She wriggles her shoulders proudly, brings her index finger to her tongue, and pretends to wet the air, letting it sizzle.

I point at her. “You also learned that you can, indeed, have multiple orgasms, one right after the other.”

“I had four in an hour,” she says with a big grin.

“Show off,” I tease, then stop. “Wait. One was solo.”

“I’m still counting it, since looking at you on the train was my foreplay.”

And like that, I’m ready to go again. She is a sexy little cupcake, and I want to bite into her. “And you also learned that the G-spot isn’t a myth.”

“Oh, I believe in it big time. I’ll be building a shrine to it, in fact,” she says, ripping off a corner of the bread and popping it in her mouth. When she finishes, she lowers her voice. “Want to know one more thing I learned about what I like?”

“I do,” I say, and my muscles tense, not from worry, but anticipation. I want to know her. What she likes. What she dislikes. What makes her feel good.

Her eyes lock on mine. “Seeing you undress for me,” she says, and her voice slides into that vulnerable tone she uses every now and then. The faintest of smiles tugs at her lips and pulls at my heart. We’re talking about sex, but we’re also not. She’s saying something else it seems, something about what it means to open up to someone, to let him in. Or maybe I just want to think that. I half wish I had that Harper decoder ring and could translate what she just said into what some part of me wishes it meant. But I’m not sure how to get in touch with that part. For so long, I’ve been primarily focused on one thing with women—driving them wild. With Harper I want that in spades, but I want something else, too.

More.

Even though I know I can’t have that with her, and there’s no point in dwelling on it.

I grab a piece of bread, instead, and bite into it to keep from saying anything too revealing in response. The waitress arrives with a glass of wine for her and a beer for me, bringing to an end the serious moment.

The rest of the meal is easy. We talk about work and movies, agreeing that The Usual Suspects has the best twist, then books, and which Harry Potter spell we’d most want to do. We both choose the ability to apparate. “Instant transportation. No more airplanes, no more cars, no more waiting,” I say, pressing my index finger to the table for emphasis. “We could just go to Fiji right now.”

“Next stop, Bora Bora.”

We even chat about the crossword puzzle, and she’s surprised when I tell her I finish it nearly every week.

“Every week?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.

“When you signed up to ride this ride, did you think you were only getting beauty here?” I gesture to myself then tap my temple. “There’s brains, too.”

“The Sunday crossword is just really hard.”

I shrug. “I like puzzles.” Like you. You’re a mystery to me sometimes.

“Me too,” she adds, and sometimes we have so much in common it scares me.

* * *

We stroll along Central Park after dinner. The evening air is cool, and a flurry of golden brown leaves skip past our feet in the night breeze.

“I love fall in New York City,” she muses, glancing up at the trees, their branches bursting with color, canopying us as I walk her home. “It’s my favorite season.”

“Why?”

“I love fall clothes and scarves,” she says, her boots clicking against the sidewalk. “Fall colors, too—all the orange, and red, and gold. And the air is crisp, but not cold. And mostly, it just seems like the season Manhattan was designed for.”

“How so?”

“It’s romantic. It’s as if . . .” She pauses as if she’s taking time with her thoughts. She slows her pace and looks at me. “It’s as if Manhattan and fall have chemistry. Know what I mean?”

“Like they’re meant to be?”

“Yes. Exactly. New York was made for autumn,” she says, as a tall brunette and an even taller blond dude walk toward us, his arm draped around her shoulder. Harper and I move slightly to the right, and her eyes linger on them for a moment.

“And autumn was made for New York,” I add, then I go for it. I wrap my arm around her shoulder. “Are you cold?”

She shakes her head. “Not anymore.”

Silence falls between us for the next block. It’s weird, because we’re usually so chatty. But it’s nice like this, walking through the city, New York unfolding before us in all its autumn splendor, elegant buildings on our left, a jewel of a park on our right.

“Now it feels like a date,” she says under her breath, and my heart speeds up, pounding against my chest. Because I really like dating her. More than I should.

But as I flip her words in my mind, I wonder if I’ve overstepped with her, and crossed a line she doesn’t want crossed. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” she says, as if she’s saying duh. “This is still lessons in dating, right? I mean, just because we added sex to the mix doesn’t mean we’re leaving the dating lessons in the dust, right?”

My heart skids, slamming cruelly against my rib cage. I tell it to shut the fuck up, because I can’t keep letting it get out of line and wanting more. “Sure,” I say gruffly, but now I wonder if that dinner was a mock date. Is she practicing dating with me now, too? Sex is one thing, but trial dates gnaw at me. I don’t know why. They just do.