The Rule Book: A Novel

The elevator is so silent I’m worried Derek can hear my thumping heart—but it has nothing to do with what took place at that bar.

“Are you really okay?” he asks for the hundredth time since leaving the club a few hours ago. I was shaken up at first, but then we came back to the resort and Derek worry-ordered me five different appetizers and three desserts and we spent two solid hours just talking and laughing in the nice barroom. Now my anxiety about it has completely faded and been replaced with a warm-sparkly comfort.

“I really am. I promise times a million.”

“I just…” He shakes his head. “I hope you know. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Nora.”

“I know,” I say, softly. “And I hope you know I’d definitely fight off a guy in a bar for you too.”

A smirk slices the side of his mouth. “Oh, I know.”

He’s on one side of the elevator leaned back against the wall and I’m against the other. You couldn’t charge the air between us more even if you were to hook us up to electricity. His arms are folded, one lazy ankle crossed over the other, head tilted, eyes fixed on me.

I’m mirroring him while we calculate each other. Considering briefly all the ways we might royally screw up each other’s lives if we act on the impulses zipping under our skin and it turns out to be a mistake. The thing is, I’ve never felt more certain that this is not a mistake. Not this time around.

And when those ice-blue eyes of his land on me and linger, I feel like I’m free-falling into a pool of bliss. They leave my face briefly to trail down my neck, across my collarbones, over the curve of my shoulders and chest and abdomen. He looks at me as if he’s devouring me little by little.

God help me, I want him to.

His gaze catches mine again and he doesn’t look in control anymore, he looks desperate.

The elevator dings and a man steps in between us. Derek and I don’t move. The poor guy is caught in a dangerous crossfire, and he knows it. He taps his foot anxiously as the elevator advances us. He’s the next stop and no sooner than the doors open does he dart out with a nervous look over his shoulder.

The doors shut and I grin.

Derek’s jaw flexes. “There’s two rules left…” He pauses and I encourage him with a lifted brow. He continues in a voice like black silk, “Two left we haven’t broken.”

“Only two?” I feel oddly accomplished that we managed to break eighteen out of twenty rules since working together.

“Only two,” he repeats, holding up two lazy fingers.

I immediately know which two are left:

Rule number 3: No friendship.

Rule number twenty: No sex.

He crooks his finger twice. “Come here.”

“Not a chance,” I say, wrapping my hands around the railing at my back to anchor me. “You come here.”

“Always have to win, don’t you?” he says with a pleased grin.

“And you can’t keep yourself from competing.”

The elevator is almost to our floor, and the look on Derek’s face has my heart racketing against my sternum, trying to crack my ribs. “All right, then. What are your parameters for this competition?”

I bite my lip just as the elevator doors open. I can’t believe we’re going to do this, and yet I’m helpless to stop it. No, that’s not true. I don’t want to stop it. He has been a magnetic force in my life since the day I met him at that party in college—I don’t want to overthink it. I just want to be with Derek tonight and hope that I get all the nights after it too.

I step out of the elevator and Derek prowls closely behind as we walk down the hallway to our suite. I’m hyperaware of my skin. Of the way my clothes hug me. The sound of our feet against the luxurious carpeting. Of his hungry expression in every mirror we pass.

“It’ll be like the question game,” I say over my shoulder, and then face forward again. “Mixed with strip poker.”

I’m aware of Derek’s steps faltering slightly behind me. But by the time we reach the door and he holds the key card against it, he’s completely composed. More than composed, in fact—his confidence is radiating from his large form like he’s the origin of all seduction. If there is anything Derek excels at—it’s this.

A thrill twirls through me. This particular dance has never been more fun than with the man holding the door open for me.

“Okay,” he says, his voice a low gravel after we’re both closed inside the room. “So, if I answer the question you take a piece of clothing off, and if I don’t answer it, I have to?”

I nod. “Whoever is naked first loses…and they have to make the first move.”

He stares at me for a beat with a wolfish smile. “I’m in.”

