I return to Julian with the oldest excuse in the book—a family emergency. Disappointment wriggles its way across his features, and a wave of satisfaction settles over me at ruining his plans to sleep with me well before he got the chance to try. A half an hour after I step inside my apartment, I call Lucy, who’d texted earlier tonight for me to let her know how the date went. She answers quickly and excitedly.

“You’re home early. Everything go okay?”

“Meh, he turned out to be a douche.” Thinking of what Bailon told me in the private room, I release a curse. I kick off my pumps and shove them into my closet. “I told him I had a family emergency and left.”

“Was he worse than the PA?”

“I don’t think anybody can top that guy, so no,” I mutter, sliding to the floor and relaxing my back against my closet door. I close my eyes and suck in my bottom lip. “I swear I attract—” The sound of my doorbell ringing interrupts me mid-sentence, and I finish my comment hesitantly. “The worst guys. Hey, Luce, let me call you back. Someone’s here.”

“It’s not the accountant, is it?” She sounds worried, so I rush to assure her the guy doesn’t have—nor will he ever be given—my home address. “Okay, but if you don’t call me back in the next five minutes, I’m sending Jace over.”

“Please,” I groan as an image of Jace Exley awkwardly standing in my doorway pops into my head. “Don’t.”

Frowning as the doorbell rings a second, then a third time, I pad through my apartment. When I glance out the peephole, the breath departs my body at the sight of the man leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. At some point between the restaurant and here, Bailon ditched the gray jacket and he’s rolled up the sleeves of his blue and gray striped shirt to his elbows.

Racing my tongue over dry lips, I splay my fingers against the door. “What do you want? And how the hell did you know which apartment to come to?”

“Your name is on your mailbox.” He moves closer to the other side of the door, so I stumble away and drag my fingers through my curls. “I want to have dinner with you. Tomorrow night.”

I’m a sucker for returning to the door. For opening it. For stepping into the doorway and tilting my face up to his, but I do all those things, and he gives me a crooked grin that should be enough warning to stay the hell away from him. “You couldn’t have called to ask that?”

“I could have. But you left things unfinished between us and that irked me.”

“Things unfinished like…”

His warm fingers find my cheek and the nape of my neck and he dips his head toward mine. “You turned your cheek, and I won’t be able to sleep unless I’ve tasted you.” Mateo's kiss is sudden. Potent as all the words he’s said to me before this moment. His kiss is fire, fire and confidence with a touch of promise. I make a noise, seventy percent desire and thirty percent protest. He stifles the latter with a sweep of his tongue, urging my lips to part as he moves his fingers from my neck to bury them in my curls.

He can kiss. Mateo Bailon can kiss like no other man I've ever touched before, and a wave of heat trickles through me as he pulls me into him, deepening his hold on me, staking his claim on my mouth and body. I should want to pull away. I should be fuming that he’s at my apartment, kissing me in plain sight of where my neighbors might see. But it feels too good. Too good to stop. Too good to do anything but melt against him and give in to the urge to just … taste.

He draws away for a moment, his breath coming out in short, uneven puffs. “Come to dinner with me.”

“I can't.” Oh, my heart, why does that sound like a question instead of the firm denial I want to give him. In the back of my mind, I hear his words from the restaurant—I think we could have fun together—and a wave of desire ripples through me. “I can’t,” I repeat.

“You can, and you will.” He sucks on my lower lip, first gently and then with an urgency that turns the warmth in the pit of my stomach into a pressure that’s bound to explode. He releases my lip, flicking his tongue over the damp center. “I'll always give you truths. Never bullshit. Come to dinner with me and let me show you how good we can be together.”

“You throw sex parties,” I say weakly.

But God, I am attracted to him.

“I haven’t since the last, and I have no plans to in the future.”

“I just had dinner with your accountant,” I argue, my fingers wandering over his chest. Lord, he’s so hard. Taut all over. Why does he have to feel this way? “Don't you care that—”

“That you left him and will never have dinner with him again?” His lips skim my ear, and what he says next makes me shudder. Makes my fingers dig into the starched fabric of his collar. “I sure as fuck care, and I’m glad. You should be too because your pussy will thank you later.”

“Mateo,” I groan, and he lets out an animalistic growl that quickens my pulse. He backs me inside my apartment and presses me up against the open door, giving me a sense of deja vu. Hadn’t we been in this same position just an hour ago?

