Chapter 3

She paid the cab driver and stood on the sidewalk outside Mark's building, her clutch under her arm and Paige's voice still running on a loop in the back of her head.

"She's right. I can do this. I'm allowed to want him." Then, realizing how loud that sounded in the night, she shushed herself and giggled.

She headed inside and got into the elevator, pressed the button, and rode it up to the fourth floor. It was late, around midnight. She was sure Mark would be sound asleep by now.

The hallway was quiet. She found her keys, looking for Mark's key, the little silver one that Mark had cut for her eight months ago. It took her three attempts to get the key in the lock.

A giggle bubbled up out of nowhere, and she pressed her free hand over her mouth to smother it. She had no idea what was funny. Possibly everything. Possibly nothing. Possibly just the image of herself failing to unlock a simple door, slightly drunk, about to seduce her own boyfriend.

She got herself together and pushed the door open.

The apartment was dark. No lights on anywhere, just the faint glow of the city coming through the big windows at the far end of the living room. Enough to make out shapes. The couch. The kitchen counter. The outline of things.

Good. It wasn't pitch black at least. She really didn't want to wake him up. Not yet at least.

She eased the door shut behind her. Held the handle as she turned it so it didn't click loudly but closed softly.

She reached down and unstrapped her right heel. Held onto the wall with her fingertips while she got her balance, which took slightly longer than it should have. She swapped hands and did the left one. Leaving the heels where they landed, dropping her purse on top, and straightened up. She wouldn't be needing them, not until morning.

The floor was cool under her feet.

She moved through the dark, reaching out now and again just to confirm where things were. The edge of the kitchen counter. The back of the couch. She knew the way to his bedroom.

She still walked into the side table by the hallway.

She caught it before it went over, one hand slapping down on the surface hard enough that the little ceramic bowl Mark kept his spare change in rattled and shifted, and she froze, both hands flat on the table, eyes wide in the dark, waiting.

Nothing.

She let out a breath through her nose.

Down the hall then. The bedroom door was pulled almost closed, a thin strip of dark at the gap. She nudged it open with her fingertips and stepped through.

She could make out the shape of him in the bed. On his side, facing away from her, the duvet pulled up. He must have come home and crashed early. The room was quiet and still and very dark, and her heart was going considerably faster than it had any right to.

Another giggle tried to surface, and she pressed her lips together hard. She was not going to laugh her way through this. She was a grown-assed woman. She was capable of doing this without dissolving into nervous laughter like a teenager or freezing. She was going to get her orgasm. If Mark needed a little excitement, then she was going to give it to him.

She unzipped her dress.

The zip was at the side, and it was small and fiddly, and she caught it on the fabric twice before it gave. By the time the dress slipped off her shoulders, she had thought about turning around and leaving twice. But she needed this. They needed this to work. She was not pathetic, and she was going to show him. She let the dress fall and stepped out of it and stood there in the dark in just her underwear. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark room, but it was still too dark to see anything.

Should she take her underwear off, or would it be better to leave it on?

"Don't overthink the approach. Just go," she whispered in the dark.

She crossed to the bed and lifted the duvet and slid in behind him, moving slowly, trying not to disturb the mattress any more than she had to. The warmth coming off him was solid and real, radiating through the dark like he'd been there a while. One of the things she loved was the heat and smell of a man. So different from a woman's.

She lay still for a moment, just breathing him in. But everything was muted a little because of the alcohol still pumping through her veins. It was the reason she was here, because there was no way she would have slipped into his bed to seduce him without it.

Her heart was going so fast she was mildly concerned he could feel it. She was close enough that she could. She pressed her lips together and stared at the back of his shoulder and thought, you can do this. You have come this far. If he says no, walk out and leave. But what man turns down sex?

With that in mind, she moved closer.

She pressed herself against his back, her chest to his shoulder blades, and slid her arm around his waist.

He stirred. A small shift, a change in his breathing. Not quite awake but getting there.

Her nerve almost went. The panic was right there, sharp and sudden, the familiar voice that said too much, too forward, what are you doing. But she pushed it down hard and pressed her mouth to the back of his neck instead and kept her arm where it was. She ran her fingers down his front, around his navel and down to his sex, wrapping her fingers around his length.

He went still in a different way. Not asleep still. Aware still.

His breathing changed, and the sex in her hand went from soft to hard in an instant.

"Hello, lover."