Page 13 of Axel

I bite my bottom lip, staring at the Daisy Hills Volunteer Firefighter t-shirt that Axel loaned me last night. It’s soft, snug, and smells like him. I haven’t been able to take it off since I put it on. “It’s not what you think.”

“What do I think, exactly?” Hope asks, eyebrow raised in playful accusation. I can feel the temperature of my cheeks climbing by the second.

“I didn’t sleep with him.”

“But?”

“But nothing. I went over to his house because my stupid tattoo stained my favorite shirt?—”

“You didn’t rewrap it?” Hope asks, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world.

“No.”

“Did you do that on purpose?” she asks, mischief dancing in her eyes. “So you had an excuse to see him?”

“Contrary to what you all seem to believe, no I did not.” Though I’m starting to wonder if subconsciously I did. Because what sane person marches over to the house of a man she just officially met earlier that same day and demands he looks at her stained shirt? Yesterday’s incident could easily have been handled with a text conversation.

But then I wouldn’t have kissed him. I wouldn’t have had my world turned upside down by the fire in his touch.

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Don’t go there, Hope.”

“What do I have to lose?” she challenges, a devilish smile directed at me. “You’re leaving in two weeks. I’m going wherever the hell I want.”

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it,” I murmur.

After the server takes Hope’s order and offers me a refill on my soda, Hope pins me in place with a don’t-hold-out-on-me stare. “Tell me everything.”

I tell hermostthings. How Axel offered to be my research assistant and gave me his address. How he told me he wasn’t replacing my favorite shirt when I showed up, admittedly hot and bothered, at his door. How he cleaned up the tattoo and rewrapped it. How I lunged at him and kissed him until I forgot my own name.

I leave out the part about him undoing my bra and sliding his rough hand over the swell of my breast. My nipples pebble at the memory. And I definitely don’t tell her that I texted him last night. Though the actual conversation was fairly PG compared to what I put in my books, I’m still not eager to show it to Hope. She’ll make something out of it for sure.

“He offered to be your research assistant,” Hope points out, as though that thought has had a chance to escape my mind.

“I don’t get involved with my research subjects.”

“He’s not asubject. He’s a hot, flesh-and-blood, tattooed man who wants to bone you to help with your book research. Think of all the great sex you could have. Think of all the great sex scenes you couldwrite. Not that you don’t write great ones already—I heard you’re responsible for almost burning down the assisted living facility last night.”

“That wasn’t my fault?—”

“You’re leaving in two weeks, right?”

I run my thumb up and down the condensation on my soda glass, leaving a trail through it and my thoughts. “Right.”

“So I say go for it. Some fun, no-strings-attached research that’ll help make your books so hot you’ll burn down the whole town.”

“Not the legacy I want to go out on.”

“In two weeks, you’re getting on a plane. No one can really fall in love in two weeks, right?”

“Right.” My response doesn’t feel as convincing to me as it should, but I refuse to unpack that right now.

“It’s a safe bet. Take the man up on his very enticing offer, or I’ll pretend to be a romance author and convince him to bemyresearch assistant.”

“Back off,” I fire back.

“Because?” she asks, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

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