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I unbutton my corduroy jacket and step out of my boots, the fact that we are truly alone for the first time slowly sinking in. Neil watches me. Swallows hard. As much as I love him in a denim jacket, I also love the way that jacket looks draped over the back of his desk chair, allowing me to take in the lines of his body for the first time all day. A simple black button-down, open at the throat. The freckles and features I’ve missed.

He is so lovely, especially with his messy hair in slight need of a haircut. When I slide my fingers into it, he lets out this low hum. His eyes fall shut for a moment, his hands settling at my waist on his exhale. Thumbs stroking along my skirt.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been waiting all day for this,” I say.

“Try all month.” With a wicked, heavy-lidded look, he draws me even closer, one hand trailing up my back. “And the best part is, we can’t be interrupted.”

That rush of freedom turns everything more intimate. Slowly, I take off his thin oval glasses and place them on his desk before I kiss him, properly kiss him, for the first time in weeks.

It’s slow, deep, the kind of kiss that tells the other person you have all the time in the world to keep kissing them like this. His tongue slips inside my mouth, teasing. A soft bite on my lower lip, and then a harder one, because this is something I’ve just recently learned I like and he’s determined to make up for lost time. That sigh in his throat is one I feel deep in my bones, beautiful and satisfying and perfect.

The last time we had sex, a stolen afternoon in my room while my parents worked from a coffee shop, knowing we probably wouldn’t have another opportunity for a while, he just stared at me for a long time, like he was trying to memorize every detail.

This time, we have a full weekend ahead of us.

Before we go any further, though, he pauses. He cradles my jaw, his thumb skating along my cheekbone. His eyes, blazing and intense, with always, always that underlying softness to his expression. “I love your face. Every part of it. It wasn’t enough seeing you over video—I don’t think there are enough pixels in the world to do you justice.” A kiss lands on the tip of my nose, as though he knows it’s something I used to be self-conscious about. He’s never shy about his compliments, but this one feels different. Weightier. “You’re a thousand times better in person.”

After that, neither of us cares to slow down for very long. Our shirts land on the floor, my tights tangled with his jeans. Then I climb into his bed with bare legs, and he slides in next to me, lining his body up with mine.

“Small bed,” I remark.

“I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

He traces his fingertips along the seams of my bra before removing it, and I arch my back into him as he kisses my neck, my chest. I stroke my hand along every cluster of freckles. His skin is so warm, as though every possible emotion is pulsing right beneath it. Lust. Sweetness. Admiration.

At the beginning of our relationship, he was shy and sometimes uncertain, and watching him gain confidence, even in the limited time we had together over the summer, has more than surprised me. But maybe it shouldn’t—if there’s something Neil McNair isn’t instantly an expert at, he naturally wants to excel in it.

His breathing grows more ragged as I push my hips against his, his teeth landing on the soft skin of my shoulder, and this is one of my favorite things about him: how he begins in this undeniably wholesome way, until the sensation becomes too powerful and he gives in to the basest parts of himself. I cannot get enough of him like this, acting purely on instinct. On desire. Losing himself in me, simply feeling. Contrasted with the buttoned-up, glasses-wearing guy with the massive vocabulary—it’s about the hottest thing I can imagine.

“Not yet,” he says, and I can tell it’s taking every ounce of self-control to utter those words. His hair is already wild, a flush spread across his cheeks and down the column of his neck. “We don’t have to rush.”

“I know, I know. I just missed you.”

He readjusts on top of me, bending to kiss my waist, my stomach, my hips. “Could I…?” he asks, and presses a kiss to the front of my underwear. Then another one, lower this time, the heat of his mouth finishing that silent question.

“I’ve never—” I start, because even though Neil wasn’t my first, that’s one thing I haven’t done. Not with him, not with anyone. “Are you sure you want to?”

The look on his face makes me think I’ve asked the most obvious question in human existence. “Rowan. I wanted to all summer. I don’t think… I don’t think there’s been a time I haven’t wanted to.”

“Then—yes,” I breathe out, wondering if he can hear the longing in just those two words. Because suddenly it’s all I can think about, and I am absolutely desperate for it. Even when a past boyfriend offered, I was never fully comfortable. I didn’t want to be that exposed.

There’s none of that self-consciousness now.

He hooks his thumbs around that last bit of fabric separating us and pulls it down my legs, and then, because he’s Neil, folds it neatly on top of our tights-jeans pile. My breathing is already heavy as he settles himself between my legs.

The sensation is all warmth, a new kind of intimacy that tugs at something deep in my chest. I’m half sitting up on my elbows, watching him, but soon my muscles can’t take it and I let myself sink into the mattress, head dropping to the pillow.

But after a few minutes, after the initial surprise of it wears off—and then longer than a few minutes, as he tries to find a rhythm—my mind starts to wander.

To my next creative writing assignment, and whether I’ll be able to conquer the blank page.

To my train on Sunday, and what time I’ll have to be at the station so I don’t miss it.

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to stay in the moment.

He keeps going, and while all of it feels good, none of it feels amazing, exactly. A new kind of frustration.

“Is it still okay?” he asks.