Levi’s breath falls out of his mouth when I graze him through the fabric of his pants.

“Mara,” he says, half-laughing again, but his voice seems to collapse on itself. He doesn’t know what else to say. There aren’t any excuses, this time. Unless he’s just not into me like that.

Yeah, right.

“You’re officially single again,” I whisper, pressing my lips to the spot between his collarbones. I work my way up his neck and revel in the pulse I feel, climbing higher the closer I get to his mouth. “I think we should celebrate.”

“Yeah?” He laughs again. Or he tries to. He’s a goner.

“I’ll make it easy for you. No expectations, no promises...just one night.”

His hands slip to my waist. I feel my own breath hitch, the fire between my legs surging through the rest of me.

“You know,” he jokes, while one hand leaves my hip to fumble with the keycard and lock, “your roommate and my brother thought they were in it for just one night, too. And look what happened.”

Maybe I’m just that jaded, because at first, I think the “what” he’s referring to is the wedding wrapping up downstairs. “Yeah,” I agree, chuckling. “That would be pretty bad. One great night turning into ever-freaking-after.”

Levi tilts his chin, almost smiling. But not quite. “I, uh...I was talking about the fact they ended up with a baby.”

Shit. He means Juliet and Cohen’s daughter, conceived after a one-night stand. It just goes to show how bitter I’ve become.

I shake it off and guide his hand to the lock. When it flickers to green, I open the door.

“In that case,” I tell him, pulling him into the room by his tie, “let’s do something that definitely doesn’t make babies.”

For a moment, he looks unsure. It’s not much better than the night we met. In fact, I’m positive he’s about to stop me, just like last time, when I start to undo his belt and zipper.

Then he smiles.

“Sounds good to me.” He watches, breath heavy, as I slip down his pants and boxers and kneel on the floor. Talk about ritzy: the carpet in this place feels like a pillow on my knees. I’d give a lot more head if every floor felt like the Acre’s.

Actually: I’d give a lot more if every guy I saw was as hot as Levi Fairfield. Or at least boasted a package like his.

I tease my lips over the tip of his erection and feel him twitch in my hand. When I look up, I expect him to have his eyes shut or his head tilted to the ceiling. Instead, he’s staring right at me.

It sends a surge through me like I’ve never felt. Even when I slide him into my throat and set my pace, he doesn’t look away.

“Shit,” he breathes, hands reaching for my head. He hesitates, until I use my free one to pull his closer and press his fingers into my hair. It’s partly because I like things a little rough, but mostly because, for whatever reason, I want him to guide me. It’s a strange feeling, wanting the guy to take the lead.

It takes him a minute to dare and apply any pressure, but I encourage him by increasing the rhythm whenever he does. Soon I notice his hips rocking to meet me, the muscles in his stomach tightening.

“Mara,” he whispers, and the sound of his husky, strained voice makes my heart beat twice as fast and ten times harder.

He releases. At first, I concentrate only on the task at hand—taking him as deeply into my throat as I can until I know he’s finished. But then, as I feel his fingers relax in my hair, something weird happens.

He doesn’t let go. His fingers slide down my face as he slips himself from my mouth and kneels in front of me.

Levi’s kiss is like a breathless thank-you wrapped up in something so rough but sweet, I can’t help the sudden dizziness I feel, or the rush between my legs. The fact my heart has turned into a skipping record.

“Your turn,” he whispers against my mouth, and guides me back onto the carpet with that typical Fairfield smirk everyone in this city has memorized.

Of course, it’s a totally different experience between seeing it...and feeling it kiss its way up your thigh.

Levi pushes my dress up with a gentle confidence, like he made it himself and knows exactly how to handle it. My underwear slips down the same way.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells me, the words humid and tingling against my sex. I thank him and try to ignore the fact I’m blushing. It’s rare when someone can make me blush.

It’s also rare—downright unprecedented, in fact—for someone to find all the right places immediately, tongue and fingers and lips all working the spots I need to be touched most. Even the girls I’ve hooked up with take a while to get it totally right, needing some direction. But not Levi.

He draws my clitoris between his lips and flicks his tongue across and around it, teasing, before tracing a pattern and rhythm that makes me cry out, “God, yes.” When I feel his fingers start to enter me, I grind my hips down into the perfect carpet and tell him, “Yes, yes, please....”

For a few seconds, he teases in one and two digits. Then, most likely realizing I’m wetter than Niagara Falls, he pushes in three.

“Deeper?” he asks. It’s such a low, rumbling question, I feel my muscles contract, trying to pull him inside.

I manage to nod. “All the way in, Levi. Please.”

I swear, I feel him smile again.

His fingers fill me. It’s smooth and quick, a swooping plunge that makes everything inside me ache with how perfectly he reads me. Before I can tell him to work my G-spot (or, as is the case with many guys, have to explain where the G-spot is), he’s started flexing his fingers, pulsing against it like a machine.

“Oh, my God.” My back arches. Now I’m the one winding my fingers into my hair, like it can somehow ground me in the swirling high.

The entire time, his mouth never stops. He licks me like my sex is his last meal on Death Row: eager, nervous, but somehow collected. Like he knew all along this is exactly where he’d end up. And he’s perfectly fine with that.

Here it is, the crest of the peak—the place where most guys, for reasons I’ll never understand, hear that I’m close and decide to change course. It’s a tip I’ve had to impart too many times: you can go faster, you can go harder—but for the love of God, don’t switch shit up. Finish with the one what brought you.

