He gently shook the concoction and poured it into their glasses. He came around the counter to hand the drink to her. He stepped close to her, closer than he’d been to her since they left the hotel room in Palm Springs.

She’d forgotten how much taller he was than her, how he’d towered over her, even though she’d fit so well in his arms and against his body. She stared at his chest. She remembered how it felt against her cheek, how his arms felt around her.

“Anna.” She looked up to his face. His eyes were serious, but that smile still hovered around them. “What are you doing here?”

She held her drink with both hands. The chill of it made her shiver. Or maybe it was the intense look in Ben’s eyes. But she couldn’t look away.

“What do you mean?” she asked, even though she knew exactly what he meant.

He moved even closer to her.

“Saturday morning, you texted me that what happened in Palm Springs between us could never happen again. Okay, I get that. Then on set for the past few days you haven’t looked me in the eye. All right, I’m not going to push myself on you if you’re not interested. But then today you asked me to get a drink, and I don’t know why. Or why you’re here, in my apartment, looking at me like that, and standing there being who you are and looking like you do, if you don’t want me to touch you. Because I haven’t touched you, but holy God, it is taking everything in my power not to. So I need to know. What are you doing here?”

He hadn’t touched her at all, she realized. Not a hand on her back as they walked up the stairs to his apartment, not when he’d showed her the deck, not even when he’d given her the drink.

“What if I’ve changed my mind?” she asked him before she stopped to think about it.

His eyes bored into hers. She had no idea how, just minutes ago, she’d been chilly from the icy drink and the weather outside. Her whole body felt flushed, on alert.

“If you’ve changed your mind,” he said, not moving closer to her, “you should probably put that drink down right now, so it doesn’t fall to the floor and shatter when I rip your clothes off.”

She looked down at the drink in her hand, and then carefully, deliberately, set it on the counter. She looked up and met his eyes.

Before she could say anything, his hands were on her. He pushed the V of her sundress down and to the side, and with his thumbs, pulled her bra down until her swollen breast and hard nipple popped out of it. He smiled, his thumb and fingertip caressing her nipple until she moaned.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for days,” he said. “It’s all I’ve been able to think about. I just wanted to touch you, here, and here.” He moved his other hand up the inside of her thighs and slid a finger inside her underwear. “I’ve been wanting to do this with my fingers, and with my mouth.” He pushed her backward onto the counter and sucked her nipple into his mouth. She whimpered.

“That noise. I’ve wanted to make you make that noise since Friday morning. My God.” He went back to her breast and licked and sucked until she thought she was going to go wild. He pulled her underwear to the floor and kicked it to the side. She grabbed his head with her hands, pulled him to her, and kissed him hard. Why had she said they couldn’t do this again? She couldn’t remember now.

He put his hands under her hips, and before she even knew what he was doing, he lifted her onto the counter.

He smiled at her, that devilish smile she’d only seen from him in the hotel room in Palm Springs, and pushed her knees apart.

“If I remember correctly,” he said, “I heard you make that noise a lot when I did this the last time. Let’s see if I can manage it again.”

She braced her hands behind herself and watched him push her dress up and bend down. But then, before he even touched her, he stood back up again.

“Wait, just to be clear,” he said. “Is this one of those things we couldn’t do again? I just wanted to double-check.”

She glared at him.

“Fuck you.”

He grinned.

“Was that a no? Because . . .”

Before he could say anything else, she grabbed his head and shoved it between her legs. She could feel him vibrating with laughter. Once he was safely where she wanted him, she let herself grin. From the very beginning, this guy had made her laugh. Of course he would make her laugh while they were having sex, why would she expect anything else?

As soon as his lips and tongue touched her, though, she stopped laughing. He clearly had paid attention to what she’d liked when they’d been in that hotel room. Then he’d tried different things, touched her in different places, sometimes soft, sometimes hard, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. She’d enjoyed it all, but now he was doing all of the things that made her slide her fingers into his hair and writhe and moan and finally throw her head back and shout.

He stood up, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her down, and then smiled at her. He looked very proud of himself.

“You never showed me your bedroom,” she said. “You didn’t give me a tour at all; we just walked in and went straight to the deck.”

He pushed her hair back from her face.

“Do you have literally any idea how much I wanted to get you in my bedroom?” he asked. “I was trying not to be an asshole and lead you there as soon as you walked in here!” He looked so outraged and rumpled and sexy.

She pulled him down to her and kissed him. He wrapped her in his arms, like his arms had been waiting for her to come back ever since she’d left them last. Or maybe it just felt like that, because she’d been wanting this, more of this, since then, even though she’d told herself it was impossible. She could feel the smile on his lips as he kissed her back, as he danced his tongue against hers. In Palm Springs, their kisses had felt rushed, like they knew they were living on borrowed time, like every kiss could be their last. But this, this was the kiss of two people who had kissed before and knew they would kiss again. Of two people who not only liked kissing each other, but liked each other. She hadn’t had a kiss like that in a long time.

He slid his hand up to cup her cheek, and the tender touch of his hand on her face made her heart turn over. She ignored that and just kissed him, enjoyed the hardness of his body, the way her curves fit snuggly against his chest, that way he rested his hand on her hip, in the same way he’d done before. Like he liked that part of her body, appreciated it, couldn’t keep himself from touching it. She’d noticed that touch before, and she loved that he was doing it again now. She ran her hands up his back, under his shirt, feeling the warm, smooth skin there. She remembered when she’d woken up in the middle of the night next to him and kissed him softly on his shoulder blade; he’d turned over and opened his arms to her without even waking up.