He grabbed the dress by the skirt and passed it to her. Then he let his finger graze the top of her hand when he tugged the shirt she’d been holding so it would fall free and drop on the floor. “Boston College, huh?”

Perhaps if she’d corrected him things might have gone differently. But she liked being thought of as older than she was.

“Just let me see,” he said, smiling. “I’m not asking you to undress.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed with his chin on his hands. She looked at him through his reflection in the mirror—three sets in the vanity, from three angles, his eyes all over her. “C’mon,” he said, and smiled.

She’d screwed around with boys back home, “mashing” under the bleachers at football games or in her friends’ wood-paneled basements at parties, but she’d never let it go too far. She was usually comfortable saying no, pulling a boy’s hand away from the hem of her shirt and the snap of her pants.

She decided to think of this as a game, one in which she had power. Emboldened, she smiled. She pointed her toe through the dress, and shimmied the delicate fabric over her hips. It felt like a whisper against her skin. She slipped her arms into the armholes. The dress was meant to be cute, not sexy, but it might as well have been lingerie, the way Ann felt wearing it. She reached behind her for the zipper and struggled to pull it up.

Anthony stepped off the bed and approached her. “Let me help.” He did nothing at first. She could feel the heat off his body, and she wanted badly for him to either walk out of the room or to touch her, but she was also worried about either scenario.

His breath was heavy and warm on her shoulder. It ignited something in her, a hunger that felt suddenly hot and urgent—and wrong.

He reached for the zipper at the small of her back. He dragged it up slowly, one tooth at a time, until his fingers made electric contact on the base of her neck, lingering there, warm and insistent, his fingers callused and hard and masculine. He gently tugged at the rubber band holding her ponytail and set her golden hair loose. “There,” he said. “All you need is matching polish for your toenails.”

She curled her bare toes deep into the thick pile carpet.

He backed away and stood in profile, doing nothing to hide the hard-on that bulged pointedly through his slacks like a drawn sword. She knew he was proud and he meant for her to see it.

He stared at her for a while, his gaze intense, direct. “I think I’m going to have to start spending more time out here on the Cape, aren’t I?”