Not in My Book

Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“I can’t believe you didn’t make them kiss,” I whined as soon as Aiden answered the phone.

“It’s not the right time,” he said. “They’re not ready.”

“Uh, yes they are. They’re basically screaming at me to let them kiss.”

“Then make them kiss in your chapter,” he whispered harshly.

I stopped in the middle of the street, basically asking to get run over. The streets surrounding Union Square were extra crowded now that the Holiday Village had opened up. A smile took over my face. “You’re scared of writing a kiss scene.”

He scoffed. “Please.”

“You are!” I let out a giddy laugh. “Oh my God, Aiden Huntington is scared of a little kissing.”

“Shut up,” he hissed.

“Why do you keep whispering? Should I be whispering, too?” I whispered.

“That’s typically what you do when in public spaces to be polite,” he said.

“That’s typically what you do when in public spaces to be polite,” I repeated mockingly in a low voice.

“Very mature.”

“Just write the kiss scene so I can write the next chapter,” I said. “We can’t be wasting time like this.”

“Or you can write the kiss scene in your chapter,” he said again.

I shook my head. “It throws off my plan for my chapter if they haven’t kissed by now.”

“I thought we couldn’t be wasting any time?”

“Ah, sorry, connection is breaking … have … go … can’t … hear.” I hung up on him and slipped my phone into my pocket.

The truth was, I didn’t want to write the kissing scene either. I’d written kissing scenes before, some damn good ones, too. But something about exposing to Aiden the way I imagined other people kissing and inadvertently showing how I liked to be kissed was embarrassing. Naturally, the only thing to do was bully Aiden into it.

Now that all the extra money I was going to spend on my plane ticket was just going to be sitting in my savings account, I thought it’d be responsible to buy myself a few books. I heaved open the heavy door of the Strand, immediately relaxing as I stepped in. Despite how many times I visited the bookstore, I always had to pause in awe over the sheer number of books. On weekends when I had nothing to do, I spent time wandering the stacks and flipping through pages. I’d go up into the Rare Book Room and sit on the comfy chairs, reading until they yelled at me to leave. It was like a second home.

The Strand was full of people today, nearly wall to wall. Customers stood around the tables, lingering as they read the backs of books. They had decorated the store for Christmas: garlands hung between the lights and Santa hats sat on the cards that named each table. Christmas music played softly in the background, barely audible over the chatter of the store. I walked through the crowd of people toward my favorite section.

The romance section of the store was small, near the back of the store. If I was lucky, I’d be the only one in there, scanning through the titles—but someone was already in the stacks when I got there. I gasped. I’d know that peacoat anywhere.

“Aiden?”

Aiden, wearing a hoodie beneath his peacoat and a beanie, turned around. His mouth parted in surprise when our gazes met. He appeared so boyish standing there. I hadn’t thought Aiden even owned hoodies. But he looked so warm and cozy that I couldn’t help but take a step closer to him.

“Hey,” he said, raising a single hand. He held the other behind his back, and I narrowed in on it suspiciously.

“Whatcha got there?” I gave him a cheeky grin. When I stepped forward, he stepped back. When I tried to peer around him, he angled his body away from me. The horror section was right next to romance. He was probably a secret horror fan, which would explain why he’d found such glee in torturing me for the past few months.

“Nothing.”

“So prove it.”

He scowled. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

I rushed him then, and his eyes widened in surprise. He tried to sidestep, but he ended up bumping into an endcap bookshelf. With his back pressed against it, I pulled his arm in front of him.

Aiden Huntington was holding a romance novel.

“Oh my God.”

“Shut up.”

“ Oh my God.”

“I said shut up.” He snatched his hand away from my grip and held the book to his chest. “It’s for my cousin.”

“Your cousin in middle school?”

“Yes,” he said defensively.

I unfolded his arms from his chest. “Wow, your preteen cousin must be very mature to be reading what The New York Times called ‘Extremely sexy.’ ”

“I’m leaving.” He brushed past me, out of the aisle.

“No!” I rushed after him and moved to block his path. “I was just teasing. I think guys should read more romance novels, and I don’t think they should be made fun of it for it because it really isn’t a gendered genre like people make it seem and—”

“How’d you know I was here?” he cut me off.

