Uncomfortable (Undone Book 1)

by Vanessa Page

  I resolve to accidentally on purpose fall on the next move, but Camden beats me to it. He topples off the board and rolls across the floor before righting himself and climbing to his feet. He goes for a shot, and takes two. “Since I don’t need to play anymore,” he says as he raises his second shot into the air. Then he downs it and goes to claim the empty stool next to Jules, wraps his arm around her shoulders.

  Krystal and I shift into new positions, which are only slightly better than before. I’m still folded over her awkwardly—and my lower back is starting to hurt from the effort— but she’s no longer straight under me with her ass dangerously close to my erection. Now, we make more of an X shape. And my errant dick is finally starting to behave. I no longer rock hard… just… almost rock hard.

  “Left foot blue!” Andy calls, and I start the move. I’ll have to either stretch my foot under Krystal or straddle one leg over her. I opt for attempting to stretch a leg under her. I shift to sit back on the heel of my right leg, with my right arm stretched behind Krystal’s legs to stay on the spot where I have it. Then I lean back and stretch my left foot for the blue circle on the other side of my opponent.

  I realize too late the flaw in my plan.

  “Boner alert!” RJ calls from across the room.

  Yep, there it is. My erection, standing straight up in my gray sweats, so proud and tall, it has pulled the waistband of my pants away from my stomach a good inch or so.

  My cheeks go up in flames, and the burn of embarrassment spreads quickly through my limbs.

  “Wow, Jace, that is an impressive tent. You planning on going camping later?” Scott asks with a snicker, and everyone—except me—laughs.

  “Sometimes, he’s got a mind of his own,” I say, as if I wasn’t completely complicit in getting turned on by Krystal’s proximity.

  Prompted by their comments, Krystal tries to look down in the direction of my groin. In the process, she loses her balance and begins a slow-motion fall. I watch in abject horror as she tries to catch herself, fails, and crumples on top of me, folded over me. A jolt of pleasure stabs through me as she makes contact with my hard-on, and I close my eyes so my friends don’t see them rolling back in my head. When she stills, one of her legs is between mine as she straddles the leg I had stretched underneath her, and I’m now poking her obscenely in the stomach.

  I open my eyes wide in panic. She can feel my dick. I can tell by the wide-eyed expression she pins me with. Then she licks her lips. Is she… aroused? By me? By my arousal?

  “The game is Twister, not Make Your Own Amateur Porn, you guys. Get a room!” Abby heckles.

  Krystal breaks our gaze, seeming to shake herself out of the moment. I do my best to stifle a groan as she attempts to untangle her limbs from mine. All the movement, the shifting of her body against mine isn’t doing anything to alleviate the discomfort in my pants.

  When she’s finally off me, I scramble off the game board, turning my back to my friends so I can adjust myself—not that they don’t all know what I’m doing anyway—and then I head to the kitchen for a beer.

  It’s a good thing I already played my two rounds, because there is no chance in hell of me getting back on that game board. Just the idea of ever playing Twister again is enough to heat my cheeks with embarrassment all over again. I take a seat at the kitchen island instead of returning to the other side of the breakfast bar with my friends. If I thought I could make an escape without them making jokes about me going to rub one out, I’d already be gone from the room. But I know my friends, and I know what they’ll say. So, I sit here, nurse my beer, and wait for my erection to subside while they play the final round of the game. But it isn’t subsiding. Instead, I’m mentally replaying the feel of Krystal’s body on mine. By the time the round ends—and my team wins, not that I care—I’m strung so tight, I think I might explode if I don’t get out of here.

  I wait until the group starts to disperse, and then I make a break for it, heading upstairs so I can take an ice-cold shower.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Krystal

  Spending my evening reading by the lake seemed like a good idea, a great way to avoid Jace and the embarrassing memory of practically impaling myself on what turned out to be a very impressive erection. Of course, I didn’t plan on falling asleep. When I wake up, the night is so dark, I can barely see my way back to the house. I tiptoe for pretty much the entire walk back, imagining all varieties of creepy crawlies coming out of the brush along the pathway to attack my bare toes. Fuck sandals. Whoever invented them must have been some sort of sadist. Why had I never realized how vulnerable they would leave my delicate feet to any number of pest or critter.

