Even a miserable Monday stuck behind my desk at the Colton-Hayes offices can’t quite kill my weekend buzz.

Alec and I didn’t stop after the first time our bodies collided in a blaze of heat and passion, or even the second time. For the first time in my life, I spent the entire night entangled with a man who couldn’t get enough of me. He worshipped every single inch of my skin and every fold between my legs. Everything he did made me wetter, hotter; made me want him more. The sun was rising before I even entertained the notion of stopping.

At some point in the early morning, as I rode him in the semi-darkness of his bedroom, driving my weight down onto his cock with every thrust, I was overcome by a need to know more about this stranger who was lighting up every nerve in my body with electric pleasure. In that moment, my condition—no last names, no strings—seemed to border on the absurd.

“Tell me your name,” I gasped, leaning down to bite his firm chest above the nipple.

He pulled my face up to his and kissed me hard and deep while I kept swirling my hips around him, pumping myself up and down his length. When he broke the kiss, he turned his face to whisper in my ear, “It’s Alec.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and I let out a laugh that quickly turned into a moan as he picked up the pace again.

While I make my way to the break room to refill my tea—I hate the aftertaste coffee leaves in my mouth, but after an entire night of no sleep and serious physical activity, I need something—the logical side of me battles with the memory of the unbelievable connection between us.

And it is unbelievable. Alec and I are complete strangers. The fact that thinking about him sends shivers down my spine doesn’t mean that I should abandon my one-and-done policy.

As I heat up the water in the electric kettle, I let my mind wander, over his muscles, the way his arms flexed as he lifted me effortlessly, the piercing green eyes that lingered on the curves of my breasts, the lips that teased every inch of my skin over and over until I was quaking with desire…

Even so.

I hang a tea bag over the edge of the cup and frown as a memory creeps in unbidden.

Michael, screaming at me, face purple with rage, fists clenched at his sides, because I’d dared to go home to visit my parents for the weekend without telling him first. Facing his fury, my stomach had grown cold and my legs tensed, getting ready to run.

It wasn’t the only time he made me fear for my life.

When I finally ended that two-year relationship, which had swallowed my senior year of college and the year after it whole, I swore to myself that I would never allow a man to hold such power over me again. Any partnership I entered would be one built on equal footing.

Alec could be that man. The thought bubbles up from somewhere deep in my mind, but I push it away. I need to consider all of this very carefully.

The mug of tea is steaming, the heat a pleasant contrast to the bitter temperature of the air conditioning in the office as I slowly retrace my steps to my cubicle.

I can’t dive headfirst into anything with Alec, and not because of what happened with Michael. The terms we agreed to on Friday night were that there would be no last names and no strings. It was supposed to be a one-night stand, and that was it.

It won’t exactly put me on equal footing with him if I send him a message asking to see him again. He’ll know he has a hold on me if I do that.

On top of that, who’s to say he feels the same way about me? Even if we hadn’t spent the entire night feasting on each other, licking each other, slamming our bodies together, the boundary I’d set at the bar prevented us from exchanging the kind of information we’d need start a relationship. I remember his reaction when I suggested we keep it simple and only about sex—he didn’t hesitate. He wanted that privacy as much as I did.

So, as much as I want to open the app and send him another message, I can’t. My cheeks flush pink at the thought of him and the intensity of what we shared together Friday night, the way my body spiked with adrenaline for the rest of the weekend, wanting desperately to be back in his bed as I went to brunch and did my shopping and cleaned my apartment, the clean masculine scent of him filling my mind and overwhelming my senses the entire time.

That doesn’t stop me from taking my phone out of my purse twenty times over the course of the day and opening a new message window, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Every time, though, I close the app without typing a single word. I can’t find a way to reach out to him again without going back on my promises to myself, a way to breach the agreement we had without putting him in control of my emotions.

My breath is shallow by the time I step out onto the sidewalk a little after 5:00, the space between my legs aching with need for him. Ridiculous, I tell myself. You’re being ridiculous.

When my phone buzzes in my purse, I stop dead on the sidewalk and rifle through my bag, snatching it up with shaking hands.

It’s not a text.

It’s not an email.

It’s a message in the dating app.

And it’s from him.