My hands are in his hair, and I want so much more I’m nearly wild. I want to feel him along every inch of me. His sounds are so deep and quiet they’re like vibrations that go straight to my bones, rattling me, turning me into nothing but individual pieces of a girl: hands that shake, and blood that rushes too strong in her veins, and legs that push her up off her seat and over onto him. He reaches to his side, flipping his seat back with ease, and I’m crashing over him, legs spread over his lap. He yanks me down, grinding up into me and I cry out when I feel the thick press of his cock between my legs.

When he groans, the sound pushes a button somewhere inside that unleashes the frenzy. I don’t care that we’re in the car in the middle of a street. It’s quiet. It’s dusk. We may as well be alone on an island somewhere for all I care about the setting.

Feel him, take him in your body and feel him. It’s been too long.

He’s one step ahead of me, reaching between us to unzip his pants and shove them down his hips and I feel his bare cock on my thigh; the skin is paradoxically warm and soft around something so inflexible. His fingers fumble with my underwear, pushing them aside, not even bothering to take them off, fingertips seeking and finding me wet and greedy, my unintelligible sounds telling him where I need him to be.

“We doing this?” he rasps.

I nod urgently and he holds himself for me to take in. It’s all happening so fast, he’s sinking deep inside, and we’re gasping because it’s so good.

It’s so good.

His gaze catches mine and the relief in his expression makes me feel shaky and fragile, like blown glass. I’ve missed this, I need this.

I think I need him.

He sits up, kissing me wet and messy, groaning against my teeth when he’s buried inside and grunts these tiny perfect sounds of approval every time I rock forward and back, whispering, Like that, and Ah, so good, and, Jesus, baby, I can’t . . . He trails off, more kissing, more teeth grazing my lips, my jaw, my neck. More sounds of need. Just please . . . I can’t.

He reaches between us, two fingers so gently petting where I need him. A ragged groan tears from his throat, and I hear the tiny hiccupping sounds I’m making, begging, so close—

“Oh, shit, I’m coming,” he gasps right when I’m falling. And I throw my head back and scream—because it feels so different—and at the same time he cries out, arching from the seat and wildly shoving deeper into me, my body clutching and squeezing all around him. It feels like forever that I’m coming and kissing him and his hands are on my face and his sounds are pressed into my skin in my tiny car with no tint on the windows, at the peak of the sunset in Indian summer.

I love him.

I love him.

I crumple against his chest, on the verge of tears. It’s a relief I can barely process—being with him like this again, even if it’s in the front seat of my car with the skirt of my dress billowing around me. He feels so sturdy, his heart pounding against my ear.

Finn twitches inside me, his shaking breath ruffling my hair. “Harlow,” he says quietly, exhaling in a tight burst.

“I know,” I agree. “Holy shit that was amazing.”

“No . . .” He pulls my shoulders so I’m sitting upright, and I feel the press of him, still hard, still inside me. “Baby, we didn’t use anything.” His face is so close to mine, his eyes searching and anxious. “I don’t have a condom on.”

I groan and start to climb off him but then stop, reconsidering our attire. I really don’t want to Monica Lewinsky it into the party with this blue dress. “Can you grab me a tissue from the glove compartment?”

He nods, reaching around me, and somehow manages to retrieve one. It’s such a real moment, and in such stark contrast to the wild fucking of a minute ago, that I feel a little light-headed. Just as I move to pull away, he reaches for me, touching two fingers to my jaw and whispering, “Shh, wait, wait, wait. Come here.”

I lean in, closing my eyes and giving in to the sensation of melting into him as he groans, digging his hand into my hair to hold me close. His tongue slides against mine, gentler now. My heart is slamming into my breastbone from exertion, and from the teasing adrenaline of my impending panic.

“Are you okay?” he says against my mouth.

I nod. “I can’t believe we did that.”

“Me, either.”

“I guess we should go clean up before the party.”

