When they got home, she took off her shoes by the front door.

“My feet are going to kill me tomorrow—ask me then if I thought these shoes were worth it,” she said as they walked together into the kitchen.

She reached into the fridge and took out the pizza she’d had Florence pick up this morning.

“Now we can eat—I never actually get to really eat at those things—I’m always too busy talking to people. So I planned ahead for when we’d get home starving.” She smiled up at him and noticed that he’d loosened his tie. “But thank you for getting me snacks tonight; that was the best.”

He smiled down at her. Something was different in his smile.

“What is it?” she asked him. “Is something wrong?”

He hesitated, then shook his head.

“Nothing at all.” He took the pizza box from her and set it down on the counter. “I just have to do this.”

She expected him to kiss her, but he didn’t. He took her hand and led her to the bedroom.

He turned on the light when they got into her room and just looked at her for a long moment. Finally, he reached for her hair, and slowly, delicately, took out all of the bobby pins holding it in place, one by one. When her hair was free, he kissed one shoulder, then the other. He walked around behind her and lifted her hair out of the way and kissed the nape of her neck. The ripples of his kiss shimmered over her whole body.

He slowly pulled down the zipper on her dress and followed the line of the zipper with his kisses. Soft. Gentle. But with so much promise of what was to come. When the zipper was finally all the way down, she let the dress fall to the floor and stepped out of it. She turned around to look at him and saw the hunger in his eyes. But there was joy, too, and kindness, and that laughter that was always just under the surface with Ben.

She reached for him, but he stepped back.

“Not yet,” he said.

She dropped her hands. She would let him be in control tonight.

He unhooked her bra, and as he took it off her body, he cupped her breasts in his hands, just for a second.

Then he moved his hands over her whole body. He lingered on her hips, her waist, her thighs. He slowly pulled down the shapewear he’d called sexy last week. She usually made sure to get rid of it before any man saw her in it—she’d abandoned pairs more than once in bathroom stall garbage cans before leaving parties—but tonight, she hadn’t bothered.

He ran his hands all along the sides of her body. His touch was intoxicating her, almost drugging her. She wanted him to kiss her, she wanted to pull his clothes off, but she wanted to stay right here in this moment forever.

He took her face in his hands. He looked at her and she looked back, right into his eyes. She was glad there was enough light in the room for her to see the expression on his face. It made her shiver.

Then he kissed her. His lips were firm and tender, but demanding. She gave him everything he wanted, and she wanted it, too, all of it. She pulled his tie off and dropped it to the floor, and reached for the buttons on his shirt. This time he let her. As they kissed, she slipped each button open slowly and carefully. She pushed his shirt off of his body and reached for his belt. Soon his pants dropped to the floor.

He stepped out of his clothes, took her hand, and led her to the bed.

As soon as they lay down, his hands and lips and tongue were all over her. Touching, probing, licking, sucking, like he couldn’t get enough of her. Or maybe that was just how she felt, like his touch and his body on hers made her crave more and more.

She pulled him up so she could kiss him, and this time she traveled down his body, this time she made him shudder and sigh and whisper her name. Just as she put her lips around his cock, he stopped her.

“No, please. I want you. I need you.” He leaned over and pulled on a condom while she lay back and watched him.

He knelt on top of her and slowly lowered himself inside her. She gasped as he entered her, at how good this felt, at how much she wanted him, at how right it felt to be there together with him. They knew each other so well by now, what they liked, how they liked to be touched, all those secret places and slight movements that made the other cry out. But it still felt different every time, it still felt new and exciting, it still felt like there was so much more to explore and discover.

He started moving faster, and she was close, so close, and she rose up to meet him. He reached down and touched her, just where she needed it, and she cried out, but she kept moving with him until she heard him gasp and moan, and they collapsed together.

When their breathing slowed, he turned to her, that grin of his back on his face.

“Okay. Now we can have pizza.”

She laughed and started to get up, but he stopped her.

“No. I’ll get it.”

He came back upstairs a few minutes later carrying the pizza box, a big bottle of sparkling water, and a stack of napkins.

“I know, you’re classy, I should have brought plates, but there’s only so much a man can carry.”

She just laughed and took the pizza from him. They sat in the middle of her bed and had a picnic.

“Day-old lukewarm pizza has never tasted so good,” she said as she reached for a second slice.

Ben smiled at her. Then he froze. And slowly lowered his own half-eaten second slice to his side of the pizza box.

“Um. Anna.”

She looked up from her pizza to him.

“Yeah?”

He swallowed.

“A few weeks ago.” He stopped, and started again. “A few weeks ago you said there’s a thing that I do, that when I’m upset or I don’t want to deal with something, I turn to sex. And I told you I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t do that with you anymore.”

She lowered her pizza to the box.

“Yeah?” Something must have happened tonight to upset him. Had she said something? She had to wait for him to tell her.

“The thing is, I realized tonight. I’m in love with you.”

Twenty

Anna just stared at him.

“What?”

“I love you. I’ve fallen in love with you.” Now that he’d said it, he couldn’t stop. “I realized it tonight. During the movie. And I wasn’t going to . . . I didn’t know how to deal with that. You were right, I do use sex as a distraction—to distract myself as much as other people. But I couldn’t leave tomorrow without telling you.”

She kept staring at him.

He hadn’t known what he’d expected to happen when he said all of this to her. He hadn’t really expected anything. He hadn’t really planned to do this at all.