Is there a moment more powerful than having a wish fulfilled? Mine isn’t altruistic or commendable or worthy of winning a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s selfish and silly and senseless. But it’s mine, and I’ve protected it. I haven’t let the rationality that governs the rest of my life reach how much I hoped to one day experience a moment where Gray treated me as anything more than his best friend’s little sister. I think this qualifies.

Fantasies don’t have to make sense. They often don’t—that’s the point. And they rarely become reality. Yet somehow, I’m living mine now.

I dig my fingers into his thick hair the same way I was imagining in the hallway, running the tips of my fingernails lightly along his scalp.

“Fuck,” Gray rasps. The low, masculine rumble ignites new heat that fizzles in my stomach. It sinks lower when he slips one finger inside me, then two. “You’re so tight. Like you’ve never taken a cock.”

My body responds to his filthy words and confident movements, coating his fingers with evidence of how I’m responding to his touch. Words I don’t mean to say follow; my tongue loosened by heady sensation and the lingering buzz of alcohol in my blood. “I haven’t.”

It takes a few seconds for those two words to register. As soon as they do, Gray freezes. Drops his hand. Moves away. “You’re a virgin?” He says the question like lack of promiscuity is a contagious disease.

I jut my chin out defiantly. “So what if I am?”

“Shit.” He takes another step away, shaking his head and gripping the back of his neck with one hand. “I almost deflowered little Evie Collins.” He says the words to himself, punctuated with a small what the hell were you thinking shake of the head.

I’m embarrassed and pissed. I step away from the door and yank down my dress so fast that I’m surprised it doesn’t rip. “You didn’t seem to think I was so little when you had your fingers in me a minute ago.”

He snorts and turns toward the sink. Forget whiplash. I feel like I was just spun in circles and then shoved out an airplane.

After he washes his hands, Gray turns back around. There’s a smirk on his face and a teasing glint in his eyes. “Did Boston convert you to Catholicism? Or were you just too busy studying?”

“You’re such an ass.”

“You knew that when you kissed me.”

I pick my dignity up from the dirty floor. “Temporary lapse in judgment. I’m drunk”—more on him than anything else—“and you’re decent-looking, I guess.” Heartbreakingly handsome would also apply. “You can go now.”

Gray doesn’t move. “Weren’t you with that guy in Boston for, like, a year?”