Oh. He knows exactly how good he looks with that slanted half smile—and yet he has no mercy on me. He drops his gaze to his wrist, where he unlatches his watch and tosses it on the couch. “A freebie,” he says in a tone that makes my thighs clench.

I can’t help but feel he’s too far away and too close at the same time.

I’ve very quickly lost the upper hand. He’s so much better at this game of seduction than me.

That’s why I follow his lead and kick off my heels. “A freebie for a freebie.”

His eyes narrow slightly as he holds my grin. “You go first, Ginger Snap.”

Okay, I might faint. My heart is beating too fast. My skin is clammy. How did I think this was a fun idea? It seemed exciting when we were in the elevator, and I was still high off adrenaline from the club. But now it’s gone and I’m just in this room with a man who overwhelms my senses. Who is sexier than any man has any business being.

There’s only two rules we haven’t broken.

There was no mistaking his intent when he said those words. And there’s no mistaking how much I agree with him. Tonight, number twenty is for sure getting detroyed.

But I also play to win every game I ever compete in. So I will not be caving first—which means I need to keep as many articles of clothing as possible. Be prepared to lay my heart on the line with the questions he asks me and think of truly impossible questions to ask him.

“Derek,” I say with a taunting tone.

“Yes, Nora?” He takes a step closer. We’re six feet apart now, standing in the middle of our suite with a huge window to our right. A more beautiful picture has never existed than the sight of the moon, dipping over the dark, rolling ocean.

I think of a question I know he won’t want to answer. Prepare to lose a piece of your precious clothing. “What’s in your bedside table?”

Derek gives me an indiscernible look. “You’re determined to find that out, aren’t you? Pass.”

A zing of triumph soars through me until Derek’s eyes glitter. He leans over and kicks off his shoes.

“Nora,” he says when he returns to a standing position, arms folded. “What is your favorite dessert?”

I frown. “You know the answer to that question. Why not ask me something better?” I ask, as my brain scrambles in the dark for his angle.

He gives me a look that betrays nothing. “You didn’t say we couldn’t ask questions we already knew the answer to.” Suspicious.

Narrowing my eyes, I answer, “Ice cream and cereal.”

He grins. Not just any grin, though—a hot, melting, intentional grin as he works the buttons of his shirt open, one by one, all the way down that gorgeous, defined abdomen. He shrugs out of it and my heart leaps. The tops of his shoulders are deeply tanned from our days on the beach. And nothing is sexier than how his dress pants sit low around his hips, taunting me with the upper band of his black boxer briefs and somehow intensifying the dark detail of the winged hawks on his chest. Even this man’s hips are defined. There’s a band of muscle that sits where most people have love handles and it trails down into the V at his lower abdomen. It would be easy to hate him for how stacked he is if I didn’t know how incredibly hard he works for it.

“You could have taken your socks off instead,” I tell him, mentally remapping the route to find his destination.

“I could have.” He’s amused. A sly trickster. “Your turn.”

I don’t know what he’s playing at yet, and because my brain is just intrigued enough to need the answer, I step closer and try his same tactic. “All right, Mr. Smirky Pants. What’s your favorite color?”

If he answers, I have to take off a piece of my clothing, and it’s risky considering I’m wearing less than him to start. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay to find out what he’s up to. I get the feeling there’s a second secret competition he’s started, and I want to win that one too.

Derek’s brows knit together, and he tilts his head. His jaw looks sharp enough to cut a steak. “Pass. That’s deeply personal.”

“What!” Not only am I flabbergasted that he would refuse to answer and forfeit a piece of clothing, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what his aim is in doing so. It feels less like the question game and more like putting a little ball under a cup and mixing them all around and then asking me to find it. Thrilling. “Not that I don’t appreciate the importance you’re putting on artistic expression, but how in the world is that personal?”

He tsks. “That sounds like another question. Wait your turn, greedy woman.”

