“Is something going on? Why didn’t you say anything?”
She lifted a shoulder as I went to get her a beer. Screw the house. Dash could wait.
“This long-distance thing is no joke. Sometimes we have to go a couple days without talking now. If I bring up how much I miss talking to him, he berates me for trying to control all of his time. Do you think it’s wrong of me to want to talk to him, not all day, but at least once a day? We only get to see each other a couple times a year.”
I wish I had the answers for her. I didn’t feel nearly well-equipped enough to handle relationship troubles. But she was my friend and she needed an ear. “I think you deserve to get what you want, within reason, from any relationship. To not consider your needs or to belittle them isn’t a sign of a healthy relationship. But what do I know?”
Ember’s smile wobbles. “I don’t mean to whine.”
Waving that away, I pop the tops to our beer. “Don’t even think about it. That’s what I’m here for. Why don’t I text Charlie and see if her shift is over? We can make it a girls’ night tonight instead?”
“You don’t have to do that. Even though you’re denying it, I know you had some sort of plans tonight.”
I already had my phone out to text Charlie and Dash an update. “You come first.”
Dash replied almost immediately.
DASH: Still coming over. I don’t mind a Netflix and bash man session. I’ll bring the wine and chocolate.
Charlie texted a few seconds after that.
CHARLIE: Wish I could! I’m working a double and won’t be off for another ten hours. Tell Ember I’ll call her tomorrow to bitch after I get off and give her my love. P.S. Chris is a cocksucker.
Ember settled on the couch while I changed from the cute dress I’d put on for Dash into a pair of sweats and a camisole with a shelf-bra. I doubted Dash would actually stay once he realized what he was getting into.
Ember was staring off into space and occasionally sipping from her beer by the time I returned.
“Charlie can’t make it, double shift. She said she’d call you after to talk.”
Ember smiled wanly. “I’m sorry for interrupting your plans for my pity party.”
“Acctuallyy about that…”
I was interrupted by a knock at the door. With a cross between a grimace and a grin, I answered it with a mouthed “I’m sorry” over my shoulder.
Dash stepped in with a bottle of wine in one hand and a plastic bag full to bursting in the other. “I brought supplies.” After placing the wine on the coffee table, he added, “I wasn’t sure what kind of chocolate this situation called for so I pretty much got one of everything.”
Ember’s mouth opened and closed. “I’ve got nothing. What’s going on?”
“Layla told me you were having man troubles. I’m here with wine and chocolate and am offering to prostrate myself on behalf of all the male species. Take your vengeance out on me or beseech my wisdom, whichever you choose.”
For the first time since she came over, Ember’s smile was genuine. She reached forward and glanced through the bag, studied the label on the wine, and then said, “There may be chick movies and crying.”
“I’m not afraid of tears and I love me some Sandra Bullock.”
Shaking my head at the two of them, I took the bag of treats into the kitchen along with the wine to pour three glasses. When Dash joined me as Ember flipped through Netflix for a movie, I cornered him where we wouldn’t be visible from the living room.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I told him.
He tugged me closer, kissing me firmly on the lips. After a second, I relaxed against him. “I know I didn’t. But you can call it shallow if you like. Maybe it’s just the way I’m gonna get in your pants for sure.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dream on.”
As I spooned up the ice cream, he hovered over my shoulder. “Don’t tell me rocky road ice cream doesn’t make those panties drop.”
I glanced up and met his laughing eyes. Slowly, I put the spoon in my mouth and licked off all the sticky sweet goodness. His gaze turned heated and I grinned.
“Take the wine into Ember, will you?” I asked.
He did and shouted, “Time to get white girl wasted!” along the way and I had to put a hand to my chest.
It wasn’t the ice cream, but the man, who’d shown me a side of him I hadn’t realized existed, that made my panties want to drop.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DASH
“THIS IS the best movie I’ve ever seen,” I said around a handful of popcorn.
Ember rolled her eyes at me, but she no longer looked like a wounded puppy. “You’re only saying that because you get to see women prance around in bikinis.”
I grinned. “That, too, but seriously. It’s got comedy, action, and bikinis. What’s not to like?”
Ember eyed me. “Are you patronizing me because I’m being pitiful?”
I tossed a handful of popcorn at Ember, ignoring the “Hey!” of protest from Layla. “Number one, I wouldn’t patronize you. Number two; if I hated the movie I’d tell you straight up. Not likely, though as I’ve always had a thing for Ms. Bullock.”
“I don’t know why Layla calls you the spawn of the devil. You’re not that bad.”
“Spawn of the devil?” I said to Layla. “I thought I was God?” I added with an evil smirk.
Her cheeks turned a beautiful rose and I heard Ember choke on a laugh. “On that note, I’d better get going. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”
Layla jumped to her feet and walked Ember to the door. “You’re welcome to come hang out any time.”
“I’ll bring wine!” I shout.
When Ember left, she had a smile on her face, so I considered my mission accomplished.
