She starts pacing the length of the kitchen again, the slippersshuff-shuffingagainst the hardwood. She brought five pairs of heels up from her apartment earlier, and they’re currently lined up against my sofa because she couldn’t commit to a single pair.
“Madison—”
“I just—I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. What if I blurt something insane?”
“Like what?” I ask, still chopping, because if I stop moving, I might laugh.
“Like what if I say, ‘Beckett is amazing in bed,’ when what I’m really supposed to say is, ‘I’m madly in love with your son’?”
The knife stops mid-air.
She keeps going.
“Because I will panic. And I panic-say things. And then she’ll think I’m vulgar. Or worse, she’ll think I’m unserious. Or—”
“Say that again.”
“What?”
I set the knife down. “What you just said.”
She blinks. “What? That you’re great in bed?”
I step toward her. “No. Thenext part.”
She takes a step back. “That I—”
Another step from me. Another retreat from her.
“That I might—”
She hits the wall, and her breath catches.
“That I’m madly in love with you,” she whispers.
I don’t give her a chance to overthink it. I lean in and kiss her, letting my hands slide into her hair. The world, and the impending arrival of my mother and the man I’m still not sure I’m ready to call my stepfather, disappears.
She tastes like wine and panic and everything I’ve ever wanted.
Her sweater rides up beneath my palm, and she makes this soft, desperate sound that goes straight to my spine.
Before either of us can get carried away, she stops.
I let out a groan and try to kiss her again, but she ducks under my arm.
“Stop that,” she orders.
“Stop what?”
“Now is not the time for you to be horny.”
I blow out a breath and drop my head.
Trying to calm my pulse, I turn, hoping to get back to my chopping when she freezes. Her eyes drop and widen.
“Goddammit, Beckett.”
I glance down at my crotch.
