Lori stood next to the front desk of the hotel in which she and Ander had spent so many evenings, waiting for the assistant manager to return with her overnight bag.

She’d left it there three nights ago. After checking into the room, she’d dropped off her things—her lingerie and toiletries—on the assumption that she and Ander would return to the room after ice skating. She’d thought she was being very practical and efficient, avoiding the necessity of lugging the bag around with her, but they’d never made it back to the hotel. And she’d completely forgotten about it until a member of the hotel staff called to let her know they were holding the bag until she could claim it.

It felt odd—being in the hotel again. Every detail of the marble entryway floor and the elegant décor of the lobby was familiar. But she doubted she’d ever reserve a room at this hotel again. It reminded her of Ander.

Who hadn’t replied to her email.

Telling him that she could no longer engage his services had been painful. He’d been awake and sitting up in the bed when she returned from the bathroom that morning. And his eyes were knowing and wise.

Ander had more experience with the world than any man she’d ever met. He must have expected something to happen.

She’d stammered out some sort of explanation, concluding with how she couldn’t be his client anymore. As she’d spoken, Ander’s expression had grown more and more shuttered.

“I’m sorry,” she’d said shakily, trying to counter the way Ander was closing himself off as she watched. “It just doesn’t feel professional to me anymore. I just can’t.”

“Lori, it doesn’t have to be—”

“It’s all messed up,” she interrupted, terrified of what he might say. She wasn’t prepared to hear anything that might come out of his mouth. “There’s no way it won’t be messed up between us now. I don’t feel the way I should.”

“I don’t feel—”

“Ander, please. I’m so sorry.” His attempts to speak and the expression in his eyes was sending her into a panic.

She didn’t know what he wanted to say, but she’d been picking up little signs and clues from him for months. And finally, after the intensity of the night before, the pieces were all falling into place. She didn’t know exactly how he felt about her, but she knew she wasn’t the only one with strong feelings. But she couldn’t let him say it, not even what she was longing for him to say. “Anything you say is going to confuse things even more. I can’t be with you anymore.”

Then she added in a weak mumble, since she couldn’t stand the sound of her last words. “Not now, anyway.”

Ander’s face had frozen into an empty calm, and she knew he would no longer try to argue.

“I’d like to be friends,” she’d added, even knowing his expression boded the worst. “If...if you think it’s possible. I know things have not been quite right between us, but you mean a lot to me. And I’d like...I’d like to be friends.”

When he didn’t respond, she said lamely, “I’ll email you. We can just...just see.”

Ander was sitting mostly naked in the bed, the sheet draped over his lap. And it had been the hardest thing in the world for her to put her shoes on and get ready to leave him.

She hesitated before she left, the world unbalanced beneath her feet. “I...I’m sorry. I don’t know if I need to pay you for last night.”

And that had snuffed any slim possibility of a fond farewell.

That morning, Lori had been working on fear, on self-preservation, on the need to recover any part of her security. But she’d screwed everything up. She’d handled it terribly. She’d emailed Ander later that day to apologize and try to explain herself better, but he hadn’t yet replied to her email.

She was pretty sure now he wasn’t going to.

She was certain about her decision. She wasn’t sure of the nature of Ander’s feelings, but she was pretty sure he saw her as more than a client. She and Ander, however, had only ever related in ways that were unnatural or artificial because it had always been about her paying him. While they’d managed to bond despite the circumstances, she couldn’t see it leading to a healthy relationship.

They had to take a step back before they could ever take a step forward, and now any step forward seemed impossible.

An assistant manager came out to return her overnight bag, and after Lori thanked him he said, “Your friend is in the bar, if you’re looking for him.”

Lori blinked. “My friend?”

“Yes. Your friend. He’s in the bar. Your pardon, ma’am, I thought you were here to meet him.”

She mumbled out thanks and walked through the lobby toward the hotel bar. It was almost seven in the evening but the bar wasn’t very crowded.

Lori stood in the entrance and stared at a man seated alone at one of the pub tables with his back to the door.

He was lean and urban in well-tailored trousers and expensive leather shoes. He had one swallow of scotch left in his glass. And he was completely bald.

Without questioning the instinct, Lori walked over to him. She pulled a chair up next to him at the table and perched on the edge.