I blinked. “I didn’t. But now that I’m here, I can help you pick out a book you’ll actually like.”

“What’s wrong with this one?”

“Nothing. I really love that one, but you’d hate it, honestly.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be writing?”

I glanced at him over my shoulder as I scanned the romance section. This area of the store really was tiny, barely taking up a fourth of the wall. I had spoken to a bookseller about expanding it because they apparently didn’t see how lucrative of a market the romance genre was, but they’d just nodded absently and walked away. “Look, you’ll need to write the kiss scene in your chapter first, so I can continue with the story.”

“We have to submit it for class tomorrow , Rosalinda.”

“Details, details,” I tsked. “Their selection is lacking, but we can work with this.” I grabbed one of the nearby ladders and climbed to the top. I pulled books from the shelves, handing them down to Aiden, explaining the plot of each as I did so.

“You know”—Aiden looked up at me from the side of the ladder facing me—“I was planning on maybe getting one book.”

I crinkled my nose. “That’s pure nonsense. You’re going to need these and obviously a Christina Lauren.”

“What the hell is a Christina Lauren?”

I moved down the ladder and handed him a copy of one of their books. “They’re a lot like us, you know. They’re a best-friend writing duo. One is Christina and the other is Lauren.”

His eyes softened, and he smiled down at me. “Okay. I’ll read one by them. But I don’t think I need all of these.”

He gestured to the stack I had placed in his arms, reaching from his waist to his chest. I couldn’t help zeroing in on his biceps. My gaze traveled up his arms and for some reason my eyes snagged on his neck of all things. Sure, shoulders and backs were attractive, but Jesus fucking Christ, I couldn’t stop staring at the slope of his neck.

I cleared my throat. “You’re right. Let’s refine this stack to only the best.”

We ended up staying in the romance aisle for almost an hour. I kept picking up books and explaining their tropes and basic plots. He flipped through each one, then he’d either shake his head and push it back on the shelf or add it to the pile.

Eventually, I started picking out my own books and handing them down to him from the ladder. “Keep the stacks separate!” I said anxiously whenever he put one of mine in the wrong pile.

“Why?” He leaned against the bookshelf behind him. Handsome men like Aiden should be banned from leaning. I didn’t understand the science behind it, but it made him a million times hotter. “You know which ones you’ve read. This is just creating more work for me.”

“Just do it.”

He rolled his eyes and separated our books into two stacks.

When we were finished in the romance aisle, Aiden grabbed a basket and places our books in it. “My turn,” he said.

He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the fiction section around the corner in the E-F-G aisle. It was different from all the other straight, narrow aisles. This aisle had a small alcove that Aiden and I could barely fit into. His hand had slipped so easily into mine, our fingers were now intertwined. I tried my best not to read into it and convinced myself this was just him being friendly. Platonic .

But Aiden didn’t seem like the type of guy to hold a girl’s hand through a bookstore if he didn’t feel anything toward her.

Still, if this was all I ever got from Aiden, I’d be okay with that. Just sweaty palms pressed against each other and taking up too much space in the tight aisles of a bookstore. The line between reality and fiction was almost as big as the one between love and hate, but I was desperate to convince myself it was thinner. That this wasn’t all in my head.

He was still holding my hand as he searched through the shelves. The aisle was so small that we had to stand chest to chest with our faces craned toward the shelves. I studied him as he scanned through the Fs, his brow furrowed.

“I’m not reading Faulkner, no matter how big your crush is on him,” I said as his finger ran along the spines. He ignored me, deep in concentration.

“Aha.” He pulled a thick book out of the shelf and turned to me with it. As Best I Can by Maggie Frantel. “This book is sad, but it’s a little romantic too.” He held the book out to me, and I regretted having to let go of his hand to take it.

“Are you kidding? I love Maggie Frantel,” I said, flipping through the book. Everyone and their mother had heard of her. She had started off doing literary fiction tinted with romance, but over time she’d morphed into a Nora Roberts kind of writer. Under a pseudonym, she had churned out a mystery every year up until her death a few years before. The television adaptation of her Detective Pierre St. Clair books was currently the longest running series on ABC.

