But almost immediately he loosened his fingers. It wasn’t the right instinct, to be selfish like that, to be possessive like that. She was trying to tell him something, and he needed to keep his head together enough to listen.

“I’ve only slept with two men. Only ever kissed three.”

“Okay,” he said, even though he knew he would privately and thoroughly hate every one of them, forever. He still wasn’t sure why it was any of his business. But if she thought he cared about this number, if she thought he’d care if it was twelve or twenty or two hundred or none at all, he needed to correct that impression.

“Nora, it doesn’t—”

“What I mean is,” she said, before he could finish, “it’s never felt like this. To kiss. To—” She broke off and dragged her hands down his shoulders. His head tipped down to watch as they moved lower, over his chest, and when they stilled on his abdomen he wanted to finish the sentence for her. He wanted her to act it out.

Touch, touch, touch, he wanted to say.

But then he looked up and found her watching him, saw the question in her eyes. And he knew what she was asking; he knew that she wanted to know if it was the same for him. This was Nora, after all—careful, particular, protective. She would want to know. She would want to know if a man she was with like this was worthy of her feelings. If he returned her feelings.

Focus, Will, he told himself, putting his hands over hers, pressing her palms flat against him. Touch, those were the feelings she was talking about. Not backyards and balconies and whole entire hearts. She was talking about how it felt to touch him, how it felt to be touched by him. And that was good; that was perfect.

Touch, he could handle.

So he did what he’d been holding himself back from doing and walked her backward, steadying her as he went, until the wall behind her did his work for him. Beneath his hands her fingertips curled against the cotton of his shirt, tugging him closer, fitting their bodies together. He let her feel it, that aching hardness beneath his jeans, and when she gasped he answered her.

“For me, either,” he said honestly, and he watched the relieved smile spread over her kiss-swollen lips. He lowered his mouth so he could speak this next part, this truest part, right against them. “This is a first.”

Then they were kissing again, harder now that they’d agreed on this, and it was long minutes of roaming hands and tangling tongues before she spoke again.

“Stay tonight.”

He would’ve stayed in the hallway, if that’s the way she’d wanted it.