FULL NOVELXO : Chapter 12
IN THE BEST of times, it’s inadvisable to start lusting after your roommate, and we are nowhere near the best of times.
I try to push the memory of the kiss to the back of my brain, along with any residual Miles’s mouth–based curiosity, but it’s not easy.
On Thursday I go to grab a late-night glass of water at exactly the right time to find Miles filling his own glass in the unlit kitchen, wearing nothing but athletic shorts, the disjointed assortment of tattoos splashed across his chest reduced to dark blurs, pieces of him I’ve seen before but not since the kiss, and now I find myself insatiably curious.
About the perfectly balanced scales of Libra, the illustrated Man on the Moon, the somewhat wonky horseshoe, the little red piece of fruit . . . a strawberry maybe?
“Hey,” he says, his voice scratchy with sleep. “You need something?”
I guiltily jerk my gaze back to his face. “Nope!” I’ve already spun back to my room before I realize that actually, yes, I needed the very water pitcher Miles was holding, but there’s no way I’m going back in there now.
On Sunday, we drive out to Sleeping Bear Dunes and it’s easier to be normal, because it’s eye-scaldingly bright out and we’re both fully dressed, and also this is possibly the most gorgeous stretch of turquoise shore I’ve ever seen—even if it’s also where I’m going to die a premature death, because today Miles has decided we should rent a dune buggy.
“You’ll be fine,” he promises as he holds a helmet out to me.
“Anything you need a helmet to do,” I say, “you probably simply shouldn’t do.”
He steps closer, the breeze ruffling his hair, and pulls the helmet down over my head. “Or maybe,” he says, eyes crinkled against the sun, “everything worth doing comes with some risk.”
His winsome grin sends a thrill up my spine, a lit fuse shortening by the second, and I have no idea what happens when it burns to the end.
He tips his head toward the buggy. “I promise to go slow for you.”
The way he says it, low and teasing, sends my thoughts scattering like pool balls on a perfect break. I can’t think of a single reply. Silently, I climb into the buggy.
On the upside, the experience of rumbling over hills in a vehicle with no door or sides, wind ripping through my hair and sand stinging my skin, turns out to be a good distraction from staring at Miles’s mouth too long.
Downside: every time we hit a bump, I accidentally grab his right thigh with both hands, until finally, he slows to a crawl and sets one palm over mine, murmuring, “It’s okay. I’ve got you,” in a velvety tone I assume he means to be soothing rather than tantalizing.
Whenever we reach a new scenic view (which is almost constantly), he insists we stop to take a picture together, and I have to disconnect my brain to keep the feeling of his arms roped around me, chin tucked into my shoulder, from plunging me wholesale back into the memory of making out against his truck.
The next Sunday is a little better. We kick things off by driving three towns over to Miles’s favorite farmers’ market. We wander for hours and leave with what we need to make pizzas.
At home that night, we build a simple margherita (my contribution) as well as a goat-cheese, artichoke, pesto concoction (Miles’s). Then he keeps an eye on them in the oven while I seize the opportunity to take a much-needed shower.
When I get back, clad in my favorite silky pajamas, he’s setting the pizzas on the table.
“Perfect timing.” He glances up, then double-takes.
I track his gaze downward and, to my horror, realize I didn’t dry off thoroughly enough before getting dressed. My top is damp, nearly translucent in several places, and—speaking of perfect timing—my nipples choose that instant to stand at attention, like eager little meerkats.
I cross my arms over my chest.
Miles’s eyes snap back to my face.
“I’ll grab plates!” I volunteer.
“I’ll get drinks,” he coughs out.
In the kitchen, I pull two mismatched floral plates down, then turn, immediately colliding with him, the plates flattened upright between our stomachs, and his hands—in their attempt to catch my forearms and prevent said collision—pressed to the outside edges of my collarbones.
“Sorry,” we both say.
Or he says it. I yelp it.
We awkwardly sidestep in the same direction. Then he steps back, holding a hand out like, After you, and I scuttle to the table, leaving him to rummage in the kitchen. When he emerges, he’s got two glasses of wine.
“Thank god,” I accidentally say when he hands me one, a comment he mercifully ignores.
He dishes up a piece of each pizza for both of us and we pad into the living room, where we sit on opposite ends of the couch. I take a bite of the artichoke pizza first.
“There it is,” Miles says.
I open my eyes. Because, as it turns out, I had closed them and also moaned a little. He’s fighting a grin as he bites into his own artichoke slice.
