“According to your plan you still have six more years to get to the meaningful sex. With your ignorant husband.”

“Ignorant? He’s not ignorant.”

“He’s ignorant of the fact that he’s going to be your husband.”

“Well, yes. For now.” I grin.

“So how do you like working at Carma?” He drains the last of his wine.

“Oh, I don’t work there. I just use the terrace.” I sip on mine.

“In a uniform?” He asks for a refill on his.

“Well, if I don’t wear it, I’d never get through security. The uniforms make me inconspicuous. Who knew what a black skirt and jacket could do?”

He watches me, and I lift my wine and drink. He loosens the top two buttons of his shirt and rolls his shirtsleeves to his elbows.

His sort of lazy, relaxed look makes my nipples bead.

I’m not sure if he’s equally affected by my nearness as I am by his, but I’m crackling like live wires under my skin.

When I hear a song I like start playing, “TiO” by Zayn, I head to the small free space where a couple is slow dancing and I start dancing on my own.

He leans back, and he looks so delicious, so calm and powerful, I’m weak.

His hair is a little disheveled and the shadow on his jaw a little darker as he sits with his back to the bar, facing me. He pulls out a cigarette. Watching me very predatorily and scanning the room to see who else is watching me.

I don’t think it’s legal for him to smoke in here—but he doesn’t seem bothered by that at all.

He lights up.

He wants me, I know that now, and as I smile at him and swirl my hips and move to the music, all I want him to see is the woman he wants tonight.

I love the playful sensuality in his eyes—like he’s relaxed and nothing else exists but the drink in his hand, this bar . . . and me. Definitely me. Dancing and looking at him. Because there, right under the playful sensuality, is a heat I’ve never seen before.

A heat that makes me hotter than the sun.

He takes a drag, the tip glowing bright pink as I head back to the bar. When I reach him, he offers it to me. I can’t take it, it feels too intimate now. I shake my head, and he only studies me as I drop to my seat, a little breathless.

He turns his high-backed stool a bit to face me, a silence between us as he smokes his cigarette and seems to take in my features, one by one.

I watch him take a hit.

“I think about kissing you,” I hear myself say.

He exhales the smoke through a line between his lips and pushes the cigarette down on the ashtray and peers into my face, moving the curtain of my hair aside. “How do you kiss me?” he asks.

“I put my hands in your hair and . . . go up on my tiptoes and press my mouth against yours.”

“No tongue?”

“I . . .”

I raise my head.

I’m used to guys looking at me. They stare when I walk down the sidewalk, when I’m on the dance floor, when I’m at Starbucks. I suppose I’m pretty, though I’ve always tried to downplay it by wearing minimal makeup and simple hairstyles like a bun, my hair loose, or a ponytail or a braid. I haven’t gotten my hair professionally styled my whole life. I have good, manageable hair. Long legs, a slim form, perky breasts and an ass that’s where it’s supposed to be, thanks to yoga and running and squats. I’m natural, and I like it like that. But compared to the women I saw with him at the club, I feel plain and uninteresting.

And yet I know that, as plain and different as I am from those women, my Hot Smoker Guy wants me.

He has a hard-on.

He wants me, and he has no idea what I’m about to do.

Oblivious to the fact that I plan to strip him to his bones tonight, he smiles when the bartender asks if we’d like another and sips the last of his wine, chatting with him for a second, then sliding a credit card over the counter, facedown.

“Think I should take you home,” he says.

His eyes meet mine. He’s the hottest man I’ve ever seen. Down to earth and very centered for a mail guy. I think of the basket of condoms at my place. And especially of the tingle between my thighs. I’ve never felt it like this before. I need to suppress the urge to squirm under his appreciative hazel eyes, really.

“That would be nice.” I walk without glancing back, my heartbeat pounding faster and harder as I step outside. I’m trembling, but I don’t want to spend another night wanting and waiting. I mean to take what I want from him.

“We can just take a cab,” I say.

He clicks something on his phone and says, “I got it.”

“Uber? Oh.”

A car arrives almost instantly, and I climb in the back. My heart is galloping in my chest all the way to my apartment building. I have never done something like what I’m about to do. I want to feel the freedom of making my own choices, of being grown up, feeling grown up, doing something that I want—really, really want—without worrying about the consequences.

“Would you walk me up?” I clutch his fingers and look at him.

He follows me into the building and up the elevator, my pulse fluttering madly at his nearness. I open my apartment door and bravely reach out to pull his hand and tug him inside.

I let go when he steps inside and shuts the door, and I turn to find his eyes on me, gleaming in the shadows.

I step forward and press my breasts against his chest. He grabs my hips and pins me in place with his firm grip, studying me with hot eyes. “What are you doing?” He drags the back of a finger down my cheek. “For someone afraid of heights, you like living on the edge.” He grabs my hair and pulls my head back, his eyes fierce.