Devastating.
“Arizona?”
Hanna’s eyes flickered to Milo’s, still too green even in the dim kitchen lighting. He was standing exactly where she’d been mentally all night, in the space between a good decision and a bad one. A decade earlier, she might not have even realized how stupid it was, but wisdom had no bearing on her decision in the end.
She pushed herself forward, desperate to feel anything that wasn’t her own self-loathing for just a minute. Milo caught her, his arms flexing around her waist as she crashed into him.
“Hanna—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she rasped, her hands winding into the hem of his shirt, searching for skin. “I want a distraction.”
“Distraction?” he asked, his fingers tangling into her hair before she could even answer.
“You offered,” she whispered, her voice tight with the guilt and shame she’d been burying for too long.
“I’m not protesting, just making sure we’re clear on what this is and isn’t,” he said. His hand moved to her neck as he pushed her toward the kitchen. “For both our sakes,” he added.
Her back touched the cold granite countertop, sending her arching into his hands. She drew in a shaky breath, wrestling with herself.
“You sure you can handle it?” Milo asked.
She laughed, leaning further into his hold, slipping under the current of him.
“Of course I’m not.”
“Then we definitely shouldn’t do this,” he said. He ran his hand through her hair, bringing it back to cup her face and stroke her jaw with his thumb. His breath against her neck made it hard to form words. “Right?”
Hanna’s eyes squeezed shut. She sucked a sharp breath in through her teeth. She’d already made the bad choice in her mind a million times.
Could it really be that much more harmful if he already occupied so much of her mind?
“Time box,” she blurted, her heart jumping from her chest as his hips hit hers. “While I’m here, it’s all on the table.”
“All?” Milo asked, his dark brows knitting together.
“Okay, not all, but like, a lot,” Hanna stipulated, his fingers tightening in her hair and sending a shock from her neck to her stomach. Why are we still talking? “But once I move back across the hall, we’re done. Just friends.”
Milo considered that. “Time box,” he repeated. “I can do that.”
He pressed further into her, sending her mind into space. For the first time in a year, she wasn’t thinking, she was just doing. Milo’s hand came to her hip, pushing at the hem of her shirt and crawling the soft skin beneath.
“Dirty talk?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
Milo nipped at the edge of her jaw. “Do you like dirty talk? Or are you into more of the slow, sensual, love-making shit? I like it both ways, just trying to gauge what you need right now.” He ghosted a hand over her collarbones, pulling at the fabric of her top and slipping it over her head. His eyes dropped, darkening as he took her in.
Hanna pulled at his shirt, desperate to even the score. He was so warm beneath her touch—so responsive as she grazed his chest. Every touch was met with a low hum, like touching those lightning lamps at museums. Every brush zapped her fingertips and made her hair stand on end.
“I don’t know what I need,” she confessed, his lips dragging down her neck and to her shoulder.
It was stupid. So, so stupid. The anticipatory regret bubbled beside the lust in her stomach, blending into a sick need for him she resented.
“How about I push some buttons and you tell me what works?”
“Okay,” she whispered. He snagged the final sound off her lips, parting them with his tongue, and whether or not it was stupid no longer mattered.
Nothing did.