“The signature Daphne moan,” he says.
I flush. “It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten pizza.”
Miles smiles wryly. “Right, you were on the wheatgrass diet.” His head tilts, eyes glimmering. “So what else should we do, now that you’re single?”
I nearly choke even as a knot of heat slides down into my stomach.
I feel the phantom sensation of rough hands at the base of my spine, a stomach pressing into mine, cool lips that taste like lemon and lavender.
After a hearty cough, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Miles says, “things your ex didn’t like. That you can do now.”
Somehow, that sounds even dirtier.
“Like eating pizza,” I stammer, determined to prove I’m not reading into this.
“Right,” he says. “Or like . . . sunrise kayaking. I’ve always wanted to do that, and I haven’t.”
“Petra wasn’t into kayaking?” I say, disbelieving.
“She wasn’t into morning,” he says. “But we’re not talking about them. We’re talking about us.”
Just the word us triggers another blush. All the blood in my body might as well hang out in my upper third, because as soon as it leaves, it’s getting called right back. “Well, I’ve never been sunrise kayaking, but I’d try it. For one of our Sundays, if you want.”
“Really?” he says.
“I won’t be good at it,” I warn, “but I’ll try.”
“What else?” Miles murmurs, lightly squeezing my knee.
I ignore the bolt of lightning singing down my center. “I always wanted to learn to bake, but . . .”
“You were living with a serial killer,” he finishes.
I crack a smile, which makes him do the same. His hand is still resting on my knee and it feels like a parade of fire ants is crawling out from it in every direction. His gaze flickers toward my top button, then back to my face.
“What about you?” I blurt.
He looks away, teeth skimming his bottom lip as he thinks. “Action movies,” he says. “It’s probably been three years since I’ve seen an action movie.”
Peter didn’t like those either. “Me too.”
“So maybe we should,” he says.
“Maybe right now,” I say, because I need somewhere else to look, something else to think about.
He flashes a smile. “Maybe right now.”
I, meanwhile, am starfished on my cushy ivory rug, staring at the ceiling with a mug of chai at my hip. This is as close as I get to life on the edge: a milky tea and a near-white rug.
“Happy for me?” I echo. I’m happy for you isn’t the reaction one expects to a story about her coworker having to temporarily ban a library patron who ripped a computer out of the wall.
“I mean, I’m glad you’ve become real friends with your coworker,” she clarifies.
“Me too.” I don’t think I realized how lonely I was here, even prebreakup.
Ashleigh and I haven’t had another big night out since our winery visit—Duke’s an involved parent, but she’s got primary custody and Mulder’s schedule is packed with extracurriculars—but even just sharing our lunch breaks at the food truck park across from the library has made Waning Bay feel more like home.
“I’m just so happy you’re putting yourself out there,” Mom says. “Your life can be totally full without a romantic relationship. Take it from me.”
She either has a much lower libido than I do, or she’s managing to burn through it by throwing tires across a poured concrete floor.
Maybe she’s onto something. Maybe I should join some kind of exercise class. Not CrossFit, but something with more lying on your back and staring at the ceiling. Yoga? I could at least start walking to work regularly, now that I live closer.
“You know, baby,” Mom goes on, “there really is always room for you here.”
On a purely spatial level, this is false. “Thanks, but I have to stay through the summer.”
“Right, right,” Mom says. “The Read-a-thon.”
I haven’t mentioned the other thing. The one-man Waning Bay Tourism Bureau, in the bedroom across the hall. Mom’s too perceptive for me to talk about that without her picking up on my rebound crush, and giving that any oxygen will only let it live longer.
“And you’ve got enough for the rent in the meantime?” she asks.
“I’m not borrowing money from you, Mom.”
“I really don’t mind,” she says.
“I’m fine.” That’s the truth, but even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t take a cent from her. For years after their split, Dad treated her like an ATM, and she helped him out every time, until I turned eighteen. Like some kind of fucked-up reverse child support, where he was the child she was obligated to support.
She told me she couldn’t have my father out on his ass, that it wasn’t right. But a funny thing happened when she cut him off: he was fine.
Mom’s done enough caretaking for two lifetimes, and if my dad can scrape by without her help, I can too. When I move, it will be because I’ve found a good job and my own place, that I can afford with my money.
“I’ve got things under control,” I promise.
She’s stopped walking, catching her breath at her front door probably. “You’ve always had a backbone of steel.”
