“What?” She asks it like she’s never heard of the concept.
I pinch her side. “Did you ever skip class?”
Her jaw drops. She swats my chest. “Wesley Bryant!”
I laugh. “Is that a no?”
She narrows her brow at me, all stern. Librarian stern, come to think of it. And I don’t mind. “Of course I never skipped a class. Why would I?”
“To have fun,” I counter with a smirk.
She lifts her chin primly. “Class is fun.”
This woman. She’s the total opposite of me, yet that doesn’t seem to matter. I drop a kiss to her nose. “You’re such a hot nerd.”
Narrowing her eyes, she growls at me. “And you’re such a sensitive jock. So there.”
“Then you should understand why I need to play hooky with you. It will help my sensitive side,” I say, laying it on thick.
She rolls her eyes. “Right. Sure.” She takes a beat. “Also, I don’t have work today, so there’s no hooky to play.”
“But I bet you were going to do errands, or read a book, or research something. So play hooky from that.” I refuse to give up.
She winces. “I signed up for a walking tour of the Marina this morning. With a local city guides group.”
Damn. That means she’s taking off soon, even though I’m intrigued. “That sounds like fun actually.”
“See? This is why I don’t play hooky. Because other things are fun.”
“When is it? The tour?”
She peers at the digital clock on my nightstand. “In an hour and a half.”
I could offer to tag along, but the thing is…I’d rather have her to myself. I go in for the kill. I nuzzle her neck, grazing my mouth along her skin up to her ear. “I bet I can convince you to skip it.”
With a hitch in her breath, she asks, “How would you convince me?”
Another kiss. Then, a flick of my tongue against her ear while my hand coasts down her stomach. “Let me fuck you again and then take you out for that second date instead.”
She stops squirming. Something I can’t quite read flickers in her blue eyes. A question perhaps? She parts her lips, like she’s going to ask me something after all. But she must think the better of it since she says, “Let me brush my teeth first.”
“I’ll do the same.”
A minute later, our minty-fresh mouths meet and I pull her on top of me, kissing her as the morning light streams through the windows, running my palms along her sun-kissed skin. As she melts into my touch, I slide a hand up her breasts, over her chest to her neck.
She loves when I touch her there. I don’t press too hard. But I do curl my palm around her throat gently and hold her close as I cover her mouth with mine.
It’s the kind of slow, sultry kiss that has her moaning, arching, asking. Then, I fuck my roommate, and I don’t think once about the things or the people I’m avoiding.
Why would I? I’ve convinced my roomie to go on that long-awaited second date with me.
This is winning.
An hour or so later, I do write back, telling my dad I’m hanging with a friend today, but I won’t miss my training session with Domingo this afternoon. It’s one thing to skip lunch with Dad; it’s another to blow off a trainer. That’s just rude.
But I do feel a little rebellious—in a good way, and in a necessary way too—as I send that note. Maybe that’s why I never confirmed lunch plans with him last night. Maybe I knew on some level I was going to have other plans for today. Plans with her.
I tuck the phone in my jeans pocket and head down the hall with Josie. When we reach the foyer, that inquisitive look from earlier returns to her face—the one that says she wants to ask something. Or maybe she’s working her way up to it.