Page 1 of Covetous

Chapter One

My roommate is in orgasm heaven, and I couldn’t be happier for her. But her ecstatic moans and her partner’s grunts from the other side of my paper-thin bedroom wall make concentrating on my homework impossible. If I don’t finish my sociology paper tonight, I’m screwed, and not in a literal way like what’s happening to Esme next door.

Does she have to be so loud? It’s bad enough that I know what her O voice sounds like. That’s not awkward or anything. But for my man to know it too? Come on, sis.

“Skylar, baby. You should take a break.” Ian reaches over to my side of the bed and tries to close my laptop, but I move it out of his reach to focus on the screen.

“You know I can’t. My paper is due in the morning.”

Like he’s done a million times before, he brushes my hair back from my shoulders, planting a kiss on the soft skin of my neck. “Yes you can. You know you want to.” His voice is thick with suggestion, and if he gets his way—and he usually does—I’ll be underneath him, naked and sweaty, for the second time tonight.

“Want and should are two very different things.” Pecking his lips lightly, I then shift my attention back to the laptop screen in front of me. I say want, but there’s an emptiness gnawing at me. Even with his warm touch and his sweet talk, I’m not feeling it. And I hate that this is the case.

What’s wrong with me? Shaking away unwanted thoughts, I try to focus on the task at hand—my paper.

I’m usually not a procrastinator; not when it comes to homework. School has always been my jam and a necessary distraction during certain times in my life. But lately, it’s been a struggle. I’m losing all motivation as I near the end of my undergraduate studies. Esme says I have a case of senioritis. She has it too, along with our other roommate, Olivia Emery, though I’m the only one who seems to be scrambling.

The three of us are counting down the weeks—three, to be exact—until we can celebrate graduating from Prairie View A&M University, one of the top historically black colleges in Texas. Summer will give me some reprieve before I begin working toward my master’s degree to become a substance abuse social worker.

“I need you, baby.” Ian wraps his arms around my waist and slips a hand under my shirt.

Leaning in, I peck him on the lips as his hand slides up my side to cup my breasts. After allowing him to explore for a moment, I gently push him away. I already know I’m going to give in. It’s what I should do. He probably wishes I were more sex-positive like Esme. It’s all she ever talks about to whomever will listen. “Just give me twenty minutes. Let me finish the section I’m on, and then I’m all yours.”

I’ll finish the rest after. Turning my attention back to my laptop, I resume typing furiously, the clicky sounds of the keyboard driving me to the finish line.

Next door, the rhythmic creaking of Esme’s mattress and the moans and groans between them grow louder. “Yes! Oh, fuck, Victor. Tear me apart.” Her muffled cries travel through the thin walls, sending a pang of annoyance and envy down my spine.

Seriously. Tear me apart? Who says that? Just…why? Closing my eyes, I let out a deep sigh and smack my palm against my forehead.

Ian snorts derisively. “This is your fault.”

“How is this my fault?”

“You’re the mutual connection. Didn’t you introduce them?”

That would be a no.

When I was sixteen years old, my dad and I moved in with his parents, Grandma Cora and Grandpa George—Judge George Wyatt to everyone else—in Sugar Land, Texas. We had lost my mom to a drug overdose a year earlier, and they’d offered to help their only son get back on his feet after he’d mentally checked out. He’d blamed himself for not being able to save her like rehab had saved him.

I met Victor Prescott after transferring to a new high school. His sister, Isabella, became my first friend at Covington High. Despite her being a year younger than Victor and me, she’d advanced one grade level in elementary school, putting her into our junior-year class.

“Victor and Esme met at the gym. She asked me if I was cool if she went out with him, and I told her to go for it. So she did.”

Esme and Victor went to use the same workout machine at the same time. He’d agreed to let her go first, but only if he could see her again outside the gym. For probably the first time in his life, a woman had turned him down, telling him she wasn’t interested in him.

Four weeks later, she came home singing a different tune.

Here’s the thing about Esmeray Ryder. Since kindergarten, we’ve been besties. I’d give her my kidney if she needed one. So why wouldn’t I give her my blessing to get her freak on, even if it was with Victor? If anyone could handle him, Esme could. There hasn’t been a man yet who hasn’t fallen to their knees at her feet.

A frown pulls at Ian’s brows. “Why would Esme need your permission?”

Even though that’s exactly how it went down, I shouldn’t have said that. Ian doesn’t need to know that. “Not my permission. More like…my input.”

“Input, huh?” Resting on his side, he props his head in his hand. The soft light from my laptop screen casts soft shadows across his face, revealing faint lines of concern etched into his features. “Were you and Victor close?”

My heart races as memories of Victor from high school flood my mind, causing a conflicting mix of emotions to swirl within me. “Not really.”

“He ever make a pass at you?”

---