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She breathes out through her mouth, and it takes her a second to get anything else out. “I said I didn’t want one after Evan.”

“Yeah.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

Her hips move once against my hand, and then she goes still on purpose. “You.”

Everything in me locks up, my hand included.

“Nash—”

“Hold on.”

“Don’t hold on.”

“Look at me.”

She does. Her chest is going, her hair’s stuck to her forehead, and she’s got my wrist in a grip like somebody’s about to take me away from her.

“You want me to be your boyfriend.”

It doesn’t come out as a question. I don’t know how to make it one.

Her eyes go wet fast, the way they do when she’s furious, except she isn’t furious. She blinks it back, still holding my wrist. “Yes.”

I start moving again, slow, and watch what it does to her mouth. “Say it.”

“You’re such a—” Her whole body lifts off the mattress. “Yes. I want you to be my boyfriend. I’ve wanted that for—”

She stops herself.

I pause. “For what?”

“For a while.”

I put my other hand under her jaw and turn her face up and kiss her. She kisses me back so hard it hurts. Her nails go into my forearm, and I don’t slow down for one second of it. She says something into my mouth that isn’t words. Her knee comes up.

“Then you’re mine,” I tell her. “That’s it. That’s what it means.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not sharing you with anybody.”

“Okay—”

“And I’m not going anywhere,” I say, rubbing deeper circles, and her hips buck.

She makes a sound at that one, right at the back of her throat, and her hand comes off my wrist and around the back of my neck and pulls, and her face goes into my shoulder. She arches. “Don’t… fucking… stop…”

I keep doing exactly what I’m doing. My fingers are burning, and she cries out into the room, and when her body goes slack, she’s shaking, and I ease my hand out.

She closes her eyes, catching her breath. “Water?”

I grab the bottle off my desk and pass it to her, and she chugs it. I take the empty bottle, and she falls back onto the bed.

“Don’t you have practice?”