“Levi,” I warn, and prepare myself for the change-up.

But, sweet Jesus: the boy knows exactly what I want.

His tongue lavishes my clit even more as soon as I tell him I’m close. He pumps his fingers inside me like I’m just an extension of his hand, like he knows my body quite literally inside and out.

My hips buck from the carpet again. The trembling of my thighs can’t stop, even when I clamp them around his head.

“Fuck,” I moan, nearly crying it, when the orgasm tears through me.

He draws it out beautifully. The peak becomes a plateau; the descent down feels as good as the top, my brain flooded with fresh chemicals every time his mouth teases another convulsion out of me.

When he finally comes up for air, I still haven’t lowered myself to the ground. It’s like my spine is frozen, the pleasure so intense, my body doesn’t know how to relax anymore.

He kisses me again. The taste of myself on his mouth and the taste of him on mine combine to form an elixir I can’t believe I’ve never had.

I shudder again when he pulls his fingers out of me. In the moonlight from the balcony, I can see them glisten. It’s the first time something that simple has turned me on.

No, forget turned on. The sight of Levi’s fingers, coated in the dampness he beckoned from my body, leaves me glowing like a supernova.

This is what he did to you, I think, and have to catch my breath all over again.

Mara grabs my collar with both hands and pulls me onto her for a kiss. I’m worried I’ll crush her, but she just holds me there like some kind of security blanket.

“You all right?” I ask, laughing when she shudders.

“That was....” Her words melt into an exhale. “You’re really damn good at that.”

“Right back at you.” We laugh again, foreheads touching.

I help her into my bed and pour us each a drink from the minibar. She sips slowly while I strip down to my boxers, grab a T-shirt, and hang my tux on the door.

“Shit—the jacket’s still on the roof.”

“My shoes and purse are, too.”

We look at each other and crack up again. This entire night feels surreal, from the second she appeared beside me out of the shadows, to the minute she stammered my name and started shaking like...well, like no woman I’ve ever seen. Which is pretty fitting, when I think about it: Mara is unlike any woman I’ve had before.

Even this moment doesn’t feel quite real: watching her burrow deeper into my bed as she shivers with the remnants of her orgasm, knowing I did that to her, and remembering what she did to me.

“Guess I should go get our stuff,” I say, when she’s nearly fallen asleep right where she is, drink in hand.

She blinks and sits up. “Oh. There’s no rush on my stuff, if you want to wait until tomorrow.” The pause is quick, but jarring. “Unless...you want me to leave.”

“No, you can stay. It’s late, it’s cold out—I’ve got the couch in the living area I can crash on, it’s fine.”

“Why wouldn’t you sleep in the bed with me? Not to sound clingy or whatever, I’m just saying. It’s big enough.”

The liquor sticks to my throat, caustic. “Okay. If you’re chill with me sleeping there, I....”

She waits. I don’t know how to finish my sentence, so I lift the sheet and comforter, ease in, and dim the lights with the remote on the table.

It feels too strange to wish her goodnight, so I turn on the television and flip channels. The entire time, I sense her staring at me.

“Can I ask you something?”

I glance at her. She’s still in her dress. I should offer her a spare shirt of mine, but the idea feels even stranger than the others. “Sure.”

“Are you not over your ex-wife, yet?”

My laugh shocks me. It’s not as bitter as I expected.

“If you mean, do I want her back—definitely not.” My eyes trace the shape of her body under the covers. “Already made that mistake.”

“It’d be a lot more believable if you weren’t acting so weird, right now.” Mara smiles and touches my hand. Her fingers graze the bones from my wrist to my knuckles. “I was going to say, it’s fine if you aren’t over her completely. I just wanted to know if it was something with me.”

“It’s not you.” As I say this, though, I wonder if Mara is part of it. She’s a total departure from what I had the last nine years—but, then again, so is everything else in my life. For the first time in almost a decade, I go home to an empty house after work. I wake up by myself. I cook breakfast for one, if I remember to eat at all. Nothing’s the way it used to be.

So you might as well embrace this, right? This is the first change that actually feels good. Even if it is just for one night.

A fire engine howls its way down the street below. We follow the lights flashing through the curtains.

“Think your brother will be pissed you skipped the reception?”

“He probably didn’t even notice, he was so busy talking to everyone and dancing. You know Cohen. Life of the party.” My sigh is involuntary. “Used to be me, believe it or not. Before I got sucked into my business, I was a lot of fun to be around.”

She scoots closer and folds herself into my chest. It should shock me, how forward she is for someone who promised nothing but a single night—but I’m relieved to feel her touch me again. Even forehead-to-chest, blocked by clothing. Much as I wanted solitude when the reception began, it’s the last thing I want now.

“For what it’s worth,” she says, breath washing across my ribcage, “I think you’re fun.”

I think of the fire escape again. The moment on the balcony when she screamed and laughed, pushing her face into me like she’s doing now. I have no idea why I chose to climb down, much less encouraged someone else to do it. Not because it was dangerous. Scary, yes, but pretty safe, compared to my days of scaling fences and sneaking into buildings.

Still: it wasn’t like me. Not the me I am now, anyway.

“Well...thank you, I guess.” I can’t help but smile, even though her words aren’t true. Maybe I just want them to be.