“How?”
“You don’t have to worry about car payments or bills. You have an excuse to hang out with your friends every day. You never know where you’re going to end up at night, so you get to go wherever you want and do whatever you want.”
“Well I guarantee you’d be having a lot more fun right now if you had a car,” I argue.
“So I can come over as long as you don’t have to come get me?”
Unable to resist the temptation, I tell him he can. But an hour later, when he still hasn’t knocked on my front door, I realize he probably found a girl who was willing to pick him up and he’s probably forgotten all about me. I change out of the sexy nighty I put on, dressing in an oversized pair of cotton boxers and a worn-thin cami instead, and then I crawl under my covers and turn out the light, regretting my decision to not go to him when every single piece of me—sane and not so sane—was screaming at me to get in my car.
My room is pitch-dark and I’m deep in a dreamless sleep when my light turns on and I open my eyes to see Joel standing in my bedroom doorway. His hair is always the first thing that catches my attention—buzzed on the sides and pulled up into a spiky blond line that crawls down the middle of his head. And then, those eyes. The brightest blue I’ve ever seen. He’s wearing a black canvas jacket over a long neon-green band T-shirt and faded blue jeans. The loose T-shirt hides his hard muscles, but my fingers remember their lines.
“How did you get in?” I ask, and Joel jingles Rowan’s keys from his finger.
“Peach leaves these just lying around.”
“Turn off the light,” I groan, squeezing my eyes closed and turning my face into the pillow to hide my smile.
Joel turns off the light and walks to the other side of my bed.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Two o’clock.” I hear his shoes thump onto the floor before the rustle of more clothes. He usually sleeps in just his boxers, but I know he came here to do more than just sleep.
“Why is it two o’clock?” I ask, still not completely awake.
“Because I walked.” He lifts the covers and crawls in next to me.
I can’t believe he walked all the way to my place. It’s less than a ten-minute drive, but that means it probably took him at least an hour to walk here. I’m trying to make sense of that in my head when his chilled hand sneaks under the hem of my top, making me squeal and jerk out of his grasp.
Joel laughs. “My hands are cold!”
“YOU THINK?” I smack him away and slide my body to the edge of the bed. “I’m tired now. You should’ve come earlier.” I have no idea why I’m turning him down, other than that I’m trying to prove I won’t be at his beck and call, no matter how much I want to be.
When he presses up close, there’s no more room for me to inch away from him. His cold hand circles around my stomach again, but since he keeps it over my clothes, I don’t bat it away. “You’re really going to be like this after you made me walk all the way over here?” His hand slides up my stomach to cup my breast, and an aching starts between my legs and tightens in my core. I don’t pull his hand away.
“I didn’t make you do anything.”
Joel caresses his thumb over my soft nipple, and it perks under his touch. “Was the guy from last night better than me?”
When he pinches my nipple with icy cold fingers, my back arches, pressing my ass into his groin. His hips press forward against me, and I nearly flip over right then to lose myself in the way his lips can conquer mine and make everything else cease to exist. “I don’t remember.”
“Don’t remember how good he was, or don’t remember how good I am?”
“Don’t remember how good you are,” I lie, trying to knock Joel’s confidence down a peg because he definitely has all the control right now. I’m warm putty in his hands just waiting to be played with.
My strategy backfires when he leans forward and traces the tip of his satin tongue along my neck, bringing his lips to my ear and speaking to me in a voice that makes my skin shiver. “Then let me remind you.”
Chapter Five
EMPTY BED. QUIET APARTMENT. The only signs Joel was here last night are his scent on my sheets and the ache in my muscles. I roll onto my stomach and pull my pillow tight over the back of my head, trying to convince myself I’m content to wake alone—that I prefer to wake alone.
“You realize all you have in your fridge is butter and pickles, right?”
I push the pillow away and stare at Joel like he’s an apparition. He’s standing in my doorway with a tub of butter in one hand, a half-empty jar of pickles in the other, and one sandy blond eyebrow firmly raised.