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I feel his breath mingling with my own as his lips meet mine.

If there was any doubt before, any room for wondering, I feel with certainty now the answer in his kiss. He wants me. Has wanted me all along, perhaps. Savannah Cade. The girl with the fungal-feet stories from the gym. The girl who throws small temper tantrums when her characters’ names are put into question. The girl who shows up at bars impersonating booking agents on behalf of her best friend and can’t fit into size 2 warrior-blue dresses and likes to rewatch painfully corny movies even though they always make her cry.

The way his hands move to cradle my neck, holding on to me, now says he knows all of these things about me, has known these things for a long time, and they only make him want me more.

Which is convenient, as I feel the same.

At last his lips turn playful as his mouth turns into an almost bashful smile. As we part, his hands slip down to hold both of mine. And while his smile is timid, his eyes are on fire, as though apologizing for demonstrating such surprising and uncaged desire, but at the same time gazing at me now like he would do it again in a second.

“Well,” he says. And leaves it there.

My cheeks tingle. The nape of my neck, freshly released from his strong hand, is hot.

For a long moment we just look at each other. Until . . .

“Yeah . . . that was okay,” I say nonchalantly, although highly aware of the fact I’m grinning ear to ear.

And that does it. That breaks the spell.

“Just okay?” he says incredulously. “Just . . .” There’s a question in his tone. This time he’s really asking. “ . . . okay?”

“Well, I mean . . .” I take on an instructional tone. “Where were your hands? I’m pretty sure they just stayed there, clipped to your sides”—my eyes twinkle—“like you were made of cardboard.”

“They were holding you!” he retorts. “What do you mean, where were my hands? They were holding you!”

“Were they?” I say innocently, as though I can’t remember—quite clearly, in fact—exactly where his hands skimmed the back of my arms, tugged me close, cupped my cheeks and then my neck the past three minutes. I shrug. “You know, the important thing here, I think, is practice. I can tell we’re going to have to practice a lot. Indoors. Outdoors. We’ll just have to keep practicing as much as we can until we get it right.”

There’s a long pause as Will surveys my words.

A long pause followed, at last, by a short nod. “Seems fair.”

And as he drops me off at my office door a few minutes later, surrounded by the incoming and outgoing traffic of people walking around us in the hall, I can’t help but smile as he leans against the doorway and asks, “So. Meet you in the ARC room at two?”

Epilogue

Two Years Later

“Yes, we do carry book-club kits for librarians on our website, or you can find it on . . . at . . . at . . .”

“HollyRay.com,” I finish, smiling serenely at Gabriel.

Gabriel is our newest acquisitions editor. She’s twenty-two. She’s lovely. And she’s completely terrified she’s going to screw up.

“I’m fine here, Gabriel. How about you take a break and get some coffee?” I say, watching the girl give an entirely overwhelmed look at the exhausting line of librarians at our booth.

They are all here for my signing. Correction: Holly Ray’s signing.

Of her second book in a series.

Funny how of all people in Nashville, I’m the one who ended up with a stage name.

I write half days these days, and spend the other half as acquisitions editor for the mainstream ArcherPennington line. I’ve considered dropping my editing job a few times, but the perks are too great to ever let that be a real possibility. For one, I still share an office with Lyla (whose probation, barring LOA events, has just become the general rule for her). I still edit books, although my client list has shrunk now to a manageable six, and I am just as passionate about their cozy mysteries, YA, and speculative works as my own.

And I still have my little getaway in the hidden room, although now Will joins me. And sometimes Brittney. And sometimes Sam—who has turned out to be a truly lovely man after all.

And we all really do have a secret group handshake.

I’m listening to a woman talk about her two grown daughters as I finish off my signature on my new book when I hear Lyla’s voice rise above the general hum.