  I finally make it safely the back patio, and the halo of illumination from the exterior light. Thankfully, the backdoor is unlocked when I get there, but the house is dark. Everyone must have gone to bed.

  And no one noticed I wasn’t here. Sheesh. Abby or Maggie should have at least noticed. We’re sharing a freaking room. I navigate the downstairs by memory, feeling my way along walls until I come to the light switch in the living room. When I flip it, the recessed lighting in the ceiling brightens the room.

  Which is not as empty as I thought it was. Maggie is passed out in the fetal position on the couch, her arms tucked sweetly beneath her cheek almost as if she’s been posed like this. She stirs gently and squints her closed eyelids tighter. I flip the light switch again, casting the room back into darkness so I don’t wake her. I’m pretty sure I can find my way from here without falling or knocking into anything. The path is pretty much a straight shot along this wall to the stairs, and I make short work of traversing the distance. By the time I get upstairs, my eyes have adjusted fully to the darkness, but there’s enough light streaming in through the loft window that I can see fairly well. I head straight for my room.

  I’m assuming Abby is passed out, so I turn the knob quietly and push the door open as slowly as possible. I’m halfway into the room when a male groan echoes through the room. I freeze, locked in place as my brain tries to process what’s going on.

  “Mmm…” Abby moans.

  “Yes,” the male voice hisses in response. RJ’s voice.

  And that’s when I realize that the lump under the blankets in the middle of the bed Abby and I are supposed to be sharing is too large to be just one person.

  She’s getting laid.

  I close my eyes against the view, so I don’t catch sight of something I can’t unsee and back out of the room. I shut the door quickly—and silently—but linger in the hallway unsure what to do with myself now. With Abby shacking up with RJ in my room, I’m left to wander the house in search of a place to sleep tonight. Even if they were to finish and pass out, the room smells of sex. I don’t even want to think about what the sheets must be like.

  Three thousand square feet and four bedrooms seemed like so much space when Abby booked the house, but now that I’m without a place to lay my head at 2 a.m., the house might as well be a closet. Jameson and Miranda are in the master bedroom, with Camden and Jules in the second suite. The two guest rooms were supposed to be split between the non-couples. One for the guys, RJ, Jace, and Scotty, and one for the girls, me and Abby—and Andrew. But Andrew is crashed on the couch. If I don’t want sleep on the floor, I’m going to have to swallow my pride and go knocking on the boys’ door. The room has two beds, and the only occupants are Jace and Scotty now that RJ has defected to my room. Maybe the guys will let me sleep in one of the beds and share the other. It’s a long shot, but a girl can dream.

  I hesitate outside the closed bedroom door for a long time. Scott seems like a decent guy. He will, no doubt, be fine with me sleeping in his room tonight, but Jace is going to be the hard sell. He’ll probably accuse me of orchestrating this whole thing just to screw him out of a bed. I briefly consider going downstairs and squeezing onto the couch with Maggie. But I don’t really know her all that well, and that couch isn’t even comfortable for sitting.

  I
shake my head and knock softly on the door. Maybe I’ll get lucky and Jace will be asleep and Scotty will let me in. Footsteps pad lightly closer from the other side the door. Then it opens, and I’m standing face to bare chest with the wrong roommate. Jace rubs his eyes and scowls down at me from his lofty six feet, three inches. Honestly, he could probably be a foot shorter than me and still find a way to look down his nose at me. But I’m barely five feet in sneakers, and standing this close—barefoot—I’d have to strain my neck to be able to look him in the eye. I don’t even bother.

  I’m too tired to fight with him, too tired to muster my usual sass. I just want to curl up on a soft-ish mattress, taco myself into a comforter, and sleep until tomorrow afternoon. “Hey,” I say softly, staring him straight in the pecs. Hard, muscular pecs. Have I ever seen Jace with his shirt off before? I feel like I would remember a body this tight.

