Not the Girl You Marry

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “I want your hands.”

  “That’s a given.” He complied immediately, running his hands down her sides and into her panties, toying with the straps in a way that drove her insane. “What else?”

  “I want your mouth.”

  “You have to tell me where.” But he kissed a spot on her neck that must have controlled the tendons in her knees, because they seemed to drop out from under her. “You like it here, but where else?”

  Feeling like she needed to wrest some control back, she went to work on his belt and his pants. “I also think your cock should get involved.”

  “Thank Christ.” He lifted his eyes heavenward.

  “Yeah, thank God the vow of celibacy was fake.” She would have had a hard time waiting for all this now that she knew that he was hers.

  “Hey, I kept you satisfied.” So funny that he wanted to defend his honor instead of actually get to have sex with her.

  “Yeah, I was worried about you.” She laid a kiss on his chest, just above his heart. “I was worried that it might have fallen off from disuse.”

  “It’s still right here.”

  She found the appendage she wanted underneath his boxer briefs—of course he wore fuck-hot black boxer briefs—and wrapped her hand around it. Turned out, the big-dick energy was totally authentic. When he didn’t come back with one of his sexy, infuriating questions, she stroked him. Satisfaction whirled inside her when he groaned and took his hands off of her so he could push down his pants and boxers.

  Until he was more naked than she was. And, God help her, he had that dip in his hips that she could never remember the name of, so she just called it the “fuck-me bone.” He really was trying to kill her with his hotness.

  She must have said that out loud because he laughed again. “Gladly.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck you.” He grabbed her hand and ran his index finger down her palm. It was almost as sexy as his hands in her underwear. “I will gladly fuck you once we get to the bedroom.”

  In retrospect, dragging him into his bedroom like some sort of deranged cavewoman was probably slightly unhinged. He might reconsider the whole being-in-love-with-her thing. But she would worry about that later. Like, after she’d had several orgasms.

  As soon as they reached the bed, he pushed her down on it. She spread her legs so that he could lie on top of her, and she sighed when he rested his weight against her. That familiar safe feeling came back because he was all around her. They sighed in unison as all their parts lined up.

  She looked up at him, stared into his eyes, and everything was perfect. Or it would be as soon as he put on a condom.

  * * *

  —

  YOU ARE IN DANGER, his dick warned him as he sank deep inside her. Not that he needed his penis’s opinion on the matter. His head and his heart had known that Hannah was trouble the moment he’d clapped eyes on her. And now she was all his, and there was no turning back.

  She was in love with him, and that was a good thing—his dick didn’t want to be anywhere but where it was right now for the foreseeable future. Having her be in love with him was a major help with that.

  The bed and the ground seemed to shift beneath him, and the one thing he was sure of was that he would never forget being with her. In this moment he couldn’t remember being with anyone else or what that felt like because he knew, right now, that he’d never had magic before.

  When he didn’t move, she dug her nails into his biceps, and her smile turned feral. It turned him on even more that she couldn’t wait for him to move, that she let him know what she wanted so clearly.

  “Please, Jack.” Her breathy voice was so raw and real and authentic to her that he couldn’t do anything else but move.

  Normally not at a loss for words, he didn’t have many in that moment. It was odd; he’d never had a problem coming up with creative and filthy dirty talk during sex, but Hannah blanked his brain of everything except the monosyllabic descriptions of what he was experiencing in that moment—hot, wet, tight, mine.

  He had enough of his mental capacity remaining that he wedged one hand in between them and rubbed her clit between thrusts. During their first night together, when he’d gone down on her, he’d learned her enough to know that she needed constant stimulation. And if he was almost rough, it made her totally lose control. He loved that he knew what felt like a secret about her, something that perhaps no one else had taken the time to learn. He wanted to know all of her secrets and hoard them so that he could tell what she was thinking when he wasn’t buried inside of her, so close to orgasm that spots covered his vision.

  “Yes.” He lost her eyes when she moaned that word and threw her head back. He buried his head in her neck and kissed the damp skin there. She tasted like sunlight, which was such a hokey thing to even think. But, with her, he couldn’t seem to help himself. She made him horny with her sharp humor and husky laugh, but she made him melt with everything underneath that.

