“Will,” she said again, moving her hands to my chest, and down over my stomach. “Look at me.”

I reached down, gripping her wrists to keep her hands from moving any lower, low enough to feel how hard I was with just this small bit of contact. I was like a racehorse, held back by a single, flimsy gate. The muscles in my arms tensed and jumped; holding her at her wrists was to restrain myself as much as it was to keep her hands from my skin.

Leaning my forehead into the wall, I remained still until I was sure I could face her and not immediately take her in my arms. Finally, I turned, adjusting my grip on her wrists.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I whispered, looking down at her face.

Her hair was loose, and the wet strands clung to her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders. Her brows were pulled together in confusion and I knew she didn’t understand my meaning. But then she seemed to hear me, and a bloom of humiliation spread across her cheeks and she squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sor—”

“No,” I said, interrupting her. “I mean can’t do what we did before. I won’t share. I don’t want this if you still want to date other men.”

Hanna opened her eyes, and they softened, her breath picking up.

“I can’t fault you for wanting to experiment,” I told her, my fists curling tighter around her wrists at the thought, “but I won’t be able to keep my feelings for you from deepening, and I won’t want to pretend we’re just friends. Not even with Jensen. I know I’d take whatever you’ll give me because I want you that much, but I would be miserable if it was only sex for you.”

“I don’t think it was ever just sex for me,” she said.

I let her wrists go, studying her face and trying to understand what she was offering.

“When you called me your Hanna earlier,” she began and then paused, pressing her hand to my chest, “I wanted it to be true. I want to be yours.”

My breath formed a brick in my throat. Beneath the delicate skin of her neck, I could see her pulse thrumming.

“I mean, I am yours. Already.” She stretched, eyes wide open as she carefully took my bottom lip between hers, sucking gently. She lifted my hand, pressed it around her breast and arched into my palm.

If what I felt now was even a small taste of the fear she’d felt all this time that I’d hurt her, then I suddenly understood why she’d been so skittish for so long. Being in love like this was terrifying.

“Please,” she begged, kissing me again, reaching for my other hand and trying to pull it around her. “I want to be with you so much it’s making it hard to breathe.”

“Hanna,” I choked, bending involuntarily, giving her better access to my lips, my neck. I curled my hand around her, rubbing my thumb over her nipple.

“I love you,” she whispered, kissing down my chin, to my neck, and I squeezed my eyes closed, heart pounding.

When she said this, my resolve shattered and I opened my mouth, groaning when I felt her slide her tongue inside and go over mine. She moaned, clawing at my shoulders, my neck, pressing her stomach into the hard line of my cock.

She gasped at the shock of the cold tile on her back when I turned her, pressing her into the wall, and then gasped again when I ducked and lifted her breast to my mouth, sucking hungrily. It wasn’t that my fear was gone; if anything, hearing her say she loved me was infinitely more terrifying because it brought hope along with it: hope that I could do this, that she could, that both of us could somehow navigate blindly through this elusive first.

I returned to her mouth, feeling wild now, lost in the fever of her kisses and knowing without having to ask that some of the water on her cheeks wasn’t from the shower. I felt it, too, the dissolving relief, followed immediately with a fiery need to be inside her, to be moving in her, feeling her.

Reaching down, I cupped the back of her thighs, lifting her so she could wrap her legs around my waist. I felt the slick warmth of her sex, and rocked there, pressing just inside and out again, falling in love all over again at her raspy, impatient sounds.

“Never done this before,” I murmured into the skin of her neck. “I have no f**king idea what I’m doing.”

She laughed, biting at my neck and gripping my shoulders tightly. Slowly, I pressed into her, stilling when our hips met and knowing in an instant that this would be over fast. Her head fell back against the tile, landing with a quiet thud, and her chest rose and fell with sharp, jagged breaths.

“Oh my God, Will.”

Pulling out, I whispered, “Do you feel it, too?”