Page 42 of Rivals to Lovers
“I read it between Monday and today. That wasn’t fake. Plus I wouldn’t have to act like I was enjoying you reading to me. It’s hard to fake things around you.”
“Except when you’ve got this major leg up on me!” Mo realized she wasn’t feeling angry but jealous. Jealous that he’d had a chance to read through her full book when she desperately wanted to do that for his. She shook her manuscript, and the pages flapped. “I call for a détente. I demand a copy of yours.”
“Mine?”
“Of course. I’m sure you have one around here, maybe stuck on the other side of your mattress. It’s only fair.”
He paused, blinked. A sheepish look crept over his face. “But then you don’t have a reason to come back here.”
“Of course I would, you jerk! First, you have the best robes in the city.” She took a step closer to him, all sharp edges melting at the uncertainty in his expression. She had misjudged things, obviously. She had seen the differences between them with all the power on his side—his wealth, his position in publishing, his parents’ connections—but she had somehow upset his balance, unsteadied him. She liked that, the ability to get into his head as much as he’d been messing with hers, to crawl into his life and arch her back to make herself take up more room, a pocket meant for her.
He hadn’t been caught in the rain. He had been allowed to keep on whatever he’d chosen to see her in tonight, and she took in his choices for the first time. A pale-blue shirt, rolled at the elbows. His hair had product in it that made it look controlled but soft. She reached out and touched his hair, pushing a strand away from his face.
He reached his hand up to touch hers, then brought her fingers to his lips. “You taste like rain,” he said.
“Wow, city rain is toxic bathwater, so apologies for that.”
He laughed and pulled her hand up slightly, kissing up her wrists, letting the robe drape backward to her elbow. She shivered as his butterfly kisses moved up the inside of the middle of her arm. It wasn’t ticklish, that was for sure, but she felt a stirring of something that made her feel the need to swallow a laugh. She had to stop her mouth before she ruined everything. She caught his jaw with two fingers and redirected his lips to meet hers.
He put his hand on the belt of her robe, but she moved it off. Mo knew they hadn’t come upstairs to do this, but his bed was right here. It was all so close. She dropped the manuscript and shoved him lightly. He fell back on the bed, smiling up at her. “You are so beautiful,” he said.
“Don’t be corny,” she said.
“Like Cornhuskers?”
“That’s Nebraska,” she chided, kissing his cheek. “Again with failing the Midwest cultural competencies, Wes.”
He turned his head to catch her lips with his. The robe had parted slightly now that Mo straddled Wes’s body. One of his hands ran down the back of the robe while the other sat patiently on her bare thigh. He glanced down at their bodies, which were suddenly tangled. “I didn’t bring you up here to seduce you.”
“Your moves are just too effective, I guess,” she said.
He sat up slightly, forcing her to do the same with their position. His eyes scanned hers, as if trying to translate her thoughts. “We shouldn’t. You came over here to read, right? We should read.”
She pulled her robe closed, trying to understand what had changed in the last minute. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want you to hate me after this. Do you know what I mean?”
She sat across from him, removing her weight from on top of him. His expression was guarded, more guarded than it had been when admitting he’d had a secret copy of her book. “No. Tell me.”
“I don’t want to do this because you feel like you have to. With me. Or to make it feel like I expect it because of what we did the other night. We said once we got back from the Hill that, well, that we got things out of our system. Just friendly. I’m fine with being friends. I want to be friends with you.”
“But that’s it. Is that what you’re saying?” She couldn’t help but be offended.
It was only because she was watching him so closely that she saw the fear in his face. “No, I’m just saying we can slow down. We don’t have to rush anything. I don’t want you to regret …”
“Is this because you’re sure you’re going to win?”
His eyebrows knotted in frustration. “This has nothing to do with the contest. It’s that when this, whatever this is, ends—”
She kissed him, stopping his mouth with hers. She felt his face relax, his hand moving up to her cheek. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. Don’t worry about endings. This doesn’t need to be outlined, okay? Just improv a little here.”
He nodded against her lips and muttered, “Okay.”
She needed to pull him out of his head, so she changed tactics. “Aren’t you at all ashamed of keeping a secret from me?” she asked. “Reading me in private?”
“Oh, I should have been reading a dozen other things, but I couldn’t stop.”
“Praise me, then,” Mo said, her tone light. She leaned back on an elbow, tried to look puckish and self-assured. He rolled her sideways so he could get on top, then he brushed the damp hair away from her face.
