Instead of answering, he reaches over and cups my chin and brings my face closer to his. I will never, ever get tired of feeling his soft lips. The muscles in his arms flex, and I melt into him, pulling him closer. “This shirt is so stiff and scratchy.” He sits up and pulls his arm out from between us, and his skin is red. “Damn.”

“Also Xavier’s. Must be the detergent or something.”

Jack shakes his head. “I like your style. And I prefer to live hive-free.”

“You have a tee I can wear?”

“Just take it off.”

My body stiffens at the suggestion, and I can’t look at him. “Nah, it’s fine.”

He shimmies to his knees. “Stand up.”

The place between my eyes throbs, but I don’t want to make a scene. Jack always exudes such confidence, and I wish I could bottle it and drink it every day of my life.

My body shudders, and I want to crawl out of my own skin.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Don’t be scared of me.” I’m still not looking at him when he grabs my hands. “Can I tell you what I see when I look at you?”

“Oh god.”

Swerving right past that, he says, “I see someone whose passion radiates from their fingers”—he plays with each fingertip—“to their toes.” He moves closer. “You didn’t see me, but I saw you last week in the academic quad. You were sitting with Sofía, drawing something. I couldn’t see what, but I stopped dead in my tracks and just watched you.”

“Creepy.”

“Don’t ruin the moment,” he says, his thumbs gently stroking mine. “Anyway, I saw how your hands moved, the way the veins in your forearm pulsed as you swept across the page, the way your calves tightened to steady your sketchbook. The way your eyes twitched when you stopped to consider your next move but then would brighten when you knew you already had it all figured out.”

I remember that day. I was working on a scene with the Prince and the Knight, whose combined spark created lightning. I couldn’t get the lines of the Prince’s face down, and it was because I was thinking about Jack. I kept closing my eyes to clear my head, but my chest would pang, and I had to keep sketching in order to focus.

Jack straightens his back and inches forward, and I want to ask him how he knows all that just by looking at me. “I also see someone completely unaware of just how mind-blowingly hot they are.”

That makes me snicker.

“Seriously, Chase.”

His gaze travels to my chest then to my stomach. The way he looks at my body makes me feel completely naked. He moves our hands to the bottom of my belly.

“Can I?” he asks.