“ Down Your Block is one of my favorite movies ever. ” I peered up at him. “I didn’t think you’d like anything that has so much romance in it.”

He shrugged, “These are my exception. Always.”

“You know, I’ve never read this one. It was her debut, right? Didn’t it win the National Book Award?”

He nodded. “About fifteen years ago. It’s one of my favorites. You really get submerged in the main character’s head.” He continued on, talking about how the prose was beautiful without even trying and how, by the end of it, the book would be all I could think about. You could tell how much Aiden admired this writer. Even in class when he talked about his favorites, his eyes never quite lit up like this.

“Did you cry when you read it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, unashamed.

“If I read this and I can’t stop crying …”

“You can call me. Any time. And we’ll talk about every detail,” he promised.

“The same with your books.” I nodded at the basket. “You’ll cry tears of happiness at the Happily Ever Afters.”

He smiled at that. “Oh, definitely.”

We stood in the aisle, chest to chest, with no space for either of us to move. I was so happy to be in my favorite bookstore with someone who was slowly becoming my favorite person. I couldn’t help my eyes flickering down briefly to his lips. And when I did, his eyes fell to mine, too. His head moved, just a centimeter closer to mine. No one would be able to see us if we did kiss, with my back pressed against the shelves, the alcove hiding me from the rest of the store.

But just as quickly as he’d moved toward me, he moved away and said, “C’mon, let’s keep looking around.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. My heart was beating rapidly even thinking about what kissing Aiden would be like. I wanted to stay in this small aisle and learn exactly what it felt like when Aiden took what he wanted.

We spent nearly all day together at the Strand. We went to every floor and pointed out books we loved or ones we’d want to read. I could barely focus with Aiden’s touch always finding me. His hand would linger on the small of my back when someone wanted to scoot past us, or it would fall on my shoulder when he wanted to point something out to me.

By the time we were ready to check out, the sun had begun to set.

“We need to go in there with a clear head,” I said as we neared the line. “Oh shoot, I should probably move my money now.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I swear the Strand line is the scariest one in all of Manhattan. Those booksellers will yell at you if you delay. They’re notoriously grouchy. We’ve got to be focused while we’re in line.”

“No,” he said. “I meant the part about moving money.”

“Oh, I just need to figure out the tax for my books so I can make sure I have enough in my checking.” I pulled out my phone and began crunching the numbers on my calculator. It wasn’t like there was a ton of money in my savings. I never seemed to have enough money, but I always found the spare change I needed for books.

“Don’t worry about it.” He pushed my phone away. “I’ve got it.”

He walked stepped in line and I followed quickly after him. “No way. You paid for my coffee—”

“That was just to piss you off.”

“My ice cream, my dinner. I can’t let you pay for all these books too.” The line was moving rapidly and as soon as the bookseller called for the next person in line, Aiden moved toward the counter.

“Fine. Stop me.”

“Fucker,” I muttered. I started furiously typing on my phone as the cashier scanned our books. He had already stuck his card in the machine and as soon as I moved to pull it out, he plucked my own card from my hand. “Hey!”

He held the card above his head and even on my tiptoes, I couldn’t reach him.

“This is ridiculous. We’re adults, not in middle school . Give me my card back.”

“Sure,” he said calmly. “In a few minutes.”

I glared up at him, even though I was secretly touched because book buying was basically one of my love languages. Aiden must’ve known how much this meant to me, especially in the midst of my money troubles.

Once Aiden had finished paying, he handed me back my card.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Funny. That doesn’t sound like ‘thank you,’ ” he said teasingly. He grabbed the bags from the cashier and carried them out of the store with me trailing behind.

We started walking, side by side down Broadway. “The Strand was the first place I came on my first day in New York, after I settled into my apartment,” I said. I kicked the pebble in front of me with each step, my hands shoved in my pockets to protect them from the cold. “I would spend days there if I could.”

“I used to go there as a kid. My mom took me nearly every day after school.” He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “She’d let me wander up and down the stacks on every floor and let me pick three books. Always three.”

