His behavior is throwing me off. Making me uneasy. The sake isn’t helping matters, but it’s also keeping him . . . honest. Almost painfully so.

“We should order more sake.” He sits up straighter, raising his arm to wave down the waitress, and I reach for him, my hands landing on his chest as I try to gain some control over him.

“We should ask for the check,” I tell him, relieved when the waitress comes over to us.

“You two doing okay?” she asks sweetly.

“Just the check, please,” I say at the exact moment Ethan requests more sake. I shake my head and smile at the waitress, hoping she understands. “We don’t really need any more sake.”

The waitress offers me a quick smile and nods. “I’ll be right back.”

I release my grip on his chest and sit back in my seat. The loss I feel after not touching him is strong. Ridiculous. I reach for my purse and take out my wallet.

He shakes his head. “No. I’m paying. I’m the one who asked you to dinner.”

“That’s fine,” I agree. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His gaze turns darker and he reaches out, resting his hand on my knee, curling his fingers around it. “I would do anything for you, Katie.”

His hand slides up to my thigh and I release a shaky breath. “I know.”

“Anything you want, I’ll give you. Just name it.”

There are so many things I could say. An entire list of all the things I want, only from him. “We should get you back to the hotel,” I say softly, regretting the disappointment I see flicker in his eyes.

“So you don’t want me, then. I get it.” He rises to his feet, glancing around the restaurant like he wants to destroy the entire place. His jaw is tight, his eyes narrowed. He looks intimidating.

A little mean.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” I start, but he cuts me off with just a look.

“Don’t try and make me feel better, Katie,” he says bitterly. “I ruined it. This. Us. I should’ve never lied. Not that you’d have been with me if you knew the truth anyway. And now I’ve gone and fucked it all up.”

The waitress appears with the check and he pulls out his wallet, handing a credit card along with the bill back to her. The minute she’s gone he starts in again. The lack of sake is forgotten—thank goodness.

“I don’t have a lot of regrets in my life. I can’t, or else I’d believe it was all just one big regretful moment after the other, you know? But I do regret not telling you. I should’ve been honest with you from the beginning.” He turns away from me, blowing out a harsh breath. “I’m sorry. I can say it a thousand times, but I know it won’t change anything.”

It changes everything. I want to say something else, something more, but what? My lips part and I reach for him, my hands catching on his shirt, clinging to him. He looks down at my hands, then slowly lifts his head, our gazes meeting.

“Say we have another chance. Please.” He starts to laugh, shaking his head. “I’m going to sound like my father right now, but I need your forgiveness. I need it. I don’t think I can live without it.”

I tug on his shirt, hard. He can’t talk like that, like . . . what? He can’t live without me? I need to shake some sense into his head. “You can survive just fine without me,” I murmur, not wanting anyone else to hear us. Not that anyone is paying us any attention in this crowded restaurant. “You’ve done it for years.”

He laughs again, the sound almost painful. “It was a miserable existence, Katie. Katherine.” His expression turns somber and he touches me. Drifts his fingers over my hair, tucking a strand behind my ear, touching my cheek. “I should probably call you Katherine. That’s what everyone else calls you.”

“I like it when you call me Katie.” I like it when he touches me, too. Despite everything, I feel comfortable with him. And I feel comfortable with hardly anyone. “What do you want me to call you?”

He frowns, his fingers pausing on my cheek. “What do you want to call me? Major asshole?”

I start to laugh despite our serious conversation. I can’t believe he just said that. He cracks a smile, too. “No. I just . . . with everything that happened earlier, I got sort of confused. I called you Will and I wouldn’t mind if I could keep calling you that.”

His hand drops from my face and he leans in close. “Is that what you want to call me?”

“Would you be offended?”

“Sort of. I don’t know. I need to get used to this.” He slowly shakes his head, blows out a harsh breath. “For you, I’ll be whoever you need. Whatever you want, Katie.”

Whatever I want. Those words are loaded with so much promise. I know he would give me whatever I wanted. If I were a mean girl, I’d take total advantage. Demand he get down on his knees and beg for my forgiveness, make him humiliate himself in order to earn my approval. He’d deserve no less. What he did to me was . . . horrible.

But his intention was never to hurt me. I realize that now. So why deny myself what I want when he could make me happy? Would I rather live a miserable existence all alone and missing him?

