The bag of Chex Mix pops open between us, pretzels and cookie sticks falling to the floor. I don’t care. I’m only reacting to a very reasonable request on her part. Request granted.

Whitney doesn’t flinch at the sound of the bag bursting open or the rain of Chex Mix hitting the floor at our feet. It’s like she’s on the Titanic and I’m the last lifeboat—once I touch her, she’s not letting go.

Her lips are soft and yielding against mine for the space of exactly one heartbeat, and then she growls deep in the back of her throat, her body working against mine. Fierce. That’s the only word I can use to describe her in this moment. Fierce. It’s as if all the grief and sadness from yesterday compressed itself down into the center of her and she’s turned it into hot desire.

I know that feeling so fucking well, because I want her this much. The heat is equally as intense at the center of my spine, a coal mine of want compressed into something hard as diamonds.

“Wes—” She murmurs the word into my mouth, her lips making the shape of my name. It’s so intimate it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Is she asking? Warning?

“Yes,” I tell her firmly. I don’t know what question I’m answering, but if this is the wrong answer, then fuck me.

It’s the right answer.

We crash together again, Whitney nipping my bottom lip, and the teasing pain of it makes my cock jump. It’s an incredible relief, the way she strips my mind of everything except her body, except the taste of her, her tongue battling with mine. She’s nothing like the bubbly blondes I’ve picked up in bars around the world. Those women live in a pink cloud of whispers and shy smiles. Whitney might as well be prowling the jungle floor.

“Fuck,” she says, sucking in a breath like there’s not enough air.

I don’t share that feeling. The air seems super-saturated, every inhalation making my vision sharper, my senses deeper. Whitney scrambles for the buttons on my shirt, her fingernails scratching through my undershirt as she claws at the buttons.

“I’ll do it,” I tell her, voice sharp, and it’s not because I don’t think she can do this. It’s because I want to see her naked. I have to. “Take that off.”

The buttons fly open underneath my fingers and I whip the shirt to the floor, followed by my undershirt. My belt is next, and I kick off my shoes. I’m in my boxers, nothing else, by the time Whitney stands barefoot in a ring of crushed pretzels. Her eyes are huge and dark, locked on mine, but she’s struggling with the zipper at the back of her dress.

It’s a navy thing, simple, clinging to her curves. Her face flushes pink. “I can’t—”

“I’ve got it.” I take her by the elbow and turn her so that her back is to me, shoulders rising and falling. The zipper is two inches down, caught on a loose thread. I run my fingers from her shoulder to her wrist just to see the goose bumps feather over her skin. “I want this dress off.”

Whitney reaches to help me, and I catch her wrist in my hand. “Stand still,” I tell her.

Standing still is hardly an option, but she manages it, even though she’s trembling. I unhook the zipper from the thread and pull it down, opening her dress like the world’s finest gift. She has a matching bra and panty set on underneath. Navy-colored lace.

Holy Christ.

“If you don’t like it,” she says softly, “then you’re out of luck, because I’m not changing.”

I spin her to face me and drink in the teasing, wanting smile playing across her lips. “You’d change, if I asked.”

I’m not asking. I’m challenging. I can’t help it. It’s in the air between us, always. I’m only giving that tension words.

Whitney bites her lip and raises a hand to run her fingertips down the ridges of my abs. “If a man like you demanded, I’d probably have a more positive response.” Her eyes flit up to mine and back down again. “I’m normally not into that kind of dynamic, but with you...” Her voice trails off and something flashes through her expression. There it is—that sadness. It’s at bay, but barely.

I wrap my hand around the side of her neck and dip my face to the space between her jaw and her shoulder, kissing once, twice, three times. “I don’t want you to wear different clothes.”

“Good, because—”

“I want you to take these off. Right here. I want to see all of you.”

