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I want to know how he feels. I want to ask him a thousand questions, because there are still too many things that he didn’t tell me last night. Now I know the reason he left Boston but not the one that made him come back. There has to be a reason, and I want to know everything. But this isn’t the right place or time to ask those questions.

Now everything should be light and uncomplicated and nice, at least for a moment. A short, fleeting moment.

“I don’t want to get up,” I whisper, sliding a little closer to him. So close that the tips of our noses touch. Don’t want to get up, don’t want to go back to school, don’t want to go back to my life and reality.

“I don’t either,” he whispers. His lips touch mine, light as a feather. I’m getting warm. God, I’m getting so, so warm. “But I’m afraid we don’t have another choice.”

“We don’t?” I pretend to pout.

“No, we really don’t.” I can feel him smiling against my lips. Under the covers, his fingers are wandering over my hips and waist. I hold my breath, and the throbbing between my legs begins again all by itself. I want to get even closer to him.

He seems to sense it, because he pulls me in, sliding his knee between my legs. Heat and bare skin. I instinctively move my hips, and my abdomen tightens as I feel his erection against it.

“Maybe we do have another choice,” he murmurs. Then his lips are on mine, this time for real, and I burst into flames.

Phoenix pulls himself on top of me, his body warm and heavy, and I love feeling his weight on me. It feels like it was always meant to be this way. It’s different this time, not as urgent, not as demanding as it was a few hours ago. Slower, a little gentler, but no less intense. We do it in bed and in the shower and then in bed again, because apparently, he has a problem with me getting dressed. Not that I’m complaining.

But after a while it’s getting late. The sun has long since risen, and it’s getting brighter and brighter. Sighing, I turn over and somehow manage to detach myself from him, swinging my legs out of bed. He makes a sound of protest, and I almost have to laugh.

“You wanted me to get up. That’s why you woke me up, remember?” I start to collect my clothes, which are scattered all over the room.

“That was before. I think I’ve changed my mind.” Phoenix rolls onto the pillow and looks up at me with dark eyes. He reaches out to me invitingly, but I take a step back, all at once no longer trusting myself.

“I really have to get back to school before someone notices I was gone all night,” I say without thinking. Because who’s going to notice? No one is going to knock on my door and check if I’m there. We’re responsible for ourselves.

The mood changes from one second to the next; his smile fades. An inscrutable expression crosses his face, and my stomach clenches. Suddenly the air between us feels heavy and thick, filled with unspoken words. Now I wish I had kept my mouth shut.

“Lia,” he begins, and I know he’s serious because he almost never calls me Lia. Not when we’re alone.

“It’s okay,” I say quickly, because I don’t want to hear what he has to say. Because let’s not kid ourselves, there’s a lot to say. That this can’t mean anything, that we shouldn’t talk about it because we shouldn’t let it get this far again, because of his job and everything else. I don’t want to hear any of it, even if I know he’s right.

My fingers catch in the tangles of my damp hair as I run both hands through the long strands. I have to keep my fingers busy so he doesn’t see how much they’re trembling. His eyes narrow to slits, and he presses his lips together. “You don’t even know what I wanted to say.”

“But I can guess. It’s okay, really. We don’t have to do this.”

“We don’t have to do what?” He raises an eyebrow skeptically.

“Talk about what’s going on between us.” I slip into my dress and pull on my hoodie, losing sight of him for a second, which is good because my face is red with embarrassment.

“We don’t have to or you don’t want to?” He sits up, the sheet sliding down to his hips, exposing smooth, bare skin. I swallow hard and have to force myself to look him in the eyes again.

“I . . . don’t know. It’s just—” I wring my hands. My head is spinning. “Okay, yes, let’s talk about it. What’s happening, Phoenix? What should I do? What should we do? I mean, I’ve never broken the rules before. I never do anything forbidden. Never. I can’t handle this. It’s too much for me, and if you don’t tell me what this is and how I should deal with it, then . . . I don’t know. I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid, because somehow you make me want to do stupid things all the time,” I blurt out, unable to stop myself. “I should really be concentrating on my role in the performance, not what’s going on between us. Because it’s nothing, right? I mean, we had sex, and we talked a lot, but there’s nothing more than that. We’re definitely not going to do it again, are we? And—” I stop as Phoenix gets up and takes my face between his hands.

“Take a deep breath,” he says gently, his fingertips rough against my skin. All at once the storm inside me calms down again. I do what he suggests, and my chest presses against his. I can feel his heartbeat.

“I don’t know what this is either,” he says honestly.

“Okay,” I whisper. But nothing is okay, because I’m still overwhelmed and lost, and I still don’t know what to do.

“This overwhelms me just as much as it does you.” He caresses the back of my neck and runs his fingers through my hair. “I don’t know what to do either.” He shakes his head and seems so torn that it breaks my heart a little. “Damn, Ophelia, I can’t even think when you’re with me. I’m just as clueless as you are.”

“That doesn’t help,” I murmur, my voice trembling. He gives me a crooked smile that immediately fades again.

“It’s not just sex,” he says. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s much more than that.” His gaze is steady, and it’s so easy to believe him. Scarily easy.

“We can figure out what it is together,” I say.

It sounds like both a question and an answer.