Layla gathered the bowls and discarded drinks, shooing me away when I tried to help her. “You surprised me tonight,” she said as she began to rinse them under the faucet.
“How’s that?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t figure you for the type who could, I dunno, hang out and cheer up my friend.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” I said.
Our eyes caught as she looked back at me. “Will you stay? At least for a few minutes. Let me finish this real quick.”
It was a bad idea. She was caught between wanting me and hating me with enough chemistry thrown in to make an already confusing situation even more so. Teasing her, tasting her again was one surefire way to make her virginity go from a sure thing to nonexistent.
I leaned against the counter, watching her as I considered. Water splashed up on her wrists, and her hasty topknot had started to come undone and spilled over her shoulders. I liked her this way, a little roughed up, not quite so put together. Normally, she was meticulous about her appearance, out of habit no doubt caused by her mother, I’d imagine. I liked it even more when she was all mussed-up because of me.
While she cleaned up, I distracted myself walking through her apartment so I didn’t drag her down the hall to her bedroom and strip her down. She hadn’t begged me to take her…yet, but my control was on a hair trigger, apparently, so it was best for me to keep those impulses locked up tight.
Layla had covered the exposed brick wall with minimalist reproductions of book pages. I moved closer to examine them. Boring, dry lines from ancient English classics ought to distract me from thoughts of her naked.
Except, the pages weren’t lines from sonnets or novels, at least not any old ones. There were passages from Harry Potter, Star Trek scripts, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz books. I stood, slack-jawed and stumped for a few long minutes. Layla wasn’t only a bookworm, she was a nerd.
I couldn’t say why I found that so endearing, or why it made me want to kiss the hell out of her, but it did.
It also made me to want to explore, to learn more, to find out what other secrets she was hiding behind those pretty eyes of hers.
I should pump the brakes, tell
her we should cool it off—at least until the semester was over—and we both weren’t in danger of screwing things up. It would kill me to be the reason she tripped up for the first time in her life. She already put too much on her shoulders, much as she tried to hide that, too.
As she finished cleaning up, I found my way back into her bedroom. The scent of her was even stronger here. It surprised me to find Miss-Nothing-Out-of-Place Tate left her bedspread tangled in a heap. Books were stacked three deep on her nightstand. Her closet doors yawned open with clothes exploding out.
I realized my mistake the second I felt her enter the room behind me. Whirling, my heart began a thunderous staccato in my throat. “Finished?” My voice was a croak, my throat unbearably dry.
Layla only seemed amused, if the smile on her lips was anything to go by. “Get lost?” she asked.
I had to shove my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her. “No. Being nosy.”
Leaning against the doorjamb, she glanced around her room. “And you decided to poke around my bedroom? What did you do—look in my underwear drawer?”
Disappointed the thought hadn’t occurred to me, I lifted a shoulder and nodded toward the hall. “Why don’t we go out and watch another Bullock flick?” Anything to get her away from the temptation of her bed.
I tried to squeeze out beside her, but she put a hand to my chest. The subtle contact had me freezing to the spot, all my muscles contracting. “Layla,” I warned.
“You didn’t have to stay.”
“Let’s talk about this in the living room,” I suggested.
“We can talk about it here.” Without giving me a chance to argue, Layla took my arm and led me to the bed. At my panicked look, she laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning on making a move on you.”
I didn’t know whether I should be amused or relieved. “What do you want to talk about?”
She pushed dark tendrils away from her face. “Don’t look so serious. I wanted to thank you for staying, for distracting her the way you did. If you’re worried, she won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m not worried,” I told her. She nodded, looking at her lap. “I know you are. You’re probably confused as hell.”
“You’re not wrong there. I think what we’re doing is crazy. Maybe it’s a good thing Ember interrupted tonight. I’m not sure…I’m not sure I would have been able to stop.”
She bit her lip, unable to meet my eyes. I wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, but I knew once I got my hands on her, it’d be a slippery slope. “You having second thoughts?”
“I’ve been having second thoughts the whole time,” she admitted. “You know that.”
“That’s because you think too much.”
At my words, she turned to study me. It used to be I knew what she was thinking just from looking at her. Now, her eyes were shuttered.
Then she met my gaze. “Would you stay?” The words were so quiet, I almost believed I imagined them. “Just for tonight. Maybe I don’t want to think anymore.”
THE NEXT DAY, after a night where we cuddled and fell asleep twined in her bed, Layla found me at my office after class and proceeded to make up for all the kissing I hadn’t gotten the night before.
Kissing her was better than screwing any other woman, I was almost sure of it. It wasn’t because she was innocent, although there was a certain primal possession, I got from knowing I could be the only one to be with her, it was just Layla. Her smart-mouth was even feistier when it pressed up against mine. She battled me as much with words as she did with her kiss and I ate all of it up.
“I have to get to the library. I’m supposed to be tutoring this afternoon.” She was giving me excuses, but made no move to leave my arms.
