But instead of staying still like a reasonable person who isn’t trying to kill me, she turns in my arms. The streetlight filtering through Greg’s leaves on the windowsill catches her face. Without her glasses, she looks softer, vulnerable. Her eyes are huge and dark and focused entirely on me.
“Ethan,” she says, and her hands come up to rest on my chest.
Every nerve ending in my body goes on high alert. “Piper.”
She doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, her hands start moving. Slow. Deliberate. Tracing the planes of my chest like she’s mapping code, finding patterns in muscle and skin. Her touch burns through my t-shirt.
“What are you doing?” My voice comes out rougher than intended.
She looks up at me, and the expression on her face steals my breath. It’s fierce. Determined. Like she’s solved a particularly complex algorithm and is ready to execute.
“Getting what I want,” she says simply.
Fuck. Me.
The words hit like a system override. Every cell in my body lights up, real arousal flooding through me—not just the automatic response to friction, but genuine, desperate want. The kind that makes you stupid. The kind I haven’t felt since before Paige turned me into a cautionary tale about trust.
“Piper,” I manage, catching her wrists before her hands can venture any lower. “Are you sure? This isn’t just—the wine, or listening to Troy and Delilah, or?—”
“It’s not about anybody else. It’s about me and you,” she interrupts, twisting her wrists free. Her hands resume their journey, skating over my ribs. “I’m done waiting. Done being passive. Done pretending I don’t want things.”
“And you want...?”
“You,” she says simply. “I want you. Unless—” Uncertainty flickers across her face. “Unless you don’t?—”
I flip us before she can finish that ridiculous sentence. She gasps as her back hits the mattress, looking up at me with wide eyes as I hover over her, weight on my forearms.
“I want,” I assure her. “God, Piper—Ireallywant you. But not if you’re going to wake up tomorrow and regret it. Not if this is just about forgetting Miles.”
She reaches up, traces my jaw with fingertips that tremble slightly. “This isn’t about him. This is about me finally going after something real instead of chasing shadows.”
“This is real?”
“Does this feel fake to you?” She deliberately arches up, pressing her body against mine, and I have to drop my forehead to her shoulder to maintain any semblance of control.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” I mutter against her skin.
“I’ll make it worth it,” she promises, and how is this the same girl who was nervous about her fairy lights five hours ago?
I lift my head to look at her. Really look. Her hair is spread across my pillow like spilled ink, cheeks flushed, lips swollen from earlier kisses. She’s looking at me like I’m something precious, like I’m worth wanting, and it’s been so long since anyone has looked at me like that.
“If we do this,” I say carefully, “it changes things. The fake dating, the arrangement?—”
“Fuck the arrangement,” she says firmly. “I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
Something in my chest cracks open at her words. “Thank god.” I breathe out, and then I’m kissing her.
This kiss is nothing like the performative one at the party. This is just us—desperate and messy and absolutely real. She tastes like stolen wine and determination, and when she nips at my bottom lip, I forget every reason this might be complicated.
My hand finds the hem of her tank top, slides underneath to find warm skin. She arches into the touch, making sounds that threaten to short-circuit my brain.
“I’ve thought about this,” I admit against her throat. “More than I should.”
“Yeah?” Her voice is breathless, hands tangling in my hair. “What did you think about?”
“How you’d sound.” I press a kiss to her pulse point. “How you’d taste.” Another kiss, lower. “How you’d feel.”
She shivers. “And?”
