***
We ended up at a bookstore downtown.
Though I felt her unease, I continued to make small talk, hoping it would gradually slip away. I followed her up a flight of stairs, unable to take my eyes off the stars on her backside that danced with every sway to her hips. I imagined plotting a new universe within the fabric. A place where she and I existed without complication.
“Here. This is it.” She stopped in the middle of a compact aisle, a breathy smile to her lips as she scanned the rows of books. The quiet thrill of the thousands of worlds we were surrounded by suspended in the air.
“Books. Of course. Why wouldn’t this be your favorite spot?” I said, hands aching to pull her close again. To wrap her up until I couldn’t tell the difference where she began and I ended.
A sliver of a grin streaked across her mouth as the earlier tension melted from her gaze. “Not just any book. Here. Let me show you.”
She moved closer. Reached past my shoulder, her proximity growing my arousal for her. The floral scent of her hair brushed against the tip of my nose. I had half a mind to pin her against the shelf and kiss her. Inhale her scent until it was imprinted on my soul. But I’d told her we could be friends, and I’d meant it.
She leaned back on her heels with a book in hand. Flipped through the pages and then handed it to me.
I skimmed the page until I stopped where she pointed to.
“ ‘Eleonora’ by Edgar Allan Poe,” she said. “One of my favorite poets. One of my favorite lines.” Her smile was felt through the air. It was sunshine and hope. Alluring and magical.
I read the line again, breaking each word apart. Trying to find her within each syllable.
“This is my favorite place,” she said, her finger pressed against the page. “Inside a book. Inside another’s mind. Learning. Creating. Expanding. And maybe, one day, allowing others a glimpse inside my mind. That was why I came to New York. All those dreams I’d created for myself. All the things I never thought I could be. I’m so close to achieving them, you know? I can’t let them go. Not now.”
Her words almost sounded like an apology. A confession. And in them, I found pieces of myself because I knew what it felt like to want something I could be proud of. To chase a dream I never thought I could have. And there I was, looking right at it.
At her.
I wanted her. All of her. It was like a dam had broken open inside me, all my desperation, all my longing, spilling, rising, floating my heart to the surface. I could no longer ignore it. No longer avoid it. She was there, in the flesh, the woman of my dreams, one decision away from either being mine or being lost to me forever.
I couldn’t wait. Not anymore.
I needed to know that she wanted me too.
Taking the book, she moved in front of me and placed it in its spot as her lips curved toward the floor. I couldn’t stop myself. Drawn to her like a magnetic pull, I moved closer. Skimmed my lips over the bare spot where her shoulder had emerged from the jacket hanging slightly off.
She tasted like honey. Like perfection. Like heaven.
As she curved in my arms, her round eyes pleaded for release as our bodies trembled within the weight of this moment. My lips hovered over hers, the heat of our breath pressing against one another. I could almost taste her when she licked her lips. Locked in place. Waiting for me to fill the gap.
“Grayson …”
In her eyes, a warning resided, but my name left her lips as more of a plea. An invitation to take what we’d been craving.
I brushed my lips against hers. Not quite a kiss. More of a tasting. Savoring her and this moment. My bottom lip molded in between the curves of her mouth, connecting in place. Nose grazing over silken flesh. Heart thudding to the tune of her mind.
I felt the moment she let go, when she gave in to whatever it was she’d been fighting and surrendered herself to me, and I smiled against her lips. Against her heart.
There she was. All mine.
When I pulled away, her eyes were closed, lips stung with desire.
“I’ve been aching to do that since the moment I bumped into you,” I confessed, wanting nothing more than to press my lips back against hers. Taste more of her. All of her.
“Same.” The word quivered past her lips.
She was warm. Pliant and ready for more. I grew harder by the second, imagining all the things I wanted to do to her. Instead, I took what she offered as I pressed my lips against the corner of her mouth. Moved to the other corner with the same soft kiss. Worked my way to the middle where her lips were open and ready.
A heady fire spread through my veins as I sealed the kiss.
When her knees gave out, I caught her. Smiled at the cuteness of her nervous giggle.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, trying to right herself.
“Don’t be sorry.” I wanted to return to a second ago when my lips had been on hers. “Because I feel it too.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears.
“The way I feel when I’m with you scares me,” I admitted, my lips hovering over her forehead.
She held tight to the edges of my jacket. “Me too.”
“What is this?”
“I think … I think this is what falling feels like.”
When her eyes met mine, I knew. That was it. I was hers, and I would do anything to make her mine. Because in her gaze, I found hope. I saw who I could be. No longer the front-page joke. No longer the plague in the dating world. I was me. The real me. And she had seen it from the start.
I didn’t want to screw things up with her. I wanted to take it slow. Make it last.
Make it count.
“Listen,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. “I have to go out of town for the next few days.”
I smiled when a small pout formed on her lips.
“Which is why I was wondering if I could call you. Because I don’t want to go a day without speaking to you. Does that sound crazy?”
She laughed. “Yes,” she said with a nod. “Absolutely, certifiably insane.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. “I guess we can be committed together.”
