Once I’d made it to the stairs unseen, I bolted up them, losing whatever calm I’d possessed in walking away from him.

I listened for my father when I was on the landing, but the faint blue light from his telly, under his bedroom door, signaled to me that he was fast asleep.

The roar in my blood hadn’t slowed. In fact, it gave me purpose as I strode down the hall to my bedroom. The room was neat, tidy, with three suitcases piled on one side.

I stopped in front of my dressing table, checking my reflection. My blonde hair had gone flat, so I fluffed it, but the little bit of makeup I wore was still intact. My eyes glided down, taking in the dress I was wearing. I wished, in that moment, that it was sexier.

I scooped up my bottle of perfume and sprayed a little on my wrists, which I then pressed behind my ears.

I was going to throw up from the nerves.

No, I told myself. No throwing up. Not when you were expecting Samson to come into your room any second.

But the feeling was so strong. I popped a mint from my bedside table in my mouth, rolled it around my tongue a few times, but the urge was still there.

Oh, shit. Was this a mistake? Was inviting Sam into my room a big fat problem? I was leaving tomorrow.

The printed itinerary, neatly stacked on my chest of drawers laughed at me. What was I going to do? I couldn’t let Samson come up here.

My hands fisted in my hair as I berated myself for telling him to come. What was I thinking? I wasn’t some sexual nymph, skilled in the way Sam surely was. I wasn’t a virgin, but I hadn’t actually messed around with a bunch of guys.

I didn’t know what to do.

I walked to the door, pressed my palm flat to it. I’d lock it. Then he couldn’t come in. He’d walk away, and we’d forget this ever happened.

Look how well that happened the last time you kissed him, my memory taunted me. Three years later, and you’re still wondering ‘what if.’

There was no reasonable escape from this situation. And, if there was, there was no escape that would make me not obsess over the what if.

It’d be okay, I told myself. Of course it would. Sex was nothing, right?

But I didn’t even believe my own thoughts. My nerves battled with my own desire. I couldn’t process a single thing.

I ran my fingers over my eyebrows or, what was left of them that wasn’t colored in, at least. I’d pulled so many out in the days leading up to the trip, needing some control over this impending trip.

I trailed my fingers to the sides of my face, tugging on my earlobes to ground me, and then, in tandem, I pulled out a hair with each hand. The immediate relief was nearly as intoxicating as the alcohol I’d consume in how it numbed my fears.

It would be okay.

I took in a cleansing breath, looking around my room for anything potentially embarrassing.

The blinds were open, so I closed them, leaving my room in soft, muted grays aside from the yellow lamp that lit up my dressing table.

My hand was on the back of the lamp to turn it off when my door creaked open.

Samson stood in the threshold, nearly taking up the entire space.

I switched the light off.

It was only a few loud heartbeats before he said, “Turn it back on.”

I hesitated.

I couldn’t see him, but I heard the creak on the floor by the door. “Turn it on, Lotte.”

Swallowing hard, I did.

The room was illuminated again in soft light, casting shadows into the angles of Sam’s face—making him look exactly as he was: dangerous.

He stepped further into the room without taking his eyes off of mine, and then he softly closed the door behind him.

My butt was pressed against my desk, the edge of it biting into my skin. My nails dug into the soft skin of my palms as he approached me, and it was then that I felt the power that alcohol had had on me start to drift away. I couldn’t look him in the eyes, not when he was looking at me like a man intent on desire.

He looked around my room, and I wondered what he was thinking. I’d taken care to make it more grown up, more me, but it still held touches, like the light pink lamp on my desk, decorated with a group of fairies on the shade, that echoed my mother’s effect. He had a cup of water that he set on the vanity, just feet from me, but instead of coming closer, he turned.

I fisted a hand to my stomach in a miserable attempt to calm it when he stopped at the foot of my bed. He spread one hand on the quilt and pressed it there.

“You asked me up here,” he started. “Why?”

I cleared my throat, knowing my voice would be weak otherwise. “Because.”

One side of his mouth lifted in smile, making him seem somehow more threatening. “So articulate when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” I insisted, but didn’t step away from the desk.

“I have my doubts about that.” He lowered himself until he was sitting at the foot of my bed. He patted the quilt in invitation, but he looked completely unthreatening now.

Confused, I took small, measured steps to the bed. When I stopped just short of sitting beside him, he looked up at me.

