Those fingers delve under the fabric, and finally, finally, settle on my clitoris, drawing torturously slow circles there. Oh God. It’s both not enough and too much. I let out a long moan, my entire body tingling.

“Like this?” he asks, his breath feathering over my eyes.

“Yes, just like that,” I whisper.

“Ah Jesus, Solange. You’re so soft.”

My skin’s taut, the tension in my arms and legs stretching it to its capacity, the sensations evoked by Dean’s touch having nowhere to go so they build and build and build inside me.

“Let me take you home,” he says, his voice rough and urgent as his talented fingers dip inside my slick heat. “Spend the night with me.”

The word yes hovers in the air, until the sound of someone pushing the metal release on a door above us echoes in the stairwell and yanks me out of the moment.

He draws his hand out of my pants and gingerly straightens my top. I blink my eyes open and try to focus on our surroundings. We’re in a stairwell, not all that different from the one I was in when I discovered his fiancée three weeks ago. That parallel is the splash of cold water I need. “I should get back. They’re probably wondering where I am. Let’s just forget . . .” I gesture around me as if to say us. Let’s just forget us. As an idea. As a possibility.

He clears his throat, then nods once. “Yeah, I hear you.” His face is flushed, and his lips are wet, and his hair is adorably mussed. Note to self: The more disheveled his appearance, the harder it is to resist him.

I brush off my pants for no reason whatsoever. “Well, one more get-together, and we’re done, right?”

He raises a brow at that, though I didn’t mean it to sound so final. I’m about to clarify, but my mother appears at the top of the landing.

What the hell?

How?

Why?

“Filha, are you leaving?” she asks, her gaze darting to Dean before it returns to me.

“No, I’ll be up in a sec.”

“Okay, good. I wanted to ask you if you still wanted to go to the community garden tomorrow.”

“Yes, I do. And we can talk about it later. Because I’ll be up in a sec, okay?” I widen my eyes, but she pretends not to understand that I’m asking her to make herself scarce, which immediately makes me suspicious of her motivation for being here.

“Oh, no problem.” She winks at Dean. “Nice to meet you, filho.”

“You too, Ms. Pereira,” he says, a hint of amusement in his tone.

Then my mother spins around, pushes open the exit door, and waltzes out of sight.

I shake my head. “I don’t even know what that was about.”