Page 45 of Trip Me Up

“It’s fine. The tour is a lot of togetherness. We need boundaries.”

The room was too small for boundaries. He filled it up with his big frame and his flannel and that woodsy scent he carried.

“I guess we’re all clear, then,” I whispered, not wanting to disturb the late-night stillness.

“Good.” He scratched his chin, the sound rasping through the tiny room. The rolled-up sleeves of his plaid shirt exposed the red-gold hairs on his forearm. The flannel looked soft. So did the hair.

The next thing I knew, I was touching his arm. Just one finger dragged through the forest of springy hair from his elbow to his wrist. It was as silky as I’d imagined. The sensation traveled up my arm to warm my chest.

I froze. “Sorry, I—”

“It’s okay. You can touch me.”

Greedy, I slid my fingertip onto the back of his hand and traced over the bumps of his knuckles.

He turned his hand over, exposing his palm. This side of his hand was clear of freckles, but it was ringed in calluses that snagged at my fingers. When I traced a path onto the smooth skin inside his wrist, he shivered.

He unfolded his other arm and brought it up slowly. He laid his hand on my shoulder over my T-shirt, his fingers curling back along my shoulder blade. “Is this all right?”

“Yeah.” If he squeezed a little harder, it might work out the knot of stress I’d carried in my shoulders since I’d seen that person dressed as The Magician at the convention.

Instead, his hand drifted across my back under my looped-up ponytail to my nape. I shivered.

“Still good?”

His hand was warm, almost hot, on my neck. He squeezed, easing the tight muscles. Prickles of relief flowed down my back. I nodded.

He slid his other hand out of mine and, with one finger, tipped up my chin. This close, the bristles on his cheeks and chin sparkled golden in the soft glow from the lamp. His lips were the soft pink of ballet slippers. I hated the class Mother forced me into but loved those shoes.

So comfortable. So plushy. So kissable.

When I pushed up on my toes, my boots creaked. Still, I wasn’t tall enough to reach his mouth. His impossibly tall mouth. He’d have to bend to meet me.

When he didn’t, I peeled my gaze off those satiny lips and checked out his eyes. I’d expected them to be focused on my lips. No, Niall Flynn couldn’t be as transparent as the guys I’d hooked up with at the university. Instead, he stared into my eyes, emotions I couldn’t read churning behind the gold-flecked green.

He dropped his hand and stepped back until his back hit the door. My chin missed the support of his finger, and my chilled neck erupted in goosebumps.

“I’ll—I’ll be right next door,” he said.

I sagged against the wall. “Oh. Okay.”

Before I even finished speaking, the door shut behind him. Bilbo Baggins snorted awake and let out a sleepy half-bark.

I blinked hard and shook my head. Bed. I was tired. That was why I’d misread the signals and tried to kiss him.

He wasn’t interested. Not in me. Like all the others, he needed something from me. To perform at the book signings. Like Mother needed me to perform at her social events.

And, really, I’d been trying to get something from him, too. Scratch an itch. Safely, with no risk of catching feelings or wanting more. Because less than two weeks remained of the tour. Like this hotel room, there was no room for anything else.

I unzipped my suitcase and pulled out a pair of pajama pants. After I changed into them, I reached out to caress the adjoining door, the one that led to Niall’s room. I imagined opening it to find his square frame filling it, leaning against the jamb with his eyes half-open the way they’d been before I’d touched him.

No. I flopped back on the bed. Exhaustion had lowered my inhibitions, led me to think Niall wanted to kiss me. Of course he didn’t. He was made for public consumption, basking in the camera flashes. He needed bling on his arm, not someone who wore cargo pants and shapeless T-shirts and hid behind her dog. He didn’t need someone who turned her face away from photos, who preferred the solitude of a computer lab to crowded movie premieres.

Besides, I had secrets. Secrets I was in danger of revealing if I let Niall get too close. Secrets that’d be disastrous to the tour, to CASE, to my future. Opening that door was something I could never do.

I scooted under the covers, but as tired as I was, my eyes refused to close. My leg bumped against my laptop bag.

Sitting up, I reached inside it and pulled out the paperback copy ofSecrets of the Wood Elves,the one Niall had signed for me in Chicago. I cracked it open to the first page of Chapter 2, and when the letters stopped swirling, I started to read.

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