My So-Called Sex Life (How to Date, #1)(75)

I can’t see who it is, at first, but then a familiar blonde sidles into the aisle, wearing a Book Besties shirt.

“Hi there! Just wondering what you’d think of a romance where the hero has been in love with the heroine for a long time?” A smirk tilts Jackie’s lips.

That’s a random question, but I answer honestly. “Sure. It’s always nice when he falls first.”

Then Alecia appears, grabbing the mic from Jackie. “And maybe they’ve known each other for a while. And even worked together?”

We’re getting more specific, but I don’t know where we’re going. “I’m open to that,” I say cautiously, curiously.

Maria’s there too, and she grabs the mic. “And then he finally gets the cojones to tell her his feelings in front of everyone.”

This feels…scripted.

My heart speeds up to one hundred miles per hour. I’m not sure if I should connect all the dots, but I want to.

“And then he tells her.”

That’s…him. He’s somewhere in the crowd. That raspy, sexy voice is an arrow straight to my heart.

“What is he going to tell her?” I ask, barely able to breathe as I hunt for him.

Axel steps forward and Maria thrusts the mic to him.

Is he really here? In Paris? At a bookstore? Striding toward me in front of all these people?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

“He’s going to tell you his wish,” Axel says, his deep blue eyes locked on mine.

My heart beats in my throat. Emotions spill over inside me. I’m one giant nerve of hope. “Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine. Because it came true,” I say.

“Here goes,” he says as he reaches me at the table, never taking his gaze off me. “I made a wish to make it through this trip without telling you how I felt about you, and I did make it. Well, mostly. But I’m going to break it right now. I love you. I fell in love with you years ago, and then I fell in love with you all over again this week. And maybe I’m breaking all the rules of wishes, and maybe this means mine won’t come true—”

I pop up, stretch across the table, and grab his face. “I’m in love with you too.”

His smile spreads like wildfire. “You are?”

“I’m so in love with you I wrote you a story.”

“I’m so in love with you I told a whole bookstore,” he says, the fucking show-off.

“I’m so in love with you I planned to tell you in New York tomorrow.”

“I’m so in love with you I caught a last-minute plane to Paris to tell you today.”

And I don’t need to play competitive-monster games anymore. I’m too happy. “You win.”

But when I scurry around the table and kiss his fantastic lips, I’m pretty sure we both win. Everyone claps and cheers as we kiss in a bookstore in front of a crowd.

When he breaks the kiss, he brings his lips to my ear and whispers, “Can I stay in your room tonight?”

I’m so ludicrously happy that I kiss him again. “As if I’d let you stay anyplace else, you sexy jerk.”

He smiles stupidly and runs the back of his fingers across my cheek. “What was your wish, sweetheart?”

Axel says it in a whole new way this time, full of love and tenderness. I want to hear that affectionate nickname over and over. “To have a good trip with you. And I did.”

“I guess some wishes come true,” he says.

“They sure do.”

Then I finish the event, and I leave with the hero of my love story.





41





VEX ME


Hazel

We race to the hotel. I want to be alone with him so badly.

Well, big gestures make a gal frisky. Obviously. But it’s hard to walk fast when I just want to kiss him.

I give in to the impulse because I can. As we near a streetlamp across from the river, I tug his hand, stopping his pace under the glow. “This is what it’s like. That moment in a story. I feel all…floaty,” I say, in awe that this is my life.

He shakes his head appreciatively. “Who knew the romance writer was a total sap?”

I slap his chest. “Shut up. You better feel this way too.”

He covers my mouth with his, kissing me slow and deep in the Paris night, as if he’s making sure I know he feels the same. When he breaks the kiss, he murmurs, “I do, Hazel. I really do.”

“Good. Now stop distracting me with your kisses and get me naked.”

He plucks at my blouse. “So, it’s the Tuileries for ten points? You want to bang in a park?”

My eyes widen. “We get points in our game?”

He scoffs, then runs a finger over the curve of my right breast. “Yes. We get points, you competitive monster. I’m making up the rules as we go. And if you want it in a park, you’ll get it in a park. You’ll get it on a boat. You’ll get it in the bathroom of”—he stops, surveys the scene, then tips his forehead to a busy bar down the block—“that bar. Hard and up against the wall.”

I shiver, loving that he’s still the same. He’s everything I fell for. He never stops challenging me, and that’s what I want.

I wrap a hand around the back of his neck, playing with the ends of his hair. He needs a haircut, and I like that too. It’s so him. A little messy and rough around the edges. “Can we play that game when we return to New York? That seems like something they’d do in a book.”