Chapter 4 NOIA
FOUR
noia
I wake up to the smell of bacon—which is weird because I’m pretty sure I haven’t bought bacon in I don’t know how long. All I’ve been living off of the past few days is wine, Pop-Tarts, and existential dread.
It’s been a week since Sasha dropped me off and I haven’t ventured out of the house the entire time.
I’m a wreck.
Not only do I smell bacon, but someone is singing. The sound, low and deep, isn’t bad, it’s just a little off-key.
I bolt upright, and immediately regret it. My robe is slumping off one shoulder, and my head is throbbing like a goddamn drum line is marching through it. And my mouth? It tastes like cheap wine, jalapeno flavored Cheetos and regret.
So. Much. Regret.
Goonie yowls at me from my bedroom doorway, making me cringe. It feels like my head is going to explode.
Fuck. Me. Running.
“Yeah, yeah. I smell it too,” I mutter.
Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I nearly trip over an empty bottle of merlot.
Barefoot, sans the one sock still clinging for dear life to the top half of my left foot, I yank it off and toss it on the floor.
Trudging down the stairs and into the kitchen, I turn the corner and freeze.
There is a man in my kitchen.
And not just any man. A shirtless man.
Broad shoulders flex seductively as he reaches for the coffeepot.
His dark hair is a little long and messy, like he’s just rolled out of bed after doing wild, sexy, unspeakable things.
Tattoos curl around brawny arms and across a chiseled chest. And that ass.
God has definitely taken her time on that tight, I-would-give-my-left-tit-to-bite, sexy as sin ass.
Standing in my kitchen like he owns it, he’s humming and flipping bacon in my Hell’s Kitchen frying pan like he’s the star of some goddamn Food Network cooking show.
There’s something familiar about him I can’t quite place, but before I can put together some semblance of a coherent thought, something along the lines of a gasp and a squeak escapes my throat.
Without bothering to look up, he growls, calm as can be, “Took you long enough. Hope you like your eggs scrambled. Oh, and I slept in the guest room last night. You know, since I have nowhere else to go?”
What in the fresh, ever-loving hell?
“Who the fuck are you, and what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?” I snap, grabbing the nearest weapon I can find. My favorite spatula is bright pink and made of silicone, and not even close to lethal, but it’s all I’ve got.
Still not quite ready to come to terms with what I’m seeing, when he finally turns to look at me, it hits me, and I feel like I could die.
Not literally, obviously. But if a cardiac event were to strike me down in this moment, I would go out looking at the sexiest face I’d ever created.
“I’m Ryder.”
Ryder Blackwood, the newest bad boy hero from my bestselling romance series, Heartstruck, is standing half-naked in my kitchen.
Cooking bacon.
He’s looking at me with smoky gray eyes, flashing a sexy crooked smirk above a jaw that could cut some serious glass.
“You know… the guy you’ve left hanging mid-scene for the past week?” He quirks an eyebrow. “Appreciate that, by the way. Real cool.”
I blink and my robe slips further off my shoulder.
His eyes flick from my face to my bare shoulder, then drop to my chest, which happens to only be covered by a thin, cropped white tank top.
The only other piece of clothing, other than that and my robe, is a tiny pair of sleep shorts and what I have no doubt is a partial camel-toe, completing the ensemble.
I gasp, pulling my robe closed. “Don’t stare at me, you perv!”
He snorts. “Kinda hard not to when you’re flashing me like you’re the entire cast of Magic Mike.”
Clutching my robe with one hand, I wave the spatula in his face with the other. “This is not happening. You are not real. You’re fictional. I made you up!”
He points to himself. “Do I look fictional to you?”
I’m not about to answer that. Mostly because he seems to be real. More than, actually. Not to mention annoyingly smug about it.
I back up a step, my heart tap dancing against my ribs.
“Okay. Okay,” I whisper-mutter to myself. “I’m dreaming. Or maybe I’m still drunk. Maybe both. This has got to be some sort of weird stress-induced hallucination.”
Walking toward me slowly, he holds out a mug filled with coffee like a peace offering. “You’re not dreaming. I’m here. I don’t know why or how. But it seems I’m stuck in your world and I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who can send me back to mine.”
I look down at the coffee. Then up at him. Then back down at the mug.
The mug has a cartoon cat painted on its side and a caption that reads:
‘Be Nice To Me… Or You Could End Up Dead In My Novel.’
“Jesus. I’ve finally lost my fucking mind,” I mumble as I take the mug.
He tilts his head. “You don’t remember writing this scene, do you? The one where I’m in your kitchen shirtless, cooking bacon? With plenty of banter and sexual tension. Page ninety-eight, kitten.”
