In the end, Wes is the one to ask, the one to initiate. "Can I kiss you?"
Annalise freezes, her hands still wrist deep in the dish water. She doesn't even get to turn around before he's crossing the kitchen to be beside her rather than behind her. He tells himself to focus on her, focus on this moment and what could come after rather than the intense way his blood hums just beneath his skin. He might be shaking a little, but then again, she might be too.
He asks, "Would it be alright? I've been here for weeks, Annalise, and I don't know exactly what it is that we're doing, but I do know what I want out of this."
That seems to spur her enough. She slips into a big of shock and indignation. "What you want," she repeats.
He nods and steps closer again. His hip bumps into the edge of counter, which is better than the dishwasher if he were on the other side of the sink. She still hasn't taken her hands out of the water.
"Annalise, you've got to know the effect you have on people. They follow you around like… like they'd kill for you, maybe even kill themselves if you asked them to." He grabs the dry towel off the counter and holds it out for her. Waits until she reaches for it to start talking again. "I'm not saying all that right now, but I want to see if we've all got it wrong. I want to prove that we're not insane to want you as badly as we do. I mean, I moved out of my apartment, basically broke up with my girlfriend, just because you asked me to. I've framed people, killed people—"
"For Rebecca," she asserts, but her hands linger around the towel, wringing it almost unconsciously.
"At first. But it's not Rebecca that I'm thinking about when you send me down to the guest room." He leans down close enough to be level with her face. "And I know it's not Nate that you're thinking about these days. So why not test it out? Why not," and he gets as close to her lips as he can without crossing the line, so close that he can feel when she tilts up a bit, and he lets his smile carry the rest of his question, "let me kiss you?"
Her lashes flutter. Her breath mingles with his. The nod she tries to give just bumps their heads together. Her laugh fills in the space in her near breathless answer. "Fine. You always do what you want anyw—"
Her hand winds up back in the dish water a few moments later, then tangled up in his shirt. Wes doesn't mind, gives him a solid reason to take it off, and for her to ask — "How about we do a little more?"