Then Jordan kissed me, and my entire understanding of kissing packed a suitcase and left town.
There is no comparison.
Wesley was familiar. Safe. A boy I had known forever trying to become someone else.
Jordan is a man. He’s older, rougher, experienced in a way that makes every quiet order sound like a promise and every controlled touch feel like the beginning of trouble.
Very sexy trouble.
The kind of trouble that lifts a woman onto a desk and stands between her thighs like he belongs there.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but that only makes it worse. His hand on my thigh. His mouth on mine. His body hard against me. The way he guided my hand to the front of his pants and let me feel exactly what I did to him.
My face goes hot under the pillow.
I am still a virgin, but I am not so innocent that I do not understand what I felt. Wesley and I touched through clothes, and even then, he never felt like that. He never made my whole body go soft and panicky and curious in the same breath.
Jordan did.
Jordan made me feel it through a zipper.
I kick both feet under the blanket like that might shake the memory loose.
It does not.
The doorbell rings.
I shoot upright so fast my hair falls into my mouth.
At five fifty in the morning, no good news arrives by doorbell.
I stumble to the door, peek through the little hole, and find a man in a black delivery uniform holding a sleek black box.
I open the door a cautious amount. “Yes?”
“Natalie Mullen?”
“That depends on how scary the box is.”
His expression does not change. “Delivery from Mr. Richmond.”
My stomach flips hard enough to qualify as exercise.
I take the box. It is heavier than I expect, tied with black ribbon, and far too elegant for my tiny apartment and bare feet. The delivery man leaves before I can ask questions, which is probably for the best because all my questions sound like screaming.
Inside is a dress.
Black, soft, and really beautiful.
The kind of beautiful that makes me stand there for a second with the box open, my messy hair hanging around my face, wondering if Jordan somehow knew I would spend the entire day panicking over what to wear tonight. Which is ridiculous, because men like Jordan Richmond probably do not think about wardrobe panic.
Except he sent a dress.
I lift it out with careful fingers, and the fabric slides over my hands like water. There are shoes tucked beneath it, wrapped in tissue, and a small card with Jordan’s initials embossed at the top.
Wear this tonight.
I won’t be in the office today. Meetings off-site.
