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Curving into him, Georgie ran her flowers-free hand down his scarf and fisted it, stopping him in his tracks. “Lucky for you, show and tell is this teacher’s favourite.” She slowly sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, then parted his lips with her tongue, her kiss deep and beckoning. The bouquet crinkling between them, Oliver answered back boldly, his hand sliding into her hair as his tongue teased and tangled with hers, and a hot ache throbbed between her legs, intense, unrelenting, and wet. All the weeks waiting, doubting, questioning, she’d go through it all again if this was the payoff. God, how she wanted him.

Her fingers trespassed up his chest and along his jaw as she rocked against him, discovering just how much he wanted her. Oliver let out a heated moan and her tote slipped down his arm. Georgie broke away with a mischievous grin and clasped his hand. “C’mon.” Her gaze darted across the empty street. “My place is over there.”

“O-okay,” he panted, returning her bag to his shoulder. “You sure, though? We don’t have to rush if⁠—”

“Oh yes we do!” She tugged him along.

“Great!” Oliver smoothed down his hair. “So I, uh, should mention,” he whispered, “I don’t have any STDs. I’m always careful, especially nowadays with H⁠—”

“Same!” Turning slightly, Georgie glanced up ahead and tensed, her sassy smile vanishing. “What?! Is that—” She squinted, her heart sinking. “Stefanie in my apartment?” As she gestured toward the two-storey walk-up on the corner, Stef passed by Georgie’s second floor window, her focus devoted to something she was eating out of a bowl.

“I take it you weren’t expecting her?” asked Oliver.

“No. She’s supposed to be staying with Leesa while her building’s hot water heater gets fixed. Fuck!” Georgie shook her head. “This is what I get for loaning my friends a spare key.” A frown brewing, she met Oliver’s gaze. “I’m really sorry. Another time? Soon, hopefully?”

His throat bobbed. “Absolutely. I can wait.”

“I can’t.” She pouted as they stopped. “Guess I’ll be whipping out the ol’ vibrator tonight.”

Oliver let out a strangled laugh. “You’re killing me.” He discreetly reached into his coat.

Is he…adjusting himself? Georgie widened her eyes. “OH! I’m sorry.” She shot him a lustful ogle. “NOT!”

“I bet you are.” He licked his lips. “Is it still okay if I walk you home?”

“Oh god, yeah.” She looped her arm through the crook of Oliver’s, but two steps along, he sucked in a sharp breath and winced.

“Sorry, I…” He slowed to a stop, slipping a hand inside his coat again.

“Ooh, down boy!” Georgie playfully fanned her face.

He flashed a smile and they continued on.

She bit her bottom lip. “Maybe a change of subject will help your…”

“Thank you.” His brows lowered.

“Seen any good videos lately?” she asked. “The one for ‘No Ordinary Love’ is fantastic! I love Sade.”

“I don’t have MuchMusic,” said Oliver.

“I couldn’t live without it. I used to fall asleep to the radio, now I use Much, and that’s saying something, especially when the Pepsi Power Hour is on.”

“Thus you discovering the Swedish heavy metal band?”

“I know I might not look it, but I love to rock out once in a while,” said Georgie.

“What other quirks do you have?” he asked.

Keeping a straight face, she replied, “Absolutely none.”

Oliver laughed. “Go on. I told you mine. What’s the one your friends don’t understand?”

“Oh, that’s easy. They get annoyed when I pull out my camera and take too many photos. They think it’s intrusive and ruins the moment. But what they don’t understand is, when you lose a loved one and see how few pictures you actually have of them, you’ll wish someone in your circle had been a snap-happy shutterbug.”

“That’s so true. My mother isn’t in many of the photos she left me because she was always behind the camera.” His soft smile, the one Georgie found mesmerizing, reappeared once more. “Your friends are wrong. There is no such thing as too many.”

“Thank you!” Georgie let out an audible exhale as they crossed Heath Street and approached the two-storey walk-up she’d pointed at earlier, the first of several encircling a tidy cul-de-sac called Oaklawn Close. “Finally someone gets it.”