Page 123 of Elusion

“Then why?”

“Because you, Callie Henders, are my muse.”

She rolls her eyes. “Smooth answer.”

“Real answer.” I kiss her, careful of her bottom lip. “You helped me discover what I want to do with my life. My passion, if you will.”

“Corporate law?” She guesses way off base. “Mergers and acquisitions?” Even further.

“Absolutely not,” I say. “I’m more interested in child advocacy. Custody agreements, termination of parental rights, neglect and abuse cases. You’d be amazed at the shit people get away with regarding their children. Someone needs to give them a voice. Who knows? I might even pursue a judgeship one day. I’d hate to limit my future options. I mean—”

Her mouth cuts me off.

I gently kiss her back before pulling away. “Seriously, beautiful, you can’t just kiss me to end the long-winded and at times overly wordy speech I’ve…”

She smiles, distracting me, and rather than finish, I return my lips to hers. There’s really nothing better than being derailed by the girl in a red coat. The girl with the smile and the bluest eyes. The girl who has changed my world. The girl who has changed me.

And, damn it, the girl who is my beautiful meaning in an absurd universe.

Two Months Later...

“See, this is why I have no choice but to become a lawyer,” I say.

Callie rolls her eyes, climbing out of the red Mazda. She’s in cutoff jean shorts, a low-cut tank top, her hair in a high ponytail, and why she insists on torturing me, I will never understand. Only a week into July, and while I can’t prove anything, I’ve developed a theory that she chooses outfits specifically with my mental suffering in mind. I either want summer to last forever or end right fucking now to spare me from those legs.

“You’re being dramatic,” she says.

“Me?” I dramatically grab my chest. “I’ve never been dramatic a single second of my entire life.”

As we cross the street, she leans into me and interlaces our fingers. The wrist brace they gave her after removing her cast a few days ago is on my dresser—unsurprisingly.

“Every cop in a fifteen-mile radius will be here, so we don’t need to worry about being busted.”

“You misunderstand, beautiful. The fact that every cop in a fifteen-mile radius will be here is the exact reason I need to be a lawyer. You and your friends and your family—”

“My friends? My family? Convenient how when you’re trying to make a point, they all belong to me and not us.”

“Like I was saying…” I lift my arm up and twirl her around for a better view of the shorts. “You and your friends and your family insist on making these questionable decisions and skirting around the law. I’m going to spend more of my time sorting out their legal issues than practicing in my chosen field.”

“First off,” she says, “you just took the LSAT and don’t start law school for a year.”

“Thirteen months,” I correct.

She ignores me. “Second, our friends and our family have survived this long without you and your pseudo law degree.”

“Barely,” I add.

She sighs, stopping at the front of the building. “And third, all I did was parallel park.”

“Yes, Callie.” I gesture to the car on the opposite side of the street. “But you parallel parked across three horizontal parking spaces.”

“Jordan,” she says, ready to end the conversation, “we’re throwing a sixteen-year-old’s birthday party in a bar. Let the legality of the parking job go.”

She defeats my argument by proving my point.

Incredible.

She absentmindedly reaches for her neck. It’s a lingering habit even though nothing except flawless skin exists, any hint of claw marks gone. I intercept her hand and brush the knuckles over my lips. She smiles up at me, and I kiss her because I’m not going tonotkiss her. But then I want more and kiss down to her neck. My hands slide to her ass, and she lets out an incredibly sexy sound in my ear. At this point, the bar full of people can wait a little while longer. Hell, they can throw the whole damn party without us. I back her against the building and press into her.

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