I didn’t expect her to reach for me so confidently.

I didn’t expect her to pull my head down to her.

I didn’t expect her to kiss that well.

Holy shit.

Her lips were soft and her kiss coy, but assertive. In other words, the way a man wanted to be kissed. She had enough guts to make the first move, but once I got over my shock…

I made the next one.

My hands found the taunting sliver of flesh between her top and her skirt as I yanked her against me. I swallowed the gasp that escaped her mouth as my hands slipped under her blouse. The curve of her back was so warm, so smooth; I could put a hammock there and spend the summer.

“Lizzie…”

“More,” she whispered against my lips. “I want more.”

My mouth closed over hers again, but her skin beckoned me. I bent her backward in my arms as my lips trailed down her neck and her bare shoulders.

I bit one shoulder then laved my tongue over the mark on her creamy flesh.

“Oh god,” she moaned.

Her hands pushed and pulled at me, like the paws of a kitten testing out its bed. Oh, how I wanted to be this kitten’s new bed.

The smell of her, the taste of her, the feel of her were intoxicating. All the attraction I’d been fighting, bottling up—it all came out in an explosion of want.

Her head tilted back to give me better access to her neck, and I felt her pulse under my lips. I imagined her blood rushing through her body, like mine was rushing directly to my groin. Either way, it was heading in the opposite direction of our brains.

I didn’t want to make a bad decision. I didn’t want her to regret anything. I’d already promised her that.

“What do you want?” I demanded. “How much more?”

She tensed momentarily before sighing, “I don’t know. Just… don’t stop.”

I raised my head to look her in the eye. She was flushed, her eyes dilated and a dreamy smile on her face. Fuck, yeah. I put that there, and now I wanted to see how far I could take it. And I still had a hunch…

With a purposeful grin, I trailed my fingers across her collarbone, dipping into the groove and tracing it to her shoulders.

Then I pulled her stretchy peasant top down to her waist.

She sucked in a deep breath, her nipples tightening in the open air as she pulled her arms free.

“Hmmm.” Theory confirmed—Lizzie wasn’t wearing a bra.

Misbehave, indeed.

Her breasts jiggled as she breathed in and out quickly. She twisted one way, then the other, like she wanted to hide herself. But I wouldn’t let her.

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” I told her, before lowering my mouth to one succulent breast.

I palmed one while suckling on the other, then I traded places. Her gasps and groans echoed in my ear, and her fingers ran over my head and neck like she wanted to pull me close but wasn’t sure if she should.

Fuck “should”. This was one etiquette lesson that Miss Behave needed to learn for herself.

Bending over her was getting awkward, so I prodded her over to the couch.

“Lie down,” I commanded.

She sat, looking uncertain but hopeful. I needed to make sure she was okay with this, where this might go.

“Are we still good?” I asked.

She nodded and lay down, her head propped up on the armrest.

I spread her thighs, the slit in her skirt exposing her leg almost to her hip. Never taking my eyes off hers, I kneeled between her legs and lowered myself over her. Bracing my hands on the armrest on either side of her head, I thrust my aching cock against her center.

Her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Feel that?” I said, biting back a groan as she arched against me. “That is what you do to me. All the goddamn time.”

Lizzie’s lips curved in a purely feminine smile, like Cleopatra or something. I grinned back before covering her mouth with mine. My tongue swept inside, tasting her, testing her. She met me halfway, but with some hesitation at first.

With every stroke of my tongue against hers, I moved my hips, letting her feel the length and strength of my erection.

Her hands went to my ass. I hissed with delight.

The flowers I’d given her were bunched up in the blouse around her waist, the scent of lilies rising from her body. Filling my head.

When we were both well and truly breathless, I raised my head and moved down to her breasts again. It didn’t take long to suck her nipples into hard, tender points.

Then I drove against her again, like a teenager at a house party.

One of her legs was totally exposed, but the other was covered to her ankle, the black fabric of her skirt stretched over that sweet, perfect spot.

The layers of clothes between us only seemed to heighten the intensity. There was an innocence to this, a barrier I was unsure of breaching. How far should I take this?

“More,” she whimpered.

She was going to be the death of me.

Deep down my body was begging for permission to go further, but my brain kept cautioning me. That she wasn’t ready. That she wasn’t the kind of girl you fucked for the first time on a small sofa.

For the moment, my body was winning.

I leaned back a little, tilting my head at her. “What kind of underwear does Miss Behave wear?” I wondered out loud. Or maybe she wasn’t wearing any, like she’d foregone her bra.

“Why don’t you find out?” Lizzie asked. Her sass surprised me, delighted me.

She inhaled sharply as my fingers traced up her exposed inner thigh and disappeared under her skirt. She was hot—so hot—and her whole body went rigid when I touched the damp crotch of her panties.

“Oh!” she cried out, then she made a keening sound. The muscles and tendons in her neck stretched as her head went back, and her chest rose as she arched her back.

I ran my fingertip along the elastic of her panties, before slipping inside that hot, wet perfection. She felt like heaven.

“Ash! Oh god!” She sounded surprised, even shocked. By what, I wondered—my assertiveness? Her own body’s reaction?

