“Tell Mr. Perfect I said hello and to f**k your brains out,” Victoria yelled back.

She cringed. Liz had used the phrase with Brady the first time they were together. She did not want to think about Brady. It felt wrong to even think about them in the same sentence. But Victoria was kind of right. It had been a long time since she and Hayden had started dating, and why was she holding back anyway? She should want to be with Hayden like that. Maybe if things felt right tonight . . . maybe.

Rushing out the front door, Liz hopped into her car and drove the short distance to Hayden’s house. His car was in the driveway, but his roommate, Kevin, was missing.

Liz parked behind Hayden, and then walked up to the front door. She knocked and then walked inside without waiting for him to answer. He was halfway to the door when she stepped across the threshold.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Hayden said with a bright smile plastered on his face.

“Hey,” she said, closing the door behind her.

She walked right up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He pulled her against him and dropped his lips to hers. Liz let him take over, feeling the energy of his kiss and losing herself in the electricity that passed between them. She let her mind wander to that moment at the Lincoln Memorial, how her body had reacted, how a part of her even then had wanted that kiss. She had wanted that kiss for a long time, and now that she had it, she let the tingles run up her spine and opened her mouth to him eagerly.

Their tongues met and massaged each other. His hands gripped the thick material of her sweater and pulled it up so he could feel her skin. She clutched the longer strands of his medium brown hair, not even thinking for a second of letting him go.

But slowly his kisses became pecks and he stepped back, laughing, as if he was surprised he had lost himself so completely in the moment. “I guess you missed me,” he said, keeping a hold of her hand and walking her toward his bedroom.

“I think you missed me too.” Her eyes darted to the outline of him now visible through his jeans.

He chuckled again and nodded. “I always miss you.”

She walked into his room and kicked off her boots while he closed the door. “How was Professor Mires’s class?” he asked, as he flipped on a side lamp.

Now was not the time for talking, but that was what made Hayden, Hayden. He was not an act-now-and-think-later, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy. Normally she really liked that about him. It was definitely different from most guys, who thought with their dicks and wanted to talk only after they got it wet.

“Good. I got an A on my paper. After class she told me that she wants me to participate in the political journalism colloquium and include my research paper in the undergraduate research panel,” she told him proudly.

Hayden broke into another huge smile. “That’s awesome, Lizzie,” he said, wrapping her in a hug.

Not an ounce of jealousy. If something similar had happened to him, Liz knew she would have been jealous. But Hayden wasn’t like anyone else. He was genuinely happy for her.

“What a great opportunity for you.”

“Yeah, she’s trying to get me to go to grad school, I think. She told me she thinks I’d conduct great research.”

Something did flash in his eyes that time. Anger? Frustration? Liz wasn’t really sure.

“You’d give up being a reporter after working on the paper all this time?”

Oh. That.

“No. I wasn’t planning to.”

“I just . . . well, I wouldn’t want to put in all of this time preparing you to be editor after I graduate if you’re going to drop out of the paper after I leave.”

After he leaves. She hadn’t really thought about him leaving in a while. It didn’t sit well with her. She didn’t want him to leave.

“I have no intention of going to grad school if I can get a job as a reporter,” she consoled him. “I just thought it was a nice compliment on my work.”

“It is,” he agreed.

She reached out and took his hand, stroking it gently with her thumb. “Don’t talk about you leaving.”

“What?” he asked, staring down at her pressed into his bed. She saw his eyes take in the position of her body in a sweeping motion, and then he adjusted the way he was sitting.

“I like you here,” she told him. She had never really said anything like that to him before, but as soon as it was out of her mouth she knew it was true. She certainly wasn’t ready for Hayden to get a job and move away.

“Well, I’m here right now,” he said, leaning into the bed and letting their lips meet again.

She groaned deep in her throat as need took her where she hadn’t been before. Hayden’s weight shifted, and his body pressed down on top of her. Liz’s hips swayed side to side enticingly. Her hands found his belt and tugged on it to bring him closer to her.

Her breathing grew ragged as their bodies moved in time together. Between her circle eights and his thrusts up toward her, Liz felt like her clothes were going to melt off with the heat they built between them. His body kept up the rhythm in a way that made her eyes roll back at the thought of what he could do to her without the clothes on.

And in the dim lighting he seemed to be exploring her everywhere at once. His lips urged her to continue and his tongue made her body tighten in all the right places. His hand jerked in her hair and she felt her legs spread open to accommodate him further. She could feel his thickness pushing against her. His other hand had found the seam of her sweater and was pushing it out of the way. He unclasped her bra and immediately grabbed her breast, kneading it and then pinching her already hard ni**les.

Fuck. She was fully clothed and so f**king turned on.

He released her for just a moment before stripping the sweater over her head. The tank top came next, and she didn’t even let him bother with the bra; she just tossed it onto the ground. His head dropped down and he sucked on her ni**les.

Liz felt her body coming undone at the seams. How had she ever thought she didn’t want this? She had been building everything up in her mind for weeks and weeks: How could she give her body completely to someone she hadn’t given everything else to? How could she move on?

But as her heart thudded in her heaving chest and her body arched toward Hayden’s lips, her ni**les demanding his attention, she couldn’t imagine not wanting this with him. She was denying herself for what?