“What the hell?” Steve growled, glaring behind him toward the hallway. “Are they planning to keep that up all day?”
“It seems like it.” Michelle turned back to her laptop and tried not to think about sex.
Tried not to think about sex and Steve.
Tried not to think about sex and Steve and his peeling off her clothes, turning her over the dining room table, and taking her right there and then.
What the hell was wrong with her?
It was like she’d been possessed by some sex-crazed force who wouldn’t let her rest until she’d visualized every debauched sexual scenario she could imagine.
Steve made a noise in his throat. “I’m going to take a shower.”
He strode out of the kitchen and disappeared down the hall, leaving Michelle with a lot of hot fantasies and some muffled, rhythmic thumping to accompany them.
ALMOST AN HOUR LATER, Michelle was getting her bag together to head for campus when Jill came into the kitchen, dressed and ready for work.
The small blonde smelled like soap, so she’d obviously had time for a shower, but she clearly hadn’t gotten her hair wet because it was completely dry and piled up in a knot at the nape of her neck. She looked flushed and slightly rumpled. She was smiling and limping a bit as she walked.
Michelle wasn’t surprised.
She was surprised Jill could walk at all after however many countless rounds of vigorous sex she’d just had.
“Morning,” Jill said as she brewed coffee in a travel mug. She had to be at work by eight, which meant she only had ten minutes to get there. No time for a leisurely breakfast today.
“Morning. You’re running late today.” It was supposed to a casual comment, but Michelle’s tone had a resonance she hadn’t intended.
Jill shot her a quick look, her small body freezing. “You heard us?”
Michelle had just dropped her phone in her bag, but now she started searching for it again. “It’s fine.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
Michelle looked up to meet her friend’s eyes. “It’s really fine.”
“I’m so sorry. I know how awkward that is, so I try to... We just got carried away.”
Jill was flushed even pinker now, and Michelle was too. No matter how many times she tried to be cool and blasé about sex, the way a twenty-four-year-old woman should be, she just couldn’t do it. She always got embarrassed. “You don’t have to be sorry. You were in your own room. You’re allowed to do whatever you want in your own room.”
“I know. But...” Jill’s face twisted. “I’m sure that’s the last thing you wanted to hear on a Friday morning. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Michelle said for what felt like the fiftieth time. She never should have said a word. “Steve and I had sex all the time too when we were together. It’s what happens when you share a place.”
But she and Steve had never been loud about it.
Michelle didn’t say it, but she was thinking it.
She’d never been loud about sex with anyone. She’d never been loud in any way until she’d met Steve, and then she was only loud when she fought with him.
She was pretty sure that didn’t count.
MICHELLE HAD FIRST met Steve Hardcastle a year and a half ago. He’d sat down at her table without being invited.
That semester, Michelle had a schedule that gave her an hour and a half of down time around lunch on Mondays through Thursdays, so she’d regularly gone to one of the food courts on campus to get lunch and get away from the engineering buildings.
She always got there at eleven thirty when there were plenty of empty tables, but by the time she left, the food court was much more crowded.
One day a guy came up and sat in the empty chair across from her.
Surprised, she stared at the cute, rumpled guy who’d invited himself to her table.
When she didn’t say anything, he’d explained, “It’s the only empty chair in the whole damn place. Can I sit here?”
She’d glanced around, realizing he was right. There must be some sort of program going on this week on campus because it was even more crowded than usual.
Looking back at him, she took in his dark blue eyes, his broad, strong face, his wide shoulders, the solidity of his body under his loose jeans and T-shirt. She’d felt a wave of attraction the likes of which she’d never experienced before.
It was physical. Carnal. An immediate reaction.
She’d had no idea what to do with it, no idea how to respond. She’d managed to nod and murmur, “Sure. As long as you don’t talk to me.”
She hadn’t meant to sound bad-tempered, but her response to him was disturbing.
Unsettling to her equilibrium.
“Okay. You won’t hear a word out of me.” He’d pulled out his laptop too, and they’d both worked in silence until she’d finally gotten up to leave.
The following day, he came back and once again sat at her table, even though there were several empty tables in the food court that day. Again, he hadn’t said a word.
For the next two weeks, he always showed up, always sat with her, never said a word.
She looked forward to seeing him every day, and that wave of attraction just intensified as the weeks progressed.
Until one day she just stared at him as he sat down.
When he’d pulled out his laptop, he blinked at her. “What? You told me I could sit with you if I didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t mean for weeks on end.”
“So you don’t want me to sit with you, or I’m allowed to talk?” His eyes were laughing just a little, and it made her want to smile.
She made up her mind then. “You’re allowed to talk.”
“Oh good. I was afraid this was going to go on for months before you let me talk to you.”
“You could have just given up and sat somewhere else.”
“Why would I do that? I wanted to talk to you, and now I can.”
