She was being a coward.

He straightened and gave her one last, lingering smile. “Night, Jess.”

Before he could turn away, she caught his fingers with hers. “River. Hey.”

He frowned down at her, waiting, but the longer she stood there looking up at him, the more his expression transitioned from concern to understanding. Finally, he turned his hand over in hers, threading their fingers together. “You okay?”

She nodded, swallowing down the tangle of angst in her throat. Pressing her hand to his chest, she stretched, and he stood carefully still as she brushed her mouth over his. When she stepped away, he stared down at her with the same unreadable restraint. If she’d been any less exhausted, Jess would have felt like a complete idiot. “Yeah—sorry. Just. Wanted to do that.”

River reached up, gently guiding her hair behind her shoulder. “Even without an audience?” he asked quietly.

“I’m amazed we did it with an audience.”

A smile broke slowly across his face, starting with his eyes and moving down to lips that curved up in shy relief. Bending, River set those lips on hers, and the same sensation of floating hit her like a narcotic. He gave her a series of sweet, brief kisses, and finally tilted his head to pull at her lower lip, nudging her mouth, coaxing it open so he could taste her.

The first contact with his tongue was like a shot of adrenaline into her heart, sent with shocking clarity and speed down every extremity. A quiet sound of relief escaped her throat and it turned something over in him; his hands flew around her back, pulling her flush against him.

Jess had the acute urge to crawl inside him somehow, kissing him with the kind of concentrated, building intensity she’d never felt before. Not even at the cocktail party. Alone together in the darkness of the parking lot, with a black sky all around and fingers of the cold, damp February air dipping beneath their collars, River left no room, holding her close and sending his warm, broad hand up under the hem of her sweater, pressing his hand flat to the small of her back.

Tight, hungry sounds escaped whenever they pulled away and came back for more. He bent possessively, one hand holding firm at her back, the other sliding up her neck, cupping her jaw, digging into her hair. Jess could, in an instant, see how easily he would devour her. A current vibrated when they came together; he became less man than pure energy, arms shaking with restraint. She imagined scooting back on a bed, watching him prowl forward, anticipating how it would feel to let him do whatever he wanted to her. Begging him to.

River broke the kiss, breathing hard and resting his forehead on hers. “Jess.”

She waited for more, but that seemed to be all of it, the quiet exhalation of her name.

Slowly, with the clarity of the sharp, cool air in her lungs and space from the intoxicating weight of his body against hers, she returned to herself. The night sky tickled the back of her neck; a sodium light buzzed overhead.