On the way back to her place, we talked about everything with an openness that hadn’t been there before. With a thrill that lifted my heart high inside my chest. There was barely a pause. Barely a moment for either of us to catch our breath. It was as if the bridge had been laid, and we were finally free to cross it. Finally free to let each other all the way in.
By the time we made it to her stoop, I was reeling with happiness. “So …”
She was perched a step higher than me, clinging to the banister. “So … until next time?”
I smirked. Grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. “Until then.”
I didn’t wait but five minutes after she went inside to pull up her number and type out a text.
Meeting you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
A mere second rolled by before she replied.
Meeting you is the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to me.
Good night, Miss Amberly.
Sweet dreams, Mr. Pierce.
I tucked my phone into my pocket, knowing the smile that had sewn across my heart would be permanent so long as I was with her.
Knowing that, someday soon, she’d make me hers.
Rule Number Four:
Show him it’s okay to be scared to fall in love.
The Duck
Prim
“HEY YOU,” HAZEL SAID ON the other side of the phone. “I got your text and called as soon as I could.” A short, anticipated pause. “So? What happened? Did it happen? Tell me. Tell me everything.”
I set my plate of pizza on the table, a buzzing whirlwind of emotions swimming around the base of my stomach. Every time I thought of Grayson, of his lips, of his smile, it was like my insides turned to mush. Putty. A soppy mess of hushed words and unexplored, stirring desires.
We’d kissed.
My first kiss. With him. But to speak it out loud, to give it concreteness …
“Hello? Earth to Prim.”
I braced a deep breath before declaring, “He kissed me.”
A bright squeal shot through the phone as my heart did its millionth backflip. “I knew it! I knew something had happened.” I heard an intake of air, followed by a giggle. “My very own sister, locking lips with Grayson Pierce. How was it? Tell me everything. Tongue? No tongue? Ass-grabbing? Biting?”
“Biting?” I said, laughing.
“Yeah. Did he nibble on your bottom lip? Did he say all the swoony things? He’s the quintessential rich bad boy. Don’t kill my stereotyped dreams.”
I chewed on my bottom lip, telling the voice nagging in the back of my head to shut up. The same voice that always told me not to burden others. That no one really needed to hear the details of my everyday life. That no one cared. I didn’t want to listen to that voice anymore.
I needed to relate.
“Well … I’ll start by saying, it was a small kiss.”
“Give me a simmer level. One to ten. Ten being like holy freaking shit.”
“I’d say … a close four.” My eyes closed as I ran my fingers over my lips. I’d never in my wildest dreams imagined a kiss could feel like that. Like summer and heat. Like spinning and falling.
No, that … that kiss with Grayson was what inspired poetry.
“Well, don’t leave me hanging!”
I laughed. “It was soft, gentle almost. We were at a bookstore and—”
“Stop! Your first kiss was in a bookstore? Is this … is this what dreams feel like?”
My head shook. “We had just had … well, I think we’d just had our first fight. I mean, not really a fight, but a—”
“You tried to confess again, didn’t you?”
I sighed. She always had a damn sixth sense when it came to me. “I’d been set on breaking things off, Hazel. Like, for reals. I figured if I walked away, then nobody would get hurt. He wouldn’t have to know that another person had come into his life, seeking a story, and I wouldn’t have to worry about the guilt and the inevitable fallout. Damn the consequences when it came to Quinn. But when I tried to walk away from him, I just …” My sigh grew heavy along with my heart. “He thought it was because I didn’t trust him. Because of something he had done when, really, it’s me he shouldn’t trust. He just … he wouldn’t let me go. And honestly, I didn’t want to go either.”
Silence swam on the other line as she processed it all. It was the one thing I could always count on with Hazel—I never got a reply from her that didn’t come with careful thought behind it.
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” I rested my head against my palm. “I really … I just don’t know. Tell Quinn I can’t do it and hope she’ll understand and let me keep my job? Tell him the truth and risk losing him?” My eyes squeezed shut. “He told me that meeting me is the best thing that’s happened to him. And now, I have to write this stupid article about an amazing person. I don’t want to, Hazel. I really don’t want to. So, do I risk it? Is the possibility of love worth the price of a dream job?”
“I think, deep down, you know the answer to that, Prim.”
I leaned back against the couch. Stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars fastened to my ceiling. “I’ve always been in love with love. Inspired by it. Seeking it out. Hell, my heart is practically a living Jane Austen novel. But now that it’s happening … now that I’ve found him …”
“Now, you realize love is a lot more than just pining and flowers and stolen moments.”
“Yeah,” I said with a snort. “It’s fucking complicated, is what it is.”
“Cheers to that.”
My phone beeped in my ear. “Hang on, Hazel. Someone’s—” I pulled the phone away and stilled. A smile caught at the ends of my lips, lifting, flying. “It’s Grayson. He’s … I have to go. Talk soon?”
“Of course, sis. Love you.”
“Love you too.” I switched the line over and said, “Hey. I was wondering when you were going to call.”
