I push my fingers into her hair and swallow down the sweet taste in my mouth, the absolutely wild urge I have to tell her that. Even if I can’t tell her that. Not after she had to save my restaurant, after all of her insistence that we be casual.

“I see... I think you’re hot for me, Hollywood.”

She closes her eyes, pressing her head into my hand. “I think you are, too.”

“Another secret?” I whisper the words across her lips, and she nods. “I know I am.”

The doors open before I can kiss her. Probably for the best. I might not stop. She pulls me out, both hands wrapped around mine, walking backward down the hall, her cheeks flushed, eyes bright. I want to remember her like this forever.

She lets go of me only to open the door, to pull her coat and boots off. Then she’s on me, helping me with my coat, throwing it on the floor. She drops to her knees to tug off my combat boots and tosses those aside, as well. She tries to unbutton my jeans and wrestle them down my hips, but I pull her back up.

“Hollywood. Sophie.” Her hands slow their frantic undressing beneath mine. “What are you doing?”

“You said we could celebrate,” she says, matter-of-fact. “I’m celebrating.”

“But I want to see your apartment. I want to meet Fifi.” I peer over her shoulder into the dark apartment. She’s shaking, almost frantic. “And I want to talk to you. About the show...and the restaurant.”

“After,” she says, her fingers teasing my rib cage as she tries again to pull my shirt off. This time from the bottom.

I squeeze her to me. “How about this?”

She closes her eyes and presses her forehead to my shoulder. “Amy,” she whines. She even wiggles against me; the brat.

“Let’s talk about the show.” I tip her chin up, waiting for her to look at me before I say another word. “And then I’ll make you come.”

She narrows her eyes. “Weren’t you going to do that already?”

I roll my eyes, knocking my head against the door. “Fine. Talk to me about the show—specifically, your fears about it—and I’ll make you come. Fast. Or don’t show me around and you might not come for hours. Maybe not even at all.”

“You wouldn’t.”

I shrug. “Who knows what I’m capable of.”

When she glares, looking up at me through her eyelashes, her nostrils flare a little bit. This seems like a bad time to call her adorable, though.

“Fine. I want to have sex and she wants to talk,” she mumbles. “I guess as a compromise, we’ll have talk.”

She drags me from the door and pulls me down a short hallway, flicking on the light to reveal a white and dark gray kitchen. It’s large but the decor is nothing like what I imagined for her. Professional Kitchen Sophie is structured and meticulous. But out of the kitchen she’s warm and inviting, and this kitchen is anything but.