“What was your go-to book as a kid? I know you had a comfort book.” I nudged his shoulder.

“ Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary.”

I smiled at him. “Mine was Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli.”

“Of course.” He rolled his eyes but was smiling. “Small town girl who’s different and finds love?”

“Boy who falls in love with reading and can’t help but obsess over it.”

“Boy without a dad who writes to his favorite author,” he added quietly. “That’s why I liked it so much. I could always relate to that kid.”

“Soon enough you’ll be Mr. Henshaw to some other kid,” I said.

He smiled at that. “Hopefully.”

“Speaking of,” I said, checking the time on my phone. “I should probably head home to write the kiss scene someone slacked off on. I’m freaking out that we won’t get these chapters done in time.”

“You know,” Aiden said sheepishly. It was the first time I had seen him be anything but positively confident. “I live close by—we could write it together.” My eyes widened, excited and dumbstruck. When I didn’t answer immediately, he said, “Obviously you don’t have to if you’re uncomfortable or don’t want to—”

“No, I do!” I said quickly. “Lead the way.”

He lived in the West Village on Perry Street and Bleecker, a small walk away from the Strand. As we neared his street, I was almost tempted to ask him to keep walking around. Tennessee sunsets were special, but a New York City one hit different. The light would bounce off a skyscraper and land between buildings in a beautiful way. But today I had a new appreciation for them, now that I’d seen the evening light dancing in Aiden’s hair. His eyes. His smile.

I kept waiting for him to lead me into to some fancy apartment building, but when he stopped in front of a brownstone and jogged up the front steps, my jaw dropped. I glanced at the doorbell—there was just one, rather than a series of buzzers like most apartments had.

“What the shit? Is this yours ?”

I was too stunned to move. I’d had a suspicion Aiden had money. I mean, he had paid for so many of my meals that I figured he was at least comfortable. But this ? This was an anomaly. This was the holy grail of apartments— houses —in New York.

He walked down the few steps and grabbed my hand, interlacing our fingers. “C’mon, let’s go in.”

He dropped the bags instead of my hand to reach in his pocket for his keys, then he pushed the door open for me.

“Holy fuck, Aiden.”

I’d been raised in the South, where we learned certain rules of hospitality. That meant waiting for your host to guide you into the living room and asking politely if you should take your shoes off. But all of that flew out the door when I walked into Aiden’s apartment.

Past his foyer, the room split to a kitchen straight ahead and a living room to my left. I walked in, and if it was possible, my jaw dropped even further. There were floor to ceiling windows facing the streets, only covered by thin white curtains. Aiden had placed a small table and reclining chair near it; a stack of books rested on the table. At the center of the room, facing the wall with a TV mounted, was a large couch.

“I’ll grab my laptop and we can start working. Make yourself at home,” Aiden said, walking down a hallway.

Remembering myself, I toed my sneakers off and placed them near the door. I peeked into the kitchen to find it was just as spacious. An island sat between the stove and the dining room table, white granite covering it. But it wasn’t one of those places where you were afraid to touch anything. There were splashes of color in the backdrops and plants and dish towels that made it feel homey.

I went back into the living room as I waited for Aiden, the rug under my feet incredibly soft. At the edge of the room near his reading nook were tall bookshelves, each one filled with books facing upright and pulled to the edge of the shelf. I ran my finger against the spines, reading all the different titles, and then I peered at his table— Pride and Prejudice was sitting at the top of the stack of books, a pen stuck in the middle as a bookmark.

The sun through the windows was fading fast. It cast a golden glow over the room, shadows emerging at nearly every corner.

Aiden came back with his laptop in hand, turning on a lamp. “I thought we could work on the couch? But if you want to work at the table—”

I shook my head. “The couch is perfect.”

I sank into the cushions, and he sat carefully next to me, balancing his laptop on his thighs. Our knees were this close to touching. I’d never thought about hands or knees or collarbones this much in my life.

“So, are we going to talk about it?” I asked expectantly.

“About what?”

“About the fact that you’re clearly a secret billionaire.”

He smiled, opening the laptop. I don’t think I would ever get used to the lines that formed on the sides of his face when he smiled.

