“Thank you for today,” she says quietly.

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” I say. “I enjoyed it…”

She gives me a pointed look.

“Well, obviously, except for the part where you had to go to the emergency room, although I won’t deny that I liked looking at your ass.”

If she’d been holding a dish, she would have dropped it. “You looked?!” 

“No,” I say, laughing a little at the horror on her face. “Not when she pulled your shorts down to give you the steroid shot. Those are some shorts though.”

She looks embarrassed, and I can’t have that, so I say something stupid. “You know, someone told me you think I’m so sexy, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day.”

“Who told you that?” she asks, blanching. “Nicole? I barely know her.”

“You did,” I say, reaching for her hand. “When you were high on Benadryl.”

She doesn’t pull away. My heart is pounding now—I can hear it in my ears—and I pull her to me. “You said I should be with someone bold and sexy,” I say into her ear. Her body is against me now, her breasts pressing into my chest, the curve of her hips under my hands, and that delightfully messy hair is in the vicinity of my nose, so I can take in her scent—citrus and vanilla. Sunshine.

“I guess I said a lot of things,” she says, her voice muffled. She’s looking down, and I can’t have that either, so I tip her chin gently so she’s peering up at me. Her eyes…they’re like a storm, but one feeling punches through: lust. She wants me too.

Thank God.

“You’re bold,” I say. “You’re sexy as hell. Talking to you makes me feel like I’m in Narnia.”

“What?” she asks, clearly taken off guard by that. Me and my big mouth.

“It’s just…time changes when we’re together, or even when we’re just talking. It slips by without seeming to. I could talk to you for hours without noticing time is passing. It’s like stepping through that wardrobe door, and—”

And I shut the hell up because she’s lifting up on her toes. With my heart soaring in my chest, I lean down and claim her mouth, gentle at first—a getting-to-know-you kiss—but her lips are so soft yet hungry, and a little sound escapes her throat. I’m suddenly ravenous for her.