The lines of his body were beautiful. His shoulders, the angle of his jaw. Those indents in the base of his spine, narrowing down to the curve of his butt outlined in the deep light spilling through her window. The tattooed tapestry of colors that danced across his shoulder and over his chest.
He looked like a painting.
There, in her bed, was a naked man who looked like a fucking painting.
She turned away. It was too painful to look at, knowing that it was all just some crazy mistake, a weekend that had gotten out of hand.
But Jessie didn’t lose control. When life threw the unexpected at her, she found a way to rein it in. Her mom’s cancer had taught her how to keep her head down and focus on what was in front of her. One foot and then the other; one page and then the next. That was how she finished high school with honors, how she got into college, how she got anywhere at all. Not even losing two of her closest friends had thrown her. And the bonus was that she was always protected. She didn’t get hurt, she didn’t lose herself, and she didn’t disappoint anyone who was counting on her.
She reached for her towel and tiptoed out of the bedroom. Standing in the shower, letting the hot water wipe all traces of him off her body, she steeled her resolve. She couldn’t blow her job, her future, her friendships, and her dignity on a few romps in the sack with some boy who made her legs quiver and her heart pound.
Some man, she reminded herself, thinking of how it felt when she ran her fingers over his chest, feeling the hair between her fingers and the muscles rippling under her hand. Over his chest, down his stomach, to grip his firm cock in her fist…
She shut the water off.
Having sex should have made her less horny—satisfied enough to get that whole “hot roommate” thing out of her system so she could move on. Instead, it was like her brain had been completely rewired, so that everything brought her back to Shawn’s body, Shawn’s cock, Shawn making her throb.
She toweled off, quietly threw on clean clothes, and sat back down at her laptop, where she’d been so rudely interrupted before.
Now, where was I?
Right, Augusta’s mess of a manuscript. No more thoughts of sex. Or Shawn. Or what in the world she was doing. Or what would happen if anyone found out.
She’d work on ten more pages and then she’d call her mom back. Another ten and she’d text Talia. Another ten and she’d be back in her groove, and not even Shawn coming sleepily out of her bedroom, grinning at her in his boxers, would be able to shake her.
Or so she thought. She hoped. If she just willed it hard enough, she could make it happen.
Couldn’t she?
Somehow, she could already tell it wouldn’t be that easy.
…
Shawn had a problem. He couldn’t stop seeing Jessie.
Because he lived with her, obviously, so seeing her was inescapable.
But it wasn’t just that. It was the fact that he couldn’t stop touching her. Fucking her. Wanting her.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to. He had a million other things he was supposed to be doing, and this was all going to blow up in his face. When Talia came back, obviously. Or maybe even earlier, and then living together would seriously suck.
But every time he tried to say they shouldn’t do this, he’d only wind up kissing her instead.
Days, then weeks, flew by too fast. He’d wake up early to catch her in the mornings, before she went to work. When he came home, he’d find her in bed asleep with her laptop still open, papers all around her. He’d close the laptop, pile her things on her desk, and crawl into bed next to her, feeling her warm body cover him as she shifted to hold him in her sleep.
They always slept in her room, never his. He told himself it was because Jessie usually fell asleep first in her own bed before he got home from his shift, so it made sense that he wound up there, too.
But there was also that unspoken thing between them. His room was really Talia’s room, with her bed and all her things. Just seeing that photograph Talia had on her dresser of the two of them smiling after they’d finally patched up their relationship was a reminder that this needed to stop.
And not just because of his sister. It was important for him, too. He didn’t want to be that guy anymore, the one who put his dick where he knew wasn’t supposed to. He should have been entirely focused on learning the differences in brewing techniques between Thunder’s flagship IPA and its Hurricane Season Double IPA until he could recite them in his sleep. Not learning the different sounds Jessie made when he kissed the inside of her thigh.
Not that Jessie seemed to have any trouble focusing. She always worked like crazy, making it oh-so-clear where her priorities were. But couldn’t she relax sometimes? They had so little time to spend in this little bubble they had made in their apartment. He knew he had a million things to do for Jean. But that wasn’t going to let up. So couldn’t they stop and enjoy themselves sometimes?
On Monday morning, after yet another weekend of working, he reached across her and snuggled her back down into bed after she shut off her blaring alarm.
“Five more minutes,” he murmured, covering her body with his so she couldn’t escape.
“I can’t.” She tried to nudge him off, and he pretended to hold her in place.
“Two more minutes,” he said into the warm skin of her neck. “A minute and a half.”
She giggled at his bargaining. “You can count to ninety seconds.”
“One…two…”
She poked him in the ribs. “I didn’t mean literally!”
He was laughing as he pinned her arms so she couldn’t get to him.
“Maybe I should count slower,” he said as he held her there, writhing underneath him.
“Threeee.” He let the word drip off his tongue, then kissed her ear.
“Four.” He traced his lips along her cheek.
She inhaled sharply, and he paused, teasing, making her want it.
“Five,” he finally whispered, and kissed her lips.