“Secret billionaire is a great trope,” I muttered to myself.

“What?” He side eyed me.

“Nothing,” I waved him off. “So we’re not going to address it?”

“We’re not.”

“C’mon.” I knocked my shoulder with his. “Indulge me.”

He hesitated. “Fine. But I don’t want to talk about it afterward.”

I saluted him. “Scout’s honor.”

He gestured to the Strand bag sitting in his foyer. “That book I gave you, the one by Maggie Frantel? That’s my mom.”

My chin jerked back, my mouth parting. “But your last name is Huntington.”

“She wrote under her maiden name. She didn’t want my dad’s name to be associated with her work.”

“Hold up hold up.” I waved my hands to indicate I needed some more time to process this. “Maggie Frantel is your mom ? Like the Maggie Frantel.”

“Yes.”

“Like the Maggie Frantel who basically had her own shelf in the Strand?”

His eyebrows flew up smiling. “I didn’t know you were such a fan.”

I shot him a look. “Everyone’s read at least one of her books in their life … So that’s where you got all this money?”

He sighed heavily, running a hand down his face. “It’s complicated. She left me everything when she passed instead of her sisters because the only way I could inherit the trust fund from my dad was if I followed in his footsteps as the ‘heir’ to his company. I’ve been surviving off her money for years.”

I was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t know your mom passed.”

“Almost seven years ago. My freshman year of college.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’ve learned to live with it. It’s why I enrolled in the MFA program. She was depressed for a really long time after she left my dad, but writing saved her. She filled my childhood with literature and words flying around the house. All I’ve ever wanted was to follow in her footsteps so I took some classes in college, but then my dad started breathing down my neck about taking some finance position at his company. This program felt like the only way I could say ‘I’m doing this, whether you like it or not.’ ”

“You’re a great writer. I’m sure she’d be so proud of you, Aiden,” I whispered.

He smiled slightly and said, “Thank you, Rosie.” We held each other’s gaze for a second. I wanted to climb into his mind and dig out everything he was hiding. I wanted to assure him that we were okay—that he could tell me these things without judgment and I’d be a friend, not the adversary I was in August.

His eyes didn’t leave mine as he whispered, “We should probably …”

“Right! Right. Yes. The chapter.” I snatched the laptop from him and skimmed through the ending of the last chapter. “You left them at a good place. They’re at the company retreat, right?”

“In separate hotel rooms,” he reminded me.

“If there’s anything you can learn from being friends with me,” I said, turning to him seriously, “it’s that any moment can become a romantic moment.”

“Bullshit.”

I lifted my chin. “Try me.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Alright, walking your dog.”

I scoffed. “Oh, c’mon, give me a hard one at least. Picture this, you’re walking your dog in the park—it runs off and what happens? You find it sniffing another dog’s butt, but that dog’s owner is the love of your life.”

“Dinner with your mom.” He held my gaze, raising his brows in a challenge.

“She sets you up with the server,” I said with an easy shrug.

“Jury duty.”

“He may be a murderer, but he has a really nice smile.”

At that, Aiden burst out in laughter, his head tipping back. “I stand corrected.”

“Let me get them together then I’ll give the laptop back. I’ll work my magic.” I tried to crack my fingers, but nothing happened.

“Intimidating,” Aiden muttered. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Ooh, do you have hot chocolate?”

He shook his head as he stood. “How does tea sound?”

“Not as good, but doable.”

For the next few minutes, as Aiden clattered around in the kitchen and I typed, things felt … normal. I straightened at the idea. Could this ever be normal for us? A life where he’s making tea and I’m sitting in the living room writing?

Snap out of it.

I needed to focus and write this kiss scene before I lost my mind. I couldn’t keep doing this—setting myself up for disappointment and letting my naivety get the best of me.

“How’re we doing?” he asked, setting a white mug on the coffee table in front of me—with, of course, a coaster underneath it. Steam was rising out of my mug, but Aiden had ice cold water in his glass.

“I made up a pretty good excuse for Max to go to Hunter’s room,” I informed him.

“What’s that?”

I shrugged. “She missed him.”

“What?”

