“Abbie,” he interrupted. “Careful. Or you might piss me off.” He was so close now that she could smell him, the scent that never changed, cedar and the strawberry flavour of his shakes. So close she could see the faint ghosts of his freckles, the glint of the fine chain he always wore beneath his clothes, the hint of humour in his eyes, and of frustration.

She glared, irritated. “I’m just saying.”

“And I,” he replied, “have no idea how we went from Will just wants to fuck me to Will barely wants to fuck me, but I’ve decided to ride this rollercoaster, so here we go. Right now, I am this close to poking you with my dick at the side of a supermarket like some kind of neighbourhood pervert. I am doing that, Abigail, because when I am with you, all I have to do is look at your face and listen to your voice and maybe smell your hair a bit, and suddenly it’s easier for me to get hard than it is for me to control myself. That is because I find you majorly fuckable, and actually, I think about your fuckability quite often, and always have, and probably always will. So yes, I am very specifically attracted to you.”

Abbie’s body was suddenly possessed by two very distinct desires. First, the urge to slide down the wall and crawl away, commando-style, from this conversation, because one of her key barriers had just been firmly eroded by Will’s matter-of-fact and incredibly arousing description of his attraction to her.

Second, the urge to grab him by the arse and taste that defiant lower lip, for much the same reason.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“Now we’ve got that settled,” Will continued, because Will was a smug prick, “I’d like to repeat that I’ve not been flirting with you because of your fuckability. I’ve been flirting with you because…”—he pressed gentle fingertips to her chin and tilted her head up, as if he knew she’d do anything to avoid his gaze right now and he was going to cut that shit out for her—“because, again: I. Like. You. It looks like that’s confused you, so let me explain. It means I think you’re great and I would like to take you places and give you things and watch TV with you and let you know how I’m enjoying my latest audiobook, and I would like to do all those things because you make my heart beat very fast just by saying my name.”

“Will.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”

“I—you—you cannot be this straightforward with me,” she choked out, truth sneaking from her lips. “It’s very—unnerving.”

“Trust me,” he said, sounding unreasonably amused, “I’m doing my best here, Abs. I really am.”