“That one’s in my bedroom now.”

“How did you get this one up here?”

“Archer helped me stuff it into the dumbwaiter.” She smiled down at him. “Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime,” he said and realized he absolutely meant it. No matter that what was best for him seemed to be some distance, he still wanted in her life. He’d take whatever he could.

They stared at each other some more and then started to speak at the same time. He had absolutely zero idea of what he’d been about to say, but Willa looked like she had no idea either so there was a beat of awkward silence. Then they both started again.

Shaking his head, he pointed at her. “You first,” he said at the exact second she said the same thing.

She started to laugh and shifted her weight and he had no idea how it happened, but in the next beat she was in free fall. He managed to catch her but they both went down.

He landed flat on his back with her over the top of him, an elbow in his sternum, a knee uncomfortably close to his nuts.

“Oh! Oh my God,” she cried, all aflutter as she pushed upright—using his gut for leverage. “Are you okay?”

He wasn’t sure, a feeling he was starting to get used to when it came to her. Wrapping his hand around her leg, he cautiously moved it from the danger zone. Hoping to avoid any other damage, he caught her wrists and rolled, pinning her beneath him.

There. His body was safe, she was safe, and maybe, just maybe, he was going to manage to keep his heart safe as well.

But then she let out a throaty little “mmm” and spread her legs to make room for him between them.

“Oh,” she breathed and then wriggled a little bit, making his eyes cross with lust. With a low laugh, he dropped his forehead to her shoulder.

She was killing him.

“Keane?”

“Yeah?”

She gave him a little push.

Thinking she’d come to her senses he shifted off of her but before he could get up she pushed again so that he fell to his back.

And then she claimed the top for herself. “Mmm,” she said again.

Stunned, he put his hands on her hips, his fingers digging in a little bit in a desperate attempt to get reined in. “You did that on purpose?”

“No. Well not totally anyway.” And then her mouth swooped down and covered his in a kiss meant to annihilate every single operating brain cell.

And it did.

When they broke apart for air, she was sprawled over the top of him, her pretty breasts smashed into his chest, her forearms flat to the floor on either side of his head, her legs straddling his hips so that not even a sheet of paper could have fit between them.

With a groan, he thunked his head onto the floor.

She slid her hands under the back of his head to protect it and he slid his gaze to hers. “Willa, what are we doing?”

She stared at him for a beat, chewing on her lower lip. “I was hoping it was obvious.”

“Nothing with you is ever obvious.”

“How about this—does this help?” She wriggled right over his erection and he groaned.

“You don’t seem opposed,” she murmured.

Hell no, he wasn’t opposed. But there was something in her eyes behind the hunger and desire, something just out of his reach, something she wasn’t saying. But before he could try to figure it out, she kissed him again, deeper, wetter, her sweet tongue chasing his. And either he’d just given himself a concussion or she was that good because he got lost in her. Given the breathy little pants and how her hands fought his for purchase on each other’s bodies, he wasn’t alone. She was just as lost as he.

They rolled several more times, jockeying for the driver’s seat, but finally he pinned her to the floor, his hands once again capturing hers, a thigh spreading her legs, making himself at home as all his confusion about his feelings for her vanished. They always did when they were together like this.

He wanted to believe that she felt the same, that maybe that was what she hadn’t been able to say, and he told himself she’d get there.

“Keane,” she whispered throatily, arching to him. “Please . . .”

Yeah. He intended to please. He’d please her until she cried out his name in the way she did when she came. It took less than two seconds to discover that she was indeed not wearing a bra and that her sweater was soft and stretchy, so much so that one tug exposed her perfect breasts.

Another discovery—he was incapable of logic when he had her panting and writhing beneath him like this. He had a sweet, hard nipple trapped between the roof of his mouth and his tongue, and a hand inside her panties—where he discovered with a heartfelt groan just how into him she was—when one of their phones went off with the Muppets version of “Jingle Bell Rock.”

“Ignore it,” he murmured into her mouth, his fingers slowly caressing her hot folds.

She moaned out some wordless agreement and tightened her grip on his hair, doing her best to make him bald before his next birthday, and he could care less. Her panties were cutting into the back of his hand so he gave a quick tug and accidentally ripped them right off her. He stilled. “I’ll buy you more,” he said in apology. “I—”

“I liked it,” she whispered.

Oh Christ, he was such a dead man. Rearing up, he kissed her hard and then slid down her body, pushing her skirt up as he went, groaning at what he’d exposed.

On the coffee table near his head, her phone buzzed again. He glanced over at it automatically, not meaning to invade her privacy. But then he saw the first line of the incoming text.

Haley:

Did the no-bra thing work on Keane?

 

 

“What is it?” Willa murmured.

He pushed off of her and came up on his knees. “You tell me.”

She accessed the text and grimaced. “Well, crap.” She sighed and sat up. “Okay, so I realized that I wanted to see you but not to talk, and—”

“And instead of being the promised grown-up about it and just telling me you were horny, you went back to high school and told your friends?” he asked.

“Worse,” she said with a guilty wince. “I took advice from them on what to do.”

He stood and stared down at her.

“I know!” she said. “I’m sorry! But they’re deceptively sweet and really nosy, and very bossy and convincing!”