“They’ve been spending a lot of time together, it’s natural. She was going to eat dinner by herself, then she realized she missed him, so she went to his room.”

“So, they’re going to kiss at dinner?”

“Noooo,” I dragged out. “They’re not going to make it to dinner. They’re gonna start talking and end up kissing.”

“But—”

“Shh, you’ll see.” I tilted the screen of the laptop toward him so he could read as I continued to write.

“You missed me?” Hunter asked, incredulous.

“Don’t act like you didn’t miss me, too.” I peered into his hotel room. “You were going to eat dinner alone, weren’t you?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“Well, do you want to get dinner or not?”

“What if we ordered in?” I hesitated, but Hunter jumped back in. “You know everyone else here with us will be waiting for one of us to snap.”

I shrugged and shoved past him into the room, plopping onto his bed and settling in. “Your bed is way comfier than mine.”

His eyes darkened as I lay in his bed, but he quickly looked away. “I’ll get something off UberEats.”

Aiden eventually got into it and we started passing the laptop back and forth. We fell into a rhythm that was so natural, like we had been doing it for years. Sometimes he’d peer over my shoulder and suggest something, or I’d call out an idea as he typed. I knew exactly when he ran out of words, and he knew when I would take the characters too far too fast.

“Here we go,” I muttered. I turned to him and pouted out a bottom lip. “Aw, your kiss scene virginity.” I reached up to pinch his cheek, and he smacked my hand away.

“Just write.” He pushed the laptop closer to me.

We faced each other on the bed, picking fries out of each other’s boxes. Knee to knee, face to face.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked, popping a fry into my mouth.

He reached over, his hand brushing mine. “Shoot.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you anymore.” He frowned.

“Well, why did you hate me?”

Aiden took the laptop.

He hesitated, searching for the right words. “Do you remember your first day here?”

“Vaguely. There was a tour and lots of paperwork.”

“Ivy introduced you to the team. After you left the room she said, ‘That woman is optimistic to a fault.’ I’m not like that. I’m brash and rude. And … even though I thought you were beautiful, I knew I wasn’t what you needed. Or deserved, really. I figured I might as well keep my distance, but that became impossible. I lose sense of myself whenever I’m around you.”

His hands were still on the keyboard when I took it from him.

“Ask me why I hated you when I first met you,” I said.

“Why did you hate me when you first met me?”

“Because I thought you were the most handsome man I’d ever met, and you seemed to want nothing to do with me. And I wanted everything to do with you.”

How had our faces gotten closer? How were our knees almost overlapping?

“Sounds like a lot of wasted time,” he whispered. His breath fanned my face.

I looked over my shoulder to Aiden, who wasn’t even watching the screen, he was watching me.

Our legs were pressed against each other as a result of me basically crawling over him to grab the laptop. When had our faces fallen so close together that our breath mingled? When did we start looking like Max and Hunter, yes, but Rosie and Aiden at the same time?

I cleared my throat, pulling my gaze away from his mouth. “We need to decide what kind of kiss scene we want.”

“What’re our options?” he whispered, his voice husky. I tried to ignore the shivers racing down my spine, but Aiden’s voice was so low and his eyes were so intense. I was drunk on this moment, desperate to sip on it forever.

“Well,” I started slowly. “There are the passionate kisses—you know, the ones you can’t control. Where the characters just can’t get enough of each other.”

“Mhm.” I could’ve drowned in the deep lull of his voice. My eyes fluttered without control, and I instinctively leaned closer to him.

“Or the slow ones. They’re still passionate … uncontrolled. Unrestrained. But tentative.”

“I see.”

“It has to be well-written, too. Kisses are always better in books so we have to make the right choice about what kind of—”

“What did you say?” he interrupted me.

Our heads were tilted to each other, close but not close enough. I could see the curve of his mouth as it deepened into a frown.

“We have to pick the right—”

“No, about kisses being better in fiction.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “I mean, kisses are just better in books.”

He gave me a bewildered look. “What’re you talking about?”

“Kisses in romance novels are world altering . The characters see everything differently after, and they have this spark. In real life, kisses are just … wet.”