He wanted to count to a thousand, kissing every part of her body as he went. One thousand and one, and he’d press his lips to the delicate inside of her wrist. One thousand and two, and he’d make his way up the constellation of freckles on her arm.
Her second alarm went off.
He’d never known anyone who not only didn’t press snooze but had a whole separate backup alarm to get her into the shower if she dared to spend any time dawdling.
Jessie didn’t dawdle. She definitely didn’t laze all day in bed. Which should have been fine with him—what had happened to his “no distractions” rule that came with moving to New York? Looked like it had run off with his “none of my sister’s friends” rule. Because damn if he didn’t want, for just one day, to pin her down and make her late for work.
He reached for her phone, and she took advantage of the movement to make her escape.
“I can’t,” she said, before he could stop her. “I have to be there on time.”
“You say that every day.”
“Marlene will get mad if I’m late.”
“Marlene knows about subway delays, and long lines at Starbucks, and the fact that human beings are fallible, imperfect creatures who sometimes show up at nine-oh-three instead of nine on the dot.”
“Not this creature,” Jessie said emphatically. He reached for her arm and tried to draw her back toward bed.
“Marlene will be mad…or you’ll be mad at yourself for not having every little thing under control?” he asked as he kissed the back of her hand.
She sighed. “It’s called a job, Shawn. And I need to keep it.”
He dropped her hand.
He knew what she must have thought of him, deep down inside. It was the same thing most girls thought of him. Sure, they were having fun—for now. But he was too irresponsible, too directionless, to ever be worth something more. If his position at Thunder couldn’t change that, then maybe nothing could.
Jessie thought she knew the
worst of him from high school. But if she ever found out how many times he’d quit a job, or been fired, because a new itch had struck him, or he wanted to try something else, or he just didn’t care…
She’d never be letting him check out her ass like this as she rose from the bed. She’d never let him near her at all.
So he shut his mouth and watched her get ready, loving how she walked around naked—no more of her baggy pajamas completely failing to hide that gorgeous body underneath. She came out of the shower, and he practically growled as he lay there on the bed watching her smooth lotion on her legs then slide her underwear on. She hooked on her bra, the cups holding up the fullness of her breasts, lace making a delicate pattern over her skin.
Shit, he was growing hard. He started to stroke it, feeling her eyes on him as he watched her dress.
She moved slower, teasing him, swinging her hips as she zipped up her skirt. When he begged her to have a little mercy and get out the door already, she hitched the skirt up over her thighs and straddled him.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she cooed, pretending to pout. “Are you suffering, lying there in bed all morning while I have to go to work?”
She sat just above his hard cock, teasing the tip over the seam of her panties and along the soft insides of her thighs.
“Did you change your mind?” he asked, his breath catching.
She rocked her hips over him like a yes, but she only said, “I wish I could.”
He groaned. He was right there, pressing against the flimsy covering of her underwear. No condom, so he knew she wasn’t going to fuck him like this. But damn if he didn’t want to feel her. “Of course you can. It’s just a job. It’s just one morning. You wouldn’t even be that late.”
He slid his hands up her sides, cupping her breasts, and brought his lips to kiss her nipples through her bra. She reached around her and grasped his cock, stroking it hard and full in her hand.
“I seriously have to go,” she said, even as she stroked him.
“Then go,” he said, trying his damnedest to keep his breath steady.
“I am.”
His fingers slid up her skirt, teased over her panties, and pulled them to the side.
“Sometimes you have to come before you go.”
She laughed. “That’s a good line.”
“You can give it to Augusta,” he said. “If you pay me for it first.” He flashed her a wicked grin and pushed two fingers inside her.
He was so, so sure she was going to grind her hips against him and let herself have a quick, explosive orgasm before she buckled down and got on with her day. Nothing could have made him pull away from this moment, had the situation been reversed. He could barely remember his own name right now, let alone the fact that he had a job, a boss, things he was technically supposed to do.
But Jessie drew away from him and stood up, straightening her skirt. “I’ll save it for later,” she told him. “When you can give me everything I need.”
This woman either didn’t actually like him, or NASA should come talk to her, because she had a will of indestructible steel.
He might have wondered, except he’d felt how wet she was for him, and he knew the reluctance in her voice wasn’t faked. She was just really fucking disciplined.
And he was really fucking horny when she was gone.
Focus, he told himself sternly. He should try to be more like her. Reliable, dedicated, the kind of person who showed up at eight forty-five when it was supposed to be nine, and edited two chapters when she only needed one, and did everything she was supposed to—and then some. If Jessie had been the one promoted at Thunder, she’d have developed six new beers, tripled their production, and opened a new location by now.
He got out of bed. Her bed. Was he spending too much time there? Was he slacking at work? He poked his head into Talia’s room and tried to push away the guilt. It wasn’t wrong for two consenting adults to happily indulge in every carnal desire they had, every moment they could spare to indulge in it. But it didn’t make him feel great to think about it for too long.
This wasn’t like at besties brunch, when they were sure it was never going to happen again and thought, reasonably, why did Talia—why did anyone—need to know? This was starting to feel like…a thing.
