Wrong Kiss: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

by Lexi Aurora

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Olivia.”

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  “This isn’t Caroline’s apartment.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Because. It’s Abel’s place.”

  “You realize she lives here, right?”

  “I gathered. So what do you think? Did he ever giver her actual verbal permission to move in or did she just pull one of those sneak attacks?”

  “Sneak attacks? That’s not even a thing.”

  “Sure it is. You know, where the chick starts bringing her things into a guy’s apartment under the radar? She’ll bring in one small thing at a time, little by little, putting said things around the apartment but in places the guy’s not likely to notice for a while. Then he wakes up one day and all of the sudden he’s surrounded by some chick’s things. So what’s he supposed to do then? Does he bag it all up, tell her he’s sorry but he’s not so into the idea of having a surprise roommate?”

  “God, you’re such a pig.”

  “The thing with that,” Nick went on genially enough, as if he’d never heard her evaluation of him at all, “is that it’s like walking into a minefield. A guy does that and he’s got to handle the wrath of this chick he’s just offended. Not a good deal, right?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Olivia answered stonily. He had to hand it to her, it was a tone of voice that would have brought many men to their knees. She knew how to intimidate.

  “Well, I’ll tell you. Not a good deal. So then what?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Of course you don’t. You’re a chick. I’ll tell you what happens. Any dude who doesn’t feel like getting himself involved in World War Three decides he’ll bite the bullet and let her keep her junk in his place, which means she’s going to keep bringing more junk in whenever she feels like it. After that goes on for a little while longer, she’ll sit him down and have the conversation.”

  “What conversation would that be?”

  “The conversation where she lays out all of the reasons why they might as well move in with each other. And at that point the dude is kind of screwed, right? Chances are she’s staying over all the time already, which is why she started bringing her junk over in the first place. Seeing as the guy didn’t want to get into it over her leaving her stuff at his place, he’s already opened the door to her becoming a permanent resident, both literally and figuratively. And there you have it.”

  “There you have it? You make it sound like you solved the great mystery of the universe.”

  “Nope, not solved. I wish. I’m just saying, that’s how you get stuck living together.”

  “Neat. None of which has anything to do with this being Caroline’s apartment.”

  “My point is that it’s not her apartment. Pretty simple.”

  “Except that it is.”

  “You know you’re not going to convince me of that, right?”

  “So you’re saying it was a scenario like the lovely one you just laid out for me?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Except that you’re wrong.”

  “You know what? I have a really simple solution to this little problem we’re having.”

  “Oh yeah?” she retorted, her hands on her hips and a scowl on her pretty face, “What might that be?”

  “We’ll just ask them.”

  Nick knew Olivia wouldn’t approve of him just barging into the apartment, which is why he didn’t bother to ask her opinion of the matter. He knew that Abel rarely left the front door to his place locked because the two of them had had many a conversation about how stupid it was to be so trusting in the current day and age. Normally Nick would have considered Abel to be a flat fool to leave his place open but for the moment, it only made his life easier. He tried the knob and grinned when the door swung easily open. He stepped inside confidently and did his best to shut the door behind him.

  “Hey!” Olivia shouted from behind him, one of her hands jutting out at lightning speed to stop him from closing the door entirely, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “If you need to ask a question as simple as that, I’m afraid there’s no hope for you in this world.”

  “You can’t just go barging into her apartment that way! Ever hear of knocking?”

  That’s what you were doing when I walked up, right?”

  “Um, yes, that’s right. I was knocking because I’m a civil freaking person.”

  “Right. Didn’t look like it was getting you anywhere. Thanks for the tip, but I think I’ll stick to doing things my way.”

  Nick turned back towards the front hallway of the spacious apartment, grinning widely as Olivia squawked her disapproval. He didn’t consider himself to be the kind of man to incite women’s anger on purpose, not regularly anyway, but there was something about Olivia that made it so damned tempting. Besides, she may have disapproved of what he was doing, but her disapproval didn’t extend so far that she wasn’t hurrying after him. She was so close behind him, in fact, that she ran smack into his broad back when he got to the living room and abruptly stopped.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she cried, coming up to his side with disgust radiating off of her body.

  “Christ,” he said, ignoring her completely and instead choosing to address his buddy and his buddy’s girl, “I’m sorry. I guess knocking really wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world.”

  Olivia, who had been too intent on trying to murder him with her death glare alone, allowed her eyes to drift to the couch Nick was already trying not to look at. When she saw why he had stopped, she let out a gasp.

  “Hey, guys,” a nearly naked Abel called out cheerily, “welcome to our casa, I guess.”

