Page 170 of The Right Move

“A mafia boss cuts a deal with another mafia boss by using his daughter for payment. Marriage of convenience. Normal stuff.”

Opening my book, I restart right where I left off.

“Why do you like reading fiction so much?” he asks without a hint of judgment.

“How else would you get to live a thousand lives in the span of only one? The beauty of fiction is that it makes you feel things on a visceral level. You can cry with those characters, laugh with them. It teaches you to look at another’s perspective, to have empathy. In nonfiction, you simply learn about something instead of feeling it.”

“You already feel more than most people I know.” Ryan closes his book, cocks his head, and watches me with a softness I didn’t know existed when I first moved in. “You haven’t been reading much lately.”

I pop my shoulders. “Well, that’s because I don’t feel the need to live in someone else’s reality. I enjoy my own far too much these days.”

That stunning smile is back, puckered dimples and all as Ryan runs his palms up the length of my thighs.

“Can I read some of your book?”

“Really?”

He nods excitedly.

“Okay, let me find something you might like—”

He stops me from flipping through the pages. “Let me read the page you’re at.”

Well…this is going to be interesting.

I hand it over, watching him with caution as Ryan leans into the couch behind him and begins to read my book. Blue-green eyes widen as soon as he starts because I left off at a detailed scene of the female main character getting eaten out on the mafia boss’s desk right after he killed a man in cold blood.

“Shit,” Ryan exhales, burying himself further into the couch as if he plans to stay there long enough to finish the entire book. “This is hot.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

One hand holding my book, he uses the other to grab my waist, pulling me against him. My legs are opened around his and all it does is cause me to grind against him which I’m quickly realizing is what he wanted.

“This is practically a how-to manual on how to please a woman. How are more men not reading these?”

Falling forward, I use one arm against the back of the couch to keep myself hovering over him. Ryan’s eyes stay glued to the pages until I roll my hips against his and earn his attention. Those studious ocean eyes turn dark when he looks up at me.

“This might be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.” I admit.

“Oh, yeah?” Ryan drops my book, his hands sliding into my hair to pull me down before he kisses me so deeply I can feel its intensity in every nerve of my body.

He moans into my mouth and the desperate sound has me moving against him. Ryan being vocal and unrestrained with the noises he makes, is part of what makes him so sexy to me. He’s confident and unafraid to let me know the effect I have on him.

My hand slips under his shirt, but as soon as my palm touches the warmth of his skin, a knock sounds at our front door.

“No,” I disagree against his lips. “Not happening. You’re leaving for four days. Do not answer that door.”

He laughs into me.

The knock sounds again.

Rolling my eyes, I climb off his lap and fall onto the couch beside him, letting him stand to answer the door.

“That’s weird that David didn’t call up,” Ryan says as he looks through the peephole. “Oh, it’s Kai.”

And it’s no wonder Dave didn’t call. Kai lives in this building too.

“Hey, man.”

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