The cup of coffee almost slips out of my hand. “That was never... I never actually...” I stammer, shaking my head hard enough to bring back my hangover headache with a vengeance. “I only thought about writing it. It was just an idea.”
Raising a brow, his beautiful, full mouth twitches up at one corner. “I guess we’re living it now.”
“Okay.” I drag in a shaky breath and wave the spatula in the air between us. “You. This. Me. None of this is really happening.”
Ryder moves to lean one hip against the counter looking like something out of a fucking Calvin Klein ad, watching me unravel with way too much amusement for my liking.
“I mean, this isn’t real. I don’t care how hot you are, you’re fictional. A figment of my overcooked imagination and unresolved emotional trauma.”
“You forgot ‘devastatingly charming,’” he rumbles around a mouthful of crispy pork perfection.
I hold up a finger. “Shut up. Just—shut up and stay right there.”
Carefully setting the mug on the counter, I turn and bolt back upstairs to my bedroom.
Whatever. I’m a woman on a mission—a very panicked, half-dressed woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown—but on a mission nonetheless.
Crashing into my desk chair, I grab my laptop and open the document file faster than a gremlin on Red Bull, fingers flying across the keys.
Suddenly, Ryder Blackwood disappeared, never to be seen again. Poof. Gone. Goodbye forever. Insert explosion sound. The end.
I hit SAVE with dramatic flourish, slam the lid shut, and exhale.
Silence.
I stand up slowly, heart thudding, chest tight, and walk back down to the kitchen, where he’s still standing, effing shirtless, smirking bigger than before.
“What in the actual fuck?” I whisper.
“You know.” He picks up another piece of bacon and points it at me. “You’re underestimating how stubborn I am. It’s how you wrote me, remember?”
Grabbing the spatula off the counter again, I storm over and slap the flat side of the flipper against his chest.
He quirks a sexy eyebrow. Does this guy ever flinch?
“You don’t belong here,” I bite out. “You’re not real.”
Slowly, he leans in, pushing his chest against the spatula. He smells like... I take a deep breath in. Sandalwood... Another deep breath… Leather.
Holy hell.
“Then why,” he murmurs, “do you look like you can’t decide whether you want to slap the shit outta me or kiss me?”
I swallow. Hard.
“Definitely leaning towards slap.”
Tilting his head, his gaze drops to my mouth. “You sure ‘bout that?”
I step back, trip over Goonie, who yowls in protest, and nearly topple to the floor before Ryder catches me.
Of course he does. Isn’t that what leading men do?
Warm, rough hands with fingers curling just a little too perfectly around my waist, hold me tight.
I shove at his chest. “Let go of me, you fucked up figment of my imagination.”
He looks down his nose at me, and has the audacity to smirk—again. “You’re the one who brought me into your world, kitten. And the only problem I can see? Is that you’re way too overdressed for this scene.”
I shove at his chest again.
He still doesn’t move. Not even a twitch.
Jesus, he has more muscle than one man should legally possess, fictional or not.
“You need to go. Now. Back to Novel Never Land. Or wherever it is my overworked subconscious dragged you from.”
“I tried.” Ryder shrugs like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Obviously, it didn’t work. Believe me, I’d love more than anything to get back to that shower scene you never finished. Which means I didn’t get to finish. Just so you know—I prefer my balls flesh colored, by the way, not blue.”
Making a strangled noise somewhere between a screech and a sob, I scramble away.
I lunge for my phone on the counter and hit speed dial. There is only one person I know who can talk me down from this level of literary delusion.
“Come on, come on. Pick up, pick up—”
“Hey, girl!”
Relief flares in my chest when I hear my bestie’s voice. “Sasha! Thank god!”
“You okay?” she asks. “You sound funny.”
“Something’s wrong,” I whisper-hiss as I duck and crouch behind the kitchen island. “Like, seriously wrong. I think I’ve finally cracked. Snapped like a fucking twig.”
There’s a beat of silence before she responds. “Okaaay... What and how much exactly did you drink last night?”
“Um...” I peek over the top of the counter. Ryder is still standing there all smug and shit, licking bacon grease off his fingers like he isn’t the literal cause of my current existential spiral. “It’s Ryder.”
“Ryder who?”
“Ryder Blackwood,” I whisper-yell into the phone.
“Wait—the Ryder Blackwood? The new hero from your current WIP? The broody, emotionally constipated, tattooed bad boy with the motorcycle?”
“Yes!” I hiss.
“Oh! I see. Did you finally write the smutty kitchen scene?” she asks, way too interested.