rasps. Heat flushes from my hairline down to my thighs.

It’s not a word I’ve gotten much. Cute, pretty, sometimes beautiful. Never sexy.

“You are too,” I’m barely able to make myself whisper.

His eyes look inky and drunk as he lifts me a little, moves his hand between us, his palm between my thighs. My eyes flutter closed as he presses into me. I push myself into his touch, lean over him, bite into his neck. I feel like someone else, someone who does this all the time. Like it’s no big deal to straddle my roommate and let him lick and bite me.

His abdomen lifts and sinks on a breath. “Daphne?” he murmurs against my ear.

“Mm?” It comes out high-pitched, quivery.

He hums against my throat, his hand still moving slowly, heavily. “I know we said no sex, but can I touch you?”

I nod, throat too tight to speak. He draws his hand back up my stomach, before dipping inside my pajama shorts. “So sexy,” he whispers again, kissing my throat as his hand moves down me, his fingertips curling up and inward. I gasp, shift myself into him. His other hand falls down to my ass, gripping me, guiding me into his touch.

“I love the sounds you make,” he rasps.

I’m dimly aware that in another life, this would be unbearably embarrassing. In this one, all I can do is rock into his motion, and keep letting him coax whatever desperate noise he wants out of me. I fumble with his jeans, and he reaches down to help me, and a second later, my hand is around him, his on me, and he’s moaning too, and it’s quite possibly the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.

Then his phone starts buzzing on the coffee table.

We both glance toward it. I wait to see if he wants to stop.

He kisses me hard. I bite his lip. We’re crazed now, moving wildly.

The phone rings out. Only to start ringing again.

He sits up and pulls me snug against him, kissing me fiercely, the way we kissed in the parking lot except with so much more touching, groping, gasping, more privacy, more skin, more everything. Every piece of him feels so good, so inviting.

In the background, our movie keeps playing. Someone is being snarky and disbelieving while someone else is being cool and unbothered, and meanwhile we’re trying to get as close to each other as possible.