He smirked. “Cool. Well, I’m done with them anyway. If it’s okay, I’ll leave them here.”

A week into vacation and I caved. The nondescript book spines had been staring at me, daring. I’d put them on the shelf between The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—in other words, squarely in Elliot territory, as a hint that he was welcome to take them home if he chose.

It’s not like I wasn’t curious. It’s not like I didn’t itch to pick them up. But with Elliot stretched out in front of me every day, absently reaching to scratch his stomach or crossing his legs at the ankle—the movement somehow redefining and emphasizing what existed beneath the buttons of his jeans . . . I wasn’t sure what I really needed was more erotica.

Alas, Delta of Venus was first. I started it at daybreak, hours—I reasoned—before Elliot would show up.

But as usual, it was like he knew.

“Oooh. What are you reading?” he asked from the doorway. The barest daylight weakly lit my bedroom behind him; he blocked most of it with the width of his shoulders.

I ignored the rising heat in my cheeks and turned back to the cover as if I needed to remind myself. “Oh. Just one of the books you got me.”

“Ah,” he said, and I heard the satisfied grin in his voice. “You’re up early, too. Which one?”

Unwilling to say the name, I simply held up the book and waved it at him, struggling to look casual even though I knew my face was a ripe, heated red.

“Mind if I join you in the closet?”

“Suit yourself.” I rolled onto my stomach and continued reading.

Whoa.

The words were almost too much even for the privacy of my thoughts. I’d always thought of sexual things in such abstract ways, not with language but with visuals. And even more intense? I realized while reading this . . . I always imagined Elliot. I would imagine him coming closer and touching me, what he might say or how he might look. But never had I thought words like quivering, and tormented with desire, and absorbed him until he came.

I could feel him watching me but worked to keep my expression neutral. “Hm,” I said thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

Elliot exhaled a laugh.

“What did you just read?” he asked a while later, voice teasing. “Your eyes are going to fall out of your head.”

“It’s erotic literature,” I said, shrugging. “Safe money says I read something erotic.”

“Share.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Not a chance.”

“It’s okay if you’re embarrassed by it,” he said, returning to his book. “I won’t push.”

I was intensely embarrassed by it. But, at the same time, I was thrilled by it, and vexed by it. It was sexual, but so impersonal. I wanted to infuse it with more feeling. His hands became Elliot’s. Her hands became mine. I imagined emotion there that wasn’t on the page. I wondered if it was the same for Elliot when he read it, and whether he noticed how . . . distant it all seemed.