The Match: An EXTENDED edition rom-com from the author of the TikTok sensation THE CHEAT SHEET! (It

Chapter 39

“I was—until I remembered I don’t have a car. Or a license.”

His grin slants. “I guess you’ll just have to stay, then.” He pauses. “If you want.”

“Hmm.” I pretend to mull it over while simultaneously inching closer and putting my hand on his chest. “Is this a formal invitation?”

He brushes my hair back from my face as I angle it up at him. “It is. Stay the night with me, Evie.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Are you going to repeat everything I say?” I ask, recalling our afternoon in the hallway when he first asked me on a date.

“No, I’m going to take you to my room now and wow you with those incredible basics I told you about at your place.”

“Don’t set my expectations so high,” I say as he slides his hand slowly around my lower back and guides me down the hallway toward his room. His room.

It takes us ages to make it there because we stop every foot or so to kiss. He presses me against the wall and circles his tongue on the base of my neck. I push him to the adjacent wall and unbutton his shirt, pulling it out from the waistband of his pants. He drops the strap of my dress off my shoulder and kisses the skin it was hiding. And then he repeats the process all over again after walking another foot.

I run my fingers down his bare abs and then count them with my lips.

By the time we make it to the door, his hand is skating up my thigh, dragging my dress up with it. I hook my finger through his belt loop and pull him into the room, then Jake closes and locks the door behind us.

This is really happening. Finally. There’s been so much buildup to this moment that we make quick work of each other’s clothes. They’re tossed all around the room, and only when I’m in Jake’s glorious bed with his amazing body spread out over me do I ask, “Is it killing you to not immediately tidy up the room? Do you want to take a break to fold the clothes into neat piles?”

He laughs against my rib cage. His teeth scrape lightly over my skin. “As if I could care about anything in this moment besides you.”

I gasp as he proves it.

We’re all hands and lips and tongues and teeth. It’s frantic and luxurious all at once and worth every bit of the torturous wait. We take the night to love each other. But the most wonderful part of all is waking up and knowing it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a mistake. And it wasn’t something that’s going away.

Jake Broaden is all mine, and I’m never letting him go.