My hand moved on its own accord, curving up her waist and then over her arm, to her throat and then her cheek. She gasped when my fingertips grazed her cheeks, catching the hair stuck to her temples. I tucked the strands back behind her ears, my hand lingering.

“You’re soaked.”

“So are you.”

I smoothed my thumb over the slant of her cheek. “I guess we’re going to have to try this another night.”

“Yeah,” she whispered as her eyes flickered shut and then swept back open.

“Maybe we should’ve checked the weather first.” When she smiled, I shifted my hips in response. Her body shuddered in such a mind-blowing way and her lashes lowered. Her lips parted even further, and I didn’t want to let her go. She felt too good this close.

Her chest rose in short, deep breaths as I lowered my head, wanting and needing to kiss her. Just once. That’s all I wanted. My eyes started to drift closed.

Avery suddenly jerked back, pressing a hand between her breasts. “I think we . . . we should call it a night.”

For a moment I couldn’t move and then leaned back, tipping my head against the wall. It took a couple of moments before I could speak. “Yeah, we should.”

The trip out of the building and back to the apartment wasn’t easy. I was still strung tight as a bow. Nothing seemed to make the raw edge go away. I tried reciting the alphabet backwards, tried thinking about the old lady who lived in the building nearby, who sometimes walked her dog in a white nightgown. The sight was not pretty, but it still didn’t work.

The rain was still coming down as we dashed across the parking lot and under the awning. I shook my head, spraying water everywhere. Avery stopped at the base of the stairwell leading up to our apartments, and I thought it was all the rain I’d just pelted her with. I opened my mouth to apologize, but she turned sideways, her face pale as she peered up at me.

A very different kind of ache sliced through my chest, stirring up that knot in there, at the stark confusion and fear in her eyes. Fear. I didn’t get it. Had I done that to her? No. I couldn’t believe that. Not the way she had reacted to me. I saw it in her eyes. She had wanted me to kiss her, probably even as badly as I wanted to kiss her, but she had pulled away because . . . I honestly didn’t know.

I thrust my hand through my hair, pulling it off my forehead. “Go out with me.”

“No,” she whispered.

I grinned slightly, and her chest fell, her shoulders relaxed, as if she needed to hear this. “There’s always tomorrow.”

She followed me up the stairs. “Tomorrow’s not going to change anything.”

“We’ll see.”