I didn’t kiss her.

Fuck.

I’d wanted to. God knew I did. But we’d just met and I didn’t want her to think I was the same asshole Avi had talked about who stuck his dick in anything that moved.

I liked her. I wanted to be around her all the time. I wanted to read her research and then have long discussions where I could ask her a million questions and she’d answer each one excitedly.

I wanted to kiss her, but I didn’t want to fuck things up. And in trying to be careful, I probably did fuck things up.

Fuck!

I paced my apartment, my gut warring with my brain. My gut instinct was to knock on her door and take her mouth until we were both breathless and panting. My brain said we were not cavemen who followed our every base instinct. We could control ourselves and treat her like a goddamn lady.

My heart clawed at my throat when there was a forceful knock at my door. And when I opened it, there stood the lady in question.

“I heard you pacing around in here,” Larissa said.

I bowed my head, heaving out a sigh. “Sorry.”

She pushed my chin up with her fingertips. “You should have kissed me.” Then she stepped closer, her breasts skimming my chest. “But I should have kissed you too.”

I couldn’t stop my hands from tangling in the back of her hair. “I know. But sometimes I think too much.”

She fisted my shirt with both hands. “Nothing wrong with thinking, as long as it’s followed up by action.”

I bent, she raised, and we met in the middle. Her mouth was just as soft as it looked, yielding easily to the press of my lips. I got lost in her, the taste of her minty breath, the tangle of her thick hair around my fingers, the feel of her full tits against my chest. Her tongue found mine before I could seek hers out and she tipped her head to the side, deepening our connection.

I wanted to touch her everywhere, to feel the give of her flesh under my hand. But for tonight, this was enough. Her mouth was more than enough. The little sounds she made as I slid my tongue across hers. How she completely melted against me when I squeezed the back of her neck. All of it was enough to drive me the right amount of crazy.

I pulled back when I felt her smile on my lips. “You smiling at me, pretty girl?”

She licked her top lip, her cheeks flushed. “I am. I liked that.”

I rubbed my thumb up and down the side of her neck and she leaned into it, her eyelids fluttering. “Me too. I like the feel of you, Larissa.”

She pressed her tits against me. “You can touch me.”

I groaned, both inwardly and outwardly. “You have no idea how much I want to. But I need tonight to be about the best fuckin’ kiss I’ve had in my life.”

She sucked in a breath, her swollen lips parting slightly. “You’re right. That kiss deserves to stand alone.”

With my thumb, I tipped her chin up. “I think if we keep kissing, it could all count as part of the same kiss.”

She nipped at my bottom lip with her teeth. “I think you’re absolutely right. Very good point.”

I didn’t know how long we stood in my doorway kissing, but I was basically delirious by the time Larissa stumbled back to her place. It could have been oxygen deprivation, but more likely it was just her. She did crazy things to me. Made me feel a lot of things about myself and about what I could have that I hadn’t felt before. I’d never had such an insta-connection with someone else, but it was there, pulsing between us almost tangibly.

At loose ends the next day, I decided to grab my bike out of the basement and attach it to my trainer back in my apartment. A really long workout sounded like exactly what I needed to keep myself from camping out outside Larissa’s door, begging for attention.

Normally I was so busy with work and life I didn’t have time to obsess over women. But I had a week of nothing laid out before me and that, combined with the fact only one wall separated me from a gorgeous, lush woman who I was kinda desperate to see naked, left me pretty needy for her in a bad way.

When I reached our landing, my rear tire scuffed and banged against the wall. Larissa’s door cracked open and she poked her head out.

“What’s with the racket, mister?” she asked.

I set down the bike and flexed my biceps. “Oh, did you come for the gun show?”

She closed her door and my breath caught in my throat. Shit. Guess that wasn’t as funny as I thought. But a second later she opened the door again, laughing.

“Please never say that again,” she said.

“Hey, I got to see your smile, so I might have to say it again...and again…”

She pulled the corners of her mouth down with her fingers. “Not smiling now. Frowning profusely.”

Grinning, I leaned my bike against the wall and stepped close to her. “I’m going to have to hug you now.”

She laid her hands on my chest, smiling back. “And I’m going to have to let you.”

