I raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to come to terms with what she’d just said. “What’re you gonna do? Manifest it with your mind? Or do I just sit here while you narrate it?”
But she’s already on the move.
Rushing over to her laptop sitting on the desk, she opens it up like a woman possessed.
Focused and determined, her tongue pokes out between her lips as she stares at the screen.
Fuck. Why is that so goddamn hot? I wonder what else she can do with that tongue?
Down boy.
Tapping her finger on the desk, she mutters under her breath before she starts to type, speaking the words out loud as she goes.
“Ryder is wearing a black button-down shirt, its soft fabric clinging to him like a second skin. His sleeves are rolled up, and his collar is open, with a black pair of motorcycle boots completing the ensemble.”
A weird tingle that feels a lot like static travels across my shoulders, down my arms and across my feet.
I look down, and sure enough, a black, fitted button-up with the top two buttons undone, cuffs rolled halfway up my forearms and a pair of motorcycle boots are now covering my upper torso and feet.
“Well, shit,” I whisper.
Noia looks up, triumphant. “Ha! I did it. I actually—” Her eyes flick over me as she bites her lip.
“Oh no,” I smirk. “You wrote it sexy, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t mean to—” she starts, her face turning beet red.
“You said, and I quote: ‘clinging to him likea second skin.’”
“I was trying to bedescriptive!”
Stepping into her personal space, I stare down at her. She’s at least six inches shorter than me. “You’re picturing me without it now, aren’t you?”
Her cheeks flame.
I lean in and whisper low. “Don’t worry, kitten. I remember how you wrotethatpart, too. Not that I’m going to need you to write it for me again. I’ve got my own ideas too, you know. And I can’twaitto make those ideas come to fruition.”
Her strangled shriek makes me chuckle as she stomps out of the room and down the hall, yelling something about ‘never giving a fictional man this much power again.’
Grinning like the devil, I shove my hands in my pockets and watch her go.
She can run and hide behind her sass, sarcasm and writer’s block all she wants, but I’m part of her world now.
And believe me—I’m just getting started.
SEVEN
noia
A wallof heat and sound hit me full on as I follow Ryder into the bar.
Music pulses against cracked wood floors and exposed brick walls, the scent of beer, leather, and sweat almost overwhelming—and it’s packed.
Bodies press together, swaying in slow, sinful rhythms as laughter, rough and loud, fills the air. And underneath it all? The rapid, insistent beating of my heart.
Maybe it’s the music.
Maybe it’s my nerves.
