He might’ve groaned in relief as he brought her closer—one hand at the curve of her waist, one tucked into the cool, smooth strands of the hair she still had up—and she came to him like she’d been waiting, putting her arms around him and pressing her whole body against his. All at once it was hunger and heat, Will’s hands firm where they held her, Nora’s fisting at the back of his T-shirt as she pushed up onto her toes, opening her mouth against his, her tongue sweet and seeking. She tasted like something—mint, maybe coffee, too, like first thing in the morning even though it was the dead of night, and he could not get enough of it, could not stop kissing her, could not get over the way she tasted him back.

When she used her teeth to tug at his lower lip he practically jolted away from the doorframe, had to clutch at her in desperate, frantic restraint—not to lift her up, not to press her against the wall, not to thrust against her. But in his haste he’d clutched at what was close, at what felt natural—that long rope of hair that was so easy to grip, that tipped her head back, and as soon as he did it she gasped, and then moaned, her hips rolling against him.

“God,” she said, between kisses, her voice rougher and breathier than he’d ever heard it sound, and it felt like fitting a key to a lock, knowing this—that touching her this way made her move that way, sound that way, and so he left his hand where it was, gripping her hair a little tighter before he used it to tug her head back gently.

Another pulse of her hips as he bent his head to the line of her exposed throat, and he missed her lips but he wanted his mouth on this too. The lip that still tingled from her bite, he dragged it up the side of her neck and felt her body shudder, imagined her skin flushing beneath her clothes, her nipples pebbling beneath her bra. He paid her back in kind, nipping at her skin, soothing it with his tongue, and then he started all over on the other side. Her hands were in his hair, holding him to her, and it felt so good and perfect that he didn’t care that his glasses were probably fogging up, worse and more embarrassing than having them coated in drywall dust. Up close like this it didn’t matter anyway; he could see everything he wanted to see, could see her by touching her and tasting her like this, by hearing her whimper when he sucked gently at the soft patch of skin behind her ear.