If It's Only Love (Lexi Ryan)

Easton

"Can I tell you a secret?" Shay asks.

We're tangled together in the dark, and I don't even know if she realizes it, but she hasn't stopped running her fingers up and down my torso since I came back to bed. It's like she can't stop touching me, and I fucking love it. "What's your secret?"

"I'm writing a novel."

I grin even though I know she can't see it. "Of course you are. You're Shay." For as long as I remember, she's always been reading or talking about a book. She was always coming back from the bookstore or camped out at the library. Books and Shay don't just go together-I can't think of one without the other.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No. I think it's awesome. I guess I always assumed you'd end up writing something."

"You don't think it's stupid?"

"Why would I think that?" I smooth her hair back, wishing I could see her face.

"I don't know. Lots of people write books and nothing ever happens. I'm not sure I'll ever be good enough to get it published, but I had this story in my head and I wanted to try to get it down." "Will you tell me about it?"

I can feel her hesitation in the stiffness of her body, but she releases a breath and it falls away. "Don't laugh."

"I wouldn't."

"It's about a nerdy high school girl who falls for her brother's best friend. He's a football player."

I smile so wide that she'd probably laugh if she could see me. "I like it already. A little autobiographical story there, Shay?"

She smacks my stomach. "No."

I wrap my arms around her and roll her under me. I kiss her neck as I find her hands, clasping them in mine and guiding them over her head. "You told me once that you had a crush on one of your brothers' friends," I murmur, settling a knee between her legs. "I wanted to think it was me."

She arches into me, and I wonder if she knows what a turn-on it is that she responds to me so quickly. So completely. "Of course it was you. It was always you, Easton."

My throat goes thick with all I want to say. I wish I could just show her the inside of my heart-touch her hand and telegraph what it is she makes me feel. She's the one who's good with words. I don't know how to do that, but I do know how to support her. "Write your book, Shay. And when you're done, you'd better tell me so I can remind you how awesome you are and how much the world needs to read the stories only you can tell."

She shudders under me as if I've just whispered an erotic secret in her ear. "Everyone deserves someone who makes them feel the way you make me feel."

"I only speak the truth."

"In that case, I need you to answer a question for me."

"Anything."

She's quiet for several long moments, and I use the time to kiss a path from her ear down to her collarbone, and her measured breaths go jagged. "Easton, is this a 'just because we're in Paris' thing?" I lift my head reluctantly before I reach her breast. "What? What does that mean?"

She pulls out of my arms, and I feel her looking at me in the darkness, but I can't make out her features. We're supposed to be sleeping, but I should've known I couldn't sleep with her naked next to me and insisted we keep the lights on. I want to see her. All of her. "It's okay," she says. "If this is, like, something we only do once. I can understand that."

I take her face in my hand, skimming my fingers over her soft cheek. "You know what I've been asking myself since we got here?"

"What?"

"If there's a way I can have you without being the reason you give up your dreams."

"I don't understand. Why do you even want me, Easton?"

"Because you're Shay."

She laughs. "That's not actually an answer."

"Well, why do you want me?"

She scoffs. "Because my heart beats faster every time you're close. Because any time I know I get to see you or talk to you... any time I'm even expecting a text message from you makes me feel like a kid or Christmas Eve. Because when I have your attention I feel like the luckiest girl in the world."

"Yeah." My voice shakes, as unsteady as this feeling in my chest. This is all so tenuous, and I'm fucking terrified I'm going to screw it up somehow. "It's pretty much the same for me."

"You feel like the luckiest girl in the world?"

I release her hands and grab her sides. I trap her with a knee on either side of her waist and tickle her. She squirms with laughter under me. Then her back arches and our bodies are flush again and we're not laughing anymore.

I lower my mouth to hers as I slide my hand up to cup her breast. "Come see me this summer," I say against her lips. "Come visit me in L.A. before training camp. I know you can't stay-you need to finish your degree but visit, sleep with me, and be there when I get home every night." I swallow hard. I don't know what I'll do if she says no. I've never wanted anything more. "Everything after that we can just take a week at a time."

"Okay," she says. "I'll be there."

I grin. "Does that mean Shayleigh Jackson's going to be my girlfriend?"

"I don't know. I'm so convinced I'm going to wake up from this crazy dream any minute now."

I nuzzle my face in the crook of her neck and pinch her nipple. "Then let me prove you're not dreaming."

Shay

Paris with Easton is nothing short of a dream. I can't imagine a life in which this day doesn't remain one of my favorite memories.

I told my professor that a family friend was in Paris and got permission to spend the day with him while my classmates continued with previously scheduled activities.

Easton and I used every second we had. We took a boat ride down the Seine, walked up the steep hill to Sacré-Coeur, and shared gelato from a street cart outside an art gallery in Montmartre. When we walked the streets of Le Marais by his hotel, he insisted on buying me this lavender-and-lemon-scented soap, and a pretty pink-and-purple scarf. I tell myself it's a good thing he has to leave tonight. If he didn't I'd probably get myself in trouble trying to get out of more time with my classmates so I could be with him. But I don't want him to go. In Paris, we're in this bubble-a microcosm where Shayleigh Jackson and Easton Connor isn't an absurd joke but an actual possibility.

His driver takes me back to the dorms to drop me off before he heads to the airport, and he kisses me so long in the back of the limo that I find myself straddling his waist again.

He groans and grips my waist with the possessive strength I love so much. "You're going to make me late for my flight."

