"It's a good publication."
"Who subscribes to print magazines anymore? Are you eighty?"
"There's something tactile about—"
"You're eighty. I'm sleeping with an eighty-year-old."
Alex snatched the magazine out of my hand and tossed it onto the floor. "Shut up."
"Make me."
His eyes went dark. "Careful."
"Or what?"
He rolled on top of me. Fast. Athlete-fast—the same explosive power that made him dangerous in a boat. His weight pinned me to the mattress. His hands found my wrists and pressed them into the pillow on either side of my head.
My heart rate spiked. Heat flooding my body everywhere his touched mine.
"Or that," he said. Looking down at me with his hair falling across his forehead and his mouth close enough to kiss.
"That's not a punishment," I managed.
"No?"
"No."
He kissed me. Soft. Morning-slow. I arched up into him—couldn't help it—and he pressed me back down with his hips. The sound I made was embarrassing and I didn't care.
"Morning breath," I said against his lips.
"I don't care."
"You probably should. Mine's terrible."
"It's fine."
"It's really not—"
He kissed me harder. I stopped talking.
We stayed like that for a while. Just kissing. Slow and lazy and warm under the covers while the cold turned the windows foggy and the campus woke up outside. No urgency. No clock ticking. No fear of footsteps in the hallway.
Just us.
Eventually he pulled back. Rested his forehead against mine.
"I could get used to this," he said.
My chest went tight. "Alex—"
"I'm not asking for anything." His voice was steady. His eyes on mine. "I'm just saying. This. Right here. I could get used to it."
I swallowed. "Me too."
The words came out before I could stop them and for once I didn't want to take them back.
Alex's expression cracked open into something so raw and hopeful it almost hurt to look at. Like he'd been bracing himself for me to say something different and couldn't believe I hadn't.