Her breath came fast and shallow as I circled her opening. She trembled beneath me, trying to hold still but her traitorous flesh not cooperating. Goosebumps rose on her skin, her nipples tight and rosy, and her belly quivering.

I didn’t enter her, though. I nudged my fingertip ever so slightly into her, recognizing her tightness.

My head spun. Maybe she was a virgin. I didn’t know anymore. If she was, I wasn’t about to make her first time be on a couch, half-clothed. She deserved more than that. She deserved flowers and candles and—well, at least a bed.

And I’d be damned if I was going to take her for the first time on the night we double-dated with other people. If—when it happened, I wanted it to be the only thing she remembered that night. That day.

That month, for fuck’s sake.

Her hot panting in my ear went straight to my cock. My balls tightened. Pretty soon I was going to blow my load like a teenager. I had to get myself under control, and fast.

I held my index finger right at her entrance and slid my thumb upwards and over her clit.

“Ahhhh!” Her whole body jerked beneath me, like I’d pressed an electrical switch inside her.

It was an amazing sight.

“Yes, sweetheart. Let me see you.”

“I-I can’t.” Her cheeks were stained red, her lips rosy and swollen from her biting them.

“Yes, you can. Have you ever come before?”

She stared at me, her eyes wide and round. Holding her breath, unable to respond. Overcome by the sensations rocking her body.

“I want to see you come,” I told her. I needed to see her come. Nothing else in the world mattered more to me at that moment.

My jaw tightened as I rubbed the pad of my thumb over and around that magical spot. Slick and sizzling hot, her clit swelled up to meet my touch. With every sweep, she sucked in a breath and her whole body shuddered. Tensed. Released. Tensed again.

“Is this more, Lizzie? Is this enough? Tell me to stop.” I needed her to be in control, as I was quickly losing mine.

She shook her head from side to side, her hair falling over the side of the couch. With one more pass of my thumb, she fell apart.

“Oh my god! Ash!”

I watched her explode, felt her pussy try to reflexively grasp my fingertip, still resting at her entrance. Fresh wetness filled my hand. She reminded me of a volcanic eruption, lava running down the slopes and hardening into obsidian as it hit the ocean. Flowing, heavy and hot, then cracking in the water.

I withdrew my hand, and licked her juices off my fingers. She tasted sweet and tangy, her musk all over my hand.

Her eyes drooped into narrow slits as her chest rose and fell. “Was that well-behaved?” she breathed.

“That was amazing.” She’d let herself go, met my challenge with enthusiasm and passion. It awed me—aroused me to the point of aching.

Everything inside of me screamed to rip her clothes off and sink myself deep inside her heat. But part of me wondered—had I pushed her too far? Maybe I’d been too aggressive. Not once had she said stop, though—quite the opposite.

Fuck, had I taken advantage of her? Or maybe I was just an experiment for her? A way to prove something to herself and to me.

My dick was still rock hard and throbbing in my pants, and I startled as her hand covered me.

“May I—?”

I groaned, beyond tempted. “No.”

Yes!

I was trying to be a gentleman, but a possessive need swirled inside me. I wanted her to the point of feeling crazed by it. I felt unhinged. The connection between us was stronger than anything I’d ever felt with another woman, and it scared the shit out of me.

This was getting too intense, too fast.

Lizzie looked at me with stars still in her eyes and her face glowing. “Ash, that was—”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, jumping up from the couch. I spun around, trying to adjust myself so I could make it home. “I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have done that.”

Silence.

“Oh.” Her voice was small behind me.

When I looked back, she’d wriggled into a seated position in the corner of the couch, her arms crossed over her chest. Her gaze was fixed on the laptop sitting on the coffee table.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I’ll write up my side of this… date tomorrow and email it to you.”

“Right. Sure. Okay.” She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “I’ll do mine tomorrow, too.” Her gaze flickered to me. “Maybe even tonight.”

“Maybe we should just pretend this didn’t happen,” I heard myself suggesting like a douchebag. I wanted to punch myself in the face, but I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. “It was, uh, unprofessional of me.”

To say the least.

This wasn’t like me. Well, maybe it was, but I shouldn’t have taken things so far. Lizzie wasn’t like other women, and I should have remembered that.

It would be better for both of us if I backed off. I was a “guy’s guy”—that meant being a gentleman when I needed to be.

I said a quick goodnight and ran out the door so fast that I probably left a backdraft behind me.

Then I mentally punched myself in the head the whole way home.

When I’d started my advice column, I promised myself that I’d never do anything that I’d feel ashamed of writing about. Total honesty was one of the things that defined my writing.

How could I write about this?

The answer, of course, was that I wouldn’t. And I still wasn’t sure what this was. And that angered me. I was furious with myself for letting my attraction to Lizzie push me—and maybe her—to something regrettable.

I’d mentioned other women in my column before. Other encounters. But they knew the score and they didn’t care.

If I wrote about making Miss Behave come… oh fuck. I just couldn’t.

And I wouldn’t.

But I knew someone I could write to ask for advice…