“Don’t think,” I say. “That’s the key. We can’t overthink this.” I start working on the buttons of his shirt, undoing them, peeling back the fabric to reveal the white tee underneath. “You must have been boiling at dinner in all these layers. Let’s get this off.”

The resistance leaves him. He helps me take his shirt off, laying it gently across the chair to join his jacket, and then pulls his tee over his head. His hands come around to my back, smoothing the fabric of my dress. “Does it have a zipper or something?”

“No, it’s stretchy. It—” I freeze.

It pulls down. And I’m not wearing a bra. I didn’t have anything strapless, and I didn’t want the straps to show.

I take a step back. “Uh, maybe—” I glance at the bed. “Would it be more comfortable if we got under the covers?”

He nods quickly. We both slide under the smooth white sheets, sending a cascade of red petals to the floor. Nick wriggles around and finally tosses his pants out his side, followed by his socks. “I’m going to leave the underwear for now,” he announces.

“Okay,” I rasp. I slide my dress down and off my hips and lay it on the floor next to the bed. Then I turn so we’re facing each other. “Eyes up here,” I bark as he starts to look downward. His gaze jerks up to mine. His eyes in this light are a strange contradiction: warm gray—a color I could make by watering down black and mixing in a drop of blue and then a bit of peachy pink.

He’s looking into my eyes, too. “Hi, again.”

“Hi.”

“This is wild.”

“I know.”

“It’s a lot.”

“Right?”

“What now?”

I think about it. “Maybe we should touch.”

Without waiting, I reach across under the covers and put my hand against his chest. It’s hairless and warm. His heart pounds under my palm.

He sucks in a shuddering breath.

“Now you touch me,” I whisper.

He lifts his hand and then hesitates, his fingers curling into a fist and then uncurling as he decides where to go. Then he closes his eyes and follows the line from my shoulder to my neck.

I let my hand wander down (too chicken to go straight down, of course), moving across the small juts of his ribs to the outside of his hip.

He responds by tracing back down my arm to my waist, my hip, the outside of my leg down to the very soft skin behind my knee.

“Your legs are really smooth,” he murmurs. (They are also splotchy and red and pretty tender, on account of the wax, but he doesn’t need to know that.)

His legs are long and lean and slightly fuzzy.