“What?”

I furrowed my brow. “Why are you here?”

“You asked me to come here.” He breathed out deeply. “Why? You’re leaving tomorrow, Lotte.”

I licked my lips. “I know.” I cleared my throat again. “That’s partly why I asked you here.” Reluctantly, I sat beside him.

“Lotte…” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. When he turned to me, one lock of hair was curved over his forehead, its ends pressing against his eyebrow. “I’m not sure what to do here.”

It was pathetic how quickly embarrassment flooded my cheeks. “If you don’t want to be here, you can leave.”

He laid his hand on my arm. “It’s not about me wanting.” He was looking down at where our skin touched. “That’s … that’s not the issue.”

“Then there is no issue.” But I still couldn’t breathe easily.

“I hate to ask this,” he said. His eyes closed for a second. “But … are you a virgin?”

The color of embarrassment in my cheeks must have deepened at his question and I stared at his hand on my skin. “I’m not a virgin.” I chewed on my lip as I contemplated what to say next. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes had opened again. “Samson, are you a virgin?”

He laughed and groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. “Jesus. Okay.”

I flipped my arm over so I was palm up. “Were you really worried about that?”

“Of course I was, Lotte.” In a gesture of tenderness I was unaccustomed to, he brushed the hair from my forehead. “The way the light glows behind all this white hair, you look innocent. Pure.” His eyes met mine, warm brown shining at me. “Like a halo.”

“I’m not an angel.” In a move that was inspired by no small amount of fear, I lifted my hand to wrap around his bicep. “And I’m not a child.”

“Oh, I’m aware.” He looked at me with this inexplicable tenderness in his face; his mouth soft like it belonged to a poet. “You look beautiful, backlit like this. Like a painting. Delicate, but the set of your jaw shows strength.” His fingers followed his words, dragging along the line of my chin. “You have Botticelli eyes,” he said softly. His thumb grazed the curve of my bottom lip. “Sensual lips.” His hand gripped my chin and he leaned in, just brushing his lips against mine. Softly, slowly, savoring. I heard a sharp intake of breath release from his mouth. “This is what you want?”

We were held in a suspended silence for several long moments as I tried to summon all my strength, to make the Lotte of tomorrow happy for grabbing onto the one thing she’d wanted.

In answer, I shifted against him so that I straddled his lap, and circled my arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.

His hands pressed against my back, holding me so close to him as we kissed, and kissed, and kissed.

I’d imagined this moment a hundred times, in a hundred different scenarios. I’d expected to be afraid, to be trembling, but I wasn’t. His arms wrapped securely around me, his fingers pressing into the flat muscles of my back, had a kind of grounding effect on me.

He pulled back, hands diving into my hair, eyes heavy lidded and filled with enough heat that I felt it fill me too. He leaned in again, peppering soft, sensual kisses, tugging on my bottom lip with teeth, as his hands cupped my head. Keeping me completely still to do what he wished.

I bunched the fabric at his waist in my hands, wishing for fewer layers. My skin was a million degrees, growing hotter by the second. As if he could read my mind, he leaned away to tug his shirt off over his head.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, my fingers gliding over all that exposed skin. I’d seen him shirtless a few times, but never this close, and never had I been able to touch him.

I leaned forward and placed a kiss over the line of his shoulder. It’d been an impulse, one that instantly made me unsure. Turning my head, I met his eyes. He was staring at me under long dark lashes, as if he was daring me to continue.

My hands explored some more, gliding over all that taut muscle, in the curves and valleys of them, until they linked behind his neck, fingers digging into the base of his skull.

He closed his eyes briefly, but when he opened them again, they were so dark they were almost black. I’d never had a man look at me like that. All my previous experiences had been in dark rooms with muffled words, with less hands and no eye contact.

The intimacy wasn’t in the amount of flesh we exposed, it was in this—his eyes searching mine. I dragged my thumbs over the sides of his neck. He had the body of someone who played contact sports, but he slung paint instead of a rugby ball.

I was aware of the dichotomy between us, his warm olive skin under my pale fingers, his broad shoulders and tightly-bound muscles versus my slender, dancer limbs.

He pulled my hand from his chest and held it up so the light hit it. He watched it, fascinated, turning it in the light while the shadows danced across it. “Beautiful hands,” he said softly, and then brought my palm to his lips. Meeting my eyes, he pressed the softest kiss right to its center.

