Page 54 of The Boyfriend Material Novellas

I know this is some kind of kiss.

His lips are soft and confident. His touch is both tender and electric. And he smells so damn good. Like soap and pine and man. My senses are throwing a party as this stranger in a strange land lights me up with his lips, his touch, and something else too.

Something intangible. Something wonderful.

Something that I know will be over far too soon.

Is that why this kiss is so incredible?

Because it exists in its own parallel universe, one where I’m staying in Paris, and he’s living here, and we’re spending the evenings together wandering the passages and cobblestoned streets as rain falls? Of course, it’ll rain in Paris in our universe as we kiss at cafés and shops and under street lamps.

And we make plans to meet again tomorrow.

That’s what this kiss is.

A kiss for tomorrow.

A kiss that is tinged with wistfulness, with longing, and with a wish for it to be more than one kiss.

A wish for it to last.

But it can’t. Because we’re both leaving.

I break the kiss, and he looks lust-drunk.

It’s so sexy, and I want to put that look on his face again and again.

“Wow,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, scrubbing a hand across his jaw.

“That was . . .”

“Incredible?”

I give him a flirty grin, shaking my head. “Nope.”

His brow creases. “No? Am I going to need to try harder?”

“I won’t object to that, but I was simply going to say I’m pretty sure it was the best kiss in the history of first kisses.”

He leans in close again, dusting those lips over my cheek to my ear, then whispering, “I want to keep writing in that history book.”

This man.

This man and his funny, clever, vulnerable ways.

“I want that too,” I say, but because we can’t have what we want, he takes my hand and we walk through the gardens toward the exit.

“I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but I’d like to spend the rest of the day with you until I leave.”

I lean my shoulder against his. “You can presume away.”

As we exit the gardens, he says, “So, Marley. What would you do if you lived here in Paris?”

“Like, for a job?” I ask as we turn onto a block teeming with pretty boutiques.

“Actually, I wanted to know what you’d do with me, but sure, we can start with work.”

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