After that, they ate lunch together every day for a week and never ran out of things to say to each other. Then they were dating, and it was serious almost immediately. In three weeks, they were sleeping together. In less than two months, Steve was moving in to the apartment she shared with Jill and Chloe, her two best friends.
Even now, two months after their breakup, Michelle couldn’t imagine her life without him.
It was hard to feel that way when you were supposed to be moving on.
STEVE WAS ALMOST POSITIVE that Michelle wasn’t wearing a bra today.
He hadn’t noticed it that morning since she’d had on one of the big sweatshirts she always wore. And when he got back from work that evening, she’d been on the couch bundled up in a soft throw blanket, working on her laptop, so he hadn’t been able to see her body at all.
He’d come in, changed into sweats and a T-shirt, stuck a frozen meal into the microwave for dinner, and eaten it at the counter without saying more than hello to her. She hadn’t looked up from her laptop, which meant she wasn’t in the mood to chat.
Jill and Lucas weren’t around, so he read the newspaper he hadn’t had time for that morning, glancing over at Michelle occasionally. Her long, thick brown hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she had her glasses on, which meant she’d taken out her contacts.
She had more focus than anyone he’d ever met, and she was using it at the moment, aware of nothing in the world except whatever she was working on. Her long, slim legs were folded up beneath the blanket, and the graceful curve of her neck was particularly noticeable. Irresistible.
She had on no makeup. Her clothes and hair were relaxed and not intended to be flattering. Her glasses were slipping down her nose, and a blanket covered about eighty percent of her body.
There was no way she should be so beautiful right now, no way she should turn him on just by existing.
But she did.
He couldn’t stop watching her, wanting her.
And because she’d decided their re
lationship wasn’t working, he couldn’t go over and kiss her, touch her, bury his body in hers.
No wonder exes sought distance from each other. Nothing was worse than wanting someone like this and knowing you couldn’t have her.
He ate his meal and tried to rein in his thoughts since she’d be mad as hell if she knew he was sitting there lusting after her.
Of course, he’d rather her be mad at him than completely ignoring his existence the way she was now.
When they’d first met, he’d been finishing up his PhD in horticulture, and dating her had felt so important that he’d worked in as much time with her as possible, no matter how stressful and time-consuming it had been to finish up his degree. Then he’d lucked out and gotten a great full-time position on campus managing a new greenhouse and research center funded by a donor. He’d beaten out candidates who were much further along in their careers than he was, and it not only paid good money, but it was exactly what he’d wanted to be doing.
He’d thought his life had fallen into place. A good job. A girlfriend he loved. He’d wanted to marry her and start a family, and he’d thought she would want that too. So he’d done the obvious things. He’d started edging them toward that future whenever he could. He’d begun saving all his extra money for a down payment on a house for them. He’d made sure Michelle knew he wanted everything with her.
And for some reason all he’d gotten was resistance.
She’d said she loved him, and she’d always wanted a family in the future like he did. But he’d kept running into an invisible roadblock. One that prevented Michelle from ever really letting him in. One that led to more and more conflict, more and more fights.
He’d had no idea what the problem really was, and she would never tell him in a way that he could understand. She’d just kept saying that she loved him and wanted to keep trying.
So he had. He’d kept trying. Both of them had.
Until she’d broken up with him out of the blue.
It hadn’t made sense then, and it still didn’t even now. It didn’t feel to him like they were over.
She was meant for him. He was meant for her. And he wasn’t going to give up on that bone-deep belief just because she’d gotten scared or confused or tired of working on their problems.
He was still saving money for the house. One day, she was going to want to marry him.
When he was finished eating, he walked over to turn on the television and flipped over to a sports network. Michelle didn’t care if the television was on. Nothing would distract her from her work.
There were two couches in the big room, and he sat on the one opposite her, turning sideways so he could stretch out his legs. After a while, Michelle put her laptop on the coffee table and got up to use the bathroom and get a can of lime-flavored sparkling water out of the refrigerator.
He was watching her as she walked back, and that was when he noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She had on a black T-shirt that was fairly loose but not loose enough to hide the curve and sway of her breasts. Her nipples were tight, and they moved as she walked.
His body sprang to attention.
She wasn’t wearing a bra.
She always wore a bra. She put one on as soon as she stepped out of the shower every morning and didn’t take it off until she was getting into bed. He had reason to know this. He’d seen her put one on and take it off hundreds of times.
But she wasn’t wearing a bra today.
If he got up and walked over there, he could slip his hands under her shirt and be touching her bare breasts in about three seconds.
He knew what they felt like.
He knew how she turned pink and bit her lip when he played with her nipples. He knew how eventually she’d start to squirm her hips and pant.
His body throbbed painfully as arousal hit him fast and hard.
It had been two months since he’d had sex with Michelle. Two months since he’d had sex at all.