Forget what I’d said about not being nervous. That one simple act made me glad he still had an arm around me, or otherwise I might’ve trembled right off of his lap.

With his eyes still on mine, he moved his lips down my palm to where it met my wrist. Gently, he nibbled a little on the skin there, and I squirmed on his lap from the sensation.

A wicked little smile spread across his lips from my reaction, but he kept moving, placing soft, slow kisses along my inner arm until he met the inside of my elbow.

Carefully, but confidently, he lifted my arm so that I wrapped it around my head. He leaned in like he was going kiss my mouth again, but his lips detoured to my jaw, pressing gentle kisses along the curve of skin there all the way to my ear.

I tipped my head back; the sensation was incredibly stronger here, as if he was giving a direct hit to all my nerve endings. His hand tangled in my hair again, and he pulled my head to the side so he could nibble on my earlobe. One hand pushed my hair away from my face, and I let out a breath that didn’t feel like it even belonged to me. My body didn’t feel like it belonged to me. He knew where to touch, where to kiss.

He kissed behind my ear and down my neck, alternating between sucking on my skin and nibbling. The differences in the two feelings made me grow hungrier for more of him, more of every part of him.

His hands trailed across the straps of my dress before easing a finger under one, and rubbing along the skin it revealed. He tipped my chin so that I was looking at him as he pulled the strap down, away from my skin.

I tugged my other strap so that they both hung slack, and when I shifted on his lap, the entire top of the dress slipped down over my breasts to gather at my stomach.

He watched my throat as I swallowed. I was wearing a pretty simple strapless bra, certainly not prepared for this to have happened. But he didn’t look even the least bit disappointed. He dragged over the curves of my breasts to where they were hidden in my bra.

“Stand up.” Though he said it softly, it felt loud, like a command that boomed right into me.

As gracefully as I could, I slid off of his lap to stand, and the dress pooled at my feet, leaving me clad in my knickers, bra and low heels.

His smile returned to his face, once again making him appear more dangerous than when he was serious. He stood up off the bed, approaching me, and out of instinct I backed up until I was against the wall.

He dragged his hand down my front, his warm hand such a contrast from the cool of the air. I knew my stomach quivered when he splayed his hand over my lower belly, but I tried to steel my spine.

His hand glided back up, over the center of my bra, one finger trailing up my neck until it landed at my chin, which he lifted to drop a warm kiss to my lips. He hummed against my mouth for a minute and my arms wrapped around his neck to keep him from moving away.

He lifted me so that my back was pressed to the wall and my legs wrapped around his waist.

I didn’t have even a second to be self-conscious when he turned and laid me on the bed in front of him. He was looking at me, from head to toe, that smile still on his lips.

I’d told him I wasn’t a virgin, because I wasn’t. But being around him made me feel like I was. All of this skin exposed in the light, while he looked at me the way he was looking at me—it was so much more nerve-wracking than the first time I allowed another man inside of me. Samson savored.

He lifted my ankle and deftly flicked off my shoe before repeating the move on my other foot.

And then, with my ankles in his hands, he yanked me until my bottom was almost hanging off the bed. Letting go of my legs, he approached the bed until he was standing between my legs, looking over me. He leaned over, eyes on mine, and pressed a kiss right above the little bow on my knickers. Having his face so close to the most private part of my body was hurtling hot blood through my veins, and I was sure my face was the color of a very ripe cherry right then.

He kissed further up my stomach, taking care to nibble at the sensitive skin surrounding my belly button, and when he made it up to my bra, he flipped the cups over so my bare breasts spilled out. He rolled one dusky nipple between his fingers until my squirms under him were enough for him to torture me some more by repeating the action on my other nipple.

“Sam,” I breathed between pants.

But he didn’t even look me in the face, his focus directly on all the bare skin on display. He moved down again, hooked his fingers into the sides of my knickers, and then yanked until they slid right off of me like they, too, were at his command.

I was naked now, with only the slight band of my undone bra covering me. He ran his hands along my sides and then under my bum, lifting me slightly, just enough for his mouth to meet my center.

It was the first noise I’d made. I’d trembled, I’d panted, I’d whispered. But the feel of his mouth, with the slight bite of his scruff, on my most sensitive flesh caused a raw, guttural moan to rip from my throat.

The second it did, he covered my lips with one hand and his other joined his mouth.

