Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
She all but purred as she cozied into the sheets even more. “So much better.”
Each breath was more ragged than the last from my aching chest. I needed to leave. I needed to turn out the light and close the door and take my ass downstairs right fucking now.
But I was rooted in place.
Mary pulled the covers up to her face, inhaling a deep, dramatic breath before she flopped around and sighed just as deeply. “Ugh,” she groaned. “Why do you have to smell so good?”
I arched a brow.
“Your sheets,” she said when I didn’t answer, tugging them up farther and wrapping herself up like a burrito. “God, they smell so good. And your sweaters, too.”
“You’ve been wearing my sweaters?”
She shot a hand out from under the covers with her index finger pointed up. “Technically, you gave me one to wear first, so it’s in the rules that it’s okay to wear them whenever I want to now.”
“Is it now?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded up and then down sharply, matter-of-factly, her eyes closing like she was going to pass out right then and there.
“I didn’t realize we had a rulebook.”
She peered at me over the covers. “We do, but you keep breaking all the rules.”
“How so?”
“Buying me candles, giving me your jacket.” She thrust her hand toward me. “And why do you have to look at me like that?”
“I’m just listening.”
“No, you’re standing there all stoic, but I see it.”
I swallowed. “What do you see?”
Mary watched me for a long moment before she sat up, weight on the palms of her hands, the covers just barely catching on the swells of her breasts and keeping her nipples hidden from view. Her long hair spilled over those swells, over the sheets, her eyes heavy and dazed.
“I see that you’d devour me,” she whispered. “If I said the word.”
My cock jolted in my sweatpants, every muscle in my body straining with the effort to restrain myself from doing what she’d just assessed. She was naked in my fucking bed. Even God Himself would give in.
“You should get some sleep,” I managed to croak out, turning before I said fuck it and went against the rational voice in my head reminding me she was drunk and had no idea what she was doing.
I heard her flop back into the mattress, and I flicked out the light, turning back just in time to watch her roll onto her side. I opened the door and Palico bounced in, skipping past me and bounding onto the bed. Mary smiled, eyes closed as she ran her fingernails over the cat’s neck while it kneaded the covers before curling in next to her.
I let myself watch her only a second longer before I turned out the lights.
“I wish you remembered.”
I froze at the words, frowning in confusion as something sharp and hot zapped through my spine.
I turned slowly. “What?”
But Mary was already asleep.
Her mouth had fallen open in a little o, soft snores coming from her chest, hair fanning over her face.
After quietly shutting the door, I took a few steps before standing still in the hallway, one hand finding the wall as if I’d teeter off-balance and spiral down the stairs without holding myself steady.
My heart pounded. My thoughts raced. My breath was shallow and short.
Sleep wouldn’t find me that night.
I’d toss and turn and sweat overthinking every single second of what happened in that bedroom.
But the next morning, when Mary dragged herself into the kitchen in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, her hair a mess and last night’s makeup on her face, she’d smile at me. She’d smile, and groan about needing greasy food and a bottle of Advil, and sketch in her notebook while the rest of our roommates ambled into the kitchen, too.
She’d laugh when they commented on how drunk she was last night, and they’d take her jokes about how weak their game was with the few girls they’d invited over and failed to land at the end of the night.
They’d tell her she was a blast, that they were glad she stayed, that she was part of the family now.
And she’d blush and laugh and tell them she didn’t remember a thing after the first quarter.
Mary
“Oh, my God — please show me how you do that,” Giana said after I lined my left eye.
“Do what?”
“That perfect cat-eye thing. Mine always goes up too high or angles out too low and I can never get them even, either.”
Riley popped open her tube of mascara. “That’s why I skip eyeliner altogether.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us can look as effortlessly golden and gorgeous as you without a single ounce of makeup on, Riles,” I pointed out.
“Shut up, you’re both gorgeous,” she shot back, but I didn’t miss the way her cheeks tinged pink with a little blush. Something told me that being the only girl in a male-dominated sport probably meant she didn’t get compliments on her feminine energy much, but she radiated it, and deserved to know.