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Tate holds his hand out to me. “Come on. We both work in the morning.”

I slide my hand in his with a half-hearted grumble about the lies men tell, because I so do not snore. Do I?

I don’t actually know if I snore. Mom and Dad never mentioned it, and aside from that one weekend in the tent with Holt—I’ve never slept with anyone. Well, there’s Shy and Andy, but the times I’ve slept with them have usually involved alcohol Shy’s sister booted for us, so no one was paying any mind to who snored.

I shove the thought of Holt down deep as Tate pulls me up from the couch. I expect him to let go of my hand once I’m standing, but he doesn’t.

He leads me around the couch and past the tree, pausing to flood the room in darkness when he unplugs the lights. Then, still holding my hand, he leads me into the hall.

My heart is a mess of chaos inside my chest. I swear, it’s beating so loudly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he told me he could hear it. Every breath that escapes my lungs feels like thunder in still air—ominous, somehow. Like the moment before lightning strikes. The moment before change alters the course of forever.

He stops in the threshold of my room, the shadows in the hall casting darkness over half of his face while the other glows in the soft light of the new moon that peeks through my bedroom window, painting his blond hair with streaks of silver.

He inches closer and my back connects with the door frame as he crowds me. The scent of him—like sawdust and spiced cologne—and that more intimate scent that clings to his skin to mix with him. The scent of his bodywash that I would die before admitting I’ve stood beneath the spray of the shower inhaling straight from the bottle—invades my every sense.

He crooks his neck and my lips part as I drag in a sharp breath. Those green eyes that see beneath all the layers I hide behind snap to my eyes, searching for truths I fail to find the courage to voice.

My hand trembles in his. His thumb drifts over my wrist, over the fluttering of my pulse that I can’t hide. His eyes drop to our joined hands between us. His chest expands with a breath.

The whole scene feels like a dream, but I’m grounded by the feel of his hand surrounding mine—until his gaze meets mine again.

“Goodnight, Faye,” he says thickly.

“Ta—” His name falls off the cliff of my lips as he leans in.

I realize then that he’s going to kiss me—just not where I want him to. My mind short circuits as his lips touch my cheek. I steal a sharp breath, and then I turn my head until my lips find his.

He freezes.

I think I stop breathing.

I think he stops breathing.

A match is lit inside me, a slow, delicious burn I ache to throw gasoline on.

Maybe that’s why I breathe, “Please.”

I follow my plea with a brush of my lips over his. They’re warm and soft, but somehow still firm, as though I can feel the tension he contains inside himself. The tension that stops him from kissing me back.

I throw another match onto the spill of gasoline as I say once more, “Please, Tate, kiss me.”

That’s all it takes for the two of us to go up in flames, because Tate does kiss me. He crushes his mouth to mine, hard and hot and demanding. He kisses me like I’m water and he’s been lost to a scalding desert. There’s no hesitation to this kiss, no holding back. He kisses me like a man starved—and I am a woman aching to be ravished.

I didn’t realize how starved I was until this moment. But now, hunger and need for this connection drive me to meet his fervor with a wildness that has no space for caution. I think of nothing but his mouth on mine, the warmth of his kiss, the dominance that throws yet another match into the pool of gasoline.

When his hand finds the side of my face, fingers darting into my hair—the sensation of touch after too long without pulls pleasure from the depths of my being in a rise of gooseflesh that urges a moan to spill from the restraints of my throat.

In response, Tate’s fingers curl in my hair as he urges my head back, his tongue teasing the part of my lips for access I don’t deny.

He kisses me with a practice I do not possess. There is an art to the dominance in his kiss that I’ve yet to experience. He is years ahead of me, and it shows as his tongue strokes the doubt from mine. I shudder when his teeth nip my swollen lips and he curses low and guttural, shattering the breathy silence with the raw violence of it before he crashes his mouth to mine again, devouring me, savouring me.

Heat prickles my skin.

Want floods my veins.

Need grazes my soul.

His warmth surrounds me. The scent of him invades me. His taste…