Sam had kissed my skin gently, but there wasn’t one gentle thing about the way he devoured me. It was the first time I’d allowed any guy to go there, but with Sam, it wasn’t a matter of allowing. He’d owned me with a look, with his mouth, with his touch.

He was stroking me quickly with his fingers and his mouth was doing something that made my head rock from side to side and my hands grip the quilt in a kind of death grip.

The climb to my orgasm wasn’t really a climb; there wasn’t time for a climb. It slammed into me, shocking the hell out of us both, judging by the way Sam pulled back, heavily breathing and staring at me.

“Fuck.”

While still looking at me, he grabbed the water he’d brought with him and took a sip that must have been half of the glass. His lips were glistening wet when he set it back down.

I tried to swallow, but my breathing was coming so fast that I couldn’t manage it between breaths. My limbs were all loose and languid, which partially clouded the frustration I felt watching Sam remove the rest of his clothes and not having the ability to help him. He was so beautiful, so broad and so … strong. I felt completely out of my zone with him, but considering he’d just given me an orgasm in less than fifteen seconds, I didn’t have the room to be insecure now.

When he’d removed the last of his clothes, he met me in the eyes. “Bloody hell.”

I managed the strength to push up on my elbows. “What?”

“I didn’t bring any condoms. I wasn’t expecting…”

I pointed at my nightstand. “There’s some there.”

After a second, he moved to the drawer and pulled one out, but didn’t put it on right away. He jumped on the bed beside me, hard enough that I bounced a little and a laugh spilled from my throat.

“You’re so responsive,” he said, leaning on his side as he smiled at me. To illustrate just how responsive I was, he ran his hand over my skin, tracing my nipple. Immediately, goose bumps covered my skin from the sensation. “See?”

It shouldn’t have felt this normal with Samson—especially the being naked bit. But it was. He didn’t give me time to feel self-conscious, especially not when he moved so he was over me, supporting himself on his forearms.

He placed a kiss on my lips and let out a sigh. “Your skin, it’s like … cream. Pale, but rich.” I could feel him twirling my hair between his fingers, and once again, he was making me feel as if this was completely normal, as if the fact that we were here, like this, for the very first time, was anything but the first time.

He leaned down, resuming his slow and patient kisses to my skin. I thought I’d been spent, but his mouth on me again was the most indescribable bliss. His beard bit along my sensitive skin, but in the very best way. He was carefully, deliberately, assaulting my senses.

He pushed up, supporting his weight on one arm as he lifted me up to sitting. “You’ve still got this wrapped around you,” he said, reaching behind me to unclasp my bra. It fell between us and he tossed it behind him, lowering me again to the bed and his mouth to mine.

It only took a few heated, desperate kisses before my hands tugged at his skin, encouraging him further and further.

When he entered me, my eyes closed for only a second before I opened them and found his. I didn’t want to forget this. If it would be the only time we’d have this, I wanted it seared in my memory, to keep him close to me the only way he could be once I was halfway across the world.

He’d been gentle, but once again he picked up speed. As my own desperation tore through me, I reached up to hold his face, along his perfectly carved jaw, needing more than just a sight memory to last me.

His lips met mine as his stroking increased and his arms came around me, holding me as if he knew I was about to fall off the edge of the world.

And when it did happen, his mouth found my shoulder, gently biting down onto my skin, sending my body spiraling over the edge.

I’m not sure how long we laid like that, completely connected, my warm breath on his skin—before he pulled away.

Sweat speckled his brow and his eyes were tender as he cradled my face like he’d done it a hundred times before. “You all right?”

There was no adequate way to answer that question. But I couldn’t find my words when the beating of my heart was this loud, so I just nodded and winced a little as he slid out of me.

He fell beside me on the bed, and I waited for what would happen next. Would he leave? Would he stay?

Seconds later, his even breathing answered it for me. I looked over my shoulder, took in his sleeping face, and brushed the hair from his forehead. All the danger he’d possessed in his waking hours was absent while he slept, and I found the handsome softness of his face compelling.

After a while, I mustered up the energy to turn off the lamp and grabbed the duvet from the foot of my bed, covering Sam and myself with it.

Not once since he’d entered my bedroom had I felt the need to pull at my hair. The realization of that made me pause, not knowing what it meant.

In his sleep, Sam reached over and pulled me closer so that he was spooning me, and I fell asleep before I could examine my feelings any further.