  “Yeah?” He answers, crossing his arms, and I shift my gaze away from his chest, past his bulging biceps. Black script letters ink the left side of his torso, but I don’t linger there long enough to read the inscribed tattoo. Instead, I look past him into the bedroom. The room is dark as pitch inside, except for tiny slivers of moonlight streaking across the floor from around the edges of the curtain. I can’t tell if Scotty is asleep or if he’s even in the room.

  Jace steps in front of me, blocking my view. “What do you want, Krystal? It’s late, and I’m too tired to deal with you right now.”

  I step back as if he slapped me. Maybe I’m overly sensitive from the late hour and too long of a nap, but his words sting. The fact that no love is lost between us isn’t exactly a secret, but he’s not usually so openly hostile toward me. At least not for no reason.

  Suddenly I’m caught in a mental war with myself. Do I swallow my pride and ask him to let me crash there, or do I square my shoulders, tell him to fuck off, and go find a corner to sleep in? The cut-off-my-nose-to-spite-my-face side of me is winning this battle, and no more than a few seconds pass before I tilt my chin up, straighten my spine, and say, “Never mind. I should have known better than to ask you for anything. Your empathy button is broken.” It’s not true. I’ve seen Jace be a truly nice guy. But it doesn’t matter. I was right in saying that it was a mistake to come to him for anything. The guy would help a rabid raccoon before he would help me.

  I spin on my heel and head for the stairs, not bothering to look back even when the sound of the door closing echoes after me. Then I deflate, all of my spunk abandoning me in a rush. I don’t even bother heading downstairs. Instead, I drop in one of the two wingback chairs at the top of the landing and curl into a ball of self-pity. This is not how I pictured this trip going. I’m going to need to have a talk with Abby in the morning, because if she and RJ are planning on shacking up in my room for the next week, I’m going to need to get an air mattress and sleep in the bathtub or something. I lay my head down on the armrest of the chair. Being short has its perks in that, curled into a ball as I am, I almost fit fully in the seat of the chair. I have to hang one foot over the other chair arm and my other foot dangles off the seat, but I can live with that. I’ll probably be sore when I wake up, but at least it’s a semi-soft place to sleep.

  My mind is still spinning from the events of the day, but my eyes refuse to stay open and I don’t fight them. I sigh and give in to exhaustion, drifting into that place between awake and dream where my thoughts aren’t organized and are more fantasy than consciousness. My brain conjures a vision of Jace, standing in his doorway, with his sweatpants slung low on his hips and his upper half bare, his golden-brown skin smooth over taught muscles, his hard chest, and rippled abs. I sleepily consider making a mental note to find ways to catch him with his shirt off more often.

  I’ve always recognized Jace for the good-looking guy that he is, with his square jaw, straight nose, and amber-colored eyes. And sure, before I realized what an asshole he could be, I may have thought about pressing my mouth to his full, lips. But I’ve been very careful to shut those thoughts down ever since the day he called me drama llama. Why is my brain not cooperating now? I groan in frustration and turn over in the chair, hoping the new position will provide me with new thoughts to fall asleep to.

  I’m still wrestling with my overactive brain sometime later when a door down the hall creaks open. I don’t bother turning over to identify the owner of the footsteps padding across the landing. It’s probably Abby slipping out to the bathroom, or RJ sneaking back into his own bedroom. If it’s the latter, I could probably head back into my room. But with my luck, I’d end up on the side of the bed with the wet spot. I shudder at the thought and curl more tightly in on myself, bury my face into the back of the chair.