Ander twitched in surprise at her appearance, but that was his only reaction. He took a sip of his scotch and looked at her steadily without speaking or smiling.

“Hi.” She gave him a tentative smile.

“Hi.”

“You didn’t return my email.”

He hesitated, running his tongue along the line between his lips.

“Were you going to?” she prompted, making sure she didn’t sound annoyed or pushy.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry about the other day,” Lori said, trying once again to make herself clear. “I did it all wrong. I’m sorry if I hurt you. Or...or if I treated you thoughtlessly.”

Ander let out a small breath. “It’s all right. I understand why you made the decision. I just think there were other options than the one you chose.”

“There were,” Lori admitted, her belly twisting with nerves. She couldn’t—she just couldn’t—let Ander offer her another option. If it was something even close to what she desperately wanted, she wouldn’t be able to resist taking it.

And their messy relationship would only get messier.

“But this is the only option that can work. Don’t you see?” Her voice cracked in her earnestness. “I’ve been paying you to fuck me for months. And I’m not the only woman who does. You’re a male escort. I can’t stand the thought of you with your other clients. I hate them. Hate them. I’m not going to be able to get over it. And, even if you were to quit later on, we still have this unnatural dynamic between us. Taking away the money isn’t going to magically fix things. I don’t know what you...what you want from me, but all we can be now is friends.”

Ander stared at her for a long time. But she could tell he was actually thinking about what she said. Finally, he nodded his head.

Lori let out a gust of air. For the first time, she felt a flare of hope. “Please, Ander, don’t shut down on me. I think...I think we could really help each other. I still want you in my life. I need you in my life.”

He finished off the last of his scotch and stared at the table for an agonizingly long time. Until at last he murmured, “I need you too.”

***

“Okay!” Lori called out from Ander’s kitchen. Very carefully, she carried a small chocolate cake with caramel icing and ten lit candles over toward the living area. Since all that separated his kitchen from his living room was a granite-topped counter, she made it without incident. “It’s ready.”

Ander had been reading on his sofa while Lori prepared his cake. As she approached, she saw him close the book and discreetly tuck it into his leather case, which was set on the floor near the couch.

He’d been doing that a lot lately—removing whatever book he happened to be reading from her sight. She didn’t comment on it, though. Just grinned as she set down the cake.

“Happy birthday to you,” she began to sing, with exaggerated jollity and mostly on key.

Ander made a face as she began but by the time she finished the song and clapped her hands, he was chuckling. Then she watched him expectantly as he leaned over to blow out the candles.

“Did you make a wish first?” she demanded.

“Of course.” Ander’s mouth twitched as he examined the cake whose preparation had taken hours of her morning. “Did you make this cake yourself?”

“Yes. And don’t you dare laugh at it. Baking is not one of my talents. But I did the best I could.”

“It looks great. You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble.”

She slanted him an indignant glare. “Why the hell shouldn’t I have gone through the trouble?”

Ander’s lips twitched again.

Feeling a rush of warmth at the familiar sight of his handsome, amused face, Lori explained, “I couldn’t fit all thirty-four candles on your little cake.”

He gave her a cool glare from under his eyelashes that made Lori giggle. Then he admitted, “Yesterday was my birthday, you know. Not today.”

She handed him the knife so he could cut them both a slice and place them on the plates she’d laid out on the coffee table earlier. “I know. But you were the idiot who scheduled an engagement on your birthday. So I had to make do and move the celebration to tonight.”

Lori would never admit it, but she was a little hurt that Ander had done such a thing.

They never talked about his work. She knew he was gone in the evenings sometimes. He took his case, and he never said a word about what he did. He must have cut back on his clients significantly, as he’d told her he was doing. He wasn’t gone more than two or three nights a week now.

It had been two months since she’d been Ander’s client. After running into each other in the hotel bar, they’d slowly fallen into a friendship. At first, it had been a little awkward. Lori was nervous around Ander, and Ander was rather standoffish. But they’d grown gradually more comfortable with each other, and now Lori saw him or talked to him almost every day.

But she hated that he hadn’t retired from the male escort business. She still hated the thought of every one of his clients and everything he did with them. Hated that he wouldn’t stop objectifying and devaluing himself—which might not be part of everyone’s experience as an escort but were certainly part of his. She wouldn’t judge him, knew the reasons that led to prostitution were too complex for her to truly understand.