  Chapter Three

  Olivia Young

  OLIVIA WASN’T A PRUDE, she really wasn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. When she saw what she and Nick had walked into, or almost walked into, she was beyond embarrassed. There was a big difference between watching people get it on in the movies and seeing it in real life. Even seeing two total strangers on the verge of getting it on wasn’t as awkward as walking in on your best friend and her man. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of Abel being at Caroline’s place in the middle of the day. Caroline was a freelance writer, which meant that the odds of her being home if somebody randomly stopped by were pretty high. That was why she hadn’t bothered giving her a call before she had stopped by. What she hadn’t counted on was Abel being there with her in the middle of a Friday work day. What she definitely hadn’t counted on was the two of them being right on the brink of doing the deed. Abel was sprawled out on the oversized couch wearing nothing but his boxers, through which Olivia could clearly see a good-sized erection. Caroline was hovering on top of him, legs straddling him enthusiastically, wearing nothing but a lace bra and thong. Even from her vantage point of being halfway in the hallway, Olivia could hear that both of them were panting loudly. Another couple of moments and she and Nick would have walked in on more than the beginning of the deed.

  “Christ! Abel, man, I’m sorry. Shit!”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Abel answered agreeably as a red-faced Caroline hurriedly climbed off of him and pulled her dress on over her head, “not the end of the world.”

  “Caroline,” Olivia added, sure that her own face was every bit as scarlet as her best friend’s, “I’m so, so sorry. I was knocking, I swear, but...”

  She allowed the words to trail off mid-sentence. Just to be sure everyone understood where she was going with her comments she fixed Nick with a pointed, albeit brief, glare. When she looked at Caroline again there was a smile in the corner of her friend’s mouth and Olivia knew she had gotten her point across. It was no secret that there was no love lost between Olivia and Nick. Caroline had once hinted at the fact being a bit of a problem for her and Abel. Olivia had been stubborn in her appraisal of Nick, telling Caroline that if she wanted he
r to get on board with Abel’s friends, maybe they shouldn’t be such jackasses. And clearly, she had been right. This was a perfect case in point. If it hadn’t been for Nick, the two of them would have stayed put on the front stoop where they belonged instead of barging in on something they were most definitely not supposed to have seen.

  “It’s fine, babe!” Caroline chirped, discreetly placing a pillow over Abel’s pelvis area while she stood to greet her unexpected guests, “we should be listening more closely for the door if we’re going to leave it unlocked.”

  “Don’t say it,” Abel laughed, pulling on his own clothes while Olivia made a point of looking elsewhere, “you’ll only give Nick encouragement and he doesn’t need it.”

  “Clearly,” Olivia muttered under her breath, her irritation with the man rising as the moments passed by instead of things going the other way around.

  “Anyway,” Caroline continued, frowning ever so slightly at Olivia, which was her way of warning her to try and behave, “there’s nothing for you two to feel bad about. We should have been listening, we were just–”

  “Busy?”

  Nick laughed while he spoke, like he’d just delivered the wittiest line in the world. Olivia fought back an intense urge to deck him, or at least to remind him of what a total moron she thought he was being. Abel and Caroline were both laughing, though, and Olivia had already gotten the message loud and clear that Caroline wanted her to play nice. So instead of saying anything she gave a small smile that felt like cardboard. It felt fake, which was what it took for her to get along with a guy like Nick. And she wanted to get along with him, too, at least for the time being. She wanted to do it for Caroline. All it took was a cursory glance for Olivia to be able to see that Caroline was over the moon about something. It was such a happy look that Olivia couldn’t help getting caught up in it a little bit. She kept looking from Abel’s face to Caroline’s, waiting for some kind of information to go by.

  “Okay,” Nick said bluntly, beating her to any kind of question she might have chosen to ask, “what gives?”

  “Don’t know what you mean, brother,” Abel answered with a sly smile.

  “Bullshit you don’t know what I mean. You've got a look on your face like you’ve been up to no good. What’s going on here?”

  “Well,” Caroline giggled, blushing again and every bit as much as she’d done when she’d been walked in on practically naked, “we’ve got some exciting news. Or at least exciting to us. We’ve decided to move in together.”

  “No shit?” Nick said, his voice taking on a somehow flat tone it hadn’t had before.

  “That’s wonderful!” Olivia gushed, rushing forward to embrace her friend. When Caroline wrapped her arms around her the bag full of goodies got jostled and almost hit the floor. Caroline took a step back and glanced down at the sack curiously.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. Just a few odds and ends.”

  “It looks like you’ve brought the fanciest picnic ever. Are we celebrating?”

  “Of course we are! We’re celebrating your fantastic news!”

  Caroline gave her a look like she didn’t really believe what she was hearing but she didn’t pursue it. Olivia briefly considered telling Caroline her news anyway but kept her mouth shut. For her, the kind of promotion she had just received was some of the most exciting news a person could get on God’s green earth. For other people, people like her friends, for example, that wasn’t the case. The last thing Olivia wanted to do was steal Caroline’s thunder. The two of them had been friends for all of her life, for as long as she could remember, and Olivia had seen Caroline struggle through one nasty relationship after another. She had seen her look for real, loving companionship in all of the wrong places and had spent many a night holding her in her arms while she sobbed after suffering her latest heartbreak. Olivia didn’t love the fact that Abel came with a big lump of man-child shaped baggage like Nick, but other than that she thought Abel was a great guy. He was definitely the kind of guy she could see Caroline eventually getting married to, so them moving in together was something big. Something truly worth celebrating.

