“Has anyone ever told you that you could be a book boyfriend?” I ask, watching his profile while he drives. Studying the beauty of his hard lines and rough edges.
“No,” he says flatly.
“Anyone ever asked to climb you like a pole?”
He cuts his eyes at me, sharp and unreadable. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or intrigued.
“No,” he snaps.
“What’s your name?”
“No!”
I blink. “Excuse me? I am in your car and you’re astranger! You can’t tell me your name? I told you mine!”
“Not my fault you have zero survival instincts and tell any random stranger all your personal information.”
“That isnottrue!”
He side-eyes me again. “Who gets in a car with a big Black man in the woods without even knowing his name?”
Click.I hear the doors lock around me.
My eyes go wide. “That’s not funny,” I whisper, panic creeping into my voice.
He doesn't crack a smile. Just keeps driving, cool as hell.
I may have just met my match…or my murderer. Jury’s still out.
He almost smiles. Almost. It’s barely there, but I catch the flicker at the corner of his mouth before it disappears like it never happened.
“Relax,” he says, voice calm but firm. “I’m not kidnapping you. I’m taking you to the nearest hotel, as promised, and getting youout of my hair as quickly as possible. No need to know my name. You’ll never see me again.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” I say suggestively, folding my arms with a huff.
He shakes his head then the car goes quiet again.
But just when I think we’re back to awkward silence and my internal monologue is screaming at full volume, The Bear speaks.
“What’s a book boyfriend?”
My head whips toward him so fast I nearly sprain something. “A book boyfriend is the sexy, brooding, emotionally repressed male character in a romance novel who’ll doanythingfor the woman he loves. Usually tall, built like Lucifer, emotionally unavailable—like you.”
“I’m not emotionally unavailable,” he protests, eyes still on the road.
“Yeah. Sure. Okay,” I say sarcastically, shaking my head. “Also,” I continue, “book boyfriends tend to have inhumane-sized penises and generous tongues that they don’t mind using to absolutely wreck their woman. Repeatedly. Usually until it hurts.”
He chokes. Full-blown cough attack. I’m honestly proud of myself.
“Why don’t you just not talk for a bit?” he requests, clearing his throat like I didn’t just light his frontal lobe on fire.
“I’m sorry but you asked me what a book boyfriend was. Not my fault if you weren’t prepared for the answer.”
“I wasn’t prepared for you at all,” he says, practically to himself.
“I’m aware this is a lot. Sorry. Again.”
“Stop apologizing.”