His lips quirked before he swallowed and said slowly, “No. They’re not.”

“Yes. They are.”

“If you think that, Rosie, then you haven’t been kissed the way you should be. You haven’t been kissed by someone who really wants you.”

My eyes flickered from his eyes to his lips for a second, my chest rising up and down. When his nose nudged softly against mine, I fought to catch a single breath.

“Then show me,” I whispered.

In an instant, his mouth covered mine. He decided what kiss we would have, but it wasn’t any of the options I had listed. It was questioning and exploring, hungry and slow. His hand slipped underneath my jaw, tilting my mouth toward his. I arched up, pressing myself closer to him. His hand slid from my jaw, anchoring itself in my hair, a fist curling around my curls.

He nudged my mouth open and at the first slip of his tongue, I turned greedy. My hands curled into his T-shirt, wanting more of him. Obligingly, his other hand slid around my waist, his grip tight on my hip.

Aiden was right. He was so right. Kissing Aiden was nothing like any other kiss I’d experienced. I could feel my heart beating with every time his tongue swept over mine, and I didn’t have to fake the moan that came when his teeth tugged on my bottom lip.

This was what it was like with someone who wanted me. This was better than any kiss I’d read.

A gasp here, a lick here. A smile there, a moan there. If I could die like this, my body turned uncomfortably on the couch, but Aiden’s hands and lips on me, I wouldn’t mind it one bit.

As if he could sense my slight discomfort, his hands moved down the curve of my body, landing on my waist. He lifted me onto his lap, my knees straddling him.

My hair fanned down, covering us, and I finally got my hands on him. Underneath me, I felt the proof that he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. His hands spanned across my hips, slowly moving me across his lap. I had spent too much time being distracted by the breadth of Aiden’s shoulders and the strain of his biceps against his shirt; I couldn’t stop my hands from running over the rigid lines of his muscles.

Like always, this was a competition between us. He was experimenting, trying to figure out what would make me moan, sigh, or gasp. I was doing the same—occasionally, I got a sharp intake of breath or a sigh into my mouth. And now that I was on his lap, I had the upper hand. I ran my fingers up his neck to his hair, my fingers threading through the dark strands. When I tugged ever so lightly, I won with his low moan.

I took control and rolled my hips against his. His fingers tightened on my waist, and he tipped his head back, groaning. Still moving, I took advantage and ran kisses along the side of his jaw.

“God, Rosie, you feel so good,” he murmured into my hair. “So good.”

He opened his eyes and met my gaze. He smiled and something inside of me froze.

What was I doing? What was I risking? What would happen after we woke up tomorrow? We’d continue to write a romance novel where the characters don’t end up together, then we’d do the same? Of course we would—Aiden had made it very clear he didn’t like romance.

I couldn’t do heartbreak again. I knew what would happen if I let us get carried away on this couch; I’ve seen this film before. It would end in a whole lot of nothing, I would let my unresolved feelings for Aiden fester in my head until they consumed me, and Aiden would never give me a second thought after we went our separate ways. Aiden wasn’t the boyfriend type; he didn’t value romance the way I did. If anything happened tonight, it’d be no skin off his back but it’d leave an open wound for me.

“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. I moved off him, falling on my ass in the process. I scrambled up and Aiden followed suit.

“Rosie—”

“I’ve got to get home, I’m sorry.” I stumbled into the foyer, slipping my shoes on. I whipped the door open and Aiden followed me out onto the stoop.

I turned around once I was on the street. Aiden stood in his doorway with swollen lips and mussed up hair, confused. I wished I could explain all the thoughts racing through my head, but nothing came out except “I’m sorry.”

It may have lasted only a few minutes, but I’d remember every sigh and gasp she gave me for years to come.

In those few minutes, with her thighs parted and me in between them, I envisioned it all. I envisioned waking up and smiling down at her in my bed. I envisioned the moment I could finally tell her that I loved her and although I wasn’t good enough to deserve it, I’d do all I could to get there. I’d wake up every day and figure out how to ensure she knew I valued her.

But perhaps I was too late.

— Excerpt from Untitled by Rosie Maxwell and Aiden Huntington