“Are you asking me on a date?”

“Nah, I just planned to drive you there, then not say a word to you all night.”

She laughs loudly. “Idiot,” she says, almost fondly. “Sure. You can give me a ride, as long as you promise not to talk to me, ’cause then there’s no chance of you screwing up.”

“It’s okay,” I reply, opening the gate and guiding her to my truck with my hand on her back. “I’ll just buy some more flowers.”

“I can change my mind, you know.”

“Don’t do that. There’s a chance I was followed here, and I’d look like a huge dick if my girlfriend bailed on me right before a party we’re both attending. So between you and me, I’m real glad the flowers worked.”

“Ads?” she says my name softly when I get into the truck. “I got the message.”

Red roses mean respect as well as love, pink roses signify appreciation, and yellow stand for the promise of a new beginning. Eleven roses show the recipient that they’re truly loved.

While I know I’m not in love with Jessie right now, I know that the prospect is very, very real.

I look at her from the corner of my eye, just meeting her gaze. “Good.”

I run my fingers through Jessie’s hair, right to the very tips. I watch, half-asleep, as the bright red ends fall away and flutter back down to the white hotel pillow. Then I do it again, and again, all the while with her still sleeping.

When I woke up ten minutes ago, I found her snuggled into my back with her legs bent into me, essentially spooning me. I rolled over and she immediately moved, sliding one of her legs between mine and looping an arm over my waist. I snuck my arm beneath her head and down her back to pull her into me as she tucked her face into my chest.

Thirty minutes into the party we bailed. Despite our security being there, it was fucking crazy, and not one single woman in the bar had any respect for Ella or Jessie. Sofie? Sure. She and Conner are bound by something nobody could destroy—Mila. But Ella and Jessie . . . they’re both new girlfriends, and new girlfriends are replaceable in the eyes of someone who sees dollar signs when they look at you.

I looked at them, too. I won’t lie. I’m human. But the fame and fortune in their eyes . . . It’s different from before. It’s the frustrating push and pull between money and acknowledgment—like I’m someone they know beyond the radio chart or the latest Twitter trend. And I’ve realized that addiction, that unrelenting obsession—it’s nothing.

A big, fat, fucking nothing.

Not a single one interested me. Not with their perfect hair and false eyelashes and dresses so short their asses were practically on show.

The only girl in that bar that interested me was the one standing next to me. With her lipstick smudged at the corner of her mouth from sucking on a straw poking from a fishbowl with Sofie. The one whose hair was falling out of its carefully placed clips and tumbling down her back. The one whose dress was a little rumpled at the side and had a beer splash mark on the hem because Tate tripped over a chair leg.

The imperfect girl that had a smile on her face that screamed of love for her friends and fuck you to anyone who didn’t like that.

The same imperfect girl who’s lying in my arms, breathing deeply as she sleeps, wearing nothing but a tiny G-string I declined to remove eight hours ago when I flipped her onto her knees and grabbed her hips so I could fuck her deeply.

The girl who looks at me and sees an idiot, an asshole . . . but one who brings her flowers that mean something. I’m an asshole, but I’m an asshole who cares.

And fuck. Looking at her right now, I want to be her asshole.

I’ve grown up my whole life belonging to someone. No matter what I did, I always belonged to my twin brother. Identical DNA decided that. It decided that we’d always be a part of each other, and that it would take some fucking catastrophic event to cut that tie. I always craved belonging to no one but me, and as we’ve grown up that’s something that’s eased. Our ties have loosened despite our freaky twin connections, and we’ve gradually belonged to ourselves and only ourselves.

But Jessie . . .

She makes me want to belong to someone again. To someone different. To someone who challenges me and makes me laugh and gives me that dumb warm fuzzy feeling they talk about in chick flicks.

My sleeping girl moves a little, tilting her head back so only her chin is grazing my chest. I look down at her, trailing my fingers over her back. There are tiny freckles dotted across her nose, spreading out onto the tops of her cheeks. Her makeup usually covers the small brown dots, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen her without it. At least, it’s the first time I’ve ever paid attention to her without it.

She’s cute. She’s cute and beautiful at the same time. The cuteness is in her rounded cheeks that flush so often, and the beauty is in the flash of her eyes or the curve of her lips. I didn’t know someone could be that. Beautiful and cute at the same time.

Jessie Law is, quite literally, a law unto herself.

Sassy and carefree, honest and gentle, strong and quick. She’s a mixture of so many qualities that complement the other, and it’s equal parts fascinating and terrifying to look at. I never know what kind of response I’m going to get when I talk to her, much less what she’s thinking.

She’s an open book, but her pages are written in invisible ink.

And fuck, I’d serenade her in the middle of the Walmart parking lot at noon on a Saturday just to be on one single page of her story.

And no one goes to Walmart at noon on a Saturday if they have an ounce of common sense.

Except I know that one page of her story wouldn’t be enough. I want the title, the chapters, and the whole fucking plotline. I want to be her story.

That song—the one she made me play for her, the one where I hit the drums before I could think, the one that’s exactly the same every single time I play it, that’s my story.

In my story, Jessie is every fucking word.

I brush my lips against her forehead, and she responds by sticking her foot out of the covers.

“Hot,” she murmurs sleepily. “You’re a human hot-water bottle.”

“It’s almost winter,” I reply with a smile. “You should be thankful for that.”

“Where’s breakfast?” she yawns, opening her eyes. The lazy blue hue shows how tired she is. “I’m hungry.”

“You worked up an appetite last night.”

She snorts. “I had an appetite forced upon me.”

“Forced? As I recall, I heard the word yes several times, and the only time no was uttered from your mouth was when I wasn’t inside you.”

“Shhh.” She holds her finger against my lips. “I’m not accountable for anything I said while under the influence of fishbowl cocktails and Aidan Robert Burke.”

“Holy fuck. Who told you my middle name?”

She smiles lazily. “I’ll never tell.”

I flip over so she’s beneath me and she bats at me, attempting to roll over. I grasp her hands and hold them over her head, and she groans.

“Gerroff,” she mumbles, kicking her legs against the bed like a toddler having a tantrum.

Laughing, I dip my head. “Tell me.”

“Gerroooofffff me.”

“Promise you won’t use my middle name again?” I brush my lips against her jaw.

“Never.” She turns her face until our lips meet. She flicks her tongue against my bottom lip teasingly and arches her body into mine, her bare, hardened nipples dragging against my chest.

My cock swells as it hardens, the head nudging against the smooth mound of skin right above her pussy.

It would be so fucking easy to kiss her until she’s wet and begging and then slide inside her right now.

And obviously sensing—or feeling—my distraction, Jessie rolls us to the side, takes her hands away, and jumps out of the bed. The same hotel bed I hate having to take her to whenever I want to explore and devour her body.