Page 55 of What Happens in Amsterdam

The alcohol pounds against my temples, reminding me that I was supposed to be different in Amsterdam, and yet here I am, desperate to fall into bed with a man I’ve already slept with.

It’s been exhausting, pretending this attraction is nothing more than residual teen infatuation amplified by sheer proximity to the person who loved me during the most self-conscious time of my life. It’s something new, I can tell. Something electric.

How did I touch you?

“Like you weren’t just biding time until the main event,” I say. “It felt like you wanted to know how I reacted to every single thing. Like you were memorizing all of it.”

“I remember.” Without dropping his gaze from mine, he steps toward me. Braces himself on the counter, one hand on either side of my hips. His voice is rough as gravel. “The way you’d hold yourself back sometimes, like you wanted to be quiet even though we were the only people in the house. The way you moaned into my ear—it was my favorite sound. You even bit me a few times, and I think you were shy about it, but I fucking loved it. That probably wrecked me for the next five years.”

All the words that don’t go straight to my heart land between my thighs with a pulsing want. I bring one leg around his waist to draw him closer, watching the way it plays across his face. A fluttering of his lashes. A heavy exhale.Yes. This.

Some of his hair has fallen into his face, and I reach out to push it back, the soft strands slipping through my fingers.

“Bedankt,” he says. Slowly, one of his hands inches toward my thigh, dipping into the crease at my hip. The other hand follows, until he’s gotten enough of a grip to drag me forward along the counter. The breath stills in my lungs as he pulls me flush against him, my center at his navel, both of my legs wrapped around his back now.

The very first time he touched me, hand inside my underwear, he let out a gasp before I did. I’ve never been able to forget it. I had my forehead pressed against his shoulder, overwhelmed by the sensation, and he was the one gasping—at least until my vocal cords started working again.

“Do you still do that?” He brings up his hand to rest a fingertip on my collarbone. Gently, as though he’s still in full control of his body, he traces the column of my neck. Up to my ear, along my jaw,and then back down. “Bite someone’s ear when they’re touching you?”

“I…don’t know.” An honest reply. A shaky breath. “Maybe it was just for you.”

He swears softly, maybe in English and maybe in Dutch. In this moment, I can’t tell the difference. Suddenly it feels as though I haven’t been touched in ages. Haven’t been kissed. Haven’t been properly fucked. My body doesn’t care about our history, only the throbbing desire between us, buzzing at the surface of our skin.

When he dips his head, his mouth lands on my neck, warmth and pressure as he follows the path he just charted with his finger. He might as well be scalding me with a match, dragging the tip of it along my skin. A moan is trapped in my throat, one I’m too afraid to let out becauseJesus, he’s still barely touching me. His other hand finds my wedding ring, his middle finger circling the cool metal.

I can sense all the ways he’s trying to hold back, because Wouter is not someone who lets himself have good things. He’s been so immersed in work that he’s denied himself simple pleasures. He’s stayed away from art. From sex.

He gives and he gives, the physiotherapist who teaches people to feel good—and just this once, I want him totake.

My hands go to his hair again, but this time they dive into it, hard and eager. When I sigh at the heat of his lips on my jaw, I can feel the way it affects him, the effort of his muscles holding himself back. An immovable object taunted by an irresistible force.

I imagine ironing out his tightest spots. Finding all the places that make him moan. I want to know him all over again, use my mouth to map that flash of ink on his shoulder, and I’m no longer sure if it’s the alcohol or the illusion of these fucking rings or the way he’s looking at me.

He pulls his head back for only an instant, gaze burning mine before our mouths collide.

Andthisis what it’s like to kiss him after all these years:

Inevitable.

We’re remembering and learning at the same time, a honeyed urgency as we crash into each other again and again. Hands in hair, already breathless. The groan in his throat tells me exactly how good it feels to give in like this, and I tell him the same thing in the way I part my lips for him. He tastes my sighs. Swallows my gasps. I drag him closer by the collar of his shirt while his fingertips dig into my hips—because even with his body aligned with mine, he’s not close enough.More, I beg with my teeth on his lower lip, and so he bites me right back.

This is nothing like the way we kissed in his family’s backyard, a wholesome production that didn’t mean anything. This one means something—I’m just not sure what.

With all of him pressed against me, I can feel his hard length through his jeans, a delicious friction as he rolls his hips to mine. There’s no self-consciousness, just the rawness of that base instinct, the confession that he doesn’t merely want to kiss—he craves relief the way I do. Mouth on my neck. Stubble scraping my skin. I spread my legs wider and rock against him, matching his want in every way I can. Chasing the ache only he can soothe.

Suddenly he draws back with a sharp breath.

“Danika…fuck.” He grits his teeth. Pushes out a sigh, drops his hands from my hips and puts more space between our chests. Like he’s going to drag us both away from that cliff’s edge even if it kills him. Even if his mouth is still wet and swollen. “We shouldn’t—not while we’re drunk.”

Are we? Is that the buzzy, electric feeling in my veins, or is it idiocy and unbridled lust?

“I’m not—” I start, unable to finish the sentence withthat drunkbecause it’s decidedly untrue.

“And I wouldn’t want to…it’s been so long…”

He wouldn’t want to…what? Take advantage of me? Do something we’d both regret? Because he’s not, and I wouldn’t.

Unless he’s the one who would.

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