“Do you mean that?” I ask.

His eyes seem to glow as he watches me. “I will never lie to you again. I mean every word I say.”

“Then take me back to the hotel,” I murmur. Feeling emboldened, I rest my hand on his knee, that electric connection we have coming to life, sparking between us.

The moment the waitress returns with his credit card, he’s grabbing my hand and practically dragging me out of the restaurant, muttering quick apologies to the people we bump into as we exit. The sidewalk has cleared and we walk hurriedly toward the hotel. I’m thankful I wore my sneakers instead of heels. His stride is long as it eats up the sidewalk and I have to walk twice as fast to keep up with him.

No words are spoken, but the urgency between us is palpable. Undeniable. We enter the hotel side by side, the hushed quiet of the lobby making me feel obvious, like I’m wearing a sign around my neck that says, Hey! We’re running to our hotel room to get naked.

I school my expression, going for cool and collected, while inside my stomach is on a tumultuous roller-coaster ride, climbing high and dipping low again and again. My hand is clutched tightly in his as he leads us to the bank of elevators, hitting the up button, and the doors behind us automatically open as if waiting for us.

The moment we enter the car, he hits the ninth-floor button and the doors slide shut. His arms are around me, his mouth hovering above mine. “Is this what you wanted?” he murmurs just before he kisses me.

His mouth on mine is exactly what I want. What I’ve craved for days. Weeks. I clutch him close, my arms sneaking around his neck, my fingers playing with the soft hair at his nape. He presses me against the elevator wall, a low groan sounding from deep in his chest when I part my lips and meet his tongue with my own.

The doors sweep open silently, a soft ding indicating we’re on our floor. He releases me as fast as he grabbed me, taking my hand and leading me toward my hotel room. “Is your room okay?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder to look at me.

I nod, unable to speak. My lips tingle from that too brief kiss. My entire body tingles. I want this, but I’m also apprehensive. I’m still not wholly comfortable with sex. Our first experience together was good, but I struggled to relax.

I still struggle.

We stop at my door and I pull the card key from my purse, inserting it into the slot. He stands just behind me, one hand at my waist, the other pushing my hair away from my neck so he can place his mouth there, at that sensitive little spot just behind my ear. He breathes me in, his lips parted, his teeth grazing my skin, and I shiver, pushing open the door so the two of us practically fall into the room.

The door shuts behind us and then we become a frenzy of hands and arms and legs and stumbling feet, our mouths finding each other, parting when he removes his flannel shirt, finding each other again only to separate when he tugs my cardigan from my arms. Clothes fall to the floor, shoes are kicked off, the only sounds our heavy breaths and connected mouths. I hear a clattering sound and I know he just tore off his glasses and set them . . . somewhere.

God, they could be anywhere. I’m so overcome and he is, too, both of us reaching for each other, hands sliding beneath clothes and warming cool skin. The room is dark though the curtains are still wide open, the buildings standing tall just beyond the thick glass like mighty spheres of light. They cast a soft glow within the room that renders us into nothing but shifting shadows that meld together, only to come apart.

And then drift together again.

His arms are around me, his mouth fused with mine, his hands slipping beneath the hem of my T-shirt. His fingers are hot as they brush against my skin, along my sides, igniting a restless heat that starts low in my belly. It’s all happening so fast I can hardly catch my breath, can hardly think, but maybe that’s a good thing. My body is running on pure, basic need and it’s a wildly exhilarating ride.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispers into my neck, his warm, damp lips moving against my skin and making me shiver. “Whatever you need, I want to give it to you.”

I pull away from him so I can see his face, his eyes glittering in the dim light, his chest rising and falling, brushing against mine. I’m filled with the need to tear off my shirt and tear off his so we can be skin to skin. Heart to heart. “All I want is you. The real you.”

“It’s yours. I’m yours.” He brushes the hair away from my face, his fingers drifting across my skin, his gaze hot as it roves over me. “I’ve missed you like this.”

I suddenly feel shy, which is ridiculous because he’s seen me naked. Vulnerable. At my worst times and my best. He’s seen me in every way possible, he knows me better than anyone else, and I realize in this single, heart-stopping moment that he is the only person in this entire world who understands me, who knows me inside out.

And I can’t deny it any longer.

I’m in love with him.