Page 8 of Eight Steps to Alpha

“Hold your horses!” she yelled back at him. “Do you want me to get a bladder infection?” There. That would shut him up.

She heard him groan, then his footsteps fade away as he shut himself in his room.

After taking her sweet time, she pulled her panties back up to her waist and sighed. This was, and by every stretch of the word, the only down side to sharing an apartment. They had a killer location, an amazing view of the ocean, and between the two of them, it was completely easy on the budget. But the fact they only had one restroom between them was an annoyance she wished there was a solution for.

She zipped up her fly, feeling ten pounds lighter, then leisurely washed her hands.

Needing a shower or not, Elliot needed to learn some manners.

When she opened the door a few minutes later, he was standing there, his button up shirt plastered to his chest, and one eyebrow cocked up to his forehead, like he knew exactly what she was doing.

She wrinkled her nose. “Move. You’re all sweaty.”

Not only did he not move, but he braced his legs even wider, taking up even more space in front of the door. “I am,” he nodded. A grin slowly transforming his entire face.

She planted her hands on her hips, finding his position rather amusing. “Are you ever going to learn to check the weather report before you leave for work?”

He shrugged. “Are you ever going to learn how to remove your hairballs from the shower drain?”

She laughed. “I don’t leave hairballs.”

“You do.” He nodded.

She had to acknowledge, it was probably true, but she would be dead before she’d admit it. “Are you going to get out of my way or not?”

“There’s plenty of room for you to squeeze by.”

She rolled her eyes, stepping to the side, but he followed suit.

“What seems to be the problem, Fe?”

She glanced up and down his sweaty form, to his white shirt that was partially translucent from all his sweat. He had a nice body. More than a nice body—it just normally wasn’t visible beyond his baggy clothes. “Move,” she said in her firmest, sternest voice possible, because those darned butterflies were swarming around in her belly again.

This should feel normal. This dance between friends they’d done a thousand times. It wasn’t weird, it wasn’t flirtatious, it was their friendship. Built on playful banter and horsing around. Yet every time she was close to him, ever since that stupid kiss, these kinds of exchanges left her pulse racing.

His smile grew wider, obviously pleased by her reaction. “Are you afraid of sweat, Fe? Are you afraid some of my disgusting sweat will drip on you? Is that it?” He stepped closer, taunting her with his wet body. “It’s just water, Fe. Maybe a little bit of salt, but being a scientist you should know—"

She shoved passed him—hard—and hurried down the hall to her room. Aware she was being completely ridiculous, aware he would have left her alone with thirty more seconds of teasing, but what she wasn’t sure of was what she would have done in those thirty seconds. “Take a shower,” she said on an uneven breath. “You jerk!”

He held his hands up in the air, his face almost white with shock. “I was just messing around, Fe.” But she barely saw it, barely heard him, before she closed the door roughly behind her.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and quickly connected to Amazon.

Vibrator.

She put the search into Amazon and waited for the selection. All she needed was a vibrator.

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