If It's Only Love (Lexi Ryan) novel Chapter 16

Shay

Paris doesn’t sleep at night. Or if she does, it’s not until long after I’ve fallen asleep. It’s eleven, and customers loiter at tables in front of brasseries, drinking wine, smoking, and talking. Cars roll by, and the moon creeps higher in the sky, bringing me closer to the moment when I’ll have to say good night. I dread that moment with everything inside me. I’d keep walking forever with aching feet and my exhaustion-fuzzy brain if it meant I didn’t have to let go of Easton’s hand.

Dinner was amazing. Not the meal—I have no recollections of what the food tasted like—but the experience. I’ve been with him for four hours and I’m right back to the lovesick girl I was the last time I saw him. Maybe worse. My chest already aches when I think of saying goodbye tomorrow night. I still can’t believe Easton came to Paris when he can only stay one night. He has to get back for a PR obligation—some black-tie event where he’s promised to appear—so he’ll leave only twenty-four hours after he landed. Insane.

“When do you have to be back to your room?” he asks, stopping to look at his phone.

“I’m a big girl now.” I bite back a grimace at my word choice. Big girl, indeed. “No curfew.”

“When do you want to go back to your room?”

I shake my head. I’m in no rush to return to Heather and the sounds of her sneaking Steve into our room after lights out, them making out in her bed. And yet that’s all secondary to how much I don’t want my time with Easton to end. “I wouldn’t go back at all tonight if it was up to me.”

He smiles, and it’s a smile I haven’t seen on Easton many times. It’s big and wide and makes his eyes shine. “Do you . . . Would you want to stay with me? I have a room.”

“So we wouldn’t be sleeping in the streets?”

He pinches my side. “You’re such a pest.”

I squirm, trying to avoid his tickling hands, but he’s stronger and bigger and spins me around. Then I’m in his arms, his body pressed to mine, his gaze on my mouth.

I lift a hand and tentatively touch his cheek. “Where’s your room?”

“No idea.” I feel his laugh more than hear it, and he nods up the block. “But my driver is right up there.”

His driver. “You’re so fancy these days.”

He grins. “Nah. Just trying to impress a girl. You’re sure about this?”

“Are you sure?” I ask, my voice a little shaky.

He huffs out a laugh. “It’s not even a question. Tonight, I want as much of you as you’ll give me.”

“So it’s a plan.”

He leads me to the car, and the driver jumps out and opens the door for us. I slide in first, and Easton follows.

Outside my window, the lights of Paris glow, making this fantasy seem even more like a dream. Last night’s bus tour doesn’t hold a candle to riding in a private car around Paris with Easton—and Steve and Heather have nothing to do with that. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I ask.

“It is. I see why you’ve been so excited to visit.”

I look over my shoulder and find his eyes on me, not the lights outside. “You look worried.”

“I’m not sure if I can trust myself with you tonight. You might have to tie me to the bed so I keep my hands to myself.”

“If that’s what you want.” I stick out my tongue.

“No, Shayleigh. That’s not what I want.”

“But you only kissed me the once when you got here.”

He frowns. “You’re broken-hearted. I want to be a better guy than the one who takes advantage of the pretty girl on the rebound.”

“My heart’s not broken, Easton.” I shake my head. “I’m pissed off, and my pride is bruised, but Steve and I grew apart months ago. We’d planned for this trip for so long, I think both of us were just trying to hold on until we made it through. The suckiest thing about it was his timing, but now I’m riding around Paris with Easton Connor and I’m liking the way things turned out.”

He skims his fingers down my arm. “Then come here.”

I scoot over in the seat and angle my body toward his.

“Closer,” he says.

I scoot more, until my thigh presses against his.

He smiles. “Still not close enough.”

I laugh. “To get any closer, I’d have to sit in your lap.”

His hands go to my waist. “That’s a plan I can get on board with.”

I stiffen. I’m all too aware of the thirty pounds I’ve gained in the last two years and of the fact that I wasn’t small to begin with. But rather than ruin this, I pull my legs under myself on the seat. I grip his shoulders as I straddle him, trying to keep my weight on my knees so I don’t crush him.

His hands cup my jaw. His eyes dip to my cleavage. And if I didn’t know better, I’d think I’d become someone else—that I had a different face, a different body. The way he looks at me makes me feel beautiful. When he kisses me, I liquify and forget all my insecurities.

He slides his hands down my back to my ass, tugging me tighter against him until I can feel the long ridge of his erection through my jeans. “Do you remember that night in your room?” he whispers, his breath warm in my ear.

Do I remember? Hell, it’s moved from memory to my favorite fantasy. I wonder how many times I’ve relived that night in my brain. “Of course I do.”

“I almost left as soon as you fell back asleep.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted more. And I thought you might give it to me. And then I’d hate myself.”

I run my fingers down the line of his jaw. He hasn’t shaved since before he flew here, and rough stubble abrades my fingertips. “I would’ve given you anything.” The idea is terrifying. He touched me and made me come, and I was ready to throw away my plans and move across the country to chase him. If we’d made love that night, I would’ve been a mess.

“I never expected you to wait for me, but I hate that he got that piece of you.”

I turn, watching the lights flash by outside my window. “Is this about my virginity? Was that first time a guy was inside me somehow more important than what I can offer now?”

“No. I’m just jealous, Shay. Jealous as fuck that the timing was right for you and him and not for you and me.” He cups my face. “Jealous that no matter what happens tonight, when you go home it’ll still be easier for you to be with him than me.”

Easton is jealous of Steve. This baffles me. Half of my brain is convinced this is a dream. The other half is pretty sure I’ve somehow slipped into an alternate reality. “I wanted more that night too,” I whisper. Because in this timeline, I get to say exactly what I’m thinking. “You touched me, and then I wanted to . . .” I swallow. “I wanted more.”

His lips brush mine, then open, and he sucks at my bottom lip. When he tilts his head and nibbles up my neck, shivers of pleasure race along my skin. He flicks my earlobe with his tongue before sucking it between his teeth. I lean into him, half mortified by the moan that slips from my mouth. He wraps me up tighter.

He looks around, and I’m suddenly aware that he’s been so busy watching me that he’s just now taking in the space for the first time. “I made my assistant track down the nicest available suite in the city. I got lucky that this one had a last-minute cancelation.”

His assistant. For a beat, I wonder if I even know this Easton—the one who doesn’t have to worry about money, the one who reserves the nicest available suite in Paris, the one who has an assistant and a driver. But that worry’s gone in a blip. He’s still Easton. He’s still the boy who bought me a signed copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for my fifteenth birthday. The one who always looked back for me when I was swimming to the dock with the boys, just to make sure I was okay. The one who makes me feel beautiful when he touches me.

I snort. He’s been saying stuff like that all night, so maybe I should be used to it by now, but it’s so outrageous. Him distracted by me. “I can just sleep in one of your T-shirts or something.”

“It’s just college, you know? Stress and convenience food and . . . beer.” I laugh, nodding. “There’s definitely a beer factor in this tummy as well. Anyway, I wasn’t exactly little before, and now . . .” I shrug, hoping the gesture says, What you see is what you get.

The reminder sends a thrill through me. I felt it, all right. Felt him.

“No.” I shake my head. “It’s not that. Easton, I want this.” I don’t know what tomorrow brings. I don’t know how long I get you. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a night like this again. They’re words I can’t let myself speak, so I just repeat, “I want this.”