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arms around his back, she yanked his shirt from his pants and ran her nails up the curve of his spine. Their clothing left a haphazard trail as they stumbled from the door to the bed.
    Andrew laid her down and cupped her right breast in his hand and stroked her nipple, softly at first and then pinching it until Claire felt the reverberations between her thighs. She arched her head back and moaned as he flicked his tongue over her other nipple. It was a raw nerve, hard as a pebble. As she watched his face move rhythmically down her stomach, he whispered what he planned to do to each inch of her, what he had imagined doing since the night they’d met. “Do you want more?” he asked with a soul-seizing fervor that Michael had never displayed in their composed and quiet lovemaking.
    “Yes,” she panted.
    Andrew leisurely alternated between her breasts and the small of her stomach, teasing open her thighs with his fingertips each time his mouth dipped to her belly button. She felt heat between her legs and a sudden, scorching desire for him to plunge his fingers inside her. As he caressed her nipples again, she reached down and his hand met hers. “Do you want me to touch you, Claire?” he asked, running his fingertips up the insides of her thighs.
    “Yes,” she whispered again.
    “Where?”
    She guided his hand between her legs, and he began to stroke her.
    “Do you like it right here?” He ran his finger slowly over her clitoris, back and forth. “Or here?” He pushed his finger gently inside of her.
    All she could do was gasp.
    Andrew took a pillow and propped it under her hips and then slowly spread her legs apart, staring at her like a sculptor before soft clay. She froze, waiting. But he kept his hands immobile and his gaze fixed on her, even as she begged for his touch with her eyes. When she could no longer hold herself still, she ground her hips into the pillow in a slow arc, trying to replicate the sensation of him.
    A look of glazed ecstasy washed over his face. Maintaining eye contact, he eased himself down onto his stomach and caressed the invisible line from her navel to her inner thighs, moving in with his tongue, licking and then sucking until she began to sigh.
    After several moments, he lifted his chin above her hips. His hair glistened with sweat. “Do you like my mouth on you?
    She parted her lips to speak, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything.
    “You taste so good.”
    Claire moaned, hoping he would continue.
    “Or do you like my fingers?” He stroked her again, building up to a frenzied momentum, then slowed. “Tell me what you want.” He stopped, waiting for her.
    What she wanted was to cut free and swim in the deep murky waters of him. But she was paralyzed again, the torment both frustrating and exquisite. She sat up and tried to reach for his erection, but he guided her down to her back.
    “Not yet,” he whispered.
    “What do you want from me,” she finally whispered, desperate for him to touch her again.
    “I want you to just let go,” he said. “No one’s looking, Claire. Tell me what you like.”
    “Please . . . I can’t.”
    “Why can’t you?”
    The words rolled around in her head—his words, her own, things she hadn’t said out loud in years—until finally, need trumped decorum. She closed her eyes. “Don’t stop. Please.” She was dizzy and panting, shedding her propriety like a coat. “Make me come,” she moaned. “Please.”
    His mouth was on her again. It was as if he’d removed her skin and exposed every raw nerve ending. It was as if she were swimming in the infinite, exhilarating dark.
    By the time Andrew came up for air, Claire had come two times. He slid up to her breasts and kissed her chin, and she rolled over onto him, feeling his heart pulsing under her chest. His body was slick, his sweat smelled of musk and sandalwood. She inhaled him—that smoldering scent of handsome bad boys and possibility—and she was a nineteen-year-old