Full Package

Josie: Game over. We crushed the competition.



* * *



Chase: Because you’re fucking fierce on the field.



* * *



Josie: That might be true. :) Okay, catching the subway. Heading home. How was your day?



* * *



Before I tap out a reply, I answer the question in my head. My day was fucking amazing. My day was fantastic. My day was the best ever. Because of last night.

But more so, because of where I want to be right now.

Where she is.

I drop the mic.

That’s it.

Everything’s clear.

I know. I just fucking know.

She’s the one I want to spend the rest of this day with. She’s the one I want to talk to about my good days and my bad days. She’s more than my roommate. She’s more than one of my best friends. She’s the one I want every day. I have no clue what happens after tonight, but I need tonight with her to start right the fuck now.

When Max rolls out on his bike, I point my thumb across town. “I gotta bail.”

“What?” he asks, like this doesn’t compute.

“You were right.”

“I always am. But about what this time?”

“Just say I told you so. Just go ahead and say it.”

“I told you so?” he tosses out quizzically.

“You did. And I have to go see Josie. Wait. No. Correction. I want to go see Josie.”

Max snickers and shoots me the biggest I-told-you-so grin in the history of facial expressions.

I shrug. What can you do? Then I go to the only place I want to be.

The diagnosis I was trying to piece together last night? All the symptoms point to one malady.

I’ve got it bad for this girl. I’ve got a textbook condition of a classic illness. I’m suffering from a motherfucking case of falling in love.

And I’m not ready to take a pill to cure it.





21





It’s a scene ripped straight from a fantasy I never knew I had. But it’s so incredibly enticing that the vision in front of me has shot straight up the ranks.

We’re talking the Pantheon of dirty images, and it’s not even filthy.

Yet.

Josie’s in the kitchen, wearing an apron and heels. Her hair is twisted in a bun with a chopstick stabbed through it. A home-cooked meal sits cooling on the rack on the stovetop. I’ve never had naughty housewife fantasies, but I think I might now.

The apartment smells like my favorite food ever, the one I missed most in Africa—pizza pie with cheese and mushrooms.

An ’80s tune, “Tempted” by Squeeze, is playing. If I stop to think about it, the lyrics are wildly wrong. It’s technically a song about straying. But I’m convinced this song became famous because all you hear in this tune is the longing, the want, the hunger for another person. That’s the thing about song lyrics. You take the parts that speak to you.

Temptation talks loud and clear to me.

Temptation shakes her butt to the beat.

Lord help me.

This.

When the door falls shut behind me with a loud snap, Josie startles and swivels around. She brings her hand to her chest. “Oh God, you scared me.”

“Sorry,” I say, dropping my keys on the table by the door.

She grabs her phone from the counter and lowers the volume. “Hey,” she says, setting the cell down as I enter the tiny kitchen. “I made you a—”

I crush her mouth to mine before she can say “pizza.” A sexy ohh escapes her lips, and then she gives me all I want.

Her.

She loops her hands around my neck, her fingers traveling up to my hair, playing with the ends. Lust charges down my spine. I sweep my lips across hers, our mouths connecting as we find the rhythm that makes this kiss its own kind of sexy song. I can’t break it down to the melody or the lyrics, the notes or the chords. All I know is, this kiss has all the makings of a number-one hit. It has that certain something. That indefinable quality that hooks you right in the heart, hits you hard in the chest and sends the heat levels to incendiary.

Backing her up a few inches to the counter, I slam my body against hers. A sharp, sexy gasp falls from her lips as I break the kiss.

“Hey you,” I whisper hungrily.

“Nice to see you, too,” she says, then pulls me back to her, our lips crashing together once more. My hands dive into her hair, and I rip the chopstick out, letting those soft brown strands spill over my fingers as the wooden stick clatters to the floor.

As I kiss her, my mind goes hazy, and I shove aside all thoughts of anything but lust and want and heat. Clasping her face in my hands, I kiss her even harder, even hungrier, until I can’t take just kissing her. I have to have more of her.

All of her.