We adjust our clothes and stumble out of the car. Back at the front door, he pulls his keys from his pocket, unable to meet my eyes when he quietly asks, “Are you on the pill?”

“No.” I try to do the math to figure out where I am in my cycle—I think I’m supposed to get my period in a matter of days—but I don’t want to linger on the potential implications of the unprotected sex we just had. I want to stay in the happy, jelly-limbed place of bliss and my newfound admission that I’m totally freaking in love with Finn Roberts.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell him, with absolutely no proof whatsoever. It just feels good to say it, and as soon as I do, I feel sure of it. It will be fine! Everything will be fine!

He nods and walks inside, leading me down the hall to the small bathroom next to the room he’s been staying in. I turn and look through the open bedroom door as he stops and grabs a washcloth from the hall closet. His suitcase is open on the bed, filled with neatly folded clothes.

“You’re leaving tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” he says. And then, “Well, probably not. I don’t know.” He nods toward the bathroom, indicating I lead us inside.

Turning on the hot faucet, he holds his hand underneath until the water heats, and then wets the cloth. “Come here.”

I watch him reach under my dress, and close my eyes as his hand glides up the inside of my thigh, around to my hip, and he slips my underwear down my legs to my knees. I gasp when he gently slides the warm cloth between my legs.

“Okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.” More than okay. Heaven. “It feels nice.”

He reaches under my dress with his other hand, wrapping his fingers around my hip and squeezing. “I mean, you. Are you okay?”

“Are you okay?” I volley back.

He looks up at me, smiles a genuine smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Even if I’m knocked up?”

“Yeah. We’ll figure it out.”

I swallow, nodding. “Then I’m okay, too.”

His expression straightens and he blurts, “Tell me that wasn’t just sex for you.”

Reeling from this, I slide my hands into his hair and pull him into me. “It went way past ‘just sex’ a while ago. I think that’s why I wanted to stop. There’s too much else going on. For both of us,” I add.

He tilts his chin to look up at me, resting it on my navel. “We gonna try to do this anyway? I mean”—he swallows nervously—“I really want you, but not just like this anymore.”

I bite my lip, wanting to unload all of my angst about the last two weeks: worrying about my mother, using Finn for distraction, and then becoming so absorbed in him I feared I would want so much more than either of us could manage. And now he’s telling me he wants it, too. I close my eyes, thinking about the television show, and the stipulation that he not be in a relationship, and the thinly veiled goal to find him an on-screen romance. Now the easiest path forward—signing on to the show—would make a relationship between us impossible. Even if he passed on the show and went home to try to salvage the business, we’d never see each other because he would be working even more than he is now.

“I want it so bad I feel like I can’t breathe,” he says, squeezing his hand around the back of my thigh so I’ll look down at him. “I’ve been trying to focus on everything going on back home, but I can’t think about anything but this.”

“I want this, too,” I tell him. “I’m just not sure how it would work.”

He stands, kissing my jaw and intentionally misunderstanding me when he says, “We could skip the party and I could show you.”

I start to answer, “Absolutely,” but then pause. Something clicks, like a lock turning in my thoughts. There is one way to salvage his business without him having to do the show, and it’s been right in front of me this entire time.

WE WALK INTO the party holding hands. Something has shifted between us, and it’s so achingly tender that I want to launch myself at him every time he looks at me, or speaks to me, or puts his hand around my back and curls his fingers around my hip as if there’s a hold there made just for him.

Dad, who came here alone without Mom tonight, sees us as we walk into the kitchen and excuses himself from the small group conversation he’s engaged in to come greet us.

“You must be Finn,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m Harlow’s father, Alexander Vega.”

Only two boys I’ve dated have ever met my father, and they were stammering, anxious messes the entire time. In a way, it’s understandable. For one, my father has won two Academy Awards, and is a fairly well-known name for a cinematographer. But he’s also tall, and muscular, and perfectly capable of being intimidating when he wants to be.

