cabinets, pouring his drink into a tinted blue cup. I click the remote and the flat-screen TV blinks to an action flick. Lo plops on the gray-stitched sofa and kicks his feet onto the glass coffee table, acting like we’ve been immersed in the movie for the past half hour.
He pats his lap. “Come here.” His amber eyes swim with mischievousness.
“I’m not dressed,” I retort. And the spot between my legs already pulses too heavily to be in touching distance of him. The thought electrifies my nerves.
“You’re wearing a robe,” Lo rebuts. “I’ve seen you naked plenty of times.”
“When we were kids,” I retort.
“And I’m sure your breasts haven’t grown since then.”
My mouth falls. “Oh, you are…” I find a pillow on the nearby chair and start assaulting him with it. I get two good hits in before he swoops his arms around my waist and pulls me on his lap.
“Lo,” I warn. He’s been teasing me all day , making it harder than normal to withstand him.
He stares at me deeply, and his hand moves past my kneecap, edging up the robe, and settling on the inside of my thigh. He stops there, not making the next move. Fuck . I quake beneath him, needing his actions to go further. Not thinking, I place my hand on his and shift his fingers towards the throbbing spot. I push them inside of me. He stiffens.
Holy… My toes curl, and I rest my forehead on his broad shoulder. I hold his hand in a strong vice, not allowing him to do anything without my permission. Just before I go to move his fingers in and out, a knock sounds on the door.
I jolt awake. What am I doing?! I can’t look at Lo, I let him reclaim his hand, and I scuttle off him.
Lo hesitates. “Lil?”
“Don’t talk about it,” I say, mortified.
Rose knocks louder.
I stand to answer, walking with more tension everywhere than before.
I hear Lo’s footsteps behind me, and then the creak of the faucet as he turns the handle. I glance back and see him rinsing his fingers with soap.
I’m an idiot. As I turn the knob, I inhale, trying to wipe my mind clean of the bad combo: sex and Loren Hale. Having him as my roommate is like dangling coke in front of a druggie. It’d be easier if I let myself at him, but I’d rather not turn our relationship into friends with benefits. He means more to me than the other guys I bed.
The door swings open, revealing Rose: two years older, two inches taller, and two times prettier. She waltzes into the apartment, her Chanel handbag swinging on her arm like a weapon. Rose frightens children, pets, and even grown males with her icy eyes and chilling glares. And if anyone can unmask our false pretense, it will be my fiercest sister.
Right now, I pale at even meeting Lo’s gaze, let alone pretending to be in a relationship with him. I don’t ask Rose why she’s arrived uninvited and unannounced. This is her routine. It’s as though she feels entitled to all places. Especially mine.
“Why haven’t you answered my calls?” Her voice layers with frost. She lifts her large, round sunglasses to the top of her head.
“Umm…” In the foyer, I dig through a basket of keys that sits on a round table. It usually houses my runaway phone that has found every opportunity to jump ship from my person, and it doesn’t help that I don’t carry a purse—an issue Rose likes to reignite. But I have no use for an item that I’ll lose in a boy’s apartment or dorm. Then he may find a way to return it, and I’ll have to interact with him a second time.
Rose huffs. “You lost it? Again? ”
I resign the search, only finding a few dollar bills, bobby pins, and car keys. “I guess. Sorry.”
Rose turns her vulture eyes on Lo, who wipes his hands on a dish rag and tosses it aside. “What about you? Did you lose your phone too?”
“No. I just don’t like talking to you.”
Ouch, I cringe. Rose sucks in her cheeks as red heat flushes them. Her heels clap against the hardwood floors, nearing him in the