  The orgasm careened up his spine, hitting him the moment after she found hers, whispering his name over and over again. And his last thought before he nearly blacked out from pleasure was how much he loved her.

  EPILOGUE

  IT WAS TIME TO take the next step. She’d been dating Jack for real for more than a year now, and they’d moved into Jack’s condo together six months ago.

  Things were great.

  When they weren’t lying to each other to get ahead in their careers, their careers actually went a lot better. Hannah and Sasha were making a living off of their party-planning business— Good-Time Girls. After Madison Chapin’s wedding had made all the wedding blogs, they’d grown a reputation for planning weddings for quirky brides on a budget. And Hannah had kept most of her sports and arts clients because they’d all been paying Annalise’s prices so they could get Hannah’s expertise.

  Jack had just written an article on the new female senator from Illinois, who ran on an anti-corruption agenda that got a lot of attention. This past week, he’d been in New York because he was the newest politics contributor at MSNBC. Several of the anchors kind of had the heart eyes for him, to be honest. Not that she could blame them. Jack Nolan could tempt even a nun.

  But he was back in Chicago, and one thing was missing from their life. She just needed one thing to feel complete. That’s how they “just happened” to wander past a dog shelter on her first Sunday off in months while they walked around Lincoln Park with hot cappuccinos after brunch with his parents and sister.

  “Wanna go in?”

  Jack hesitated. He did look tired, and maybe this wasn’t the best time to bring a whole lot of change into their lives. But she saw the way his eyes lit up every time he met a new dog. And they’d been sending info about shelter pets to each other so much that they took up more real estate in their text chain than where to eat and sex stuff. Combined.

  They needed to do this. “We can just look.”

  “But then I’ll feel bad if we don’t take anyone home.”

  He wanted a dog so badly she could taste it. “I just have a feeling that we’ll find our new friend today.”

  Jack shrugged in that way he had that wasn’t nonchalant. It was the same way he’d shrugged when she’d volunteered her ethnic background. After a year with the man, she knew that it meant he knew something was important to her, and he was on board.

  They entered the shelter and signed in at the front desk. Although she’d been in earlier in the week to make sure the dog that Jack had sent her with three heart-eyes emojis and three exclamation points was still there, the person at the front desk didn’t betray recognizing her.

  She walked them back, and Hannah had to slow herself down because she was too excited to become dog parents with Jack. She was obviously insane to be this amped about something so normal and mundane, but this was huge for her. She’d never been with someone she t
hought she’d be with for a dog’s whole life.

  Gus, the one-year-old cream-colored French bulldog with a recent cleft palate repair, was a symbol of how solid she felt about her and Jack being together for the long haul. She could never put into words how much it meant to her that he loved her that much.

  So he was getting a declaration of love in canine form.

  Jack stopped right next to her, looked down at Gus, and then smiled at Hannah. Then, instead of saying a word, he dropped down on his knees—actually just one knee. The shelter worker smiled at her as though she had a secret, and the secret was not that they were getting a dog.

  When Hannah looked back down at Jack, he already had Gus—who looked very familiar with Jack for having just met him—out of the cage and clipped onto a leash that had just appeared out of nowhere.

  “Hannah—”

  “Shut up.” That just flew out of her mouth. She didn’t want him to shut up, but he surely wasn’t going to say what she thought he was going to say.

  Seeing as how he was pretty close to perfect, he just paused and pulled a velvet jewelry box off of Gus’s collar. “Will you marry me, Hannah?”

  “You’re not going to say all the other stuff about how I’m the woman of your dreams and stuff?” She wiped her face with both hands, her gaze jumping from Jack to their dog to the ring box.

  “I thought I was working on borrowed time, since you already told me to shut up.”

  “I still want to hear the stuff. I just needed a second.”

  “Do you want to hear the stuff or get your ring and take our dog home?”

  The shelter volunteer cleared her throat. “I think she has to say yes first.”

  Jack repeated, “Will you marry me?” at the same time that Hannah shouted, “Yes!” and fell to her knees to kiss Jack and then their new family member.

