Page 51 of Doomsdate

I prop myself up higher on one elbow. “Absolutely! That whole meticulous reassembling of torn-up pictures of strangers? Even I can see that’s very suspicious behavior. And when she met him for the first time, she let him into her apartment! Didn’t even talk, just went straight to neck kissing.” I shake my head. “I bet she didn’t even run a background check on him first.”

“You let me into your apartment the first night we met.”

“Yeah, but my apartment was full of weapons, as you’ve noted.”

“Wait.” His eyes narrow, his mouth twitching playfully. “Did you run a background check on me?”

“No. But Gramps did.”

He blinks at me, then laughs full-throated, his eyes pressing shut in merry crescents. It takes my breath away.

“Well, I concede in real life he could’ve been a murderer,” he says, wiping at tears. “But this is a romance, Maisie. Romances are safe.”

“What do you mean—safe?”

“They always have happily ever afters. It’s the rule of the genre.”

A genre of story you can always trust?

How…lovely.

“And to be fair to Amélie, neck kissing is very nice.” His eyes are dark as he gazes down at the exposed sliver of my own neck between the robe’s fluffy lapels.

“I’ve only had a little practice with it,” I murmur, my pulse picking up speed as his gaze returns to mine. “With you, actually.”

“Would you like to learn more now?”

“Yes,” I breathe, “Professor.” I add the honorific on impulse, a reminder of why we’re here, but it seems to undo something in Everett’s eyes, and a flood of heat spills from them like waves.

“Can I touch you,” Everett says after a second, as though it took effort to keep his tone cool and low, “here?” He gestures at my neck, my chest, the belt of my bathrobe.

“Yes,” I breathe again. “Just tell me what you’re going to do.”

“So you know what’s going to happen?” He brushes a lock of my hair off my forehead. “So you can prepare?”

I blink, but these are questions I don’t need to answer. Somehow, he already understands.

Everett runs his fingers lightly down the curve of my cheek, the hollow behind my ear. “Tonight, we’ll start with the joy of a slow, luxurious, grinding make-out session, Maisie. Is that all right?”

My breath catches as his finger trails down my neck and slides inside my robe’s collar, dragging across the warm, naked flesh there. “Y-yes.”

His own breathing hitches as he gently parts the robe. He stops when he gets to the belt, tucking his hand inside the terry-cloth knot and using it to pull me close.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says softly into my ear, “starting here.” His lips brush against my lobe, the heat of his breath colliding with the wet of his mouth, and I gasp a little.

“Why does it feel so good?” I ask the question surging through my insides aloud, loving that this time as we kiss, I get to do that.

“Scientifically? Probably the thousands of tiny, delicate nerve endings that help you hear receiving a different kind of stimulation,” he whispers without missing a beat, like explaining the basics of kissing to a grown woman is a totally normal way to spend an apocalypse. His hand rests possessively against my hip, holding us in place as his lips toy with my ear, kissing lightly until the bead of his tongue finds where ear meets neck. “Personally, I think it’s because this place is so vulnerable.”

I exhale a ragged breath as his lips pout against my skin, sending chills that ripple over my breasts, hardening my nipples, and end between my legs. His teeth nip at my pulse point.

“What would be dangerous from a predator becomes something else, a different kind of domination,” he murmurs between the lush drags of his lips against my neck. “A sign of want, a call to give yourself up.”

“Oh.” I’m so aroused by the combination of his full lips on my skin and the silky, even baritone of his voice as he explains the desire building in my body, I can barely think. “That makes sense.” And then, because I suspect he likes it, “Professor.”

He groans into my neck, the primal sound at odds with the restrained tone of his voice. “Now I’m going to ease my way up to your mouth, where I’m going to kiss you while I palm your gorgeous breasts through this robe. Is that all right?”

The word yes escapes me in a sigh, and the firm tip of his tongue licks up the column of my throat as if chasing the word itself, leaving a swath of warm wet that transforms into a blaze of electric sensation from the cool air of this cabin.