“Oh.” Her exhalation rippled over his skin, and he got impossibly harder. Would she mind if he walked her back, if he pressed her against that wall, if he—

“This is so . . .” she began, trailing off when he moved his lips again, back to taste her mouth; it had been a while since he tasted her mouth.

“You’re really good at this,” she finished, when she had a second to speak again.

He didn’t answer, couldn’t think enough to answer. He bent his head again, using the hand that wasn’t in her hair to tug at the hem of her shirt, tucking his lips against the newly exposed skin at the base of her throat, breathing her in.

“Like,” she whispered, her breaths coming in quick, frustrated pants now, “Really good. Have you done this a lot? Kissing like this, I mean. It’s—you are . . . have you done this a lot?”

He lifted his head again, capturing her mouth and kissing her hard, stalling for time while his poor, blood-deprived brain tried to catch up enough to process her question.

“I don’t remember,” he said, when he finally came up for air. He caught her answering laugh with his lips, but he wasn’t really joking. At the moment he didn’t remember any kiss he’d ever had before this one, certainly couldn’t remember any kiss like this one. He couldn’t remember ever being with a woman and feeling this focused and this frantic all at once: even as he noticed, in clear, crystalline detail, every single place where he touched Nora and where Nora touched him, his mind rushed ahead, blurry images of being above her, beneath her, however she wanted it, their clothes off and their bodies intertwined.

Something inside him seemed to strain, to twist, like the two loose ends of that cord were trying to find their way back to each other, trying to wrap their way around his chest and remind him of what he’d known about Nora all along: that he felt rash and reckless when he was around her, that she made him feel close to a part of himself he’d long kept hidden away.

How could it feel this good?

“Because,” she said, and for a split second he wondered if he’d said it all aloud. But then she leaned in to him, mimicked him, dragged her mouth up the side of his neck, pulling herself up higher on his body as she went.

“Because I haven’t,” she whispered, when she got to his ear.

He stilled, both his hands coming to her waist, and for the first time since this started they separated, at least enough to keep their lips off each other.

“You haven’t what?”

“Been with—been like this. With many people.”

Don’t think about other people, he thought, instinctively tightening his hold on her. Not while you’re with me.