I wasn’t sure what it was about being in Ace’s car—maybe that we were alone or that I was locked in a small space with him—but once we hit the road, the heat in my body became too intense to ignore.

At the restaurant, it had been a mere thrum. But in the car, it was an all-out, blazing inferno in the pit of my stomach, and quickly alighting the rest of my body.

I couldn’t seem to take in enough air, my chest rising and falling with labored breaths, as sweat beaded over every inch of me.

But as bad as the heat was, it was the incessant ache...