Rating the Book Boyfriend (Book Boyfriend Builders)

2. Libby

CHAPTER 2

Libby

I settle into seat 2A and smile at the luxurious feel of the leather window seat. The only seat left on this plane was in first class, and with bossy-ass Gemma’s help, I was assigned here without any additional cost due to the weather situation.

I could get used to this shit , I think as I stretch my long legs and pull out my laptop. Opening it up, I begin organizing, making spreadsheet after spreadsheet of BBB stuff.

I still can’t believe we’re going for this, but after looking at the numbers in the light of day—and with most of the alcohol expelled from our systems—my friends and I decided that this untapped market had so much potential, and we were going to tap it.

“Hi, I’m Cara. Can I get you something to drink before takeoff?” someone asks, and I look up to find a pretty flight attendant with her brunette hair in a tidy french twist smiling down at me.

What the hell? They’re still boarding the plane. Is this normal for first class?

“Just a water, please,” I say, “with lots of ice.” Because I’m never drinking alcohol again. Ever.

“My pleasure.” She returns moments later with a real glass—not one of those plastic ones—filled to the brim with ice and cold water. “Would you like a snack?”

She presents me with a basket of goodies, and I quickly latch onto a bag of Skinny Pop, my body still craving salt even after eating the bacon sandwich JoJo ordered from room service this morning.

“As soon as we’re done boarding, you’ll have to stow your laptop until we get in the air,” the woman says.

“Of course.” I save the spreadsheets into my newly designated BBB folder and put the device away in my backpack. JoJo’s newest paperback is right on top, and I pull it out before stuffing my bag beneath the seat in front of me.

Riggs fucking Romero . The man’s light-blue eyes seem to stare directly into my soul from the cover, and I draw a heart around his face with my fingertip.

“You actually like that ugly mug?” a deep voice says from beside me, and I look up with a frown, ready to tell off this asshole who dares to judge me.

And my mouth drops open. Ice-blue eyes and a face full of designer stubble meet my gaze, and an amused smirk splays across those perfectly kissable pink lips. No, not pink, they’re really more of a mauve color, to be precise.

I wonder if any of Gemma’s lubes come in mauve containers?

Not that I’d need any lubrication at this point. My vagina is doing just fine on its own at the sight of Riggs fucking Romero standing in the aisle beside me.

Did I conjure him by merely touching his face on the cover of the book?

The man is simply delicious, from the top of his jet-black hair down his six-foot-four frame and to the tips of his… holy fuck! What size shoe does he wear?

My gaze lifts to see if the goods behind his zipper match the ginormous feet the man is sporting. Wow . The bulge behind those pale-gray dress pants tells me the big feet, big dick myth is most decidedly not a myth.

“Um, are you okay?”

I’d like to say the sound of that deep, raspy voice pulled me from my awkward admiration of his family jewels, but that would be a lie. It’s like my eyeballs are magnets, and his penis is made of reinforced steel, the attraction between the two naturally unbreakable.

You’re staring at his dick. Stop staring at his dick. Why for the love of all that’s good and holy are you still. Staring. At. His. Dick?

With the force of a thousand horses trying to pull my eyeballs upward, I comfort myself with the thought that at least he has no idea who I am. He can go back to his friends and tell the story of some kooky, crotch-gazing weirdo he’d seen on the plane. They’d laugh and then forget about it within a few days.

But that little comfort bubble I’d wrapped around myself bursts spectacularly when he holds out a hand. “You’re Libby Cox, right?”

Oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit , I chant in my head as I look up into his eyes and shake his hand. They’re almost as mesmerizing as that well-defined ridge his pants neglected to hide. And the way he said my last name invoked all kinds of dirty thoughts.

“No,” I lie, “my name is J. Estes.”

He laughs and breaks eye contact, lifting a small suitcase into the overhead compartment and giving me a bird’s eye view of his delectable abs when his sky-blue henley lifts a little.

“I think we both know that’s not true,” he says, tapping JoJo’s pen name on the book cover as he takes the seat beside me. “I met her yesterday, and you’re definitely not her.”

Why is he sitting here? And why the hell does he smell like the very essence of masculine sin?

I down the rest of my water, resisting the urge to tip the contents over my head to cool myself down. The flight attendant approaches.

“Mister Romero, can I get you a drink?”

He stretches out his mile-long legs and makes himself at home in what is apparently his seat. “Bourbon, please. McKenna’s if you have it; if not, whatever you have will be fine.”

“And Ms. Hill?”

“I’ll have a bloody mary, extra spicy,” I croak.

Fuck my ban on drinking liquor. I’m gonna need it all for this flight.