My head drops forward until my chin touches my chest, and I heave in a deep breath. God. I’m not going to be able to catch a break, am I? My phone pinging with another notification answers my silent question with a big, fat freaking no.

Two hands settle on my hips from behind me, and a pair of lips rests at the curve of my neck.

“What are you doing in my room?” The words come out weak and defeated.

My phone pings again.

“I’m sorry,” Aidan murmurs against my neck. “And before you call me out on it, really, I am. I didn’t expect this shit. Not this level of shit anyway.”

“Death threats? Yeah. That’s a pretty serious level.” My phone makes another high-pitched noise, and I shrug Aidan off me, growling, and grab it. He pulls it from my hand before I can throw it at the wall and turns it off.

“There,” he says like he’s solved the whole problem.

“Oh, thank you. Because the notifications won’t be there when I turn it on, or switch on my tablet to read, or open my laptop to check my email. You just made all the messages disappear! What a hero,” I drawl, running my fingers through my hair.

Aidan steps closer to me and takes my hands. His touch is gentle and reassuring as he slides his fingers through mine and encourages me to move toward him. My feet take the step my mind is fighting against, and before I can comprehend what’s happening, our bodies are barely an inch apart and I can feel his breath ghosting over my lips.

“I won’t blame you,” he says softly, his voice the rainbow in the thunderstorm that is my mind. “It would be easy. Do you want to end this?”

“Yes,” I reply honestly. “I’ve wanted to ever since I agreed to it. I signed up for a lot of things, Ads, but not this. Not this kind of crazy.”

His thumb brushes across the back of my hand. “Are we gonna end this?”

There’s my out.

“I want to. Believe me, I want to. But there’s this little devil on my shoulder rubbing her hands together with glee at the prospect of pissing them off a little more,” I admit, cursing my own kind of crazy side.

His lips twitch, laughter brightening his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that!” I fight my own laughter, pulling my hands away and looking down. “I’m just not very good at backing down—”

“And why fight fire with an extinguisher when you can throw another can of lighter fluid into it?”

I snap my eyes back to his, and it takes every ounce of strength in me not to let my giggles bubble over. His smile—it’s so infectious. Like a baby’s tiny chuckle or dancing in the rain. “Shut up.”

“For what it’s worth, I approve of pissing them off.”

“Well, you did admit to breaking the rules.”

“And I did invite you to come break them with me.”

I tilt my head to the side. “Are you still inviting me? Because they’ve brought out my wild side.”

“Oh, you bet.” He grabs my hands again and pulls me into him, right into him, so my front hits his and his hands clasp at the bottom of my back. “Come break the rules with me, baby.”

“Okay, but you’re about to play by mine.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “I’m ready to play.”

I grin and push away from him for a second time, lest the beating of my heart get a little too crazy, because, oh damn.

Never has breaking the rules sounded so fucking sexy. I’ll be damned if my stomach isn’t flipping and my heart isn’t sending my blood thundering around my body from that one little line.

Word foreplay. It’s literal word foreplay, and I might be kind of turned on. “Oh, you’re really not,” I manage.

“You need to get out of those Tinker Bell shorts though,” he muses, leaning against the wall, hands in his pants pockets, tattooed arms bulging out of the bottom of his fitted T-shirt. “They’re cute as fuck, but not exactly going-out-in-public kind of shorts.”

“Then you need to get out of my room, because I’m not getting changed with you here.”

“Jessie, baby, I’ve seen you naked,” he says in a low voice. “I’ve seen your ass and your pussy, and I remember really, really fucking liking the view.”

Ignoring the shiver that runs down my spine, eliciting goose bumps across my skin, I turn and, with more bravado than I feel right now, say, “That has nothing to do with me getting changed in front of you.”

“It has everything to do with you getting changed in front of me, because I’d sure as hell like to see that view again.”

Heat floods through my body, and I’m sure most of it rushes to my cheeks. I can feel them burning as distinctly as I can feel his eyes on me, unrelenting, full of desire. “Not a good idea,” I manage, clearing my throat. “This relationship is precarious enough without me doing anything that would encourage you to push the boundaries of intimacy.”

“I plan to obliterate the borders of intimacy, Jessie. So it doesn’t really matter whether or not you get changed in front of me or leave on those Tinker Bell shorts—we’re gonna fuck anyway.”

I swallow. Hard. Dear oxygen, my lungs miss you. “You sound real confident about that, rocker boy.”

“Knowledge is confidence,” he murmurs with a smile on his face, coming toward me again. “Don’t pretend you don’t know it, too. Look at you.” He lifts his hand to my face and brushes the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “Cheeks flushed.” His thumb brushes my lower lip. “Lips parted.” His fingers trace down my neck. “Pulse thumping.” And over the curve of my collarbone to my chest. “Chest heaving,” he whispers, dipping his head. The edge of his mouth teases across my jaw as he brings his lips to my ear. “And while you remember what it felt like to have me spread your legs and see you, I’m remembering what you sounded like as I got to know your pussy very, very well.”

I answer by hooking my thumbs in the sides of my shorts. He wants to play—then I’m gonna play. “Shut my door,” I whisper, deliberately not swallowing so my throat is dry and my voice is scratchy. He drops his hand and turns, pushing my door closed. As he does, I push my shorts down my legs and step out of them, then turn, facing my back to him.

Once again hooking my thumbs by my hips, this time inside the waistband of my panties, I bend forward, sticking my ass out, and slowly ease the lacy elastic over my butt and down to my thighs.

His sharp intake of breath makes me smile, something that only grows when that breath turns into a growl as I stand and kick off my underwear. I reach for another pair from my open drawer, when he grasps my wrist from behind, stopping me, and his fingers curl around my hip, pulling me back into him.

His erection, forcing against the zipper of his jean shorts, presses into my back, and my eyes flutter shut briefly at the sensation. And the power, knowing that one tiny thing, one small action, has him so out of control that I could flick open that zipper, take him in my hand, and he’d be entirely at my mercy.

But I’m also painfully aware of my vulnerability—I might be able to feel him pressing into my back, but all he has to do is move his hand down with the barest of twitches, and I’m the one at his mercy.

And, from experience, I know that isn’t such a bad place to be.

“You think you’re funny,” Aidan says into my ear, his voice a husky rumble that makes me shiver. “You get a kick out of fuckin’ with me. I know you do. I can feel your laughter now. But when it comes to sex, Jessie . . .” He trails his fingers from my hip to my lower stomach, his fingertips hovering above my pubic line and making me clench with the teasing touch. “Baby, when it comes to sex, don’t fuck with me, and don’t tease me unless you’re ready for me to do something about it.”

“Feels like you’re ready to,” I reply smartly.

His fingers dip a little lower, and I feel his smile against my jaw. “You think you have the power here? Look.” He brings my hand to my face, still holding my wrist, and forces me to look in the mirror above my dresser. Our eyes meet in the glass. “Not really in a position to be cocky, are you?”