But she wanted Ander to stop. And he hadn’t.

In some ways, it was safer this way. As long as he continued in his profession, there would be no remote possibility of a romance developing between them. And that barrier made it easier for Lori to get over a lot of the confusion and self-delusion she’d suffered before.

She still hated it though. Every time Ander picked up his case and went out to meet a client.

He’d even scheduled an appointment on his birthday, when he must have known she’d want to celebrate it with him.

For the last month, he’d had an engagement every Wednesday evening. It was worrisome because she was afraid it might be a regular client, and regular clients were somehow more threatening than occasional ones.

After all, look how deeply she’d fallen herself when she’d been his regular client.

“I’m sorry I was busy last night,” Ander said softly, as if he’d read at least some of her thoughts.

Lori shook away her heavy thoughts. She was silly to brood about it. Her friendship with Ander was thriving, and it was much better than what they’d had before. Yes, she missed the sex. Sometimes so much she thought she would explode. But it felt like they were building something real between them—even in such incongruous circumstances—so she wasn’t going to gripe that it hadn’t worked out like a fairy tale or a silly movie.

Beaming at him, she said, “That’s all right. We’ll just pretend your birthday is today.”

They ate cake and drank Burgundy, which Ander insisted was a perfect complement to chocolate cake. They chatted easily until Lori brought up a subject she’d been pestering Ander about for almost a month.

“I need to send in the little card that says I’ll attend the wedding,” she said, trying for a casual tone. “I should say it’s me and a guest, right?”

Ander eyed her, mild but unwavering. “Only if you’ve found yourself a date.”

Lori huffed. “Don’t be that way, Ander. You know I want you to come with me.”

“And you know that I can’t. I have other plans.”

“Well, your plans are ridiculous. What kind of fucking client would hire you for an entire month? I mean, that’s just selfish and creepy.” Lori was so annoyed her teeth practically snapped together. She hadn’t believed Ander when he told her he’d be out of the country next month—for the entire month—on work. But evidently it was true.

The thought of some other woman having Ander at her disposal for a whole month made Lori ill. And it wasn’t just jealousy—although there was certainly plenty of that. It was the thought of Ander being on call for all that time, expected to please some woman’s smallest wish for so long.

It couldn’t possibly be good for him.

“Lori,” Ander said, an edge of warning in his tone.

“I mean it,” she insisted, her voice thickening as her emotions rose, “Ander, just cancel that job—whatever it is. I don’t care what kind of fortune she’s paying you. It’s not worth it. It...it worries me.”

Ander’s eyes scanned her face, first questioningly and then almost tenderly. He reached out and put a gentle hand on her cheek for just a moment before he removed it. “I’ll be fine, Lori. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Well, I do worry about you,” she muttered, disappointed that he hadn’t changed his mind about that job. But he’d been doing this for years. Surely he knew his limitations, and it wasn’t her role to interfere. To lighten the mood, she added, “You’re sometimes kind of stupid, you know.”

At his arched eyebrows, she snickered. “I’m not saying you’re the only one.”

Ander smiled at her and she recognized the gesture as a peace offering. She smiled back.

There was no reason for her to obsess about this. Ander was a grown man and he had to make his own decisions. All she could be was his friend. As long as he didn’t push her away, she would be content.

As she scraped the last of the icing off her plate, Lori couldn’t help but return to her previous concern. “But can’t you come to the wedding with me anyway? I have to go. You know he was my best friend in high school. I can’t miss his wedding.”

“I don’t expect you to miss his wedding,” Ander said imperturbably. “There’s no reason you can’t go by yourself.”

Lori groaned and rubbed her face. “I don’t want to go by myself. It will be so awkward. I mean, I was in love with him for so long, and he knew it. Can’t you take a day or two off from your engagement that month and fly back to go with me? I’ll pay for your airfare and everything.”

Ander slanted her a sharp look.

“Not like that,” she gasped. “I didn’t mean...obviously I didn’t mean I’d treat you like an escort. I just meant, if you’re nice enough to come all the way back, you shouldn’t have to pay that extra money.”

His nod showed he understood she hadn’t meant to imply he was at her service, but he hadn’t changed his mind. “I’m not coming back, Lori. You don’t need me to go to the wedding with you.”

“Yes, I do!”

