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Well, not if I can help it.

I look away from her tempting mouth and pretend she wasn’t making vulgar, and sexy, suggestions at me.

“Your ‘lady friend’?” Her voice is high and light through the fall air. The wind has died down a little, and her hair sits calmly over her shoulders. The ends, no longer pin straight, have started to curl up. I lean over and touch the strands. I rub my thumb over them, and Nora studies my face. Her hair is so soft. She is just so soft.

“Yes. I think that’s a suitable reference for such a qualified woman.” I tuck a section of her hair behind her shoulder. I smooth my fingertips over her shoulder blade.

Her chest rises and falls between each word as she says, “And what qualifications are those?”

I hum and continue petting her skin. She’s like a kitten who wants to be rubbed and fussed over all day. Suddenly, I’m a cat person. I don’t know if I could handle the hair-ball thing, or the pooping-inside-the-house thing. So never mind: I only like kittens in Nora-form.

“Well, you have these.” I drag my finger over her lips and up to her eyes. “And these.” I touch her lips. My fingers lead down to her breasts, and I stop over her nipple, gently circling. “And this.” I touch over her heart and feel it drumming beneath my palm. “This is my favorite part.” I flatten my hand out over her, and the moment I do, she’s all over me.

She uses her palms to push my shoulders against the back of the couch. My “Whoa” is lost in the cloud of her. She’s on my lap, kissing my cheeks, my jaw, my lips, my eyes. She’s so soft in my arms, so warm. She’s frenzied in a way that I haven’t seen her before.

I keep my little antic going, reminding her why she’s so special to this world. “Also, you went to college.”

Her lips touch against my forehead, and she laughs. When she cups my cheeks and kisses me, I have to open my eyes to make sure this is all real. I have this piercing feeling inside my ribs, poking at my already fragile heart, that the worst is yet to come with us. I can see images of us inside my head, and they come as clear as day. But when I focus on one, it fades quickly, and one by one everything disappears. Nothing feels permanent with her. Why is that?

“Anything else?” She grinds her hips down on me.

When I stop her body from moving, she scowls at me. I lift her hips higher so she’s barely touching me. “Not so fast. We were in the middle of a game.” I lean forward and touch my face to her chest. “You almost had me.”

I bite at her breasts, and she yelps, climbing off my lap.

“Fine, fine,” she says, catching her breath. Her skin is lovely under the glittering city lights. The moon is more visible than I imagined it would be from Manhattan. It’s still so crazy to me how vast the difference between Brooklyn and the city is.

“Whose turn is it?” She scoots her butt all the way to the other end of the couch and turns to face me, her legs crossed under her body.

Well, if she doesn’t remember . . . “Mine.”

“Liar!” she cries out with a smile. I shrug, playing innocent. “Do you think you could be with me? Do you think we are crazy for this?” She points her finger back and forth between us. “And what’s your biggest flaw?”

My biggest flaw? Could I be with her? Are we crazy?

Are we crazy?

I don’t even give my doubt the chance to creep into this moment with Nora. This is between us, no other voices, just hers.

“I am here, with you,” I tell her.

She looks away from me, but she’s fighting a smile.

“My biggest flaw is that I take on too much from everyone around me. It gets heavy sometimes.” I feel guilty admitting it, but I want to be honest with her. She lifts her eyes to mine for a brief second, then looks out to the view again. “And, yeah. I think we are crazy.”


Tags: Anna Todd Landon Gibson Romance