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I hear myself say, “Do you want to go to a hotel?”

The change in him is immediate.

He goes still. Not shocked. Not excited in some obvious way. Still.

The driver waits by the curb. The car’s headlights cut through the mist. The street behind him shines black and gold.

D doesn’t look away from me.

“Maggie.”

My name is low now. Careful.

“I know,” I say.

“Do you?”

The question is not insulting. It’s not patronizing.

It is serious.

So I make myself answer seriously.

“Yes.” I breathe in. “In two days, I have something scheduled that will change how I feel about my own body. Maybe not forever. Maybe not even in the way I think. But it will change something.” I look up at him. “Tonight, I want to feel like myself.”

His face doesn’t soften exactly. But something in his expression shifts.

I keep going before I lose courage. “I know this is probably stupid. I know I don’t know you. I know I should go home.” My voice gets quieter. “But I don’t want to. Not yet.”

He says nothing for a moment.

Then, “Is this what you want?”

I nod.

“I want you to say it.”

“Goddamn it, I want you,” I say breathily. “How much clearer can I get?”

Chapter Five

DALTON

“Goddamn it, I want you,” she says, breath catching around the words. “How much clearer can I get?”

For one second, I don’t move.

The mist clings to her hair. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, from whatever it cost her to say that out loud. She’s standing in front of me in that green top, eyes too bright, mouth parted, brave and reckless and shaking just enough to make every part of me go still.

I harden instantly. This is immediate and inconvenient, a hard rush of want that lands low in my body and makes my jaw lock.

“Maggie,” I say. It comes out rougher than I intend.

Her eyes drop to my mouth.

That decides it.

I open the car door. “Get in.”