Angelica sits across from me at a table for two I’ve set up in the middle of my expansive living room, cheeks flushed from the wine we’ve been drinking all through dinner, head thrown back in laughter.

I want to kiss her. The distance between us is setting my teeth on edge.

“Turns out, you can’t screw your way to popularity.”

We’ve been trading innuendoes for more than an hour, carefully dipping our toes into conversations about school days. I don’t give her much of anything—not about myself, anyway—but my friends and I got up to some amusing shit at Exeter, and it’s the perfect fodder to be a little raunchy, to keep coming back to sex again and again.

It doesn’t hurt that Angelica is enjoying this dinner. She gushes over every dish that arrives at the table and it seems genuine. She’s not trying to flatter me.

The uniformed waiter I’ve hired for the evening comes to clear away the main course in preparation for dessert. Angelica thanks him, then flicks her eyes back to me, letting them travel down over my body. I’ve unbuttoned the top two buttons of my dress shirt and rolled up the sleeves, which is as casual as she’s ever seen me dress apart from the hours we spent naked in the bedroom.

That’s where I want to be. But Angelica’s eyes are shining, which makes me hesitate to end this early.

That thought brings me up short.

I shouldn’t care at all that Angelica is loving the experience that I’ve created for her. She’s here for one purpose and one purpose only—and that’s to fuck me like there’s no tomorrow.

But I care enough, a flicker in my closed-off, locked-down heart. If my heart wasn’t racing with excitement at the idea of locking the door behind us and having my way with her, I’d be able to shut it down completely.

I should do exactly what I want, which is to take her into my bedroom and make her come until she’s senseless, until she’s so satisfied that she can’t help but fall asleep.

And then I should consider myself one step closer to ending things with her and moving on.

She claps her hands together when the waiter reappears with dessert, which is miniature dark chocolate cheesecakes dusted with edible gold.

“Wow,” she breathes when he steps away. Then she looks at me, suddenly sheepish. “Do you mind if I take a picture of this? It’s incredible.”

“Do you mind if I take a picture of you? You should see your face in the candlelight.”

She laughs again, and the sound makes a strange longing bloom to life in my chest.

A longing for what, I don’t know.

“I’ll go first,” I say, then pull my phone out of my pocket. I take two photos—one of her smiling directly at the camera, and then one afterward, when she’s looked back down at dessert. Then she reaches into her purse and takes out her phone.

But instead of snapping a photo of the dessert, she looks at something on the screen. Her face falls.

“Angelica?”

She looks up at me, flustered, then sets her phone to the side.

“Is everything all right?” It’s clearly not, but she’s silent. It’s best for both of us if I keep her at arm’s length…but what has upset her so much? I need to know.

“It’s…my apartment.” She bites her lips, picks up her dessert fork. Two days ago she was spread out on my bed and begging, but now she seems unsure of herself.

“What happened?”

“That was my landlord. The apartment above me flooded, and it came through the ceiling.”

Her voice is tight, strained, but it seems like an overreaction. I try to keep things light. This is the last thing I want to derail the entire evening, have her leave before the main event. “The building didn’t come down, did it?”

She gives me a little smile, rolling her eyes. “No, but a pretty substantial part of the bathroom will need repairs. It shouldn’t be a big deal.”

I’m not convinced. “Shouldn’t be?”

“They’re putting us up at the Sheraton in Tribeca.”

“And that triples your commute.” She’d mentioned working in the Garment District at the Swan.

“Yeah.” She sighs a little, then brightens. “You’re right, though—the building could have come down.”

Still, the furrow in her brow gives her away. Exchanging the details of days at the office wasn’t a high priority on Thursday, but I gather her boss is demanding and hours can run long.

Maybe it’s because I can’t stand the thought of having her walk out of here. I don’t know. No matter what the reason, I can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

“You have another option.”

Angelica grins, then teases. “What, stay with you?” She’s doing her very best to make it seem like a joke

Her eyes are blue and wide and tinged with hope. “At least for tonight. I’ll have clothes brought up for you. You don’t need to go back for anything until the repairs are finished if you don’t want to.” By the time I’m finished speaking, I’m already soaked in adrenaline. Having her body at my disposal for the next few weeks—that would be a treasure. I can have my fill of her and then we can go back to our lives.

She narrows her eyes, puts her fork back down. “Are you sure? I mean—we met not long ago. I’m...” Whatever she’s going to say, she reconsiders. “We don’t know very much about each other. It’s not a problem for me to go to the Sheraton.”

The way she’s looking at me pushes me over the edge. I take my napkin from my lap and drop it onto the tablecloth, then stand up and cross to her side. Offer my hand. Pull her to her feet.

When I kiss her, she melts into me, leaning against me like I’m shelter in a storm. The kiss deepens, gets a little harder, rougher, and when she pulls back we both catch our breath.

“Stay with me tonight.” This time, it’s not a question.

She answers me with another kiss.

By the time we end it, the desserts are forgotten in the living room. We’ve moved down the hallway, and she’s tearing my shirt off in the bedroom, I’m bending her over the bed, and there’s no more discussion about stupid shit like going to the Sheraton. There’s only pleasure, and I think that if she stays, it might not ever end.