“It was on the outer edge. I didn’t even have to snoop for it.” Point for me on that one. Because if the man hadn’t religiously kept his bedroom door locked, I would have snooped months before. It’s important to know your roommates.
“Well.” I could see him swallow from where I stood. “Now you know.”
“That you have a girlfriend? A girlfriend who probably wouldn’t appreciate you screwing around with your roommate.” I didn’t mention that I’d suspected it before. It was his responsibility to feel bad about this. I refused to share that guilt.
His head lurched back in surprise. “A girlfriend? What? No. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Oh, god. He didn’t have a girlfriend, because he—he was… Oh, that explained everything. Why last night didn’t work, for one.
“That...that’s mine.”
“Yours?” I frowned. I was all mentally prepared for him to announce a boyfriend. It was… his? “What about the wine cooler?”
His lids closed briefly as he let out a sigh. “Guilty.”
Huh. Wasn’t the kind of guilt I’d thought this was leading to.
But now that the subject had come up, it made much more sense that Marc would be planning a bangcation in France if he didn’t have a girlfriend. Also it proved I was into gender stereotypes––I’d have to work on that for sure.
I looked at him then back at the bubble bath. Then back at him.
That’s when the giggles started. “Marc Kirby likes cucumber rose bath bubbles.”
“It smells good,” he said defensively. “I like to smell good.”
“What scent is your shampoo? Pear Breeze?” The giggling spiked up a notch.
“That’s enough.”
“Oh, wait,” I gasped dramatically. “That’s probably the flavor of your wine cooler.”
“Would you cut it out.” Marc’s stern look was sexy as hell; I gotta admit. His students were going to go nuts over that.
Of course that was only fuel to keep going. “‘100% organic,’” I read from the bottle. “This is some quality shit. I’m going to have to borrow this.”
“Okay. Hand it over.” He got up off the bed and headed toward me, his hand outstretched toward the bubble bath.
“I will when I’m––” But then I saw something else that caught my interest.
Marc had put on boxer briefs while I was in the bathroom––blue this time, not quite as alluring as the red, but still a nice fit. Just, right at that moment the fit was more pointed than I’d expected it to be. Oh. Snap.
“Hello,” I said, giving over the bath wash without a fight. Because who cared about that when he was sporting that.
“That’s. That just happens.” He brought the bottle down in front of him to cover his goods. Like that was going to help. “I have no control over it.”
My smile was smug. “Then it really was an issue of bourbon last night. That’s nice to know.”
“What? Wait––did you think I didn’t get it up? Because I definitely did. It was the bourbon’s fault that I passed out.”
“Ohhhh. I certainly read that situation wrong.” This was a much better version of events.
It also boded well for the current situation.
My smile turned from smug to playful as I leaned back against one side of the doorframe and blinked innocently. “So this is morning wood?”
“Or.” He set the bottle on the counter inside the bathroom and turned his focus to me. “The sexy naked woman in my bedroom.”
My breath hitched.
Never mind that I was actually still kind of standing in his bathroom.
“You think I’m sexy?” My voice sounded higher than usual.
“Uh, yeah.” He placed a hand on the frame over me. “Obviously.”
I glanced down at his package and then back up. “Obviously.” Whaaaat. I mean, I knew what I looked like right then. But who was I to argue? If Marc’s vision was that poor, I would be happy to reap the benefits. And what was happening in his undies was certainly a benefit.
He chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that sent goosebumps running down my arms and had my stomach twisting into knots.
“Marc…?” I didn’t really know what I wanted to say. He was intimidating like this, standing so close like he was. I could reach out and touch his chest without having to straighten my arm. I could see the pupils of his eyes darken as he glanced down at my lips, and I started thinking thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking, let alone thinking about speaking.
“Yes, Madison?” He seemed to inch even closer.
“You know, maybe we should try a redo.” The words came out in a rush, before I had time to fully consider what I was saying.
His mouth stretched up into a half smile. “You mean...you want to sober-sex?”
Hungover ideas are just as bad as drunk ones, it turns out. Maybe I was actually still drunk. Because suggesting sober-sex was a bad, bad idea.
Wasn’t it?
But the words were out, and his lips were a breath away, and he hadn’t sounded completely turned off at the suggestion. “Yeah. I mean.”
“We’re here,” he suggested.
“Yes. And naked. For the most part.”
“Good point.”
Again I glanced at the tent between us. “There’s that too. The point.”
“Yes. That.” Another of those chuckles that made my girl parts tingle. “And we did start this when we were drunk.”
“Right. So we can still blame the alcohol.”
“We’ll totally blame the alcohol,” he said just as his mouth crashed against mine.
Then my whole life flashed before my eyes because I was definitely dying as I sagged against the wooden frame behind me and it was great that it was there because without it, I would have been on the floor. My heart raced from the touch of his skin against mine. My knees buckled from the taste of him (mint, it turned out; he’d obviously swished as well). Fireworks exploded behind my eyes. His lips were silk, and his tongue was velvet, and joyful praise, he knew how to use both.
Kissing Marc was both everything I’d ever fantasized about and nothing I could ever imagine. Suddenly, I knew exactly how Peter Parker must have felt after the spider bit him; awakened to incredible new senses and more aware than ever.
He deepened the kiss, and I groaned as my stomach did another flip-flop. Then the feeling in my belly began creeping up my chest. Then it was at the back of my throat. And then...
Uh oh.
I broke sharply away from the kiss, bringing my hand up to my mouth. “I think I need to––”
There wasn’t time to finish my sentence. I lurched for the toilet making it just in time to fall to my knees and worship.
Yep. I was definitely blaming the alcohol.
Four
I thought about Marc basically all weekend. Blushing in humiliation every time.
He’d hung around to make sure I was okay–and probably to make sure I didn’t make a mess of his bathroom–but eventually he had to leave for his mother’s like he did every weekend. He was usually gone before I even woke up on Saturday, so it was sweet that he’d stayed as long as he did. It was even sweeter that he’d held my hair back while I...
Well.
I didn’t like to think about that bit.