By Any Other Name(71)

We roll to a stop at the same time under a flowering bougainvillea vine, parking beneath the breezy archway of the hotel’s street entrance.

Illicit tryst, I hear BD screaming from her Peloton back home, but that ship has sailed. I’ve got a speech to rewrite and careers to save. I’ve got a space in my heart crying out for just one man.

I climb off the bike, shake my hair loose from my helmet, fix my bangs. I’m trying to make it inside the hotel, through the lobby, and up the stairwell to my room, all without looking back at Mr. Moto Guzzi, when a familiar voice says—

“Nice weaves. Very smooth.”

I stop walking. I stop breathing. I turn around slowly, trying to prepare myself for something that can’t possibly be real. My heart is racing as Mr. Moto Guzzi climbs off the bike and takes his helmet off.

Noah gazes back at me, that mesmerizing look in his green eyes. The one that had me transfixed from the first time I saw him.

I feel everything at once—

Relieved to hear his voice. Bewildered that he’s here. Overjoyed to see his face, his lips, his eyes, and all that shiny, tugable hair. Flushed with desire. Scared that we’ve messed everything up. Hungry to put my hands on him. And that lightning bolt that’s always in me when Noah is around.

So this is it. This scary, inconvenient, exhilarating, stomach-tightening, I’ll-do-anything-for-it feeling is finally, really, really love.

“Noah.” I can barely breathe. “What are you doing here?”

He takes a step toward me. Still ten agonizing feet away. He looks so beautiful, squinting in the sunlight, shading his face with one hand.

“I forgot to tell you where to buy BD’s souvenir,” he says. “So I figured I’d come show you.”

I drop my helmet, my keys, my purse. I run toward Noah and jump. He catches me in his arms. He holds me close. Our faces tip toward each other, our lips on the verge of what my body is screaming would become the most spectacular kiss of all time, including the Etruscan period.

“Is it us?” I whisper. “Chapter One?”

“That depends,” he says. “How much of it did you want to edit?”

“Small changes here and there.” I smile. “I think it might be more realistic if Dr. Collins slaps Edward after he tells her the truth.”

Slowly, playfully, Noah turns his cheek to me. I lay my hand gently on his skin. It’s warm and pleasantly rough where he hasn’t shaved since New York. He leans into my touch. He presses his lips against the center of my palm and I shiver with how much I want those lips on mine.

“The scene is who I want us to be,” he tells me. “The whole book is who I want us to be.”

I rise on my toes. I move my hands around the back of Noah’s neck. I press my lips to his. He meets me with tenderness, then with passion, cupping the back of my neck and pulling me closer. He tastes like cinnamon.

The seam between our bodies tightens, and it feels just like I fantasized it would—exhilarating, satiating, part-itch, part-scratch, brand new, and such a very long time coming.

“So,” I say, “how’d you like to go to your first launch party tonight, Noa Callaway?”

“I’ll go anywhere,” he says, and kisses me again. “So long as you go with me.”