Forget what I said about the first week being the longest. The next week was even longer than the week before. And it was a short week.

I'd gotten the taste of having Tate back in my life, but satisfying my cravings was hard with his schedule. So he had invaded my thoughts instead.

Tuesday he'd been in classes all morning, practice all afternoon, and the gym in the evening. I'd texted him a picture of us that I'd taken at the beach. He commented back about my real smile—the one he'd pulled out of me.

My smile fell later that day when Alice told me she and Matt had broken up—over me. Alice was so nonchalant when she explained Matt couldn't stop watching me and Tate, so he was clearly not over me. She couldn't be bothered though. She was already crushing on one of Tate's teammates because she now understood what was 'so fucking hot' about golfers and their attitude (thanks to me and Millie) and she wasn't giving Matt another thought. Just like I had predicted; it fizzled.

Wednesday I asked Tate if he wanted to get pizza, but he had a team meeting and a group project.

Thursday I had reached deranged desperation, wondering if he was avoiding me. I couldn't be the first one to text him every day. I felt like some athlete groupie—no, a Tate groupie.

The amount of texts that man got when we used to hang out was insane. Girls were always checking if he was free, if he was single, if he would be at some party the next weekend. He was good about living in the present moment and trying his best not to bury his head in his phone when he was with me, but the constant buzzing didn't go unnoticed.

I couldn't turn into one of those girls just because I had maddening and puzzling feelings toward him and he had revealed cryptic thoughts in his inebriated state.

So Thursday was the day I was not going to text him. I probably glanced at my phone one hundred times, but I hoped he was doing the same thing—stewing and exasperated—waiting for my text that wouldn't come.

Now how long could I hold out?

By four p.m. I needed to distract myself because I'd get my hopes up every time my phone made a noise, so I made my way to the library to study. I'd covered half a chapter of my history textbook when my phone buzzed beside me at five, and Tate's name graced my home screen.

The loop my stomach made pulled my belly button in tight. I swiped my phone open to see a picture of what looked like a wooden library chair and the text from Tate said, Studying would be a whole lot better if you were here.

He was within a one hundred foot radius—right, left, up, down—who knows. But the sudden cognizance was infinitely better than knowing he was within a fifty mile one.

I replied with a picture of my textbook and just enough of the background for him to see that I was also in the library.

Come find me, I added.

Leave him wanting more and make him come to me—because I was a seductive, mysterious, blonde vixen, of course. I could take a page or two out of Millie and Alice's playbook when I wanted to. I didn't have to be dumb and blonde and wearing my heart on my sleeve all the time.

Five minutes later he replied, I hope you're not messing with me. I've already covered two floors.

He must have started on the first floor because I was on the third. All of my attention was focused on the door with the anticipation of seeing Tate come in the door before he would see me mounting.

"Devin."

My excitement was sucked out of every pore. Matt made my name sound like he'd poured honey over a distraught wail.

I peeled my eyes off the doorway I'd been smiling at to watch Matt sit beside me.

"Can we talk?"

His face was flat, not the larger than life attitude he constantly had on display.

"Matt," I said hesitantly. "I'm waiting for someone."

"I messed up." He hung his head when I blinked at him. Then he looked back up at me and ran his hand through his hair, catching himself halfway through and dropping his arm like he hadn't meant to do that. Like he actually wasn't messing with me. "I miss you," he whispered.

I looked at him with hardened eyebrows. "Come on, Matt. We're good, I'm not mad at you. But seriously, come on."

"What do I have to do to show you?"

"Nothing!" I breathed out sharply. "You used me."

He groaned. "I know. That wasn't—isn't—me. I got caught up in this ridiculous scene. Girls throwing themselves at me. Girls wanting me. Being on TV. The attention is a lot."

"You slept with someone else while we were dating, and I walked in on you," I reminded him. "You cheated on me. Who knows how many times."

He winced. "Devin, I know I was an asshole. I mean it. I took you for granted. I didn't appreciate how amazing you were before."

My heart cooled like Matt pressed a wintergreen mint into it, not because he was saying that to me, but because I felt the same exact way toward someone else. I knew what it felt like, and if he was being genuine, then I understood.

"I get it." I slipped my hand around his knee. "I understand. But I'm sorry. It's too late for us."

I glanced over Matt's shoulder to see Tate with a backpack on and his hands in his pockets, watching us from fifty feet away. I broke out into a huge smile, and Matt turned at his waist to look at what I was happy about.

Matt swiveled back toward me, but I couldn't take my eyes off Tate standing there somehow stoically brooding. My smile faltered trying to comprehend his anger.

"You didn't kiss him once at the beach, so I think there's still hope for me. I'm going to prove it to you," Matt said. "I can make you that happy again."