I sigh and cross my arms over my fully clothed body as I watch him double over to slide off his socks. As he does, I’m treated to the most exquisite view of shoulder and back muscles bunching and twisting under his tattoos. It’s like watching a superhero get cozy for the night. He straightens up and lifts his foot to wiggle his toes in a playful, over-the-top seductive way. But I’m not looking at his toes. I’m looking at his abs contracting as he balances on one foot. Lordy.

Whatever he asks next, I need to refuse to answer and take off a piece of clothing. I can’t explain why or how—but I can see this second secret game playing out in his eyes and I will be a participant.

“Nora…do you feel safe with me?”

I gasp and point a finger at him. “Foul! That’s a manipulative question. You can’t ask me one you know I’m not going to want to leave hanging.”

He shrugs slightly—again not giving any hints to what he’s thinking. What his motivation is…because as it stands, it looks like he’s trying to lose. “We can’t always play by the rules,” he says with a smirk, and I wonder how long he’s been waiting to use my exact words against me.

I’m all turned around now. I don’t know if I should answer or pass. So I tell the truth. “I’ve never felt safer with anyone than you.”

His chest expands with a breath and the barest smile curves his mouth. And then, he’s unfastening his chinos and dropping them down to the floor. Step, step—he’s pantsless.

Now, Derek Freaking Pender (that should be his actual middle name but really it’s Felix and he hates it) is standing in front of me in skintight black boxer briefs and I’m about to faint. Sure, I’ve seen him naked plenty of times. But that was different. We were young, and time (that unforgiving jerk) has erased most of my memory.

This…this feels like an entirely new experience. This feels like palms sweating. Thighs tingling. Toes curling.

One more question and I win.

He sees the hungry look in my eyes and his grin turns downright wicked. “Ask your question.”

I don’t hesitate. “Why do you anonymously fund a nonprofit that helps single mothers pay their rent and mortgage?”

His eyes flare. I got him on that one. “You really were digging through my finances, weren’t you? Pass.”

And then without an ounce of self-consciousness, without a bit of hesitation, Derek steps completely out of his underwear, leaving all of him (and I do mean all of him) on display for my eyes to devour. He lost and I won—but when his eyes lock with mine and I see the arrogant glimmer I love so much, when he steps closer to me to make the first move as defined in the earlier rules of the game…it sure feels like he won somehow.

“What’s the secret game you were playing?” I ask, my face tipping up, up, up as he approaches. He’s powerful clothed. He’s unearthly naked. My skin warms and tingles as every cell in my body reaches for him.

“No secret game.”

“Don’t lie to me, Pender.”

“Truly.” He glides my hair back, fingertips brushing my shoulder in a whisper. “I only lost because I want to show you in a physical way that I’m intentionally and completely vulnerable to you, Nora. That I’ll gladly lose to you every day of my life—because for me, the prize is just being near you.” His hand slides against my jaw and a tremble runs through me.

“Now, a few truths.” He leans down to kiss my cheek. “I don’t want to tell you what’s in my bedside table because when I do, it will change everything between us, and I don’t think you’re ready for it yet. I have no desire to watch you bolt out the door, so you’ll have to be content with waiting.” Another kiss on my other cheek as delicious heat billows off his body, silently calling to mine. “My favorite color is hazel.” He angles my jaw up and his lips find the underside of it. “And I fund that organization because when we were dating, you said you’d wished something like that would have existed for your mom and other moms like her. So when I got my first major paycheck and my CPA asked what kind of charities I’d like to donate to, your words were the first ones that sprang to mind. I did it anonymously because I didn’t want you to see it and think it was strange of me.”

“I would never have—” He silences me with a finger to the bow of my lips.

“And the first day I saw you again in the conference room, I was livid”—he growls that word—“that you were still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.”

Now tears collect in my eyes and drop down my cheeks. Derek wipes them with his thumbs. “I’m at your feet, Nora. If you want me, I’m yours.”

There’s no part of me that needs to even pause to consider it. “Yes, Derek, I want—”