“No, you don’t.” His tone and his eyes were unyielding. “You just want me to go so you won’t feel insecure, but you have nothing to feel insecure about. You’ve done remarkable things with yourself since you left high school. You don’t need to drag a man along with you as a prop to give yourself value in their eyes.”

Lori scowled, her flash of anger intensified by her suspicions that he was entirely right about her unconscious motivations. “That’s arrogant and obnoxious,” she snapped, “There’s nothing unusual about wanting to bring a date to a wedding. Anyone might feel awkward by themselves.”

“Anyone might,” Ander allowed, not at all affected by her indignation. “But you want me to come because you still feel second-best. I won’t support those feelings. Ever. Go by yourself. And prove that having a man doesn’t equal success.”

One part of Lori almost melted at the bland words—it was as if he’d seen into her soul and knew exactly which wounds still needed healing. But another part of her was frustrated and annoyed.

For so long, Ander had done anything she wanted. His role in her life had been to please her because she’d paid him to do so. And moving away from that was sometimes a hard transition. It was hard to recognize that Ander’s will was just as strong as hers and that he could be even more stubborn.

When it didn’t matter to him, he was still accommodating and considerate, but she’d never be able to push him around.

The fact that she was just learning this now was one more sign of how unnatural their interactions had been before.

She curled up her lip to show him she wasn’t pleased. “I could always take someone besides you.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “You’re more than welcome to do so. Any possibilities?”

Lori sniffed. “Phil Rothe is available again.” To her delight, she managed to say the words without cracking a smile.

Ander choked on stifled amusement. Then he couldn’t stifle it. Lori watched with a tender ache as he laughed openly, his face transformed with warmth and his body shaking with the tremors of his hilarity.

“You go right ahead and take Rothe to the wedding,” Ander said at last, laughter still evident in his voice. “That would prove...something.”

Giving up her bad mood, Lori leaned back against the sofa cushion and smiled up at Ander’s face. “I guess I’ll have to go by myself.” For good measure, she muttered, not quite under her breath, “Jerk.”

Ander’s lips twitched. “Did you just call me a jerk?” He stood up and picked up the plates to carry into the kitchen. “Want some more wine?”

“Sure,” she replied absently. Her eyes had come to rest on Ander’s leather case on the floor, and she experienced a sudden, very familiar surge of curiosity.

Impulsively, she leaned over, opened the case, and pulled out the book Ander had been reading before.

He hadn’t wanted her to see it for some reason.

She stared at the cover. It didn’t look particularly clandestine or exciting. Some sort of history book on early Aegean art and architecture. Glancing at the spine, she saw a sticker from a university bookstore. She flipped through the pages and noticed most of them were marked in the margins with Ander’s small, precise script.

Vaguely baffled on why he would have wanted to hide such a boring book, she pulled out a few sheets of paper that were folded and stuck inside.

It was a syllabus for a graduate-level class on ancient Mediterranean archeology. A class that, from the time listed under the title, met Wednesday evenings from six to nine.

She was staring down at the syllabus blankly when suddenly it was snatched away. His jaw set and lips pressed tightly together, Ander glared coldly as he pulled the book out of her grip as well.

“What is this?” she rasped. “Are you taking an archeology class?”

“I put the book in my case because I didn’t want you to see it,” he bit out. “Will you ever get over this childish habit of snooping?”

“No,” she said, brushing off his cold tone. “That’s what I do. Ander, tell me what’s going on. Are you taking that class? On Wednesdays?”

Despite her confusion and a little pang of hurt that he would have kept something like this from her, another feeling was starting to swell in her heart.

Hope.

Ander stared at her stonily for another minute, but gradually his face relaxed into tired resignation. “Yes. I’m taking the class.”

“And it meets on Wednesdays? That’s where you were last night?”

“Yes. That’s where I was.”

“What about your clients? Your engagements?”

Ander rubbed a hand over his smooth bald head, and he looked rather uncomfortable as he admitted, “There are no clients.”

“What?” Her whole body was shaking with shock, bewilderment and expectation.

Meeting her eyes, Ander said simply, as if he weren’t upending her entire world, “I have no clients anymore. I’ve retired.”

“But all those evenings you’re gone—with your case?”

