Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
His blue eyes sparkle with intrigue. “You have to tell me now, TJ.” My name sounds like a bedroom whisper on his lips.
“You’ll never get that out of me,” I say, matching his breathless tone.
He arches a brow. “Never? Never ever, you say?”
I could dine on his charm. I could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner on his wit. I never want to leave this store. We can play word badminton till after dark. I’ll stop only when the lights go down, and we can do all the other things—the things I’m already picturing with that lush, red mouth of his.
“Never,” I repeat, then take a long, lingering moment. “Unless you have your ways.”
He hums, a rumbly sound low in his throat. Then he taps his chin. “Perhaps I could guess. Thomas James?”
I shake my head. “Not even close.”
“Theodore John.” He makes a rolling gesture. “I could go all night.”
“I hope so. And, perhaps, you should,” I say.
Over drinks. Over sex. Over breakfast.
But the shop bell tinkles.
Jude groans as a customer strolls in. “I have to go wait on a customer.”
And I have to make sure you and I go out tonight.
But before I can say You’ll find me here by the Oscar Wildes, Jude adds, “Don’t go anywhere, Thiago Jonas.”
“You’re not even warm,” I say as he walks past me, brushing his shoulder against mine.
“But I bet you are,” he whispers.
I try to stifle the hitch in my breath. But it’s hard with this man, and his mouth, and his face, and my good fortune.
“Very,” I say, low, just for him.
“Good,” he says, then strides to the front of the store and chitchats with a customer. The whole time he ushers her around, my neck is warm, my head is hazy, and I feel like this is happening to some other guy. Like this is just a figment of my jet-lagged brain.
I flip open the book, turn it to one of my favorite scenes, and hear the lines in Jude’s voice.
It’s never sounded better.
A few minutes later, Jude returns, sliding up by my side to read over my shoulder, his breath near my ear. “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” He stops before I melt, because yeah, that’s the best I’ve ever heard this play. “Do you like Oscar Wilde?”
“Very much so,” I say, trying to stay cool. “You?”
“A lot,” he says, and neither one of us is talking about the Irish poet.
But I feel Wilde would approve of everything I’m about to do.
“Go out with me tonight, Jude,” I say, as a tangle of heat rushes down my chest, curls into a knot in my belly.
“I was hoping you’d ask. But . . .” He pauses, and my stomach plummets. This is when he’ll disappoint me. “I have to work till nine. Can you meet at nine-thirty?
That’s it? That’s the but? I would meet him at three in the morning. At noon. Now.
I keep all that eagerness to myself. “Yeah. Want to meet at a pub? Get a beer? That sounds so very English.”
“And it also sounds so very good,” he says. “Where are you staying?”
“Not far from here. My hotel’s near Piccadilly Circus.”
“Meet me at The Magpie.”
“I’ll be there.”
He points to the book. “Is this the edition you came for? The one with the two men in top hats?”
“It’s perfect.”
“Did you really want the book?”
I swallow roughly, meet his eyes, speak the whole truth. “I really want the book,” I say, and it’s not a lie. It also might have a double meaning.
As he heads to the counter, I follow him. I feel like I’d follow him anywhere, and that’s a dangerous thought. But now’s not the time for analyzing.
Now is a time for doing.
Jude rings me up, slides the card reader across the counter, then takes out his phone. After I swipe my credit card, he says, “And I believe you were going to give me your number, TJ.”
As I slide him the card reader, he gives me his phone. I keep my head down, so he can’t see the size of my smile as I tap in my digits then swivel the device back to him. Seconds later, he sends me a text.
Jude: Mark my words. I’ll figure out what TJ stands for. I have my ways.
TJ: Just try them on me.
Then, since it’s always good to leave them wanting more, I take the Wilde and go. As I walk off, I can see the rest of my days and nights in London in a whole new way.
4
A GREAT DICK WITH A GREAT DICK
Jude
I’ve had dates that started worse.
There was the guy who turned out to be my second cousin, though we thankfully learned of our interconnected family tree branches before we smacked lips. Then, there was another guy who informed me the second I sat down at the table that he liked to take cold baths before sex.