Page 75 of The Roommate Experiment

“Maybe Hunter needs a bit of harmless seduction back,” I muse, the wheels already turning in my head.

Tristan scoffs. “She seemed pretty cooked to me; she doesn’t need more seducing, buddy.”

“Fair, but she deserves a little payback.” I smile, still incredulous. “You have no idea, Eleven, the torture these last few days have been. The shorts she’s been putting on… becoming shorter and shorter. Maybe she needs a taste of her own medicine. We need to come up with a counter-seduction plan.”

“Not sure I can give you the inside scoop.” Tristan shrugs. “I don’t know Hunter as well as I do you.”

I smirk, an idea forming. “True. But you know who we both know really well? My sister. And those two do everything together; they have most of the same tastes. We can brainstorm and reverse-engineer what makes Hunter tick based on what we know about Nina. And I’ve been living with Hunter for a month. I can fill in the gaps.”

Tristan’s eyes light up, a grin spreading across his face. He nods, lifting his beer in a toast. “Alright, Thirty-Three. Let’s do this.”

I clink my bottle against his, excitement thrumming through my veins.Game on.

35

HUNTER

The muffled notes of “Don’t Blame Me” greet me as I trudge up to my apartment door, exhausted from another late night at the office. I frown, pausing with my keys in hand. Were Rowena and Nina coming over tonight and I spaced it? Who else would be listening toReputation?

I unlock the door and step inside—and my jaw nearly hits the floor at the sight that greets me. Dylan is humming in time to the music, his broad shoulders swaying as he energetically mops the floor. He’s wearing navy basketball shorts that hug his muscular thighs and a sleeveless gray hoodie with armholes so large they showcase his sculpted arms and offer a tantalizing peek of the tight muscles along his ribs. Each push of the mop makes his biceps and triceps ripple under his tanned skin. It’s mortifying how stunning I find him.

On top of that, he’s wearing a blue New York Knicks cap. Backward. Good heavens. Backward baseball caps are irresistibly sexy on a man. Paired with the way his blond hair curls at the nape of his neck… A brief pulse of heat thrums low in my stomach and my mind goes blank. The sight of him cleaning our apartment while singing Taylor Swift is apparently the domestic sex fantasy I never knew I desperately needed.

Wait, why is he even wearing a cap indoors? What on earth is going on with him?

I look away, tossing my keys into the bowl at the entrance, and notice a new vase, filled with violets, where the one he broke used to be. I’m about to ask him about it, but when I glance up again, I catch him twirling the mop and using it as a mock mic stand to belt out the high note. That’s it. If this performance goes on any longer, I might lose my last marble. I clear my throat, cutting the show short. “Hey,” I manage, but my voice comes out unnaturally high-pitched. Apparently, my vocal cords haven’t quite recovered from the visual ambush of Dylan’s biceps.

He turns at the sound, his face lighting up with an easy, wide smile, the kind that crinkles the corners of his bright eyes. “Brolin, you’re home.”

I lose a few feet of intestines as they melt at his enthusiastic greeting, warmth rushing to my core. The fatigue from my long day slaving over the North Shore project dissolves in the glow of his smile.

“Yeah, finally,” I reply, unable to keep from grinning back at him. “It’s been a beast of a day, but I’m glad to be home. And at least the week is over.” I point at the vase. “New flowers?”

Dylan props the mop against the couch and walks over, his tall frame eating up the distance in a few long strides. “You said you didn’t like flowers that die, so I got you a plant. It blooms year-round.”

“T-thanks?”

“It’s nothing.” He leans against the wall, and I’m tempted to touch him just to confirm he’s real and not a government experiment in male perfection. “Have you eaten yet?”

“No, I’m starving.”

“Perfect. I was thinking I could make a quick run to that taco place around the corner you love.” He definitely escaped from a top-secret research facility where they engineer men to ensure no one around them makes sensible choices. “Carne asada with extra guac and a Pineapple Jarritos, right?”

I’m surprised he memorized my order. “Tacos sound perfect.”

“Great. Let me finish here and I’ll head out.”

For a second, I’m tempted to ask him to change before going out, you know, to prevent women from swooning and causing pedestrian pile-ups on the curbs. The NY emergency services are already overloaded enough.

But as my gaze travels over his athletic form again—the sleeveless hoodie highlighting his ripped physique, how that damn backward cap makes him look both boyish and hot as sin—I realize it wouldn’t matter what he wears. Dylan could don a paper sack and women would still faint in the streets.

I keep my mouth shut and watch as he retrieves the mop and resumes cleaning and dancing spontaneously to “Shake It Off” as the song changes. Is he a secret Swiftie?

I flee to the bathroom because if I have to witness one more unintentionally sexy thing, my ovaries will explode.

The shower does little to calm the current of electricity zinging through my veins. I tilt my head back and close my eyes under the spray of hot water. But even with my lids shut, I see Dylan. How his eyes crinkled when he smiled. The flex of his muscles as he moved. The way he shook his booty to the music that I didn’t find as ridiculous as I should have.

I shut off the water and wrap myself in a fluffy towel. Back in my room, I pull out the shortest pair of shorts I own, holding them up with a wry smile. They’re more denim underwear than actual pants.

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