He got coffee from the kitchen and wandered back to Jessie’s room to get the clothes he’d left on the floor last night, trying to remind himself that it wasn’t a thing thing. It was more like…a summer thing. A roommate thing. A fun thing he just happened to be unable to stop thinking about pretty much twenty-four seven.
That was when he saw that Jessie’s laptop was still on her desk. He’d made her late, distracted her, and now she’d forgotten it. Shit.
She always took it to work. It had her whole life on it—all her editing projects, notes to herself, stuff she needed for Marlene. Some of it she backed up, but no matter how many times he reminded her to, he wasn’t sure she ever got around to it. He knew she met with Marlene every Monday. He’d like to think that was the only thing important enough to make her stop stroking his cock.
He texted her quickly. Your laptop is here.
But she must have already been on the subway because she didn’t write back.
He glanced at the time. His official shift didn’t start until later. But he needed to come in to add the apricots to their newest unfiltered wheat ale as soon as it finished fermentation. If he left now, didn’t have any subway delays, and headed straight to Thunder from Jessie’s office, could he make it in time?
He knew it was important that he get to the brewery to show he was punctual, responsible, and putting work first. But wasn’t there something else that was important, too?
He knew he and Jessie weren’t really dating. He didn’t need to act like a boyfriend right now.
But he knew what a boyfriend would do. A real one—who cared about someone other than himself, and who did things to show the other person that they were important.
Maybe in the past he would have shrugged and figured a forgotten laptop wasn’t his problem. Who really cared about a mishap at work? Why should he inconvenience himself?
But this wasn’t just another job to Jessie, something she could easily replace. This mattered to her. And the whole point of moving to New York was to stop being that guy for whom nothing mattered. The apricots could wait for a little bit longer.
He didn’t stop to look at the clock anymore, or to waste more time debating. He threw her laptop into his backpack and went out.
Chapter Fifteen
I am so screwed. Jessie looked frantically through her bag for the second time.
No laptop. No papers. No notes. How could she have left everything she needed at home, right before her Monday meeting with Marlene? She shouldn’t have let herself get distracted and run out the door without going through her usual checklist to make sure she had everything. Served her right for getting wrapped up in Shawn rather than using her head. She’d just have to apologize, take responsibility, not give any indication of why she was slacking on the job, and promise it would never happen again.
When her desk phone rang, she was afraid it was Marlene. She always seemed to email and then call to follow-up when Jessie didn’t respond within four seconds—usually because Jessie was still in the middle of reading the message or hadn’t even seen it yet.
But it wasn’t her boss.
“Security, Ms. Santana. A Mr. Lassiter is here with a laptop for you.”
Wait—what?
“Uh, okay,” she stammered, trying to get that thing in her chest to start working again. “I’ll come down and get it.”
“No worries, miss. I already sent him up to you.”
It took her a minute to realize what he was saying. Shawn was in her office. He was on his way to her cubicle right now.
They’d only ever hung out in Brooklyn—mostly at home, since it wasn’t like she ever stayed over at his place, given that it was her place as well. They’d gone to a few r
estaurants and bars on what were starting to feel a whole lot like dates. And she’d been to Thunder, but she could show up at the taproom and nobody would bat an eye.
This was different. Not that Shawn wasn’t allowed in her office. But there were certain ways that things were supposed to go. Work, home, friendship, dating—the boundaries were supposed to stay clear. Or at least they always used to be, until Shawn came into her life.
She pushed back her chair and hurried toward the elevators. She’d catch him on his way, get her laptop, thank him a million times, and send him home. If anyone saw him, it was just her roommate dropping it off. Her hot, rugged, muscular, tattooed roommate who looked completely unlike anyone who’d ever set foot in the halls of Honeywell Press.
It was hopeless. One look at him as he stepped off the elevator, and she certainly didn’t feel like she was looking at her roommate. Roommates didn’t make her heart beat like that. Roommates didn’t make her palms sweat and her mouth dry and her legs feel all shivery and weak.
For a second, he turned the other way, looking for the right office numbers. Then he turned back and saw her, and she wondered if her own face showed that same transformation, the way it felt to go from lost, uncertain, to seeing someone, and knowing they saw you in the same way. He broke into a smile, eyes crinkling. She could feel herself flush all the way down to her toes. He’d obviously rushed out of the apartment—his hair was tousled, his bag slung casually over one shoulder. All she could think about was how he’d just been in bed—her bed—with that same sexy, carefree, I’m-going-to-do-every-single-thing-I-want-to-you look, and even though she’d been able to resist it that morning…she was only so strong.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, reaching for the laptop. “You’re a lifesaver. But you seriously didn’t have to do that.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” he said with a grin. “But I wanted to. For you. Only if you kick ass in your meeting, though. I know you’ve been worried about it.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll try.”
He ran his eyes shamelessly up and down her body. “You look so put together in here. It makes a man want to tear everything off you.”
Wrong Bed, Right Roommate (Accidental Love) Page 11