4
The first time she cooks for him is a complete disaster. Not because she's not a good cook, no, she's considered culinary school before she got that (particularly thick) envelope emblazoned with the Stanford logo, but because he distracts her so badly that the soup burns its way into the bottom of the pot and the bread never gets cooked.
He has the key to her apartment and he comes in silently (like a hunter, she will think later) and slides his hands onto her hips without warning, making her drop the soup spoon deep into the pan. As she tries to retrieve it she can feel his breath hot on her shoulder, and she laughs and shivers uncontrollably. She asks him where his manners are, casting what is meant to be a severe look at him, but his eyes are burning green and she trails off halfway, busies herself with finding that spoon because for the first time in her life her brain has been entirely scrambled with a single look. He tells her not to worry about the spoon, and his mouth is on her neck and she can't remember what exactly a spoon is.
Nor does she care.
Her heart is in her throat and her hand is in his hair and she can't seem to remember how to breathe, either, and she dimly recognizes that he's using one hand to turn off the stove and the oven and the other to turn her around and press against her, never taking his lips from her skin, and then he's lifted her, so easily (he's joked that he can hardly feel her when he picks her up, that she feels insubstantial), wrapped his arms around her. She cannot stand the thought of his ever letting go and he kisses her breathless and everything on the planet collapses inward to this one split centimeter of contact.
The stars burned perfectly that night too, but neither of them could be bothered to look.