Page 102 of Bribed by the Billionaire Bad Boy

Far too soon, I’m pulling into her neighborhood, facing the looming need to say goodbye for what will be the longest weekend of my life.

When I come to a complete stop in her empty driveway, she doesn’t make a move to remove her hand from mine. She stares straight ahead out the windshield at her house, like she’s beyond disenchanted to see it there.

“Everything okay, sugar?” I ask, keeping my voice soft in case I’m breaking into any of her most private thoughts.

Slowly, her face turns toward me, then her eyes close. Perfectly poised, she waits, and my heart leaps at the idea she’s actually daring enough to ask. And so soon.

I’m not about to lose establishing this as a thing.

Leaning across the console, I kiss her gently, absorbing the feeling of her lips working against mine like it’s my life blood.

She pulls away first this time, her cheeks flaring scarlet in the streetlights streaming up her drive. Her fingers pull free of my hand, and she reaches for her backpack and her glasses as she opens the door. “Text me over the weekend,” she states, getting out.

Cold streaks of air flood in past her while she waits in the doorway for me to confirm.

I nod. “Okay. I will.”

She takes a breath, holds it. “And bring muffins on Monday.”

“What flavor?” I’m not going to argue with anything she says right now—not while the taste of her lingers in my mouth. She could hold out her hand and ask for a thousand dollars; I’d give her my credit card and whisper my PIN in her ear.

“Pumpkin spice.”

I chuckle. “Aren’t you a season late?”

“Yes.” Her gaze slips from my eyes to my lips, and I hope she might be bold enough to climb back in here and ask for another kiss. Then another. And another. Let her mom come home tocatch us in a tangle in my car. I don’t care. I’d just sweep her away to my house and kiss her all night.

She doesn’t humor my fantasy. “I’ll see you,” she says, then closes my door and walks away.

Sighing, I watch her until she disappears, then I feel the giddiness rise up my chest. Unable to hold down my smile, I press my fist to my lips and beam.

Calypsolikesme.

Calypso

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lex and I text all weekend. On Saturday, he starts with a “Good morning, beautiful” that makes my groggy little heart skip a beat as I roll over in bed and wonder who the heck gets upearlyon aSaturday.

I text for him to go back to sleep.

He, obviously, says he can’t, because he’s too busy thinking about me.

The man is even more unbearable in text than in person.

I spend a solid ten minutes stuck thinking about how much I love him.

The next time we text, I initiate by sending him a picture of my breakfast. On my phone, the image quality is atrocious, but I made my eggs look like a little face, and that’s worth sharing.

Next, around noon, he says a bird flew into his house, so he has a new housemate since no one can reach where the little guy is perching.

Then I’m telling him about my shopping list. Tomorrow is shopping day.

He rambles for half an hour about pandas, and I respond for half an hour about magpies. Since we’re talking about animals, it seems only fitting.

Evening falls, and I’m doing homework when he sends me a picture of his ukulele, simply titled—He misses you.

I miss him, too.