Reluctantly, Ander pulled up his case and set it between them on the couch. He opened it and tilted it over so Lori could see inside. No condoms, DVDs, vibrators, or props. Just books, pens and pencils, a notebook, and a small laptop. “I don’t go to meet clients. I have classes, seminars, or go to the library to study.”

Lori sprawled back on the couch, so overcome she felt limp and weak. “I can’t believe this. You’re working on a degree?”

Ander nodded and looked a little sheepish “A PhD in Archeology.”

“And the job all next month?”

“A field project on Santorini.”

“Oh, God, Ander,” Lori said hoarsely. “Why didn’t you tell me? We’re supposed to be friends. You’ve been lying to me all this time.”

Ander leaned over and pulled her up again so she was sitting upright. He kept his hands on her shoulders, their weight warm and strong. “I’m sorry, Lori. But, yes. I was lying to you.”

“For how long?”

“A long time.”

Suddenly, Lori’s heart started to hammer, and her blood began to throb through her veins. “When did you stop seeing clients, Ander?” she whispered.

Ander took a breath and moistened his lips. Then he admitted in a raspy voice, “You were my last client.”

Somehow, she knew there was more. “And when did you stop seeing all the others, Ander? You told me you were cutting back.”

“I was cutting back. Cutting back on all of them but you. Sarah Jacoby was the last.”

“Oh God!” Lori felt like the world was spinning around her. She pulled out of Ander’s hands and got off the couch. She paced the room restlessly, not even seeing the wide expanse of sunny windows, the solid, historic furniture, or the books and art that were scattered around.

When she felt like she could breathe and speak normally, she returned to Ander on the sofa. “But why?”

It took a long time before Ander answered. Then he said without a trace of his normal eloquence, “I...I didn’t want to do that...to myself. Anymore.”

And it was enough. Lori understood. There might be more to the explanation—in fact, she knew there must be more since he hadn’t stopped seeing her as a client—but Lori didn’t need it. Not until Ander was ready to tell her.

He’d understood everything she did about how unhealthy that job was for him. Understood it far earlier than Lori had hoped. Months ago now.

His retirement was not a dramatic gesture made in hopes of achieving a romantic fantasy. He’d done it for himself—because the man he’d been for the last ten years wasn’t who he wanted to be.

There was another question she needed to ask but she wasn’t yet ready to ask it. Wasn’t yet ready to hear the answer.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she asked instead, reaching out to put a hand on his knee so he’d know she wasn’t mad.

Ander exhaled thickly and shook his head. “A lot of reasons. Your being my client made it difficult for a full confession.”

“I haven’t been your client for the last two months. And yet you’ve kept on lying to me.” She spoke gently, not wanting the words to sting.

Apparently they did anyway. Ander turned his head away with a jerk. “I know. I am sorry. If it helps, I’ve felt like an ass about it. But it was a delicate situation. And I dug myself into a hole by letting the ruse go on for so long. And, also, I thought perhaps—if you knew I was no longer seeing clients—you might not let yourself get so close to me.”

He seemed almost embarrassed at the last admission, but he cut his eyes over to check her expression.

The words were presumptuous, perhaps, but they were also entirely true. She would have been far too scared to get this close to Ander if she’d known he’d retired from his life as a gigolo.

“Oh.”

“I hope this hasn’t destroyed our friendship,” Ander said, for the first time sounding upset. “I hope you can forgive me.”

Maybe she was still in shock. Maybe she hadn’t yet fully processed everything he’d told her and everything it implied.

But Lori was actually starting to feel kind of giddy.

“Oh, Ander,” she murmured, reaching over to pull him into a hug, “After all the secrets we’ve kept from each other, did you really think one more was going to destroy us?”

Ander returned her hug immediately, wrapping his arms around her with an urgency she hadn’t felt from him in two months. She squeezed his firm body in her arms, pressing her face into his clean-smelling shirt and reveling in the delicious warmth of his presence.

“You don’t have any other secrets I don’t know, do you?” Lori asked, muffled by his shoulder.

Ander lifted his head from where he’d had it buried in her hair. And he said a little tentatively, “I...I don’t think so.”

Which implied that everything he still left unsaid were things she should already know.

When they pulled away, both of them were smiling.

Then they both leaned back against the couch, as if this revelation had worn them out.

“Thank God that’s out,” Ander groaned, stretching out his legs and looking over at her beside him. “I can’t tell you how stressful it was trying to hide the evidence.”

