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“It’s just a dress,” I manage.

“It isn’t the dress.” His gaze moves down me, slow and unashamed, and back up. “It’s you in it.”

I almost hand him the old list. Too loud. Too curvy. Too difficult. Too much.

I don’t say it. He answers it anyway.

“Whoever taught you to be smaller was wrong.”

I open my mouth to deflect.

Nothing comes out.

Because he isn’t telling me I’m beautiful in spite of this body.

He’s telling me he wants me because of it.

Every smart thing I know about men like him tells me to leave. The rest of me is aching and already leaning in.

I close the distance before I decide to.

He doesn’t meet me halfway. He just waits, lets me come to him, and somehow it still feels like his move.

I stop right in front of him. I put my palm on his chest and feel the heat of him through the shirt, the slow, heavy beat under my hand. Then my fingers find his tie.

One slow pull.

“Careful,” he says, very low.

I reach for the edge of his mask.

His hand closes around my wrist. Gently. But it stops me cold.

“You can’t see my face.”

“Why?”

“Because my name gets people hurt.” His thumb rests on my pulse.

It isn’t a line. I can hear the difference.

Every warning bell I own is ringing. I can’t hear a single one of them over my pulse, beating hard and hot between my thighs.

“So you’re protecting me,” I say, “by not telling me who you are.”

“Yes.”

“That’s very noble.”

“It isn’t noble. It’s selfish.” His thumb stays on my pulse. “I want you safe enough for me to find again.”

Again.

One word, and it lands somewhere low and dangerous. Not tonight. Not one night. Again.

“And if I want to know?”

“Don’t.”