I looked back at Matt, dejected by his words. He knew my love language. He knew I loved affection and kisses and hands in each other's hair and somewhat inappropriate fondling. I loved when he used to slip his hands around my ass or steal a graze across my boobs or slip his hands underneath my dress when no one was watching. I loved wiggling by butt against him to make him hard or biting his neck or putting his hand between my legs when no one could see. But I did not want any of that with him anymore.

I wanted Tate's huge hand to fan out salaciously across all of my body parts, and they were heating at the thought. Apparently, Matt had been watching us a little too closely.

I took my hand back and straightened when Tate decided he'd given me and Matt enough time.

"Matt," Tate said. Hardened. Forceful. He stood behind me, slipped his hands around my shoulders to the base of my throat, and rested his thumb across my steady pulse.

"Tate." Matt echoed his tone as he stood. He dropped his eyes to mine and smiled. "See you later, Devin."

"Alice broke up with him, I assume," Tate said after he sat down in the now unoccupied chair next to me.

I rolled my eyes. "How'd you guess?"

"I saw her flirting with Bradley at the gym earlier," he explained and paused. "He wants you back."

It wasn't a question. Tate flipped open his textbook.

"Yeah, I guess. He doesn't know what he wants."

Tate scowled into his book. "He said that?"

"Not exactly," I started.

"How can he not know if he wants you?"

"He said he realizes now what he had. That he took me for granted."

Tate swung his head up to me slowly with almost a sigh pushing out of his brown eye in misunderstanding. "As long as you're happy, Devin."

Like he knew exactly where my thigh was under the table, his palm slid around my muscle just above my knee and his thumb grazed the top of my kneecap.

"Tate," I said, my breath slightly catching at his touch. But at least this time there was no question mark on the end. All I could think about was how his hand covered almost my entire thigh. He could span his fingers from my knee to my hip if he wanted. "I already told you I don't want to get back together with Matt." A current ran from my voice like Tate had completed a circuit through my legs. I placed my hand over his, trying to stop it. Instead it shocked the next words out of my mouth. "I empathize with him."

I didn't recognize my voice, raspy and low. I squeezed Tate's hand trying to communicate without words. I had said it. He would interpret it. I couldn't take it back now. Who knows what could come out of my mouth with the electricity buzzing inside of me.

Like the chicken or the egg, I wasn't sure which came first—did I tug Tate's hand or did he slide up? Who moved first?

But I didn't know nor did I really care what the answer was.

A wisp of one of his fingers traced my inner thigh as he casually went back to reading. All four of his fingers pressed into my skin when he reached dangerously close to the hem of my dress.

I wrapped mine around his wrist, running across the tendons stretching tight under his skin. His pulse was racing underneath.

Neither one of us was drunk. Both of us knew this wasn't a show for Matt. No one could see what we were doing under the table.

Tate's fingertips skimmed across the top of my thigh as they ambled just a centimeter under my dress. He curled his fingers into mine when I curved my hand over his. Our thumbs circled together, clasping around the other. My breathing was a mix of quick shallow breaths and stalled efforts to bring in oxygen.

I stole a glance at him.

His eyes were still reading the lines of his textbook, turning the pages like he was performing some weird mind trick to focus on both activities. Despite his pulse, his chest was rising and falling steadily.

I'd read the same sentence twenty times. My mind was uncontrollable. I had confirmed to myself that something was below the surface of Tate's unruffled exterior. Something he felt for me—because this was a thousand times more passionate than anything Matt had ever given me and I could feel it in the blood pumping through his body. I could feel it pumping through my own body.

Sparks were flying out from between my legs, trying to connect with Tate's fingertips, trying to draw him closer. I wanted him to do dirty things to me under that table, but my mind was trying to fan the flames. We were in a library for Christ's sake, and we had never even kissed.

Again, which came first? Tate's pinky lifted off my inner thigh and gently brushed across the fabric of my underwear at the same time I spread my legs just an inch for him.

Fuck. I was pulsing. He had to be able to feel it. The ache and heat that was radiating off of me was dangerous and embarrassing, and I was craving more pressure from his long fingers. His slow strokes were like a feather until he wrapped his fingers back into the top of my inner thigh, kneading into it softly.

His phone buzzed. He raised his eyes to the screen and sighed so softly I questioned if he had.

Another girl? Another brunette in the long list of brunettes? What the hell did he have against blondes?

He leaned into me, lips grazing my temple, and spoke in a husky voice. "I have to get to a team dinner. You're photographing our tournament tomorrow, right?"

I nodded as I swept my thumb over his knuckles and pinched his skin softly between them.

I'd been so amped all week at the fact that I would finally get to photograph Tate playing. I'd get to check him out from behind my huge lens. I'd get to edit his pictures on my laptop. I'd get to stare at his torso under his tucked-in Southern Florida polo and brown belt. The mental image was weirdly turning me on even more.

He pressed his lips harder against me—not in a kiss but in a gesture that I read as, I don't want to leave you.

But with that, he disconnected from me, scooted his chair back, and left me with damp underwear and my heart stumbling over itself.

In a goddamn library.