He sighs. “I know that, Sky. You’ve said it over and over again. We’re not dating.”

“I mean it,” I say as he kisses along my neck slowly, but I’m not sure if I’m talking to him or me.

When he licks up my throat, my insides melt and pool in my stomach, all warm and sloshy and … what if he licked other places? Or followed through on that damn comment he gave over the phone about licking and kissing every inch of me.

“Not dating, just exclusively having fun together,” he purrs against my jaw. “Better than tugging on your pigtails.”

“Well … yeah,” I admit.

Ash takes off his shirt and tosses it to the side, which earns him a glare. He rolls his eyes and puts my hand on his chest. “I like to be touched. Pretty much constantly, just about everywhere.”

“Except here.” I trace my finger up his side and watch him squirm. “You’re still ticklish.”

He rolls on top of me and pins the offending hand by my head. “Take that secret to your grave.”

“Make me,” I challenge.

He chuckles and kisses me again. “So sassy.” Another kiss, slower, deeper. “Stubborn.” This time, he bites my bottom lip and tugs softly. “Sexy.”

“Got stuck at S in the dictionary, didn’t you? T has pretty good words, too.”

“I can think of a few,” he says, but then he glances at my door. “Do I need to worry about a certain brother coming in? One that hates me?”

I shake my head slowly.

“Your father?”

I look to the side, and Ash sits up. “You’re home alone on the regular, aren’t you?”

“It’s not a bad thing. I get to throw all these wild parties,” I huff.

Ash shakes his head. “Well, that settles it. We’re making food.”

Which sounds suspiciously like a date, but my growling stomach makes it clear that I don’t have the high ground here. We go to the kitchen and start making mac and cheese since that’s really all I have the ingredients for. I haven’t yet done our monthly grocery run.

Ash sings off key and flat at the same time, just narrating what we’re doing like a dummy until I elbow him while laughing. “Don’t quit the boxing.”

“I like your laugh,” he says as if my insult doesn’t mean a single fucking thing.

“Shut it.” I point at him with the spoon. “Or I’m going to stuff crunchy pasta in your mouth.”

“I’d rather have you take care of my mouth another way.”

I heat from my toes to the top of my head with that comment alone. He has to know what he does to me. “Will it get you to stop being sweet?”

“To you?” He considers it, then wraps his arms around me, pulling me tight against him. “As long as it makes you blush like that, hell no.”

I can definitely feel something hard against my lower back. Something I can’t ignore, even if I should.

“Are you always hard?”

“Around you, it’s pretty fucking constant,” he says in my ear.

I don’t know if it’s his words or the way his breath catches on my ear that makes my thighs clench. It shouldn’t be this easy for him to make me wet. It’s actually pathetic. Reminds me of the phone sex that never should have happened.

Because I know the second we actually do have sex, the magic will be gone. Ash will be satisfied, and he’ll move on no matter what he says. So I have to hold out until just before I leave. Or until he gets bored of me and leaves me be, virginity intact.

“Do I turn you on at all, Sky?”