Page 57 of The Boyfriend Material Novellas

She tells me about her friends, how Bethany is a hugger and Emery is a giggler, and how the three of them were like sisters in school, depending on each other, helping each other through painful breakups and even more painful exams.

When it’s my turn, I tell her about my sister and how we’ve always been close friends. I talk about the books I love, the articles that capture my interest, and my allergy to early mornings. I also confess that pop music is brilliant.

“Pop like Taylor Swift or Katy Perry?” she asks.

“Or P!nk or Lady Gaga.”

“Whoa. I like you.” She squeezes my arm.

“Thank you. I was hoping I’d pass the pop music test. And that you’d have the same taste in music.”

She arches a dubious brow. “Did I say I had the same taste? I’m a Bruce Springsteen gal. Bryan Adams. And the Eagles.”

“What generation are you, woman? Lost in time?”

“I like Jackson Browne too.”

“Are you secretly fifty? Were you born in the seventies?”

“I’m retro.”

“You can call it that, but I’ve never met anyone with a seventies retro kink.”

She wiggles her brows. “Maybe that’s not my only kink.”

I groan. “That’s a door I’m going to kick wide open. What are the others? I require details. Each chapter, and every sordid verse,” I say as we pass a boutique with a pink window display showing off teddies and bras, panties and stockings.

“I have a wicked fetish for lingerie,” she says, pointing at all the lacy numbers.

“You do?” I ask, my voice gravelly, thick with a new bout of lust.

She stares longingly at a white-and-pink bra with some sort of crisscross straps. “That’s my favorite. I never bought a lot of lingerie in college since it’s expensive, but I have always loved the prettiest things. I love looking and touching, and I love the way wearing them makes me feel.”

I loop an arm around her waist. “How does it make you feel?”

She turns to me and whispers, “Beautiful.”

My body longs for her. My mind aches for her. I bring her closer, unable to resist kissing this woman. “You are beautiful,” I say, as I kiss her one more time.

A slow and lingering kiss.

If I’m not careful, I’ll ditch my flight simply to spend one more night with her.

The thought is tempting. So damn tempting.

And once it lands in my head, the idea that I could do that? It’s too powerful to ignore. “I could stay another night,” I blurt out.

Her eyes flutter open. “Tonight?”

“Yes. I know it sounds crazy. Insane, even.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she says. “But . . .”

I swallow roughly. “But what?”

“But what if I don’t want to get on my plane in the morning?”

“Then you’d stay here with me,” I say, even though we both know that’s a foolish dream. I won’t be here either.

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