The Note (Manhattan Nights #5) - Natalie Wrye Page 0,52

“I think I’m glad I stick to espresso. I’m off tequila and the hard stuff for a while…” I place a hand on his own, patting. “But thanks for giving it a try.”

His shoulders fall. “You’re a tough crowd.”

I laugh. “I’ll take that as a compliment from a man who regularly stomachs Stephen King.”

“Is that an insult?” He eyes me, his blue eyes heating.

“On the contrary, actually.” The taste of the scotch plays hopscotch on my tongue, slowing my speech. “I don’t know how you do it. Stephen King absolutely terrifies me.” I sink farther onto my stool. “Me? I’ll take a Happily-Ever-After story any day.” I giggle, feeling the effects of the alcohol. My skin tingles. “It’s why I majored in Russian Literature, for God’s sake. I had no idea…”

Noah’s brows tighten. “No idea of what?”

I set down my glass, listening to it thud. “That fairytales aren’t really real.”

I wait for Noah to laugh at me, to blow it off. I don’t know why I even reveal the thought. But the second it’s out of my mouth, I snap my lips shut, hoping to shut the secret doors to my past tight.

Unfortunately for me, Noah knocks right on them, his stare intent—completely intense as he sidles closer, his muscular forearm taut as he sets an elbow on the bar top.

“You sure seem to know a lot about them. Care to tell me more?”

My first instinct tells me not to trust him. But I promised to do just that at Giani’s.

Unlike Drew, the look in Noah’s eyes tells me he’s neither teasing or taunting, and likely thanks to the scotch, and to my surprise, I reveal the fairytales Aunt Roberta once told me as a kid, the ones that made me fall in love with the tales. Years of fables from the one woman who raised me come tumbling out of my mouth, and I find myself reliving each one.

With a love that predates Disney, my father’s sister once tucked me into bed at the tender age of five and taught me the true meaning of what it meant be a heroine in a story.

Tough. Take-no-shit. And always, forever always, destined from something greater.

I’d imagined for a long time that that would be me.

But life as I knew it was looking closer and closer to a Stephen King horror and when I question Noah about his taste for novels known for being wicked and strange, the curious gaze in his eyes shuts down, replaced with something much darker.

My own intrigue peaks. I press harder.

“Come on. What’s a guy who looks like he owns stock in Armani doing reading books made for virgin, pimple-pickers who convene alone in their basements?”

Noah grabs his own glass of scotch, holding it close. “Who told you I wasn’t a virgin?”

“Um, my eyeballs.” I scoff, scanning my eyes over his body. “Have you seen you?”

“Haven’t you learned by now not to judge a book by its cover?”

“Mmm, nope.” I take a lasting final sip of the scotch in my hand as Noah orders another, actually enjoying the taste. Or maybe I’m already drunk.

I set my Corbita glass down, agreeing. “Because if I’d judged you by your cover, I’d think you were just one of those fuckboys back at The Alchemist bar.”

The sophisticated man beside me stills. “But that’s exactly what you called me.”

“I did?”

“Back at the apartment.” He smirks. “Before you passed out on my bathroom floor.”

I feel my cheeks burn. “Oh. Yeah. That.”

“Yeah. That.” He motions towards me. “And I’ll have you know that I looked up the meaning of a ‘fuckboy’…and it was nothing close to the definition I’d thought it’d be.”

“Makes the ‘virgin’ title sound a hell of a lot better, don’t it?”

He shrugs. “At least the fuckboys actually get to do what they were named for.”

I thank the bartender as he slides another scotch my way, the spicy aroma making my head light when I finally look over at Noah.

“And what’s that exactly?”

“Well…” He peeks back at me. “They get to fuck.”

And suddenly the room goes warm.

And the memory of Noah telling a drunken, past me that he wants to “fuck me tonight” hits me in the solar plexus. Forgotten visions of Noah telling me that he wants to “sleep with me, to fuck me so hard that I’d forget my name” come racing back.

He sits there, staring at me, his hands atop his Tom Ford tailored-slacks. His button-down shirt still looks perfectly dry-cleaned despite the rain-soaking, and here am I, the