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Shaking my head, I snap myself out of my silly reverie.
“Did you ever finish that book?” I ask.
“I did.”
“And?” I lift my brows.
“Ten stars.”
I laugh through my nose. “Usually it’s a five star rating, but I’ll accept ten. Ten’s good.”
“Are all of your books usually that … explicit?” he asks carefully.
“Oh. God. Yes. Bodice rippers all the way. Go big or go home.”
“They look so innocent on the outside, the bright colors and pretty costumes. I was expecting something more … frilly?”
“Pro tip, those are usually the dirtiest ones.” I give him a wink and reach for my pineapple vodka.
“Is that what you like? What you’re into? Bodice rippers?”
“In books or in real life?”
“Either.”
My cheeks flush with warmth. I’ve never discussed this subject with anyone except my agent and editor, and then it was only from a technical and marketing standpoint.
“Love them in books,” I say, “never experienced it in real life. It turns out most twenty-year-old guys get all their moves from Porn Hub and not from the pages of Regency romance novels.”
“That’s a shame.” He drinks me in, and even though we’re in the darkness of my dimmed living room, I’m overcome by the undeniable heat of his spotlight.
“Isn’t it?” I agree. “There’s something inherently sexy about a man who wants a woman so badly he can’t contain himself. A man who has to have her at any cost, a man who wants to touch her so badly he physically aches. And then there’s that magical moment when he realizes she feels the same … that she wants to give herself to him in the most carnal way … there isn’t time to mess with a million buttons and corsets and layers of fabric, slips, and petticoats and bloomers … he has to have her.” A dreamy sigh leaves my lips. “When he rips through that layer of protection, that armor—which is what it is essentially—and gets to the inner essence of her, the most private parts of her are exposed. That’s when he can finally have her and she can give herself fully to him.” I fan myself. “God, my heart’s pounding just thinking about it.”
Stone takes a sip of his beer, and he hasn’t looked away from me yet.
“Sorry, I’m rambling and this is probably boring for you,” I say.
“Not at all.”
There used to be a time when Jude would occasionally ask what I was reading, and the second I tried to go into any amount of detail, he’d pick up his phone and get distracted, tuning me out.
But Stone is listening, and the captivated expression on his face is almost asking for more.
“Have you ever felt that way?” I turn the tables on him. “Have you ever wanted someone so badly you could rip their clothes off? Have you ever wanted to make someone yours? Truly yours? In the most animalistic way?”
He swallows, rubbing his lips together and looking away before finally nodding.
“Yeah, actually. I have.”
“And did you do it?”
He pauses, peeling the label off his bottle. “I never had the chance, no.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“The woman I wanted in that way … she was taken by someone else.”
“Now that’s a tragedy.”
“To put it lightly.”
I rest my elbow on the back of the sofa, and place my cheek against my hand. Studying Stone through a different lens, I try to imagine him pining for someone. The slightest twinge of jealousy scalds my middle when I think of this faceless woman.
“For years, I stood back while another man kissed her. Another man told her all the things I wanted to say to her. Another man held her in his arms,” Stone says. “Only to throw her away when he was done with her.”
My breath hitches.
“It doesn’t get more tragic than that.” His voice is hushed and low, and suddenly the distance between us is narrowing faster than I have time to process any of it.
In a red-hot instant, his mouth claims mine.
His kiss is soft at first, and his hands cradle my face while his fingers slip gently into my hair. But the sweetness doesn’t last long before it’s replaced with a kiss so punishing, so greedy, I lose my breath.
His tongue pierces between my lips, dancing against my own. He tastes like beer and peppermint and the bittersweetness of the deepest longing.
Years of hatred and confusion fade into the background. All of this feels as wrong as it feels right. By the time we come up for air, our story is a tender tragedy written in the brightest of stars.
Everything we could have had …
Everything we could have been …
I lie back on the couch and Stone glides his body over mine, trailing kisses along my neck as his fists grip my t-shirt—and in an unprecedented and unexpected move … he rips it straight down the middle.