“Sorry.” A babel of voices jumbled over his in the background. “I got caught up during an interview. They asked me to come out with them. Figured I’d give you a quick shout to let you know I hadn’t forgotten about you.”
“Oh.” I sat up. Noted the distance in his tone.
“Grayson, come here,” I heard a female voice say.
“I’ve gotta go, Prim. Will you be up later? I can give you a ring once I leave here.”
Thunder crackled in the pit of my stomach. Rain poured over my heart.
“Sure. I’ll be up.”
“Good. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. We still on?”
“Of course.”
“Grayson,” the woman’s voice shouted again.
Air hissed through his teeth before he said, “Sorry about this. It’s work, you know?”
“Totally.”
“Cool. Talk soon?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Bye, Prim.”
And then the call ended.
***
True to my word, I’d stayed up, waiting for his call. I didn’t know what time I had fallen asleep, the phone clutched in my hand. When I woke, a large pit formed in my stomach, waiting for me to fall into it.
He never called.
Never even texted.
I rationalized that he’d been busy. Whomever he’d interviewed wanted to take him out. That was typical. Necessary. Grayson was a social being. The opposite of my introvert ways.
And I trusted him. Wholeheartedly.
I kept those thoughts glued to the forefront of my mind on the way to work. When he had a chance, he’d reach out to me. Of that, I was sure.
The morning passed like any other morning, rushing headfirst into the afternoon. I finished the rounds of offering help around the office—a fresh-meat job—and planted myself in front of my computer, working on the speech I’d be giving later to Quinn.
Well, it was more of a pleading than a speech.
I was going to beg for a different assignment and hope that somewhere in her cavernous soul, she’d hear me and work with me. Hazel had been right. Only I knew the answer to what my heart needed, and although I was still figuring that out, I did know for sure that it didn’t need the scar of hurting Grayson on it.
“Psst,” I heard behind me.
I turned and found Poppy facing me, a grave expression painted on her face.
“What?” I asked, that festering, sinking feeling expanding in my stomach.
She pointed to her computer. On the screen was an article on a gossip blog. Grayson was plastered on the center of the screen with his arm around a dark-haired vixen with curves any woman would envy. They were smiling in a way that said they had just finished laughing, a familiarity between them that scratched at the green in me.
Beside it was the picture taken at the aquarium of us, which was split down the middle like a broken heart. The title was “Another Heartbreak, Another Woman. The Serial Dater Has Returned.”
“You sure being friends is a good idea?” Poppy said from behind me.
I didn’t want to read the article. It felt almost like … like violating his privacy and trust.
I wouldn’t be that girl.
“It could be wrong, Poppy. It could be a simple misinterpretation. He wouldn’t … Grayson wouldn’t do this. I know him.”
It wasn’t the first time the press had gotten it wrong when it came to him. And the press did like to embellish things to gain readership. I glanced down at my phone. At his name encased by one yellow and one blue heart. That had to be it.
Poppy leaned over me. Pulled the article back up. “Then, why this? Why the arm when he knows how the tabloids work? When he knows they’ve already snapped you two together? This is his ammo, Prim. This is how he stays relevant.”
“That’s not true.”
“No? Have you known him as lo
ng as I have? Have you watched him parade women in and out of his apartment like it was a fucking game?” She blew out a breath and plopped down on the edge of her desk. “Look,” she said, spinning that chair I sat in toward her. “I know this sounds bitchy, maybe even a little cruel, but I’m just trying to look out for you. If it looks and quacks like a duck, then it’s a—”
“Duck.”
“Precisely.”
My head hung. “Well, shit.” I couldn’t ignore it as much as I wanted to. I hated the way my heart felt like it was shredding. Hated that I’d let myself think, even for the slightest minute, that maybe he was different with me. That he’d actually meant all those things he said. That he’d actually wanted to be with me. Me.
And to think, I was going to risk my job.
“If Quinn sees this …”
“Cherry!” Quinn’s voice barked through the speaker of my phone a second later.
Fudge.
“When does he return?”
“Tonight,” I said, feeling it all slip through my fingers like water.
“You know what this means,” Poppy continued, unaware of how her words stomped on every one of my bleeding emotions. “It’s time for a contingency plan.”
“Such as?”
“Shopping.”
Shopping. Right.
With a nod, I stood. Tucked my disappointment back into its hidey-hole. This was fine. No, better than fine. This was great. Better to find the truth now rather than later—after I let myself fall even further. Before I made the major mistake of resigning from the assignment.
Right?
Rule Number Five:
If he reverts to his primitive, serial ways, thirst-trap him.
Lovey Drunk
Prim
POPPY PULLED OUT ALL THE stops.
“This is a movie moment. You do realize that?” she said as the hairdresser spun me around to see the end result, a squeal erupting from her.
My hair was pinned with fishtail braids in a sultry updo. My blue eyes popped against the heavy kohl-black liner smudged on my lids. I looked like a model version of myself. Vixenish and mysterious and ready to break men’s hearts.
Love in the Headlines: A Star-Crossed Friends-To-Lovers Romance (Love in the Headlines Series Book 1) Page 13