  “What are you waiting for, lady?” Olivia asked brightly, storing her news away for another day, “Let’s open some bottles!”

  “Shit,” Nick laughed, the sound of which made Olivia cringe a little bit, “I second that. Who would have thought, the two of us actually agreeing on something? That means it must be the right move.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Olivia said stiffly, doing her best to put that plastic smile back on her face, “good to know you agree.”

  “Sure thing, doll. Anytime.”

  Olivia cringed again but bit her tongue. Abel pulled himself up off of the couch and after he and Caroline both did a quick once over to make sure they were both decent, they started setting out a veritable feast. Olivia hung back some and watched as they did simple, unimportant things like set out bowls of dip and platters of cheeses. She watched the way they looked at each other, the way they shared loving little touches without even realizing that they were doing it. They loved each other. If there had been any question in her mind before seeing them in their cramped kitchen, it was gone. Their love was a physical thing, something that charged the room with an energy she had never felt touch her own heart, and Olivia felt her insides twist into a knot. She was well on her way to getting everything she wanted in life, the promotion to junior partner bringing her one step further. Even so, and this was something she hated having to admit even to herself, she was lonely. She didn’t have that somebody in her life to dance in the kitchen with. There was nobody to brush the hair out of her face when she smiled. Feeling a little hole in the center of herself, she grabbed a glass of wine and took a deep, long sip.

  Chapter Four

  Nick Oswald

  NICK WAS ON THE FENCE about Abel and Caroline’s news. Before Caroline had actually laid it out on the table what the two of them were so excited about, he’d been terrified they were going to say they were pregnant, and he was beyond relieved that it wasn’t that. The best way to have his friend bow out of his life for real was for Abel to have a kid. Moving in with a chick, though? That was a pretty close second. Abel was all grins for now, but he was one step closer to having his balls in a jar where Caroline could take control of them whenever she wanted to, whether Abel got that or not. He foresaw plenty of clandestine trips to the local bar while Abel tried to figure out what the fuck he’d gotten himself into, and he would be more than happy to remind his buddy how much easier life was when you weren’t being weighed down by a chick. For the time being, though, he was more than willing to celebrate with Abel and Caroline.

  Hell, he was even willing to celebrate with Olivia. He was particularly interested in celebrating with Olivia, as a matter of fact. She’d consistently been a bitch to him over the past six months, but for reasons he couldn’t explain that was falling away for once. Even while he thought about it, looking at Olivia speculatively, she glanced at him and shot him what could only be described as a beautiful smile. He felt himself stir a little below the belt and wondered what kind of game she was trying to play. He couldn’t be one-hundred-percent sure, but he didn’t recall her ever smiling at him with anything other than straight up malice. It was unnerving, that smile, and after moments that felt like they were going on for centuries it got to be too much for him to handle silently.

  “Excuse the question, Olivia, but what are you looking at?”

  “I’m looking at you, silly,” Olivia giggled, her face slightly flushed in a way that made her look absolutely breathtaking, “I thought it was obvious. Isn’t that in a movie or something?”

  “Isn’t what in a movie?” Nick laughed. He wasn’t sure he trusted this new and improved version of Olivia, this version where she was not only nice to him but flirtatious as well. He couldn’t understand it so he couldn’t trust it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like her this way. When she
was being all stone cold she was a straight up bitch but when she was like this? She wasn’t half bad.

  “That line! Some girl says ‘what are you looking at?’ and the guy says, ‘I’m looking at you, miss.’ Or something like that. I swear it’s in a movie. It’s like, the sexiest exchange ever.”

  “Sexy?” Nick laughed again, totally floored that Olivia Young would ever be so crass as to talk about anything being sexy, “For real?”

  “Totally for real,” she answered with no hesitation, her face flushing even more than it had been before, “I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”

  “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

  “I don’t see why you would be. I’m not made out of stone, you know.”

  “No,” Nick responded quickly, “it doesn’t look like you are.”

  Nick looked her thick, beautiful body up and down appreciatively, taking his time while he did so. He was sure her good feelings towards him, wherever they had come from, would fade straight back into obscurity right then and there. There were certainly some kinds of chicks who loved a guy running his eyes up and down their bodies. Nick knew that from personal experience. He had hooked more than a couple of women in bars without having to do a whole hell of a lot more than give the right look, leaving him with no bigger concern than to figure out how to get rid of them in the morning. Olivia, though, wasn’t that kind of chick. She had made that perfectly clear and she had done it every single chance she had been given. Him looking at her at all for any length of time was asking for trouble, but looking at her the way he was, letting his eyes stop and stay awhile on her most enticing parts, that was downright playing with fire. He held his breath, waiting to see what kind of pissed off retort she would lob at him now. Instead, she bit her lip, smiled again, and then dropped a little wink at him. He was so shocked he almost fell out of the chair he was casually tipping onto the back two legs, just the way his mother had always told him would land him on his ass if he wasn’t careful.