“What?”

“I didn’t stutter, Dani.”

“But you haven’t said a word to me since we talked by the shed.”

“Because you told me you had no interest in being anything more than professional with each other.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you would come here.”

“Because I just…” He huffs out a breath, frowning as he looks away from me. “I don’t know, okay? I just know I want to text you every fucking day, and I don’t, because you don’t want me to, and I just…fuck. How stupid is it that I miss you busting my balls as often as you possibly can?”

I blink, trying to process this, and then my nose wrinkles. “I don’t do that.”

“That’s the part you’re focusing on?”

“I don’t know what to make of the rest of it. None of what you just said makes any fucking sense.”

That weary look rests heavier on him now, and he shakes his head. “Trust me, Dani. It doesn’t make any sense to me either.”

I can’t do anything except stand there uselessly, my heart thudding in my chest in an unsteady rhythm that I can practically feel in my throat. He missed me. He missed me? What am I supposed to do with that information? He can’t miss me. That’s not what this is. It’s not what we have ever been.

So again, why do I feel so…relieved?

“You can’t miss me,” I say softly, not at all what I wanted to say but what comes out regardless. My throat feels like it might be closing up. It feels like it’s getting harder and harder to catch my breath.

I gasp softly when he takes a step toward me, his finger coming to rest just under my chin as he tilts my face up to meet his. “Why?”

“Because—” I swallow around the giant lump in my throat, panic churning in my stomach. “Because I shouldn’t have missed you.”

There’s a hint of relief on his face as well, slight but there. “But you did.”

I don’t answer, because I can’t. I physically can’t. I don’t even know what’s happening right now, but I’m terrified that I’m going to regret it tomorrow. I should know better than this. If Grant taught me anything, it was to be careful not to let my guard down. I should know better.

“It’s okay,” he says softly, saving me the need. “I missed you too.”

I feel his other hand gliding down my bare arm, leaving goose bumps everywhere he touches. It’s terrifying, how good it feels. That panic inside is clawing its way into my chest; everything in my head is screaming at me to run, to get out of this room, that this is dangerous territory that will leave me in uncharted waters until I’m drowning—and maybe that’s why I try to pull away.

“I didn’t miss you,” I say too loudly. “And you didn’t miss me.” I try to untangle myself from his grip, his fingers wrapped around my arm a little tighter than they were moments ago. “This is stupid. It was just sex, Ezra. That’s all it’s ever been. There’s no way that you—”

His hand cups my jaw, squeezing gently, the words dying on my tongue as he forces me to meet his gaze. “Tell me you want me to go,” he says carefully, each word slow and deliberate. “Tell me that, and I will. Tell me to let you go, and I’ll walk out of here and leave.”

I open my mouth to do that, but the words won’t come. Why won’t they come?

Because you don’t want them to.

I shut my eyes tight, pressing my lips together as I try to make my tongue form one simple sentence that will put a stop to all of this nonsense.

“Tell me to leave, Dani.” Ezra’s voice is quiet now, and I can feel the warmth of his breath only inches from my mouth. “Or I’m going to kiss you. Tell me to leave, or you’re going to let me kiss you.”

I make a sound that might embarrass me on any normal day, something like a muted whimper that’s caught in my throat. I’m trembling all over—from nerves or anticipation I’m not sure—and I know all it would take is a few simple words to send him away. A few words, and that would be the end of it. It’s what I should do.

I kiss him instead.

It’s always been frantic with Ezra, this thing between us. Every time I’ve ever touched him, it’s felt like some race to a faraway finish line. Like a short burst of something with an inevitable end. And that frenetic energy is still there when my arms wind around his neck, when his hands cup my face as if he might somehow pull me impossibly closer—but that finish line seems…more distant at this moment. Less of a race. For once, it feels like it’s okay to just take my time.

I know that later I will pick apart that feeling, analyze it until my head hurts, but right now…Right now I let myself focus on the warmth of his mouth against mine, on the weight of his hands as they slide down my throat before roving over the front of my dress.

“Remember when I said you looked nice in this dress?”

It’s hard to think with his tongue dipping past my lips, but I do my best. “Yeah?”

“I lied.” I barely have time to process if he’s insulting me or not, because his arm wraps around me, molding me to the front of him before one heavy palm cups my ass through my dress. “You look fucking beautiful.”

I make that sound again, the embarrassing one, but I don’t feel a scrap of embarrassment, miraculously. My head falls back as his lips wander, down my jaw and my neck and lower still as his tongue lightly flicks at my clavicle, which peeks out over the neckline of my dress. Distantly I register the sound of the lock clicking on the bathroom door, and even more distantly I know this should be setting off alarm bells, that I should be pulling away, but I don’t do any of that. I can’t physically make myself pull away from him.

I gasp when he spins me, pushing me against the vanity and smoothing his hands over my hips as his lips brush along my shoulder. His voice is low, making me shiver. “Do you know how crazy you make me?” His fingertips tease at the hem of my skirt, drawing it upward slowly. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else but the way your skin feels since the first time I touched you.”

“Ezra—”

Whatever I’d been about to say morphs into a moan when his fingers curl over my thigh to slide over the fabric of my underwear, teasing my slit through the material. “Already wet,” he sighs. “Always so fucking wet for me. Even when you pretend to hate me, your body can’t lie.”

I should be telling him to fuck off, or at least, I think I should—it’s hard to think when he presses his hard length against my ass, thrusting slightly as he continues to trace a slow back-and-forth over my underwear.

“Tell me how you want me,” he breathes against my ear, his teeth nipping the lobe. “I’ll give you anything you want if you tell me, Dani.”

Tell him you don’t want anything. Tell him that you—

“Hard,” I rasp. “I want to feel it tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” he groans, tongue tracing the shell of my ear. “You’re fucking perfect.”

I feel his palm flatten against my spine as he bends me over the vanity, and vaguely I recognize the ruffling sounds of him digging in his pockets, catching sight of his wallet from the mirror as he pulls out a familiar foil packet.

I manage to cock a brow at his reflection, but the sarcasm is lost to the throaty tone of my voice. “Someone was confident.”

“Just wishful thinking,” he says with a lazy smile. I almost swallow my tongue as I watch him rip the packet open with his teeth before he spits the excess foil away. “Always wishful thinking when it comes to you.”

I have to avert my eyes just to try to slow the racing of my heart, but I can hear everything. The metal grinding of his zipper as he slides it down. The crinkling of foil as he removes the condom. The soft sound he makes as he slides it on. It’s almost worse somehow. Hearing it without seeing it. It means my head is full of nothing but him.

I bite my lip as he shoves my dress over my hips, bite it harder when he drags my underwear down to let them pool around my ankles before I toe them away—and where there should be discomfort at him pausing to stare at me, to take me in, strangely I find there is only pure thrill from the almost tangible vibration of raw need I can sense from him. It almost matches mine.