  “Fuck.” A soft, male curse sounds behind me. Not RJ. Jace. As if this night couldn’t get any worse. Now, he’s found me sleeping in the hallway. I squeeze my eyes tight and pretend to be asleep, hoping he’ll just continue on to wherever he was going and ignore me. I wait for the sound of retreating footsteps.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Then from far closer than I realized he was, he says, “Dammit, Krystal. Come on.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jace

  Krystal is sleeping in a chair, and not even a decent-sized chair. A damned small armchair. For a moment, I stare down at her, marveling at how tiny she has made herself to be able to fit into this thing. I sat in one of these chairs earlier and barely fit, but she’s managed to get almost her entire frame tucked onto the seat. Her body is folded in on itself, and she’s facing into the cushioned back. Only her feet hang off, jutting out at odd angles. She can’t be comfortable. Why would she choose to sleep here? Then it hits me, she had nowhere else to go. She was trying to ask if she could bunk with me and Scotty, and I treated her like a nuisance.

  I’m not used to feeling like an asshole. Except where Krystal is concerned. It doesn’t matter what the situation, somehow, I always come out being the bad guy, and tonight is no different. I was lying in bed for at least half an hour before she knocked on the door, listening to Scott’s soft snoring across the room and wishing I could fall asleep. But instead of sleeping, I was lying there thinking about her. How does she always manage to get under my skin?

  I mentally replayed our short conversation a million times if once. When I opened the door to find her in the hallway, my first thought was how adorably disheveled she looked. And then I was pissed at myself. Krystal Matthews is not adorable. She’s a thorn in my side, always showing up at the most inopportune times, always sticking her nose into my business. But apparently, my dick didn’t get the memo. The second I saw her there, with bare feet and her oversized T-shirt hanging almost to her bare knees, lust sent a jolt of energy straight to my dick.

  But then common sense returned. It occurred to me that she must be there for Scotty. Everyone else was coupled up, and she was probably looking to get some action, too. And that pissed me off. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have snapped at her the way I did. I could see the hurt on her face the second the words left my lips, and I regretted them immediately. But there was no going back. Eventually, I threw back the blanket and grumbled out of the bed, giving up on sleep. I planned to go down to the kitchen for some water, maybe do a few laps in the pool, but I didn’t even make it past the landing. Because Krystal is here, sleeping in a toy-sized chair.

  Now, I’m running through the whole scenario, again, thinking of all the ways I could have handled it differently. First of all, it wasn’t any of my business if she hooked up with Scott. I didn’t have any right to be pissed about that, and I definitely do not want to explore why the idea has me clenching my fists even now. I could have been nicer to her, should have been nicer to her. Especially considering I made an assumption about her that, as it turns out, was way off.

  And I was an asshole.

  “Dammit, Krystal. Come on.” I grumble, hoping she’s sleeping lightly enough to hear me and wake up. A moment passes, then another. Finally, she turns over to face me, an
d stretches both legs to the floor, sits up. She doesn’t get up from the chair, though. She stays seated, looking up at me with wide blue eyes and a look of complete confusion… and wariness? Is she worried I’m going to pick an argument? Not tonight. I’m already feeling like fifty shades of jerk right now. I’m not about to make it any worse.

  I cross my arms over my chest and repeat myself, “Come on.”

  “Where?” Her voice is soft velvet in the space between us, and my guilt increases. I’m being gruff with her, but there’s no animosity in her voice.

  “To bed.” I try to soften my tone, but I’m failing. I’m annoyed by this entire situation, only I don’t know why.

  “You want me to go to bed with you?”

  Was it my imagination or did she sound a little breathless when she said that? If it was anyone besides Krystal, I would almost suspect she was interested. In me. In going to bed with me. My dick perks up at the thought. Until I remind myself that this is Krystal we’re talking about. She’s a full serving of drama, with a side of drama, and drama for dessert. Topped with drama sauce. Nope. My dick and I are not going there. “To sleep,” I say and then spin on my heel and head for the bedroom without waiting to see if she’s following me.

  When I get to the room and turn to grab the door, she’s only a few paces behind me and slips through the opening before I shut it. And now we stand awkwardly in the center of the room. Scott is still out. The guy could sleep through a tornado.

  I give up waiting for Krystal to move and step around her to the double bed that Scott isn’t currently star-fishing. When I pull back the covers and climb under them, Krystal asks, “Where am I sleeping?”