She was still fumbling with her words, but she had also still said I want to. They were already sitting so close that parts of them were already touching, and the difference in position of his face when he was kissing her and when he wasn't couldn't have been more than a foot. It would have been easy to have just taken her words as a yes and just leaned in and kissed her. He could move from kissing her mouth to her neck, then lower. He could touch her — this chemise she was wearing was already so thin it was hardly like she was wearing anything at all. She wouldn't stop him. He knew she wouldn't stop him because they'd done this before, twice, and she hadn't stopped him either time, and because she'd said yes even if she was fumbling.

But both of the other times he'd been drunk, and he didn't have that excuse today.

He leaned in, closing about half the distance between them. We could be quiet, he thought and nearly said. He imagined kissing her collarbone.

Eventually, he leaned back with a sigh. He scooted back on the bed, putting air between their bodies once again. "Alright," he said, shaking his head. "But I want credit for this. If you're going to be in my flat all night and we're not going to do anything, I want someone in your family to hear about it and be impressed by how much of a gentleman I am," he said with faux impatience. "Ari, maybe, since he already knows everything else."