But right now, I can tell he doesn’t want to be. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because Finn—who is admittedly enormous in comparison—greets him with a firm shake, a confident smile, and a “Thanks so much for inviting me along.”

My father puts his arm around Finn’s shoulders and leads him deeper into the room to be introduced to some people. Dad tilts his head to me, indicating I join them, of course, but I’d rather watch the two of them greet Dad’s colleagues and do the guy-bonding thing I’ve never seen my father do with a guy I’ve so much as kissed.

This guy-bonding thing is exactly what I need to happen tonight.

I head into the kitchen to get a drink and say hi to Salvatore’s daughters. They’re six and eight years older than I am and still living with their parents; Valentina and Ekaterina Marìn are two of the most spoiled “children” I’ve ever met in the film industry, but it’s easier to just be friendly than avoid them, because Dad and Sal work together on more than half of their projects.

I kiss each of them on the cheek and smile that this time, Valentina smells like Chanel, and Ekaterina smells like something new . . . Prada Infusion d’Iris, maybe. Their biggest fight two years ago caused them to not speak for three months and was over which sister could claim Chanel No. 5 as her signature scent.

This is what Finn used to think I was like.

“Your boyfriend sure is something,” Valentina says, lifting her chin in Finn’s direction.

I pour myself a glass of sparkling water. “He is.”

“Rugged,” she purrs.

“I love the blue-collar ones,” Ekaterina adds.

Oh, here we go. I look back into the room at Finn and know exactly how they spot it even though he’s wearing dress pants and a dress shirt: He just looks out of place here. He’s muscular in a way that bucks the Hollywood slender trend, his hair is cut short, and he stands with his legs set shoulder-width apart, as if constantly steadying himself against an incoming wave.

“He owns a fishing business,” I tell them.

“Ooooh,” Ekaterina coos. “Niche.”

I plaster on a smile that turns genuine when their father walks into the kitchen, and I tilt my head to him when he leans to kiss my cheek. His daughters may be unbearable, but Salvatore has been like a second father to Bellamy and me.

“And how is my darling girl?” he asks.

“I’m doing fantastic. Congratulations again on the new business, Fancypants. You must be excited.”

“I am. I’ve also been gunning to get your father to come on board for Release Horizon.”

“It sounds like he’s already there,” I tell him.

“Now I just need to get you to come work for me and the world will be settled perfectly.”

I take a deep breath and say, “Actually, Sal, I wanted to talk to you about that . . .”

FINN PRESSES ME against the wall outside my apartment, growling into my neck over how long it’s taking me to find my keys. We nearly pulled over to the side of the road four times on the short drive back to my place, because his hand was in my dress, his mouth on my neck, his fingers guiding mine to his lap when he pulled his cock free, whispering for me to feel him.

You’re getting me all fucking messy, Harlow. You gonna lick this clean when we get there?

He was messy and slick when I slid my hand all the way down his length. I’d stroked him until he’d lifted his hips from the seat, began grunting quietly with every stroke of my hand over the head of his cock as I steered with the other hand. I’d brought him to the edge—panting and rigid—and then parked in front of my building.

He groaned, stilling my hand. “Not in the car again.”

The metallic ring of my keys echoes down the hall as I jangle them free of my purse, and, still smashed up against me, Finn grabs them from my hand, opening the door and pushing me inside. I’m on my back on the floor only a split second before the sound of the door slamming shut rings through the apartment.

Finn hovers over me like a predator, inspecting his hunt. I slide my hand down his body, gripping the thick, inflexible shape of him through his dress pants, intent on finishing what I’d started in the car. But he seems to have regained control, and reaches for my hand, moving it away.

“When I met you at the bar back in June,” he says, gaze traveling from my lips to my hair to my neck, “you walked up to me and looked me up and down like I was put up for auction, and then sat down right next to me and said, ‘I’d love a tequila gimlet.’ It was like liquid slowly spilled out on that chair. You were so fucking beautiful.”