"Sorry." I blush, but there's no real embarrassment. Not after all we shared last night. "I know you need to go. I just don't want you to."

He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and studies my face. "I don't want to either. But I see you next month, right? You're not going to chicken out on me? You'll fly to L.A.? Stay with me in Laguna?"

In truth, I'm terrified to visit Easton. That feels more like the "real world" than Paris ever will. Will he realize then, when we're in the middle of all the flash and glitz of his life, that I don't fit?

"I can already tell you're overthinking it." He runs a thumb across my bottom lip. "I can see it on your face."

"I can't believe we're going to try to make this real."

"Believe it, Shay."

"I'm scared."

"I want this, and you do too. It might be hard, but it's just a couple of years, and then we'll figure out what's next." He kisses me hard one more time before whispering, "Next month. You and me." I want it to be true, but it almost feels like I want it too much. My stomach flips. How can this work when I don't fit in his world?

Easton

A week after my tour with Shay, I'm back on the Starling campus for another meeting. We all know I'm going to take the job, but we need to do this dance just to make sure they appreciate what they're getting. Even though it's cold as fuck outside and my body is no longer accustomed to this ice-and-snow shit, I parked on the liberal arts side of campus on the off chance I might run into Shay-because I'm just that pathetic. I swing into the library for a coffee and am relieved to see the grumpy barista is busy with another customer.

I hand the girl at the register my travel thermos. "A large black coffee, please."

"You got it." She winks at me and turns to fill my cup.

My gaze snags on the man talking on his cell at the end of the bar. George motherfucking Alby. Shayleigh's secret boyfriend. Jesus. What a pompous ass. I hate him, and even though I know my feelings are completely biased and entangled with irrational jealousy, they're there. I'm not interested in investing the energy to change them.

"I miss you too," he says softly. Hell. Is he talking to Shay? His grin turns lascivious. "Save that for tonight. It'll be worth the wait. I promise, Buttercup."

God, he is talking to Shay. The barista puts down my mug to help her coworker find something beneath the counter, and I will her to hurry. I don't think I can handle listening to Professor Douche sweet-talk Shay.

"Nah, don't be like that," he croons. "We're both so busy through midterms." He hums and closes his eyes. I half expect him to reach down and adjust himself in front of the whole library. "Anything for you." He chuckles. "I won't even make you beg this time."

Bile surges up my throat. Fuck it. Coffee isn't worth this. They can keep the mug.

I turn on my heel, leave the kiosk, and push out of the library. And practically run into Shayleigh Jackson.

She steps back at the last second, saving us both from a head-on collision. "Easton, what are you doing on this side of campus?" She frowns. "Hey, are you okay?"

Jealousy is a giant drill twisting in my gut. "Fine. I was just getting some coffee."

Her gaze drops to my empty hands just as the bubbly barista rushes out of the library with a steaming cup. "Mr. Connor, you forgot your coffee."

I grimace as I accept it. "Right. Thanks so much."

Shay snorts. "Rough night?"

"Not exactly." I watch the girl head back in and see George pull the phone from his ear. I look back and forth between him and Shay. Is he already ending another call, or was he sweet-talking someone other than Shay?

I throw another glance over my shoulder. Professor Douche is still in the coffee shop, now chatting with another man who looks like he's probably faculty. "Did you just get off the phone with . . . your man?" Since I know she's afraid the word will get out about their relationship before she's defended her dissertation, I don't use his name.

"No." Her brows pull down together and her lips pucker in the cutest fucking pout. Fierce possession claws at me. He doesn't deserve her. "Why do you ask?"

I wave toward the windows to the view of the man in question. "I just saw him in there. He was having an interesting phone conversation with someone he called Buttercup."

"Okay..."

"Is that what he calls you? Buttercup?"

"No." She shakes her head. "You're being weird, Easton."

"If you're not Buttercup, I wonder who is." I fold my arms. "I wonder who he was just talking to on the phone."

She sighs and grabs me by the arm to pull me away from the library entrance and around the side of the building. She tilts her head to the side. "Listen. I know you don't like him, but I'm not asking you to. I don't need your approval or your friendship. If you recall, I've lived just fine without it for over a decade."

"Not quite a decade," I whisper, thinking of that night in Chicago. She hadn't talked to me in years, but when she needed someone, she came to me. That meant something.

Her eyes narrow to slits. "Are you planning to rub my nose in my mistakes?"

"Shay-"

"I don't care if you like George or if you think my relationship is doomed to fail, but I'm not going to let you stir up trouble where there is none."

"I'm not stirring anything. I'm just stating facts. I heard him on the phone, and he-"

She holds up a hand. "Stop. Just..." She shakes her head, her jaw tight. "Please just stop."

"I don't want him to break your heart."

"Right. Because I guess that's your job."

The blow lands just as she intended it to, and I flinch. "I never wanted to break your heart either." The last word sounds as broken as I feel.

She tilts her face up toward the sky, and I can't help but notice how pink her cheeks are in the cold, how red her lips are. "You think that just because you're back here, just because you're not married, we should go to dinner, catch up. I should dump my boyfriend and let you be part of my life. Hey, maybe when it's convenient for you, I could take you back to my place and we could find out if I've picked up any new skills in bed in the last seven years?"

I suck in a breath. "You really hate me, don't you?"

"You broke me." She might as well have just plunged a knife in my gut. It would hurt less, but I can only swallow and take it. I deserve every word. "Forgive me if I'm not rushing to sign up for another round." She walks away, and all I can do is lean against the side of the building and press a hand to the ache in my chest.