“Why’s that?”

“I’ll break your heart.”

Despite myself, I ask, “What if I want to take that risk?”

“You don’t strike me as a guy who lives dangerously.”

The slip of air between our bodies is electric. “It won’t change my article.”

“I’m not asking you to change it,” Sylvie says.

“But you want me to.”

A little smile plays on her lips. “Yes.”

“I won’t.”

“I know.”

“Should we have the requisite conversation about protection?”

“If I get pregnant, I’m going to keep our baby.”

My expression must be somewhere between shock and appalled.

She laughs. “Kidding. I was tested three months ago. Clean bill of health and I’m on birth control. You?”

“Tested a year ago. That was my last relationship.”

“No Tinder dates?”

“Never.”

Sylvie gets out of bed, carries Chris along with a pillow into the bathroom. Moose follows and she shuts the door, slides between the sheets. She’s thrown out a dare and now waits to see if I’ll bite. Her eyes gleam in the dark and I can see the slope of those full lips, feel the heat of her body and an invisible pull. It’s wrong. Unfair. Dangerous . . . But my fingers trail down the petal-soft skin of her long neck to the pronounced bones of her clavicle and the hollow between them. I don’t pull off her pajama top though every cell in my body sings out for skin-on-skin contact.

There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed . . . I slip one hand between the buttons of her pajamas, and trace her breast. All the while she watches, dares me to go further. When the tips of my fingers find her nipple, her breath hitches and the nerves in my body respond, send off hot tendrils of desire. We kiss slowly, tentatively, like we’re rolling down a hill, picking up speed and intensity with each rotation.

I’ve been with a number of women, and the first time we’re intimate is always filled with breathless anticipation, but this? There’s no comparison. Sylvie pulls off my T-shirt and trails her fingers down my bare skin. Our kisses become hungry . . . I can still stop this before it’s too late. But my hands slide over the curve of her hips, silk panties, round ass, and the honeyed skin of her inner thighs. The need to be inside her overwhelms me. If we were already lovers, I’d pull the scrap of lace between her legs aside and slide in. Instead, I run my hands under her pj’s, across her belly, and travel slowly to her breasts, squeeze until a sigh escapes her lips.

I unbutton her top and slide it free. She tries to pull me close but instead I get up, open the curtains so that the city’s golden lights glance off her bare skin. Straddling her lean body, I begin to kiss her, my lips traveling from her navel upward, my tongue tasting the slight saltiness of her skin, encircling small nipples, her breasts in my hands. I nip and suck until her back curves. Again she reaches to pull me down. Instead, I weave our fingers together at her sides, slide down and kiss her thighs, the heat between her legs. My tongue drifts inside the elastic of her panties, swirls along the soft folds. She sighs and her legs slowly open. I can’t stop this. “Yes?” I ask.