Wrapping my arms around her shoulders, I pulled her against me. Her arms circled my waist and she laid her head on my shoulder. I liked that she wasn’t super short so I didn’t have to contort myself to hold her. And her body was so pliant, it molded to mine perfectly. I was half-hard just from hugging her.

I pressed a soft kiss to her temple. “What are you up to?” I asked.

“Well, right now, I’m taking part in a delicious hug. But before this, I was doing some writing.”

I kissed a trail down the side of her face to her jaw. “I was just about to ride my bike.”

“Inside?”

“Yep. On my trainer.”

“Would it be weird if I watched you?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, but, like, a good weird. The thing is, I usually go for a couple hours, so I have a feeling once the novelty wears off you’ll be bored.”

She stepped out of our hug. “I’ll go get my laptop. I needed a change of scenery. I’ve been sitting at my desk since six this morning.”

Larissa disappeared inside her apartment, and I went into mine to set up my bike. She came in as I was attaching the rear tire to the trainer.

“I’m just going to sit on your couch and periodically ogle you. Deal?”

She looked so sexy and sweet in her glasses, with her hair piled on top of her head and her sweater slipping off her shoulder, I forgot to speak for a second.

I cleared my throat. “Deal. As long as I can return the favor.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Didn’t you just do that?”

“Not nearly enough.”

She plopped down on my couch with her legs tucked under her. “Well, ogle away.” Then she opened her laptop and started typing as if she sat there every day, doing the exact same thing. I just stared at her, drinking my fill and thinking how good she looked in my apartment, on my couch. It was hard to believe I hadn’t known she existed less than a week ago.

Slipping in my earbuds, I turned on my music and started my ride. My trainer mimicked a real bike ride, so it felt like I was pedaling up and down hills as well as riding flat. When I rode my bike outside, I normally went thirty to forty miles. I couldn’t do that every day since it was a big time commitment, but I usually managed to do it two or three times a week, with shorter rides interspersed here and there.

I’d dated girls in the past who got annoyed with my bike rides, but it wasn’t something I was willing to give up. I had the kind of mind that had to keep busy, or bouts of anxiety would creep in. Reading was the answer a lot of the time, but I was full of this excess energy that buzzed through my limbs and had to be released. Biking long distances quieted my brain and gave me the release I needed.

Larissa was fully immersed in what she was doing, and so was I, but every once in a while, we’d catch each other’s eye, and it was all I could do not to go flying off my bike. She had me off-balance and twisted up, but only in the best way.

I spent an hour and a half riding, and when I got off, I was soaked with sweat. Larissa looked up over her computer and smiled at me.

“Gross,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it.

I lifted the hem of my T-shirt to wipe my face. “Okay, that wasn’t so gross,” she conceded. “What’s it like to be all muscly like that?”

Toeing my shoes off, I shook my legs out. “Since I’m not allowed to brag about my guns, I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“I wasn’t particularly admiring your ‘guns’, although they’re lovely. I’ve always been soft, so I don’t know what it’s like to be hard like you are.”

Walking into the living room, I stood in front of her, letting my eyes roam over her face and bare shoulder. “I like your soft.”

She smirked. “Oh, I know you do. And I like your...hard.”

“God, I want to kiss you right now, but I’m really disgusting.”

She snorted and shook her head, like she’d just told herself a joke.

“What?” I asked.

“I was about to say, ‘I like your disgusting’, but I really don’t. I’m sorry. I want to be one of those girls who lets a big sweaty man rub all over them, but I’m just not. Take a shower and you can rub on me as much as you want.”

A surprised laugh burst out of me. “See ya! Going to take a shower now! Got a girl I need to rub all over.”

She stood from the couch, stretching her arms above her head. “I need a break. I think I might go for a walk if I don’t freeze when I go outside.”

“Can I invite myself to come along?”

She picked up her computer. “We just hung out for nearly two hours. Aren’t you sick of me?”

I pointed over my shoulder. “But I was over there and you were over here. Doesn’t count.”

She mulled it over for a moment. “Sure. Just knock on my door when you’re ready. We can go get coffee?”

I tugged on a strand of her hair. “Give me fifteen minutes.”