“Wonder where I get that from,” I say.
“No idea,” she deadpans.
We say our goodbyes, do our I love you; I love you mores, and I go back to reading the library’s galley copy of a new Goonies-esque chapter book.
After a minute, though, I pick up my phone and text Ashleigh: Do you know of a good beginners’ yoga class?
She sends back nothing but an ellipsis. I reply with a question mark. She says, I don’t believe in organized exercise.
I have no idea what that means.
She adds, Looking to get ripped?
Looking for a hobby, I say, because “more friends” sounds too desperate.
Does it have to be exercise? Ashleigh asks.
Nope. When I see her typing, I head her off. But I’m not interested in the knitting circle at the library.
I’ve got something better, she says. You free next Wednesday after work?
There’s a knock at my bedroom door, and I set my phone aside, sitting up. “Come in.”
The door whines open and Miles leans in, hair wet from a shower, beard sticking out in every direction. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say; then, with a realization, “It’s Friday.”
“It is,” he says.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I say.
He half shrugs. “Katya needed more hours. You up for another film?”
We’ve watched a movie every night since Sunday. Specifically the over-the-top action-comedies I’d always assumed were strictly intended for viewing whilst high out of your fucking gourd. It turns out they’re also pretty good when you’re stone-cold sober and trying not to think about making out with your roommate.
Lying on the floor of my tiny bedroom, while he stands over me like this, for example, is less ideal.
I sit up abruptly and knock over my chai in the process. “Shit!”
Miles retreats and returns with a hand towel, throwing it at me. Not to. At. It hits my face.
“Great catch,” he says.
“Thanks.” I yank the towel down and mop up the spill. “When’s showtime?”
“Whenever you want,” he says.
“Give me two minutes,” I say.
“I’ll make popcorn,” he says.
Five minutes later, we’re settled in for our ritual.
The oddball pairings are so cliché, so expected. But then again, they work.
The huge guy and the tiny one.
The trained assassin and the everyday Joe who gets mixed up with him.
The serious one who gives good eyebrow and the wisecracking sidekick who is absolutely always Ryan Reynolds or someone nearly indistinguishable from Ryan Reynolds when you close your eyes.
“This man must make sixty of these a year,” I say.
“And Dwayne Johnson’s only in thirty of them,” Miles says, from the opposite end of the couch.
“I wish I could send them an Edible Arrangement to thank them for their service.” I sit up to grab another sour gummy worm from the Spread of Bad Decisions Miles arranged for us.
“There’s just something about a movie where shit gets blown up during a car chase,” he says, “that makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay.”
At my laugh, he looks over, stretches one leg out until his foot is pushing against my thigh. “Hey, that was a real one.”
I turn to face him, my back against the arm of the couch, and swing my legs up onto the cushions. “A real what?”
“A real laugh,” he says. “You’ve got your polite little chuckle, and then you’ve got that weird, deep chortle you do when you actually think I’m funny.”
“It’s not a polite laugh,” I say. “It’s a display of mild amusement. I’d never fake-laugh. I don’t fake anything.”
He gives me a look.
I go warm in several places.
“So if that’s the mild amusement laugh,” he says, “then the low chortle is reserved for . . .”
“When you’re actually funny,” I say.
Without warning, he grabs my ankles and yanks me down the couch, draping my legs across his lap, my butt resting against the side of his thigh so that his face hangs over me.
“Fine!” I say, heart trilling at this closeness. “You’re actually funny a lot of the time.”
The corner of his mouth ticks. “And the chortle is . . . ?”
“I think it’s when I’m really relaxed,” I say. “I’ve always been self-conscious about my laugh, but this immense amount of attention being drawn to it is definitely helping.”
At the sarcasm, his grin spreads. He takes hold of my wrists. “No, don’t be self-conscious,” he says. “It’s so fucking cute.”
“I can really tell from the way you described it,” I deadpan.
“I’m serious.” He lifts my wrists, planting my limp hands on the sides of his face, a grown and bearded version of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. “I never would’ve said anything about it if I didn’t think it was cute.”
This is the most we’ve touched in weeks. Every point of contact vibrates.
He gingerly sets my hands back down on my chest, crossing them like I’m lying in a coffin, and while his knuckles barely graze me, my nipples peak up against my shirt.
I see him notice.
The anesthetizing power of the action-comedy genre isn’t cutting it anymore. I’m a bundle of buzzing nerves and want.
