“We doing this?” he rasps.

I nod urgently and he holds himself for me to take in. It’s all happening so fast, he’s sinking deep inside, and we’re gasping because it’s so good.

It’s so good.

His gaze catches mine and the relief in his expression makes me feel shaky and fragile, like blown glass. I’ve missed this, I need this.

I think I need him.

He sits up, kissing me wet and messy, groaning against my teeth when he’s buried inside and grunts these tiny perfect sounds of approval every time I rock forward and back, whispering, Like that, and Ah, so good, and, Jesus, baby, I can’t . . . He trails off, more kissing, more teeth grazing my lips, my jaw, my neck. More sounds of need. Just please . . . I can’t.

He reaches between us, two fingers so gently petting where I need him. A ragged groan tears from his throat, and I hear the tiny hiccupping sounds I’m making, begging, so close—

“Oh, shit, I’m coming,” he gasps right when I’m falling. And I throw my head back and scream—because it feels so different—and at the same time he cries out, arching from the seat and wildly shoving deeper into me, my body clutching and squeezing all around him. It feels like forever that I’m coming and kissing him and his hands are on my face and his sounds are pressed into my skin in my tiny car with no tint on the windows, at the peak of the sunset in Indian summer.

I love him.

I love him.

I crumple against his chest, on the verge of tears. It’s a relief I can barely process—being with him like this again, even if it’s in the front seat of my car with the skirt of my dress billowing around me. He feels so sturdy, his heart pounding against my ear.

Finn twitches inside me, his shaking breath ruffling my hair. “Harlow,” he says quietly, exhaling in a tight burst.

“I know,” I agree. “Holy shit that was amazing.”

“No . . .” He pulls my shoulders so I’m sitting upright, and I feel the press of him, still hard, still inside me. “Baby, we didn’t use anything.” His face is so close to mine, his eyes searching and anxious. “I don’t have a condom on.”

I groan and start to climb off him but then stop, reconsidering our attire. I really don’t want to Monica Lewinsky it into the party with this blue dress. “Can you grab me a tissue from the glove compartment?”

He nods, reaching around me, and somehow manages to retrieve one. It’s such a real moment, and in such stark contrast to the wild fucking of a minute ago, that I feel a little light-headed. Just as I move to pull away, he reaches for me, touching two fingers to my jaw and whispering, “Shh, wait, wait, wait. Come here.”

I lean in, closing my eyes and giving in to the sensation of melting into him as he groans, digging his hand into my hair to hold me close. His tongue slides against mine, gentler now. My heart is slamming into my breastbone from exertion, and from the teasing adrenaline of my impending panic.

“Are you okay?” he says against my mouth.

I nod. “I can’t believe we did that.”

“Me, either.”

“I guess we should go clean up before the party.”

We adjust our clothes and stumble out of the car. Back at the front door, he pulls his keys from his pocket, unable to meet my eyes when he quietly asks, “Are you on the pill?”

“No.” I try to do the math to figure out where I am in my cycle—I think I’m supposed to get my period in a matter of days—but I don’t want to linger on the potential implications of the unprotected sex we just had. I want to stay in the happy, jelly-limbed place of bliss and my newfound admission that I’m totally freaking in love with Finn Roberts.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell him, with absolutely no proof whatsoever. It just feels good to say it, and as soon as I do, I feel sure of it. It will be fine! Everything will be fine!

He nods and walks inside, leading me down the hall to the small bathroom next to the room he’s been staying in. I turn and look through the open bedroom door as he stops and grabs a washcloth from the hall closet. His suitcase is open on the bed, filled with neatly folded clothes.

“You’re leaving tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” he says. And then, “Well, probably not. I don’t know.” He nods toward the bathroom, indicating I lead us inside.

Turning on the hot faucet, he holds his hand underneath until the water heats, and then wets the cloth. “Come here.”

I watch him reach under my dress, and close my eyes as his hand glides up the inside of my thigh, around to my hip, and he slips my underwear down my legs to my knees. I gasp when he gently slides the warm cloth between my legs.

“Okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.” More than okay. Heaven. “It feels nice.”

He reaches under my dress with his other hand, wrapping his fingers around my hip and squeezing. “I mean, you. Are you okay?”

“Are you okay?” I volley back.

He looks up at me, smiles a genuine smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Even if I’m knocked up?”

“Yeah. We’ll figure it out.”

I swallow, nodding. “Then I’m okay, too.”

His expression straightens and he blurts, “Tell me that wasn’t just sex for you.”

Reeling from this, I slide my hands into his hair and pull him into me. “It went way past ‘just sex’ a while ago. I think that’s why I wanted to stop. There’s too much else going on. For both of us,” I add.

He tilts his chin to look up at me, resting it on my navel. “We gonna try to do this anyway? I mean”—he swallows nervously—“I really want you, but not just like this anymore.”

I bite my lip, wanting to unload all of my angst about the last two weeks: worrying about my mother, using Finn for distraction, and then becoming so absorbed in him I feared I would want so much more than either of us could manage. And now he’s telling me he wants it, too. I close my eyes, thinking about the television show, and the stipulation that he not be in a relationship, and the thinly veiled goal to find him an on-screen romance. Now the easiest path forward—signing on to the show—would make a relationship between us impossible. Even if he passed on the show and went home to try to salvage the business, we’d never see each other because he would be working even more than he is now.

“I want it so bad I feel like I can’t breathe,” he says, squeezing his hand around the back of my thigh so I’ll look down at him. “I’ve been trying to focus on everything going on back home, but I can’t think about anything but this.”