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I slid my hand up his chest.

He went still.

“Samantha,” he said against my mouth.

I answered by kissing him again.

His hand moved to the small of my back, pulling me into him until every thought in my head stepped aside.

My back pressed harder into the pillar. His thigh shifted between mine, not enough to be careless, enough to make my breath catch. His mouth moved to my jaw, and I heard myself inhale like someone had opened a window in a sealed room.

Terrible location. Worse judgment.

His mouth found the side of my neck.

I cared less.

My hand went to the back of his neck, fingers sliding into his hair, and the last neat part of the evening came undone. He made another sound, rougher this time, and his mouth came back to mine.

My knee brushed his hip.

His whole body reacted.

He pulled back first.

Far enough that I could see his face.

His breathing was not steady.

“I need to stop,” he said.

For half a second, old fear mistook stopping for leaving.

Then his thumb moved over my cheek.

Slow.

Not leaving.

“Not because I want to.”

“I’m not doing this with you in a parking garage.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

His eyes dropped to my mouth again.

This time he let me see it.

“Samantha.”

“You make restraint sound very dramatic,” I said.

“You make it difficult.”

He was choosing not to cross a line just because desire had made it visible.

“You were right to stop,” I said.