  Not the

  Girl You

  Marry

  ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  READERS GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. At the beginning of the book, Hannah has given up all hope of meeting someone and she isn’t looking for love. Some people say that “you always find love when you stop looking.” Do you think that’s true? What role does hope play in finding love? What role does luck play in finding love?

  2. Hannah is fiercely protective of her female friends, particularly Sasha. Do you think that she derives a sense of worthiness from her female friendships? How so?

  3. Did it strike you that Hannah identified herself as biracial rather than black? Do you think that played into the failure of her relationship with Noah? How do you think her racial identity played into the development of her relationship with Jack?

  4. Jack’s dad gives Michael and Jack a very brief—but frank—sex talk. Did the content of that talk surprise you? Did it subvert the notion of toxic masculinity? How does Sean Nolan’s attitude toward sex influence Jack?

  5. Who would you cast to play Hannah and Jack in a movie version of the book?

  6. Jack perceives himself as the ideal boyfriend at the beginning of the book because he’s surrendered his needs for the needs of his partners in the past. Is Jack the perfect boyfriend? Or is his perfection keeping him from making a genuine, lasting connection?

  7. Jack has close, intimate friendships with his male friends—particularly Father Patrick. How do you think those relationships shape him as a person and affect how he approaches his burgeoning relationship with Hannah?

  8. How did you feel about Noah and Hannah’s relationship as exes? Why do you think they started dating in the first place? How do you feel about where they ended up?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First thanks go to Kristine Swartz for loving my words enough to publish them, making my characters shine, and serving as my part-time, honorary therapist during revisions. Huge thanks to Cindy Hwang and Erin Galloway for their enthusiasm about this book. Jessica Brock, Roxanne Jones, Jessica Mangicaro, and the Berkley sales team—I bow down to you for your mad skills in getting this book in front of as many readers as possible. Thank you to Emily Osborne, illustrator extraordinaire Colleen Reinhart, and everyone in the art department for making the cover so beautiful.

  Thank you to my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan. I’m so grateful to have you in my corner every day.

  Adriana Anders and Kasey Lane, the Book Smart Tarts: thank you for the wine (Adriana) and the tough love (Kasey). Most of all, thank you for telling me that I’m a good writer and I have pretty hair when I need you to. To the Wicked Wallflowers, Jenny Nordbak and Sarah Hawley, thank you for shipping me with the best Chris. And Jenny Holiday, thank you for becoming my friend even though I accosted you on the subway.

  I have no idea what I did in a past life to be worthy of such wonderful friends. Kim Guzman, Kelly Montgomery, Barbara Gibson, Beth Skierski, and Elizabeth Dillion were the inspiration for Hannah’s friendship with Sasha. Thank you for putting up with my shenanigans and being my friends for nearly twenty years. Thank you to Laurel Simmons, who is usually my first reader and would be my top choice as a romantic comedy sidekick.

  Katie Dunneback, Tara Kennedy, and Michelle Sandiford. Thank you for always being there with a bottomless mimosa and for not commenting when I inevitably order the shrimp and grits.

  Finally, thank you to my family. Mary Manka is the best mom and probably one of the best people in the world. And my aunts—Margaret Doonan, Jean Manka, and Maureen Manka—thank you for everything. Each of you helped shape the woman I am today. To my cousins Sean Doonan, Molly Calkins, and Acacia Hagenson, I love you all so much.

  And finally, thank you to my grandparents, Bud and Wilda. Your wild and epic love story, Grandpa’s belief that I was pretty much magic, and Grams’s love of romance novels are the only reasons I write them today.

  USA Today bestselling author Andie J. Christopher writes edgy, funny, and sexy contemporary romance featuring heat, humor, and dirty-talking heroes that make readers sweat. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School, she grew up in a family of voracious readers, and picked up her first romance novel at age twelve when she’d finished reading everything else in her grandmother’s house. It was love at first read. It wasn’t too long before she started writing her own stories—her first heroine drank Campari and drove an Alfa Romeo up a winding road to a minor royal’s estate in Spain. Andie lives in the nation’s capital with her French bulldog, Gus, a stockpile of Campari, and way too many books.

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