“Say it again,” he commands. “My name.”

“Mateo, I—”

“Do you work tomorrow?

“No, but I—”

“I'll pick you up at nine. I don't want no from you. I can stand here all night kissing you, Jamila, and I don’t think you’ll want to ask me to stop. It won’t hurt you to loosen up and give in to something that isn’t so … permanent.”

Before I ever have a chance to form a syllable—much less a clear yes or no— his mouth is on mine again. Taking, claiming, tainting my lips with his. Like an idiot, I let him. My hands are weak as they leave his collar to dig into his short dark hair, and he mumbles something incoherent against my mouth. Ripping himself from me with a curse and a harsh breath, he takes a step backward, squeezing the center of his lip between his thumb and forefinger.

I pace away from the door, moving across my living room until I grip the back of the loveseat for support. My brain is a mess, and the static rushing between my ears turns thinking into the most difficult task. His invitation is enticingly sexy. Risqué. And I can’t help but be drawn to it and him.

One night can’t hurt, I say to myself.

“Are you scared?” he demands at last, the first time he's asked me if I was afraid in English.

I veer around to look at him. I am afraid. Standing in front of me, making my legs quiver, is a man who has no problem letting me know he's not looking for love. That it's the last thing on his mind. And yet, I shake my head. “Not at all.”

“Perfect. I'll see you tomorrow night.” When he reaches the hallway, he peers at me over his shoulder, an over-confident grin building on his golden face. “And Jamila?” I don’t even bother to correct him, I just hug my arms around myself and lift my eyebrows warily. “That trembling you're doing right now? Get used to it.”

I want to tell him I'm not trembling, that I'm fine and he hasn’t affected me, but I stiffen my arms around my stomach, clearing my throat as I watch his retreating form. “The answer was yes, by the way.”

Because I need to have some control where Bailon is concerned.

Because the fire in my veins won't be extinguished unless I get him out of my life—out of my system—once and for all. One night can’t possibly hurt anything, right?

I wait until he's in the elevator to call Lucy back.

My fingers shake so intensely it takes me two tries to get in touch with the right person.

* * *

“I received an interesting call this afternoon,” my mom starts as soon as I answer my phone the next evening.

I’m in the middle of getting dressed for what’s bound to be another fateful night out with King-Swing-A-Ling, but I’ve never been one to ignore my mother, especially since she and Dad moved from Massachusetts to Florida a couple of years ago. I jump at any chance I get to speak to my parents. “And what happened during this interesting call?”

“Do you remember Teresa Webb?”

Oh, I sure as hell remember that woman and I remember her well. Growing up in Worcester, our house was situated between Lourdes’s and Teresa’s and the latter never had any problem going straight to my parents every time Bella or I stepped one foot out of line. Although I rarely got into trouble, the memory of the month-long grounding I received after sneaking out to a party my sophomore year of high school comes back in vivid clarity at the mention of Teresa’s name.

Grinding my teeth, I say, “Somewhat. Why, what’s up?”

“She told me she was in Boston last night to celebrate her anniversary and she saw Bella.” My fingers freeze on the bottle of lotion on my nightstand. I hold my breath as I wait for Mom to continue. “With two different men.”

Teresa Webb: Tattling to mothers everywhere since the early nineties.

“Now, I called your sister and for the first time in her life, she seemed genuinely shocked. She suggested I call you, but I said it couldn’t be my sweet Jamie.” There’s an amused edge to Mom’s voice, and I groan, cursing the day we moved next door to Teresa Webb. “Is it true?”

“Not the way she probably made it sound.” Knowing Mrs. Webb, she told Mom I spent the evening sandwiched between both men and had started each course with some sort of scandalous public kinkery. Frustrated, I scoop the bottle of lotion off my nightstand and plop down on the chair beside my bed.

“I had a blind date with a guy Dr. Schneider set me up with. A … friend stopped by to warn me that my date was a certified jerk. That’s all that woman saw.”

Of course, I won’t bring up that what Teresa didn’t see—thanks to a closed door—is how my friend turned my knees to jelly before sending me along to end things with my date.