The door was closed. It wasn’t locked and that was a bit like tempting fate, but I couldn’t find the resolve to move the couple feet to throw the deadbolt. “Okay, then you should get going,” I said.
But she deepened the kiss instead. I let her. Delving into her sweet mouth was a level of bliss I wasn’t aware even existed. It was a bliss I wasn’t wholly sure I deserved.
I carefully disengaged and kept her at arm’s length. “Really, Lay, you should get to the library.” The throbbing hard-on in my pants disagreed, but now wasn’t the time or place.
“You’re right,” she agreed, her face flushed. She strode to the mirror on the back of my office door and checked her clothes, her hair. The sight of her mussed shirt and smeared gloss made me ache to see her freshly fucked and rumpled in my bed as she woke up still soft and pliant from sleep.
Christ, maybe I was as big of a dick as she thought I was. Only a total asshole would take advantage of a woman like Layla. She really was one-of-a-kind. Didn’t take my bullcrap, smart as all get out, and underneath her sweet, prim exterior, was dynamite just waiting to be lit. God did I want to fucking light her up.
“Do I look okay?” she asked.
I had to force myself to reply with a sarcastic comment to keep from dragging her off to a closet or something. “No worse than usual.”
She took it in stride and rolled her eyes before giving me one last kiss that was all too brief. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I was still frozen minutes later when Jessica strolled through my door without knocking. At first, I looked up with a smile thinking Layla was coming back, but it faded as Jessica’s too expensive perfume filled the small space between us.
In order to get away from the cloying scent—and get a safe distance away—I moved to my chair behind the desk. “Jessica. What can I do for you?”
“Isn’t she your student? The one who was at the charity dinner?” She asked it in such a way that I knew she was already aware of the answer. It was a leading question, one designed to catch me in a lie. “I saw her leaving your office.”
I studied Jessica in her perfectly pressed jeans and meticulously planned coordinating accessories. She looked like the kind of fake-Instagram ready that made me want to close my head in a door. “What she is or isn’t is none of your business.”
She chuckled, a deep, throaty sound that would have been sexy if it came from any other woman. “That’s where you’re mistaken, Dash. I know what I want, and I won’t hesitate to go after it. And you’re what I want.”
“I’m flattered, really, but I’m not interested.”
Her eyes flashed in warning. “Because you’re fucking your student? That’s one way to ruin your candidacy before you’ve even gotten elected.”
Hovering between amused and an insulted, I merely leaned back in my chair. “I’m not interested because of you, Jessica. Cold and calculating isn’t really my type. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got office hours and papers to grade. You can see yourself out.”
When she didn’t move, I looked back at her. “Is this where you say I’m going to regret this? Because I won’t entertain any threats from you.”
She smiled, showing off perfect teeth that must have cost a fortune. “Some things don’t need to be said. I expect to have an invitation to the gala your grandmother spoke about at the charity function by this weekend, Dash. Give your grandparents my best. Your grandmother has all of the details.”
I closed my office door behind her and frowned.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LAYLA
“SO, SPILL,” Ember urged, her eyes gleeful over the top of her glass. “What’s been going on between you two?”
I took a sip of my own, barely tasting it, as I considered my answer. My friends would understand if I chose to continue my—whatever it was—with Dash, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them.
“Nothing.” At their disbelieving look, I rolled my eyes. “I’m serious! Besides the fact he’s been an absolute douchebag to me for the past however long, he’s also my T.A. Even if we were to, hookup or whatever, it would run the risk of us both getting into major shit. You know me better than that.” For additional emphasis, I added, “Could you imagine what Mom would say if that
happened? I’d be doubly screwed.”
“Let me tell you as someone who recently went through this parental bullshit,” Charlie began. “Yeah, your parents are important, but you have to realize this is your life. You’ve got to start living it for you. Period.”
Ember nodded emphatically.
I pointed to her. “Don’t start.”
She raised her brows. “What?”
Wanting to change the subject, I gestured with my glass. “Since we’re talking about living our lives. What about you?”
Ember sat back in her seat, trying to look innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, what’s up with Chris?” Charlie asked.
“I thought we were here to figure out the Dash situation.”
I made a zipping motion over my lips. “Charlie still hasn’t been caught up on everything that happened. Besides, I can handle Dash for now. Even though nothing is going on.”
“I don’t want to talk about Chris,” Ember said with a frown. “Talking about him depresses me.”
Charlie covered Ember’s hand with her own. “That’s not a good sign, sweetie. Tell me what happened.”
Ember signaled the waitress and ordered another round. With a heavy sigh, she began, “He wants to take a break, which can’t mean anything good. He says we need space because it’s our senior year and our lives are about to change. I told him I’d support him in whatever he wanted, like I always have, but he said he needed time.”
“A break in a relationship is never a good sign. The whole point is to work through problems together,” Charlie said wisely.
I had to defer to her limited experience because I had exactly none. I was in over my head with Dash as it was. The only thing I knew was Chris was making my friend unhappy and if anyone deserved happiness, it was Ember. The girl was as selfless as it got.
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