Page 60 of Face Me Off

I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. The secrecy, the longing looks from afar while we’re in public … it’s all becoming too much. I want us to date for real. I want to hold Madison’s hand, kiss her openly, and have the world know we’re together.

I down the rest of my IPA and toss the empty bottle into a nearby trashcan. Enough waiting. Tonight, we’re figuring this thing out once and for all.

I make my way over to the hallway where Maddy disappeared. Once she steps from the bathroom, I grab her elbow.

“Hey!” She jerks her arm away, but once she sees me, her body relaxes. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Go home with me,” I practically growl.

The corner of her mouth lifts. “It’s so good to see you too, Ryan. I’m doing well, thank you.”

Yeah, that came across as too territorial. I clear my throat.

“Sorry. It is good to see you. It’d be even better in my bed.”

Her lips twitch. “Is that so?”

I glance around and don’t see anyone paying us any attention. I lean forward and run my nose along her ear. Lowering my voice, I say, “Go home with me.”

She shivers under my touch, and I fight the urge to adjust my pants. Goddamn, I don’t know what spell this woman has on me, but I constantly want her.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Blake is staying with Amanda tonight. I can sneak you in and out. But I want you in my bed.”

“No Malibu?”

“I’m too drunk to drive. Besides”—I lean closer to sniff the strawberry scent—“I want my sheets to smell like berries, Toots.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re gorgeous.” I nudge my head toward the door. “Go home with me.”

“Lead the way, big boy.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MADISON

“So this iswhere the magic happens?” I waggle my eyebrows while making a sweeping hand motion toward his bed. What do you know? I just discovered something new about myself. I tend to make jokes when nervous.

Ryan stands by the doorway, wearing a button-down shirt and dark charcoal chinos. The cotton shirt fits taut across those broad shoulders but hangs loosely around his waist. He’d have custom-fitted clothes to accent those abs hidden beneath the cream-colored button-down in my world of perfectionism and old-school money. But it doesn’t matter what he wears. Ryan makes anything look good.

“The only magic happening tonight is us, Toots.” He toes off his dress shoes and sits on the bed while I stay stationed halfway inside the room.

“God, stop with the lame puns.” I laugh, secretly loving his humor. Ryan knows how to make me relaxed. It’s not that I’m nervous to be alone with him, but the implication of getting caught. Well, that, and there seems to be a dynamic change happening. I’m unsure if it’s real or imagining it, but I swear the energy shifted between us.

“Come here.” He pats the side of the bed.

Biting my lip, I slip my heels off and pad across the hardwood. He intertwines our fingers when I sit beside him.

“I think we need to talk.”

Talk.

That’s the one thing we don’t do much of. Usually, when we get time alone, we’re on each other like bees to nectar. I briefly wonder if he wants to end our arrangement. He had called it a relationship, but that was more in passing. We haven’t actually talked about being exclusive, but now that he’s passing physics, he no longer needs my help.

Ryan takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly, only increasing my anxiety.

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