His body didn’t appreciate it.
“What?” Michelle demanded, looking up from her laptop at last.
“What, what?”
“You’ve been staring at me for ten minutes now. What’s your problem?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking.”
“Well, do you think you can think with your eyes pointed elsewhere?”
She was annoyed with him but not angry. He knew the difference. He didn’t like the annoyance since it meant she was cool and dismissive, like he wasn’t important to her. When she was angry, her face got red and her eyes flashed and her voice got louder.
She was such a cool, contained person, someone who almost never lost control. He’d always called her his kitten because she was normally sweet and shy, but she could show her claws when she got angry. He knew she felt things deeply, but she kept them safely hidden away inside her mind and heart. It was only when she was angry that she let anything out.
At least she was real then. It felt like she was really with him.
So much of the time when they were together he felt like he was floundering, trying to see inside her and never getting more than a tiny glimpse.
He’d tried to get her to open up to him, to let more of herself out—her real self, her deepest self—so he could share it with her. But she’d thought he was pressuring her, and she’d resented it.
Until all they’d had left was their fights.
“Do you realize you’re still staring?” she asked, just as cool as before.
He sighed and turned his eyes back to the television.
He hated that cool tone from her.
He’d never been able to be cool with her, and it bothered him that she could be so cool with him.
So he said what he knew he shouldn’t say. “Why aren’t you wearing a bra today?”
“What?” She’d stiffened dramatically, arching her back and making her soft breasts and tight nipples tantalizingly evident beneath her shirt.
“You heard me.”
“It’s none of your business why I’m not wearing a bra.” Her voice was different now, hoarse, almost harsh. Her cheeks were getting pink, and she reached up to give her ponytail a restless tug. “And why are you looking at my chest anyway?”
“I could hardly help but see. Did you go without a bra all day?”
“I told you it’s none of your business.” Her cool tone had turned into something loud and hot. “What the hell is wrong with you anyway? What kind of guy goes around asking women why they’re not wearing bras?”
His heartbeat had accelerated, and his blood pumped in his veins. “I’m not asking just any woman. I’m asking you.”
“Well, don’t ask me! Jackass. Whether or not I wear a bra is none of your concern anymore.”
He knew that was true, but it felt like his concern. And he also felt absurdly victorious at having broken through her cool composure. “When I’m sitting here and can see whether or not you’re wearing a bra, then it feels like my business.”
“And I’m telling you that it’s not. So you can stop talking about it. Right now.”
“So now I’m not allowed to talk about what I want to talk about in my own living room?”
Her cheeks were even redder than before, and her brown eyes were flashing. She was the prettiest, most desirable thing he’d ever seen in his life. “It’s my living room too, you know. And only assholes go around talking about a woman’s boobs.”
“I’m not going around talking about your boobs! I’ve never talked about them with anyone but you.”
“So now you can stop talking about them with me. You can stop talking about them at all.” He could see she was really angry now. Angry in the way she only ever was with him.
He knew it didn’t speak well of him, but he’d riled her up on purpose.
It was the only time he ever knew that he was genuinely important to her.
He was all riled too. Hot. Panting. Ridiculously turned on but trying to hide that fact. “I wasn’t even talking about your boo
bs. I was talking about whether you were wearing a bra.”
“Well, stop talking about that too. You don’t get to judge me for what I wear or don’t wear.”
“Judge you?” He choked out the words in his surprise. “I’m not trying to judge—”
“Oh just shut up, Steve! I don’t want to do this tonight. Please.” She’d focused on her laptop again, but he saw a glint of what looked like tears in her eyes.
His excitement transformed immediately to something else. “Michelle, what’s the matter?”
She glared up at him, her teeth almost snapping. “What’s the matter is you’re being a jerk.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean something seems wrong. It seemed wrong with you this morning, and it still seems wrong now. You’re upset about something, and I want to know what it is.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Don’t lie to me. If you tell me, then I can help you. I can fix it.”
“You can’t fix me, Steve,” she gritted out.
She was endlessly frustrating, never letting him in, never letting him help her the way he wanted. Even when they’d been together, she’d been like this. Constantly pushing him away instead of letting him in, letting him help.
He was good at helping.
He was good at taking care of people.
All he’d wanted to do was take care of her.
He still wanted it. So much so that his voice sounded rough as he said, “I’m not trying to fix you. I wanted to help fix your problems. You think I no longer care about you, just because we’re broken up?”
“I don’t have problems.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Let it go, Steve.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Let it go!” Her words were loud and sharp.
His defensive instinct triggered, and he started to respond in kind, but Jill and Lucas came into the apartment just then, both of them laughing.
It shifted the mood immediately, and Michelle put up her laptop and started smiling, obviously glad of the distraction.
So Steve didn’t get to even have the argument with her.
Living with Her Ex-Boyfriend (The Loft, #2) Page 2