Page 47 of The Roommate Experiment

Silence descends again, but it’s more alert than comfortable now. I’m hyper-aware of every breath she takes, every rustle of the sheets. It’s maddening and exhilarating all at once.

Unable to stand it any longer, I sit up. “I’m gonna open the windows.” I hop off the couch. “See if it gets better.”

It does. The night air is blessedly cool against my sweaty face as I crack open all the hopper windows. Mercifully, a breeze coming in from the ocean makes the heat more bearable.

I crawl back into bed, careful not to jostle her. Hunter smiles up at me and gives me a double thumbs-up. “Great problem-solving skills, Thompson.”

I grin. “I have my moments.”

If only she knew the problem I want to solve is how to keep my hands off her for the rest of this unbearably sultry night—and possibly all the nights after.

She shifts, the thin sheet sliding down her torso. Soon, she stills, her breathing becoming even. Asleep, I think, with a pang of something dangerously close to longing.

Closing my eyes, I will myself to drift off to thoughts of anything but the incredible woman beside me.

Eventually, mercifully, I do.

* * *

I’m in the shower, steam billowing around me. The water sluices over my skin, hot and perfect. But not as perfect as the woman in my arms.

Hunter presses against me, all soft curves and slick skin. She tilts her face up to mine, her eyes dark with want, and I lower my head to capture her lips in a searing kiss. She opens for me instantly, igniting a fire low in my belly.

My hands skim down her sides, over the flare of her hips, to grip her thighs. I hoist her up, and she wraps her legs around my waist, a guttural moan escaping her as I press her back against the cool tiles.

“Dylan,” she breathes, and the sound of my name on her lips undoes me. I need to be closer, to taste every inch of her.

I lean in, trailing open-mouthed kisses along the column of her throat, reveling in the little gasps and sighs I draw from her. Lower, lower, until I reach the gentle swell of her breast. She arches into me, a wordless plea for more.

Smiling against her skin, I oblige. She writhes in my arms, nails digging deliciously into my shoulders.

Lost in sensation, it takes me a second to realize the water pelting my face is no longer warm, but icy cold. Startled, my eyes fly open—and I’m back in the basement, panting, wet, and disoriented. Water rains down on me from somewhere.

For one confused moment, I think the house must be on fire and the ceiling sprinklers have gone off. My heart races as I sit up, blinking rapidly to clear my vision.

But as my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, I turn toward the open windows where the water keeps gushing in. The garden sprinklers must’ve come on during the night and the spray is catching the moonlight and sparkling like a thousand tiny diamonds as it arcs through the openings, soaking everything in its path.

Beside me, Hunter stirs, sputtering. “What the hell?” She pushes sodden hair out of her face, blinking up at the windows in groggy confusion. With her hair wet and plastered to her forehead, she looks too much like the dream I was having.

Thankfully, the sprinklers are gracing me with aliteralcold shower, and my brain cools quickly enough from the fantasy of Hunter in my arms and jolts me into action. I vault over the couch and over a startled, still half-asleep Hunter to get to the hoppers.

The mattress squishes under my weight as I leap, water splattering against my legs. I fumble with the windows, my hands slipping on the wet handles, and snarl curses at the waterfall until I slam all of them shut.

I push the wet hair away from my forehead. Water drips from it, running in rivulets down my face and neck.

As I turn, I find Hunter standing awkwardly, bathed in moonlight, her clothes soaked through and clinging even more to her body than before. The sight makes it hard for my lungs to hold on to air. The moonlight turns the water droplets on her skin into a glistening sheen, highlighting the dip of her collarbone, and the swell of her breasts.

She’s an ethereal vision, wet and shimmering, and a jolt of longing shoots through me so powerful, it almost brings me to my knees. The image of her like this will stay with me forever, haunting me to my grave.

She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

We stand there, dripping and staring at each other, still shocked. Then, out of nowhere, Hunter starts to laugh. It’s a sweet, infectious sound that lands straight in my gut, wrapping tight. She playfully shoves my shoulder. “Are you always this much trouble?”

I start laughing with her; the whole situation is so bizarre, it’s surreal. Here we are, soaked to the bone, shivering in the middle of the night, stuck in my parents’ basement together.

As our laughter dies down, Hunter wraps her arms around herself, still shuddering. She glances at her suitcase, which she unfortunately left open right under the windows. The contents are drenched, a soggy mess of clothes and books, the once-crisp pages now crumpled and limp.

“Oh no,” she groans, gingerly picking up a waterlogged novel. “I was looking forward to reading this.”

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