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“Oh no,” she says, wearing an expression of exaggerated disappointment on her face.

I can’t help but chuckle. “What?”

“The last time someone had a proposal for me, I ended up in some strange guy’s apartment for a week, rescuing cats and watching him cook.”

I narrow my eyes, thinking about how that sounds. “Yeah, you’re right, maybe a proposition is a bad idea.”

“I didn’t say it was bad. Just…not on my bingo card.”

Well, there’s no doubt that what we’re doing is highly unusual. I’m still not quite sure how I got myself a roommate, but I can’t regret it.

“Come on,” she says. “Tell me your proposition.”

I take her in, her teasing smile, the way she looks at me like I’m completely fascinating, her sparkling eyes…then my gaze falls to the papers she printed out for me.

“I want a night off from our arrangement. A time-out.”

She sits back in her chair like I just slapped her. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be making me fall in love with you. Much easier for me if you have as many nights off as you like.”

Her words tumble around in my brain, and I realize that what she thinks I’m saying and what I’m trying to communicate are two different things. “I’m saying I want a night off from trying to prove to you that we’re more than just professional, and a night off from you having to prove to me that you don’t like me like that.”

“I heard you,” she says, still visibly offended.

I shake my head. “I don’t think you did. I’m saying I’m into you.”

Her cheeks redden and my dick twitches. She’s fucking gorgeous.

“I’m confused,” she confesses.

“I’m saying this badly, but I like you. And I think a part of you might like me too. I’d like a night off when we can stop thinking about Boston and just be ourselves.”

“Are you not being yourself?”

“I’m always a version of myself.” As I say the words, I realize that, although that’s always true, the version I am with Avril is the part that feels closer to the core of who I really am than any other.

“Right,” she says.

“I want a time-out. Anything that happens tonight doesn’t count.”

She laughs a little as she finally realizes what I’m saying. “Oh, you sure do like these shoes. I’ve had them on for twenty minutes and you want to renegotiate.”

“It’s not the shoes,” I say and then I shrug. “Although, they’re great shoes. Never take them off. Ever.”

We both smile at each other across the table, the look laden with so much—warmth, humor, lust.

“A time-out could ruin everything,” she says. “I have more to lose than you do.”

She’s right. I lose nothing from having a time-out. I imagine my hands sliding around her waist and sliding her onto my lap. I imagine her scent as I kiss her neck and her warm skin under my fingertips, and I lengthen against my thigh.

I want her. Not just any woman. It’s Avril I want.

I’m not sure if it’s because we’ve spent so much time together over the past few days. I’m not sure if it’s the cocktail she gave me the first time we met, or the research she’s presented me with tonight, but she’s special. I want to stop avoiding all these feelings I have for her. And I think she feels the same way.

Maybe I’m wrong.

I just don’t think so.

“You’re right. You have more to lose. But tomorrow we can pretend tonight didn’t happen.”