Lori chuckled. “I didn’t suspect a thing. I never would have guessed you’d want to go into archeology. I still think you should be a sex therapist or write that book. You know so much.”

“Yeah. But I want...I want to do something entirely different. I have enough baggage. I don’t want to always bring it with me to work.”

Lori thought about that. Then she nodded, “I guess that makes sense. But why archeology?”

He gave a half-shrug. “I’ve always loved history, art, languages, and culture. You know that. I actually took a couple of classes last year, just out of interest. So when I was trying to think of what I might like to do, it was what I came up with.”

“I think it’s a good idea. Combines all your areas of interest.” She grinned at him. “Are you going to wear wrinkled khakis now? Or maybe a fedora like Indiana Jones?”

Ander snorted. “I’ll do my best to avoid it.”

“You didn’t think about going into business?” Lori asked. “I bet you could be a CEO at some company in less than a decade.”

Ander’s mouth turned up in a smile that was just a little bitter. “Maybe. But that’s my father’s thing. And it’s another kind of baggage I didn’t want to bring with me to work.”

Feeling a surge of tenderness, of protectiveness, of affection, Lori leaned over and pressed a soft kiss on his cheek.

Drawing his brows together, Ander asked, “What was that for?”

“That was for being so smart,” she said with another smile. “You definitely made the right choice about your career. And I’m so glad you’ll be able to do your own thing.”

***

“So the wedding went all right?”

Lori had pulled out wine glasses from her cupboard and was digging through a drawer for a corkscrew. “Yeah. It was actually pretty fun. Everyone was all into my books. And no one thought anything about my not having a date.”

She recognized the quality of the silence from the other room, so she added quickly, “But don’t you dare say you told me so.”

She found the corkscrew and carried it with the glasses into the other room, where Ander was putting in the DVD. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured.

Lori was grinning like a maniac but she couldn’t seem to help it.

The month Ander had been on his archeological field project on Santorini had seemed endless. She’d missed him horribly, so much it was almost embarrassing.

But now he was finally back.

“Do we really have to watch this movie?” Ander asked with a long-suffering expression. He wore a white t-shirt and gray trousers with no shoes or socks, and he looked so scrumptious she wanted to swallow him whole.

“Yes,” she said, sticking out her chin to show her stubbornness. “It will be fun. You can mock it to your heart’s content.”

“But Pretty Woman?” Ander’s voice was edged with skepticism and reluctance.

“Just watch it,” she said, scowling at him.

He chuckled as he picked up his wine and the remote. “Your good mood didn’t last very long, did it?”

She flopped down next to him. “You have no one to blame but yourself.” But she gave him a sideways glance, drinking in the sight of his relaxed face and his tanned skin from hours in the Mediterranean sun. He’d apparently had a really good trip, the field project sealing his determination to go into archeology. She was so glad he’d found something that might help him feel fulfilled, despite the gaping hole he’d left in her life during his absence.

She sighed, trapped between poignancy and joy. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

Ander laughed again, but he put his arm around her to give her a squeeze. “Me too.”

They watched the movie. Lori managed to basically enjoy the fluffy, implausible sap, despite a snide running commentary from Ander. She didn’t complain, since she’d told him he was allowed to mock. But she took vengeance by snuggling up against him.

He wasn’t normally a touchy-feely person. Since they’d canceled their business arrangement, Ander rarely initiated anything more than brief, casual touches. But he was the one who put his arm around her, so she figured she could consider that the first move.

She leaned against him happily as she watched and let herself enjoy the simple pleasure of being close to him.

They’d reached the final scene of the movie—the blissful reconciliation in a swell of romantic feeling without the slightest hint at realism or basic human truths. Lori tried to get into the fantasy-spirit, but Ander’s ironic snorting kept getting in the way.

Pressed against his side, her legs curled up on the sofa, Lori peered up at him. “Didn’t you have fun?”

Ander tried to give her a look of cool disapproval, but his adorably twitching mouth revealed his true mood.

“You know what I was thinking?” Lori asked, straightening up although she couldn’t bring herself to draw away from his cozy side.

Ander didn’t pull his arm away. “That you’d like to run off with Richard Gere?”

She stifled a snicker. “No. I was thinking about how the first thing we did together was watch a movie.”