His gaze lifts abruptly. “Shit, sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.” He starts to straighten up, but I catch his wrists now, keep him from moving too far. “It’s fine,” I say. “Really. It doesn’t need to be weird.”
“I think it’s just because we kissed,” he says.
“I think so too,” I tell him.
Still neither of us moves.
“I’ve been trying not to think about it too much,” he says.
Realizing he’s been thinking about it at all is enough to raise my body temperature a few degrees.
“Same,” I get out.
It’s been almost three weeks, and instead of the kiss fading in the rearview, it feels like every day since, I’ve been sliding closer and closer to an invisible ledge, more and more desperate to know what lies beyond it.
He meets my eyes, jaw muscles working as he swallows. Heat unfurls over me, starting where my palms are ringed around his wrists, climbing up my center.
I need to let go of him.
Instead my hands scrape up his arms. They feel amazing. Not gym arms, just arms that get a fair amount of daily use. For such a scruffy man, his skin is smooth, the hairs on his forearms fine and soft. My fingers instinctively follow the ridges of his veins up to his biceps, the anchor tattoo on one and the old-school bird on the other. I follow the curve of his shoulders, carried by an unstoppable current.
When I reach the back of his neck, he folds over me, slowly, one of his hands coming to press lightly on my waist. There’s a moment of hesitation as our mouths hover close.
I should say something, break this tension that’s been building.
Instead my chin tips up to him.
The first brush of his lips is faint, not the fevered, vengeful kiss we had against his truck. Not at first. But then my hands glide down his back, and he’s shifting to lower himself over me, and I think my nervous system might overload from the sensations: his hips heavy against mine, his chest pressing me flat, the low, hungry sound that emanates from him as the kiss deepens, more honest with our want.
He drags one of my knees up against his hip, and I see stars, little blips of color popping against my eyelids. My hips tip up to his, and my shyness disintegrates as his mouth skates down my jaw, his teeth scraping my neck.
There’s no space to worry about what he’s thinking or how I’m coming across. Because now I’m sure that he wants me, like I want him. Nothing else matters.
My hands move down to his ass and he licks the skin beneath my ear. I gasp, and he tilts his hips against mine, making me arch. This no longer feels like just making out. It’s the prelude to something bigger.
“We really shouldn’t have sex,” I hiss.
“I know,” he agrees, kissing my throat.
“I’m not ready for that,” I say, more for my benefit than his.
“Way too soon,” he agrees.
But we’re not stopping either. His hand sails up from my hip bone, his fingertips catching the bottom edge of my breast. He keeps kissing me, his fingers teasing the curve but not going higher.
Then his hand skates to the top button of my shirt. When he slips it free, a shiver passes through me. “Always so buttoned up,” he murmurs softly, teasingly. His fingers drag down my chest, and I lift under them, a wave being pulled by his tide. He undoes the next button and touches the sensitive skin there, tracing the crease of my sternum.
When I can’t take it anymore, I twist under him until his hand is over me, his grip tightening, his thumb running over my nipple.
“Thank fuck,” he says.
I grind myself against him. He hastily undoes the next button, kisses the space between my breasts, his hand still tight on me.
We try to shift, him going in toward the back of the couch, me sliding out toward the front. I almost fall off. He catches me and yanks me back against him, both of us laughing, vaguely hysterical. “I’m out of practice,” he says huskily. “Making out on couches.”
I don’t think he means it as an invitation, but it would be so easy to turn it into one. We’re twelve feet from either of our bedrooms.
If we go anywhere near a bed, I’m going to sleep with him.
I want so badly to sleep with him.
I only want to not completely destroy my living situation, like, one percent more.
What am I doing? I think.
Then he hauls me up on top of him, my knees straddling his hips, his eyes dark and glimmering and all over me, and the only thing I’m thinking about now is him.
The throw pillows have wound up under his neck, his head pushed up at a weird angle. I shift forward over him to pull two out from under his head, and he takes hold of my hips and lifts himself enough to kiss the lowest part of my chest he can get to with only the top buttons undone. The sound that comes out of me is borderline inhuman, but it only encourages him. He sweeps his mouth over me and draws my breast into his mouth, the heat of his tongue moving against me through the fabric, leaving it damp and clinging to my skin as he shifts to my other side.
I lean into the pressure, pitching my weight forward into my hands on either side of him. His palms scrape down me, and we rock together in slow, heavy waves. He pulls the open center of my shirt to one side so half of my chest is bared. “God, Daphne,” he says, dragging the open neckline back the other way, lifting himself enough to catch bare skin in his mouth this time.
