Page 111 of Battle of the Bookstores

I grab his hand and start marching back the way I came, no longer wobbling in my heels.

“Wait—what’s going on?” he says, tugging on my hand to turn me around.

“What’s going on?” I repeat, facing him. “This is the best news I’ve gotten in years.”

It takes a moment for that to hit him, but when it does, his entire face changes, confusion morphing into hope. “It is?”

“I’ve been an absolutemess, torn between RJ and Ryan, wishing I could somehow keep you both. So yes, we’re going to need to talk at some point, but all I can think of right now is picking up where we left off the other night.”

“I—” He shakes his head, a smile spreading across his face. “Then let’s go.”

We hurry down the sidewalk, hand in hand, grinning like kids on their way to the Scholastic Book Fair. When we reach the hotel, though, he starts tensing up, sneaking shifty glancesat me in the elevator. And when we reach his door, he fumbles with the key card and drops it.

I stoop to pick it up, then pause and touch his cheek. “Hey. How you doing up there?”

He looks like he’s stuck his finger in an electric socket: eyes wide, glasses askew. “I’m having trouble believing this is happening. Is this happening?”

I hold the key card to the reader. “I sure hope so.”

The card registers, I turn the handle, and we both enter. And as the door clicks shut behind us, all his nerves swoop right into me.

It’s the sight of the bed, crisp and white, his suitcase open on the floor next to it, the cardigan and jeans he wore earlier draped over a chair, the warm glow of the lamp on the nightstand. The intimacy of it. We are alone in a hotel room and nothing is going to interrupt us.

“Hey,” he says, touching my cheek. “How you doing down there?”

“I’m…nervous,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because this matters to me.”

It never has before, I realize. Not with anyone else.

He’s looking at me with pure sweetness. “You know I’ve got you, right?”

I know he doesn’t just mean physically—he means in every way possible. And I believe him. I take his hand, leading him into the room, and he sets the bouquet on the desk. With trembling fingers, I reach for the top button of his shirt and undo it, working my way down.

“Good god,” I whisper.

“What?”

“Your chest.” It’s official: my new kink is a sturdy, six-foot-seven-inch man wearing a suit with the shirt unbuttoned to reveal peachy skin, scattered freckles, light brown hair fanning across his chest and diving into his waistband. “I want it.”

“It’s yours.”

“All of it?” I reach for the fly of his pants—there’s already a bulge—but he catches my wrist, and I have a moment of panic that he’s pulling away like last time.

He must see it on my face, because he says, “Don’t stop. But can we go slow?”

I nod, even though I’m aching to get going. He shrugs off his suit jacket and drapes it over a nearby chair.

“Ryan Lawson, now you’re worried about wrinkles?” I say, smiling.

“I’m trying to prove that I’m not just a messy ball of chaos. I remember your face when you saw my car the first time.”

His hair is way too perfectly combed, so I reach up and mess it with my fingers. Now he looks more like my Ryan.

“I’m learning to appreciate a little chaos,” I tell him. Then I reach for his glasses, setting them behind me on the desk, never taking my eyes off him.

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