Page 28 of Full Coverage (Boys of Fall)

“Or tequila.”

So he wasn’t the only one thinking about an alternate dessert.

Nolan stopped and pulled a breath in through his nose. He’d known that Randi had dated a lot of guys. Rumor had it that she’d been—as much as he hated the term—easy. Now, he realized that she’d simply owned her sexuality early. She clearly liked sex and was confident about it. Again, he was stupidly grateful to Matt for making it a positive thing for her. Nolan knew, somehow, that every physical encounter for Randi had been consensual. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d seduced at least half the guys she’d been with.

But he didn’t want her to think that this was all there was. A book, a party and sex. He wanted more than that from her.

“I love brownies,” he told her.

She studied his eyes. Then nodded. “Okay.”

Nolan helped clear the table before they headed into the living room with brownies and coffee.

She set her cup on the coffee table and tucked herself into the corner of the couch facing him, her legs drawn up underneath her. She looked gorgeous. Her long dark hair was loose, her tanned legs below the hem of her skirt made his palms itch to touch, and her long slender fingers, adorned with a variety of silver rings, made him itched tobetouched.

But it was her eyes that he kept studying. They were a whiskey brown and framed with long lashes, and they showed every single thing she was feeling. She was attracted to him. He now had no doubt, and he knew he could spend the night in her bed if he wanted to. But there was something that held him back.

New York. What it represented.

He wanted to make love to her in a thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suite overlooking Times Square with champagne in a bucket beside the bed and room service whenever they finally exhausted themselves and needed nourishment. He wanted to keep her naked except for the plush bathrobes in the room and an outrageously priced cocktail dress that would make her feel as beautiful and special as she was.

He wanted to be different. He didn’t want to be another Quinn guy she made brownies for and took upstairs to the bed with the quilt her grandmother had made for her. He didn’t want to be another guy who danced with her at Pitchers and licked salt off her neck before sucking tequila out of her belly button.

Except, he wanted to be that guy too.

He was different from the other guys she’d dated and gotten close to. And he relished that. His whole life, his mother had impressed upon him that being different was a good thing and that he should aspire to more than Quinn. But the truth was…hewasdifferent. Not because his mom told him so or pushed him to be, but because he was. He was wired differently. Now though, he knew it meant he could give Randi things the other guys never could. Because she deserved something different, something more, something special.

She’d dated Quinn boys, a few from other nearby towns. Small-town Texas boys who knew ranching and manual labor and other blue collar work. Their social lives consisted of Pitchers—and a hundred other hole-in-the-wall bars across the county. The closest they came to Broadway was the high school production ofOklahoma!and the closest they got to the literary classics was being forced to readGreat Expectationsin English class in high school. Something most of them got through with the help of the internet and guys like Nolan.

They were good guys. Loyal to family and friends, hardworking, patriotic and God-fearing. They made honest livings and had found their place in the world in the midst of the hills and plains of Texas. There was nothing wrong with any of that.

But Nolan had had options that a lot of them hadn’t, and he’d taken advantage of them. Now he wanted to give Randi options.

Randi was stuck here. She’d followed her interests into the mechanic shop and now owned the business. She didn’t seem unhappy or restless, but she also didn’t really know what else was out there. She hadn’t been given a lot of chances to see or know or want more.

He wanted to give those to her.

And he wanted to suck tequila out of her belly button.

She lifted her cup to her lips—another body part he’d been thinking about all night—and sipped. “How did the chapter go today?” she asked.

He leaned into the cushion behind him. “Good. I have the rough draft done.”

“Can I see it?” she asked eagerly.

Nolan grinned. He liked that she was excited about it. He reached for the bag he’d set by the sofa when he’d first come in. He pulled out the pages and handed them over.

She grinned at him and settled even farther into her corner, drawing her knees up so she could rest the papers on them, and started reading.

Nolan watched her. People read his work all the time. In fact, the more that read, the better for his job security. But this struck him as intimate in a way. They were words she’d helped him construct and it was about something that meant a lot to her. He wanted to do it justice and he wanted her to see herself in it.

It took her a while to read the entire chapter, and Nolan found himself perfectly content to watch her the whole time. He loved the way she nibbled on her bottom lip, the tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows that appeared and disappeared as she read, even the way she flipped the pages.

Finally she looked up. And just stared at him.

Nolan waited. After a few seconds, he shifted on the cushion. Then he frowned. “What?”

His editor at the paper barely edited him anymore. His book editor had certainly given some important input, but even then he hadn’t had to rework much. Nolan was very confident in his writing and ability to tell a story. But Miranda Doyle was making him sweat.

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