“Don’t sound so defensive,” Mom says, and I can hear the wide grin in her voice. “I just asked because I care about what my girls are getting into. I know Bella’s got that new boyfriend … Lincoln or Lucas or—”

“Leo,” I say as I massage a dollop of lotion into my bare thigh. “And I—” I hesitate for a second, then jam my eyes shut and say a silent curse. “I’m going out to dinner tonight. With my friend. Before you ask, he’s an attorney. Good-looking. I met him through Lucy.”

And he’s incredibly arrogant and naughty and every parent’s worst nightmare.

“The same man who came to warn you at that restaurant, hmm?” Mom’s voice has taken on that sly tone it gets before she’s about to say something that will make me regret being the twin who’s so open about her life. When I confirm that Bailon is in fact the same person, she chuckles. “Are you sure he’s just a friend?”

“Definitely.”

Rising from my seat, I finish getting dressed, giving Mom the safe-for-parents version of my history with Bailon. I leave out the fact that he’s the subject of the infamous sex party pic that even my parents saw or that he’s got the nastiest mouth I’ve ever heard or that he’s more interested in my lady parts than my heart, but my mother still listens intently.

“I can’t wait to meet him,” she says when I’m finished. From my spot in front of the mirror hanging on the back of my closet door, I watch as my eyes go wide and the color drains from my face. “Your dad and I are excited about our trip to see you girls for your birthday next month.”

I laugh, hoping it sounds natural despite the forcefulness behind it. “You don’t bring a man you’re casually seeing to meet your parents, and I’m willing to bet money Bells won’t be bringing Leo around you or dad either.”

“Thanks for raining on my parade, baby,” she says in a dry voice, but she instantly recuperates and starts talking about the golf tournament Dad has signed up for during their trip up north. Their plan is to spend the day of our birthday with Bella and me, head to Connecticut for a week, then return to Boston to see us one more time before they take off for Florida.

After Mom asks me about work and how Baby R—the preemie I’d confided in her about—is doing, I tell her about the trained volunteers who’ve been coming in to give him skin-to-skin contact. When we finally end the call a few minutes later, my shoulders sag in relief. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother to death, but her parting reminder to make sure I tell my friend about their upcoming visit leaves me shaking my head.

“If she only knew.” Tossing my phone onto my bed, I turn to study my reflection in the mirror. I had found the lacy emerald green number in the back of my closet. Even though I’m almost positive it belongs to Bella from our brief stint living together, I have no plan to return it now that I’ve slipped into it. The dress is a perfect blend of fun and sexy—long-sleeved, with a tapered waist and a flared skirt that stops a few inches above my knees. I’ve paired it with tall, black suede boots, and when my doorbell rings, signaling Bailon’s arrival, I feel confident.

He was right last night—it’s not a bad thing for two adults to let loose every now and then—and I feel in control.

That all changes when I swing the door open, and his gaze cuts into mine.

Una noche. Una noche y te garantizo que te puedo enseñar una o quizás dos cosas.

His words have filtered through my brain constantly since the moment he spoke them to me. And now, he’s saying them again. Not verbally—oh no, Mateo Bailon probably won’t repeat himself on that front—but those words are in his eyes.

In the way those amber brown irises finally drag away from my eyes to look me over from toe to head.

In the way he continues to drink in the sight of me as he steps closer, into the entrance of my apartment. Into my space.

“You look … perfect. You’re perfect, Jamila,” he says, and my heart flitters, pauses, and then begins again the second a slow, seductive smile dances across his features. He extends his fingers toward me. “This is for you.”

I drop my attention to the flat package in his hands, my own trembling as I accept his gift. Pushing the wrapping paper aside, I swallow hard, staring down at the vinyl record. “This is my favorite Joplin song.”

“I know. You told me before.”

“Nobody’s—” I inhale sharply. Nobody’s ever remembered something as simple as my favorite song or sent me flowers at work or managed to pluck the breath from my body with the slightest glance—not before him. Panic twists and turns through my ribcage, slicing at the walls of my chest like barbed wire because he’s stolen my breath and that can’t happen with Bailon. I can’t let it because this is just supposed to be fun. I clutch the record close to me, and the smile I give him burns the corners of my mouth.

“Thank you for this, Mateo. Let me just … let me put it away and then I’ll be ready to go.”

Before I can walk away, he pulls me to his body and dips his mouth to my ear, his sweet breath moving curly wisps around my face. “You know … I can teach you about this too.”

“And what is this?”

“How you deserve to be treated—even if we won’t fall in love.”