Her name is Aria, and when she tells me she has an interest in BDSM in the middle of the meet and greet, my heart stops. I’m unsure how my face reacts, and I hope with everything in me that I don’t give it away with some strange expression of shock and giddy excitement, but I feel it in my soul. Not all the women I’ve dated and wrote about in the past have had an immediate interest in anything kinky. Some needed convincing, but Aria is ready and willing, just waiting to be led. There's something inside of her that calls to me. Something I can't ignore.

My first instinct is to think of all the ways we’ll be intimate together that I’ll be able to use for my next novel, and usually that’s all the motivation I need. My brain knows how to control a situation, and as a manipulator of words, I know what to say to get a woman to want to fuck me. But with Aria, something is off. I look into her gorgeous eyes, and I don’t think about the phrases I could use to make her horny for me. Instead, I’m genuinely interested in her, which is against my usual protocol. She’s supposed to be my sexual muse, but I’m feeling sidetracked by the way she stares at me and smiles. I want to take her out and get to know her, even though my life is supposed to be that of a literary rock star. I’m fresh on the scene of success, with countless women nipping at my heels, yet I want her. I want to push it away. I don’t desire this feeling, but it persists, and I can’t ignore it.

Then, he asks me out right there between the bookshelves. Nas writes it exactly as I remembered it, and his words conjure up new feelings of excitement by reminding me how it felt in the moment. Words have a way of doing that. I giggle to myself as I remember the feeling of flying that took over my body when I said yes to him, and the next few pages make the feeling stick as Nas recounts our dinner at Janae Michelle’s with perfect clarity from his POV. He shares all of his thoughts in the moment, and instead of portraying Aria as some weak damsel in need of saving, he shows her as I really am. She’s interested in him, but doesn’t drop to her knees for him in a flash. As I read the dinner scene, I don’t feel like Nas is cheating me out of my truth. Her name may be Aria, but Alina is on the page, and I’m grateful for it because it shows that Nas really knows me. He knows who I am, and he has been paying attention from the start.