West lifts my hands and twines our fingers together. “How’dwedo that?”
“Fluency in a dead language,” I whisper.
He kisses the back of my hand. “Never dead, just lost for a while.”
35
Present Day
West’s room isdark when an alarm goes off, the first hint of periwinkle light bleeding around the edges of his curtains. His hand is under the shirt I’m wearing (his), splayed across my stomach. “Don’t go,” he murmurs into my hair as he draws me closer, his sleep-raspy voice scattering goose bumps across my neck. I relax into his chest, remembering my half-baked plan to wake up in this bed for the rest of my life. A pretty thought in the afterglow of two mind-bending orgasms, but hours later, it hasn’t lost any appeal. In fact, I only want it more now that I know what it’s like to wake up in his arms.
“What about my flight?” I mumble through bee-stung lips, my eyes already slipping closed again.
“Skip it. Stay here.”
“What about your job? Think of the teenagers who will be disappointed not to see their sexy professor.”
West lays a scratchy kiss on my shoulder. “That’s weird. And it’s spring break.”
I snuggle deeper into the crook of his arm, bewildered bythe good timing. Is it possible that the goddess of fate and timing is on our side for once? He has the week off, and I have a long stretch of days before my book tour launches in tandem with the premiere of the thirdTorchedmovie. A week at least. Two if I move some prelaunch appointments.
“I don’t have enough clothes,” I pretend to protest.
“You won’t need them,” he promises, and my body warms. Eyes still closed, I smile into the pillow as West brushes a featherlight kiss against my neck. When his hand wanders north and he rolls my nipple between his fingers, I surrender with a happy sigh.
I will not be making that flight.
Our plan tolive and die tangled in West’s sheets is thwarted by the need for food. I grin stupidly at him over a bowl of oatmeal, and he doesn’t even try to hide his pleased smile as he watches me. As soon as my spoon hits the empty bowl, he pushes his plate away and knocks my chair sideways with his feet. He pulls it toward him until we’re sitting face-to-face with my legs draped over his. His large palms rest on my thighs, just below the hem of the baggy shirt I’m wearing.
“Hi, Mars.” With his wide smile, floppy curls, and bright eyes, he has very little in common with the brooding character on my shirt.
“Hi, West.”
The air shimmers between us with an intoxicating mixture of anticipation and certainty.
“What do you want to do today?” he asks. My eyes slide to the fingers drumming on my bare thighs. “Other thanthat,” he clarifies, reading meaning in my glance. “Obviously we’ll dothat.” He leans in and kisses me, pulling back with another grin.
God, I could look at him like this forever.
“I met this cute guy once,” I say, and West’s fingers tighten as his smile slips off his face. “He claimed that Tucson is better than New York.”
“Oh?” His smile has returned, but I lean forward and kiss him as an apology for chasing it away, even briefly.
I shrug. “Seems like now is his chance to convince me.”
West squares his shoulders as he internalizes the challenge. He presses his tongue to his cheek and thinks. “Okay,” he says finally. He taps my thighs twice. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”
“I was mostly joking. You don’t have to…” I wave my hands in the air, trying to express an emotion I’m not fully conscious of.
“Have towhat?”
“You know, impress me or show me a good time or whatever. I don’t care aboutTucson. I’m only here because of you. It could be Chernobyl out there for all I care.”
West’s mouth curls in distaste as he sits back in his chair. He pulls his hands into his own lap.
“Wait. What’s wrong?”
He turns his head, frowning out the window. “Nothing.”
