“Right,” I said.

“So I had to stamp it out. Or hide it so well nobody would ever guess.”

I kept my voice cool. “I did not guess.”

“I was doing okay,” he said. “I was really working on it.”

“Working on what?”

“Um,” he said. “On not letting myself talk to you except when absolutely necessary. Not touching you unless forced by the captain. Not following you around. Not asking for advice. Not, you know, staring at you longingly—or even stealing glances the way I might’ve if I were the only person at stake. And just basically trying not to even think about you.” He gave a little shrug. “Failing most of the time on that one, but genuinely trying.”

He looked down at his shoes. “But then—that kiss. It kind of broke everything. It made me wonder if maybe I wasn’t totally alone in all that stuff.”

Um, no. He was not totally alone. But I held still.

He went on. “So that’s why I’m telling you. Because I’m never sure, when you push me away, if you really want me to go.”

I took a step closer, and then another, until my body was right up against his, like it had just been—except this time, rather than curling down against his chest, I reached up, stretched against him, and brought my face close to his.

A very different vibe.

Then I looked straight into his eyes.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said.

And then I wrapped my arms behind his neck, pulled him closer, stood up on my tiptoes, and kissed him.

I never even made a choice—or maybe I’d made the choice long before.

I kissed him there in the street, up against his truck, as long as either of us could stand it. I leaned in. I owned it. I pressed against him and tried to absorb that solidness of his chest. I caressed him and tasted him and just let myself fully melt into the moment. Then I pulled back, a little breathless, and said, “If I took you upstairs, could we keep doing what we’re doing?”

He gave me a wry smile. “I am very grateful to be doing what we’re doing.”

“But,” I added, wanting to be clear, “not go any further.”

“Just kiss, you mean?”

I nodded.

“You’re asking if I’m willing to go up to your room and kiss you?”

I nodded again. “For a good long while.”

He kissed me again. “I am definitely willing to do that.”

“I’m going to have to take things very slow, is what I mean.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“Could we go upstairs and sleep together—actually sleep?”

He smiled bigger, all teasing. “Firefighter Hanwell, are you proposing that we snuggle?”

I gave a barely-there smile of my own. “I guess that’s one way to describe it.”

“I’ll take anything. I’d sleep on a bed of nails to be next to you.”

I turned and started pulling him toward the house. “That’s actually perfect, because my bed is made of nails.”

“Sold,” he said. “I’m in.”

I led him through the garden, over the threshold, up the slanted stairs, and through my attic door. We kissed and stumbled the whole way.

It’s amazing how brave you can be when you feel safe. I walked him backwards to the foot of my bed, and I tugged on him to sit down. When he sat, I climbed on top of him, perching on his thighs, my arms around his neck, my face right there with his.

We just kept kissing. And the more we kissed, the more I relaxed into the moment, and the more I gave in to all the goodness of being close to him. It was like a tiny, wordless negotiation: Each time I took a step closer and he met me with tenderness, I took another step closer. The closer I got, the closer I wanted to be.

I pulled his shirt off and threw it on the floor, and then there he was, half-naked, all smooth skin and contours. Then I pulled my own shirt off, and there I was in my sports bra—exactly as I’d been with him so many times at the station, as he put EKG pads on me or checked my spine.

Of course, this was nothing like those other times.

When he ran his palms up, then back down, the skin of my back, he wasn’t checking my vertebrae. He wasn’t working to maintain professional distance. He was doing the opposite. He was trying to get as close as possible.

And so was I.

I ran my hands over him, just absorbing the warmth and the softness, and the landscape of his muscles and the miracle of getting to touch him at all.

Then I pushed him back until he was lying down.

I scooted forward and traced his six-pack with my fingers.

His breath came out like a shudder.

It’s amazing how much context matters. I knew Owen. I’d seen him in action. I’d worked with him all these months, and I’d seen him make the right, kindhearted, compassionate choice time and again. The man spent his free time baking cookies, for God’s sake. He brought puppies home in baskets. I trusted him. I cared about him. And the more I kissed him, the more I wanted to kiss him.

“Thank you for coming upstairs,” I said.

He met my eyes. “Thank you for inviting me upstairs.”

“This is a big deal for me.”

“For me, too.”

“But you’ve been in a girl’s bedroom before.”

He shook his head. “Not in the bedroom of a superhero.”

“I’m not a superhero.”

“You’re pretty damn close.”

“I’m the opposite, in a lot of ways.”

“It’s possible that you don’t fully know how awesome you are.”

“That’s distinctly possible.”

He met my eyes. “But I do.”

The intensity of his gaze made me feel shy.

“I think about you all the time,” he confessed then. “In between shifts, all I’m doing is waiting to see you again. Then, during shifts, I can’t concentrate. I’m supposed to be filling out time logs, but all I can see is that one wisp of hair you can’t seem to keep in your ponytail holder.”

I started to lean in for another kiss, but he stopped me.

“I think you are so beautiful,” he went on slowly, deliberately, “that it’s blinding. But it’s not just that. When I look at you, I just see all the things I admire. It’s all the badass stuff about you, sure, like the way you’re so calm when all hell’s breaking loose, and the way you can toss a three-point shot backwards without even looking and make it with nothing but net, and don’t get me started on the one-arm pull-ups. It’s how you never panic and nothing scares you. But it’s also that your first career goal was to be the Tooth Fairy. And that you hum to yourself when you’re washing the dishes. And that when you laugh really, really hard, you run out of breath and start squeaking like a mouse.”

“I don’t squeak like a mouse.”

“There’s all this toughness about you—but the most impressive thing about that toughness, I think, is that you built it to protect the tenderness.”

I blinked at him. Who was this guy? “It’s not true that nothing scares me,” I said then. “You scare me.”

He let out a laugh. “I am far too lovesick to scare anybody.”