I cry out from want. His cool hands climb my feverish skin under my shirt, his touch almost painfully light as his tongue moves over me more urgently. His hands slide down to squeeze my waist and he draws back, cold air stinging my skin. “You’re so sexy,” he rasps. Heat flushes from my hairline down to my thighs.
It’s not a word I’ve gotten much. Cute, pretty, sometimes beautiful. Never sexy.
“You are too,” I’m barely able to make myself whisper.
His eyes look inky and drunk as he lifts me a little, moves his hand between us, his palm between my thighs. My eyes flutter closed as he presses into me. I push myself into his touch, lean over him, bite into his neck. I feel like someone else, someone who does this all the time. Like it’s no big deal to straddle my roommate and let him lick and bite me.
His abdomen lifts and sinks on a breath. “Daphne?” he murmurs against my ear.
“Mm?” It comes out high-pitched, quivery.
He hums against my throat, his hand still moving slowly, heavily. “I know we said no sex, but can I touch you?”
I nod, throat too tight to speak. He draws his hand back up my stomach, before dipping inside my pajama shorts. “So sexy,” he whispers again, kissing my throat as his hand moves down me, his fingertips curling up and inward. I gasp, shift myself into him. His other hand falls down to my ass, gripping me, guiding me into his touch.
“I love the sounds you make,” he rasps.
I’m dimly aware that in another life, this would be unbearably embarrassing. In this one, all I can do is rock into his motion, and keep letting him coax whatever desperate noise he wants out of me. I fumble with his jeans, and he reaches down to help me, and a second later, my hand is around him, his on me, and he’s moaning too, and it’s quite possibly the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.
Then his phone starts buzzing on the coffee table.
We both glance toward it. I wait to see if he wants to stop.
He kisses me hard. I bite his lip. We’re crazed now, moving wildly.
The phone rings out. Only to start ringing again.
He sits up and pulls me snug against him, kissing me fiercely, the way we kissed in the parking lot except with so much more touching, groping, gasping, more privacy, more skin, more everything. Every piece of him feels so good, so inviting.
In the background, our movie keeps playing. Someone is being snarky and disbelieving while someone else is being cool and unbothered, and meanwhile we’re trying to get as close to each other as possible.
A part of me wants to slow down, make this last, but that part has already lost the battle. I’m tipping over the edge. My hands climb up the back of Miles’s shirt to feel his smooth skin, one of his hands still between my thighs, edging me closer until I’m crying out, sinking nails into his skin, losing myself, losing any sense of the room, of the world, of anything other than this feeling.
Than the smell of ginger and woodsmoke.
The skin and muscle beneath my hands. The cool air kissing my chest. The needful pressure crashing over me in waves. A rough palm slipping behind my neck, lips grazing mine, guiding me through to the far side of the wave.
It’s like emerging from water, the way everything else comes back into focus, but he’s still clearest. His lips on mine, our tongues slipping together, the rasp of his beard on my jaw. His pulse thrums everywhere we’re touching, and he’s still hard, and despite all the pleasant heaviness seeping through my limbs, it sends a thrill of hunger through me.
I take hold of him again. His dusky eyes lift, glinting in the dim light, and he wraps his hand around mine.
His phone starts ringing. Again.
“Shit,” he says, voice scratchy. “I’m so sorry. I’ll just—” He leans over to turn the phone off. The word JULIA flashes onscreen.
“Shit!” he says again, but this time it’s clearly a different kind of shit.
Not Shit, let me throw my phone into the sea so we can get back to this, but Shit, I really should’ve answered my phone the first time.
“I’m sorry,” he says, sliding me gently from his lap.
“It’s okay!” It comes out too loud. The sudden absence of his heat, his humming blood, his eagerly beating heart makes me feel like hallucinogenic fumes are being whisked out a window.
He grabs the phone. “It’s my sister.”
Another jarring push back to reality, from the lust haze.
I manage an awkward “Ah.”
“She wouldn’t call this many times unless it was important,” he says.
“Of course, yeah.” I wave him off, barely meeting his eyes. I wonder if my cheeks, jaw, and throat are red. They sting from the scrape of his facial hair.
He flashes an apologetic smile, pinches my chin a little.
Even this little gesture is intensely hot to me.
The phone is still buzzing in his hand. His eyes are on me.
I clear my throat. “Take it,” I get out, already buttoning myself back up.