His expression softened, and he glanced at her mouth and then back up to her eyes. “Do you want me to tell you or not?”

“Not. You know what we statisticians say: all models are wrong, but some are useful.” He laughed. “I don’t want to know the score, River.”

“I won’t ever offer again.” He stepped forward and wrapped his other arm around her waist. “Can I do this?”

Jess nodded, looking up at him through her lashes. It felt so good to have him this close. When she closed her eyes, she was able to focus on the desire thrumming through her blood like a drug. They had hours before Juno came home.

She reached forward and ran her hand up his chest, along his neck, and traced his lower lip with her thumb. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I missed you.”

“I’ve been here the whole time.” She gently pinched his chin.

“I’m feeling incredibly clingy.” River bent and rested his lips over hers. “I love you.”

Emotion welled up in her throat, and Jess wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you, too.”

“FYI,” a disembodied voice said from the iPad, “if you think I haven’t written down every word of this, you’re both high.”

WITH A SMIRK, River turned and walked over to the iPad, ending the Zoom meeting with a quick tap of a finger. When he looked back at Jess, his smile immediately took on a ravenous edge. “Guess I wasn’t the only one who forgot she was there.”

Jess’s “Sorry” dissolved between them as River stalked over to her, gaze darkening; adrenaline poured warm and insistent into her bloodstream. Sliding his arms around her waist, he leaned in to kiss her neck. “What is it with us and audiences?”

“I don’t know, but I sure am glad we don’t have one now.” She closed her eyes, focused on the sweet, tiny kisses he dropped on her skin, from her collarbone up to her jaw.

Bending and reaching around to the back of her thighs, River lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist to carry her down the hall. “This okay?”

“If by ‘this’ you mean makeup sex with no child in the house, then yes. It is very okay.”

As he walked, their kisses took on the kind of aching, bruised-lip intensity that told Jess, even more than his words had, how much he missed her. But when he set her down on the bed, and braced over her in that hungry way of his, he lifted a gentle hand to coax a few strands of her hair out of her face and said, “We never really talked about it—it was so unimportant at the time—but I haven’t really been in a relationship since we founded GeneticAlly.”

Jess pushed back into the pillow, staring up at him. “Seriously?”

River nodded. “Work was everything,” he said carefully. “I just wasn’t emotionally engaged anywhere else. Until you. So, I know it isn’t an excuse, but now I know to be aware of it if we have another work crisis.” He paused, reconsidering. “When we have another work crisis. I slipped back into that mode so fast, everything else fell away. Until this morning, I thought it had only been two or three days since we spoke.”