Her eyes light and burn, the heat there morphing into a blaze. “Always about what the men want.” She makes no move to slip a finger under the straps of her bra or hook a thumb into the waistband of her panties. “What if I want them on? What if I want to feel how—” I push a hand between her legs and press them apart. The navy lace panties are damp with her desire. “How—” I stroke two fingers over the fabric there, enough pressure to feel the outline of her beneath the ridges of the lace. Her lips drop open.

“Were you saying something?” On the last word, I yank those panties to the side and dip my fingers into the unbearably smooth, unbearably soft darkness between her legs.

Whitney sucks in a breath, probably struggling to find the perfect coy but-what-if response, but she’s melting into my hands. “Nothing important.” She gives a little pushback with her thighs, testing. I push them back apart and press my lips to her neck.

Her knees wobble.

No fucking joke.

A space in my chest that I thought would always be empty fills with a scorching wind. I want to push my fingers inside of her, I want to feel the way her body will open for me...

...but not here.

I take my hand away and lift her into my arms. She wraps her own arms around my neck and pulls herself up, so she can lick the line of my jaw. “Where are you taking us? Somewhere naughty?”

“A bed.”

“What’s wrong with the floor?”

Every breath is filled with her, every heartbeat is rocketing toward ecstasy. “I wouldn’t want your knees to get sore.”

We’re in the bedroom in an instant. Mine, not hers. There are fewer distractions here. I know the soundscape of this room better than any other place in the apartment, and I want nothing in the world to take my attention from her body. I stand her on her feet at the side of my bed.

The light spills in from outside, tinged with spring, and makes her look golden and warm. Something to devour. Something to subdue. But there’s a part of me that knows—I’ll never contain that wild energy.

I can only try and bend it to my will.

“Take off your clothes.”

In the stillness of the room, Whitney’s eyes light up. She bites her lip. She shakes her head no.

“Then you’ve made your choice.”

Her bra comes away easily, the straps silken under my fingers. The clasp falls open beneath my fingers. Her perfect round nipples rise in the cool air, beneath the swirls of my thumbs, and she arches back.

“Oh—” She breathes the word as my hands slide down the naked curves of her hips. My heart is in my throat at the warmth of her against my palms.

I push her backward onto the bed.

Whitney’s eyes are wide, the dark lit in flashes of the sun, and I can’t stop touching her. I can’t tear my hands away from her face, her jaw, her neck. I need her skin against mine.

She bucks underneath me. “Here I am, naked in broad daylight, and you’re still…partially clothed. How is that right? It’s not right.” Her voice is low and smooth and it makes the muscles in my back tense with anticipation. “It’s not right, Wes.”

I stand up and wrench the boxers to the floor. “That better?”

“Not better.” Whitney reaches for me, and I tumble back into the bed.

Her arms go around my neck.

Her mouth is on mine, hot and wanting.

I push her backward to spread her out again, but she throws herself into my weight, twisting us so that I’m the one who lands on my back on the bed. She crawls over me, her body lithe and graceful, as if she’s aware of every movement, and probably she is. That’s how acting works. I half wish there was a camera to our right to capture every bit of light streaming over her curves, every touch of my hands against her hips, because I’d like to replay this moment for the rest of my life. Just so I can breathe.

She lowers her head to my collarbone and presses a heated kiss there, spreading her legs over the stiff rise of my cock. “You can’t always be the one on top, Wes.”

“Can’t I?”

“No.” Whitney rocks her hips forward and her wetness comes into contact with my crown. It’s a like a shot going off, the beginning of a mission, and I’m bigger and stronger, so it’s no contest when I flip us both, pinning her beneath me.

“I want to see you underneath me. I want to see the look on that pretty face the first time I take you, feel your body writhe while I show you how crazy you make me.”

Whitney’s eyes glow with the challenge. I don’t know which of us moves first—do her hips rise or do mine thrust forward? All that matters, is that I sink into her, all the way to the hilt, and for the first time in a long time, I have the world in a firm grip.