“Actually, the first thing we did together was get coffee and walk over to the park.”

Lori huffed. “I’m making a point here.”

“I see. And little details like accuracy keep getting in the way. Very annoying.”

She knew him well enough to know he was in high-spirits tonight. He didn’t reveal a rush of giddiness like Lori always did, but his irrepressible banter and warm eyes gave him away. She felt another urge to hug him but managed to repress it this time. “Do you want to hear my point or not?”

“Yes,” he said. “Actually I do. What is it?”

Lori paused. Then huffed again. “Now I’ve forgotten it.”

“It had something to do with watching a movie together. Fond memories of that erotic film?”

“It was good,” she said honestly. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.” Then she remembered her point and she added almost bashfully, “What did you think of me back then? I mean, at first.”

When Ander didn’t answer, she darted her eyes up to his face. He wasn’t looking at her, and his face had sobered into thoughtfulness.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want,” she said after a minute, with what she thought was remarkable generosity given her desperate desire to know.

“You terrified me.”

“What?”

Ander met her gaze. “You terrified me,” he repeated mildly. “I’d never been with a virgin before. I could tell from the beginning that you were smart, generous and compassionate, and obviously I knew you were beautiful. I was stressed that whole week about ruining your first experience with sex.”

“You were not!” Lori stared at him breathlessly. “You were as cool as a cucumber.”

“You know by now I’m a good actor. I’m not sure why it mattered so much to me, since I’d never put much significance in sex before. But something about it being your first time—your entrusting me with that kind of responsibility—really hit me. It got to me.”

“Oh.”

They looked at each other for a minute. Then Lori said in close to a whisper, “I’m glad my first time was with you.”

Her only times were with Ander. He was the only man she’d ever had sex with. At present, she had no desire to have sex with anyone but him.

She tried not to think much about it, since she wasn’t sure what to do with that knowledge. Things would change eventually, in one way or another, and she was trying to just let them play out without obsessing. It was the only way she could handle the turmoil of her emotions.

Then Ander surprised her, since he wasn’t often given to confessions of this kind. He said, “Me too.”

A wave of emotion rose up in her chest, so powerfully she couldn’t contain it. It flooded her, consumed her, overwhelmed her.

And she did the only thing she could think of to do.

Stretching up and leaning forward, she pressed her lips against Ander’s mouth. After a moment, his softened, then opened beneath hers. Her tongue slipped out to trace along the line of his lips softly, sending tiny pulses of pleasure all the way to her fingertips.

She pulled back, flushing warmly and panting a little.

“What’s going on?” Ander asked thickly, suddenly frozen on the sofa beside her.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, squirming a little in both embarrassment and lingering pleasure. “I just wanted to kiss you. Sorry.”

Ander didn’t answer with words. He just stared at her for a moment until she saw something hot ignite in his eyes. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

Lori whimpered in surprise and rising feeling. As Ander’s lips and tongue waged a passionate assault, her arms twined around his neck and her entire body pulsed with sensation.

One of Ander’s hands curved around the back of her head and the other slid down to stroke along her spine. Shivers followed in the wake of his touch. She whimpered again and brushed her fingers along the smooth curve of his scalp, adjusting on the sofa so she could press her body against him more fully.

She was hot and breathless when she finally pulled out of the embrace. Ander looked flushed too, and his chest rose and fell rapidly with his breathing.

“Wow,” she gasped. “That was...that was good.”

Ander let out of huff of dazed laughter. “Yeah.” Then he turned always observant eyes to scan her face. “Do you think you might want to do it again?”

She knew what he was asking. What he’d wanted to ask for the last three months. He’d just been waiting for the right time.

Lori couldn’t tell him anything but the truth. “Yeah. Definitely.” A thrill of joy ran through her when she saw the brief blaze of relief in his eyes. “I mean, it would be a shame not to. We’re really good at that.”

Ander reached out again to cup her face. “There are other things we’re good at,” he said, just a little diffidently.

Lori gulped. There were other things they were good at. Things they were good at together. So many other things they could look forward to in the days and weeks to come, fading off like a fuzzy trail into the future.

But things didn’t always have to be complicated, and not everything had to happen at once.

So she smiled up him, reaching out to pull him down into another kiss. “Yeah. That’s true. But let’s just stick with kissing...for now.”