He gazed down at her the way he had this morning, as if he’d give her the moon if she could bring herself to ask for it. Then he said, raising his voice over the wind, “Abbie. Tell me not to kiss you right now.”

She found she had conveniently lost the power of speech.

A sober little voice in the back of Will’s head told him that standing so close to Abbie, wanting her so obviously, wasn’t right at all. But that voice was very, very quiet under the roar of alcohol and adoration.

She looked so pretty in the cold, with her cheeks and her nose gleaming, and her glasses dotted with moisture. And she sounded so perfect, telling him their kiss wasn’t a mistake, that she’d meant it, that she’d had a reason—

The very best reason.

“I kissed you because I knew it wouldn’t hurt.”

He was only going to hurt himself, courting rejection like this, but still, he said the words. “Abbie. Tell me not to kiss you right now.”

She didn’t. She didn’t. Instead, she released this shaky little breath and then oh dear fucking God she closed her eyes.

So he kissed her, and it was like a firework show in his gut.

It wasn’t the first time they’d done this, not technically, but oh God, it was. Because two years ago, when they’d touched almost by accident, she’d looked immediately horrified, and Will—Will had been fucking furious. Abbie was black-and-white, Abbie was loyal, Abbie kept her word and was a stickler for the rules—so if she’d kissed him while she was married, even the teeniest tiniest bit, it had meant things were worse than he’d thought.

And he’d already thought things were pretty fucking bad.

So, yeah. His memory of that midnight kiss was eighty percent rage and twenty percent deadly frustration, which was the name he used for that feeling when you wanted to kick someone’s husband in the nuts until they threw up their own spleen. But this? This couldn’t be further from the last time. It couldn’t be any more different. It couldn’t be any better.

This was Abbie, pressed up against him like she’d crawl inside him if she could, her body warm and soft, temptation wrapped in comfort wrapped in sin. This was Abbie, one of her thumbs stroking the top of his right ear, this tiny millimetre back and forth as if she couldn’t stop herself from touching him, from adoring him in the same tightly restrained way she did almost everything. This was Abbie, her mouth desperate and uncertain on his, the hibiscus scent of her hair swallowing him up like a heavenly cloud, until she suddenly pulled back and gasped, “Oh God, sorry, I’m so sorry—”