Page 3 of Just Screwing Around

Because she was a baker would be the obvious answer.

Because I wanted to put my dick in her was probably closer to the truth.

She ran her hand over the granite countertops, and I felt it like a physical touch. Her inspection of every inch of my life should have been as invasive as a prostate exam, instead it felt intimate and personal. She’d seemed pretty desperate for a place to rent when she was at my front door. Suddenly, she was scrutinizing my life to see if it was worth her time.

I let out a breath as she finally moved on and wandered down the hallway.

She poked her head into the bathroom. “Hmm, nice and clean. Green flag,” she said before moving on.

We got to the door of my bedroom, and she pushed past me to go inside. She smelled like vanilla or sugar or cookies or something. Charlotte had never been what I would call a wilting violet, but this felt pushy even for her.

“Uh, this is my room.”

She swiped her hand over the comforter and ran her eyes over everything on the top of my dresser. “I know. Just looking.”

“For what exactly?”

She gave me that over the shoulder glance again, and I curled my toes against the hardwood.

“I’ll know when I find it.” She shrugged and took one last look around before heading back out the door. “So, where’s my room?”

Maybe keeping my distance would be harder than I thought.

******

I don’t actually remember agreeing to have Charlotte as my roommate. After I gave her the tour, she asked for a key and I gave it to her. She sent me an e-transfer for first and last month’s rent and I accepted it without question. Now I found myself hauling boxes from the back of her little SUV and wondering if her ass of a brother was going to show up.

I didn’t owe it to him to tell him about the new living arrangements. I still felt a little weird about it, though. Technically our whole feud started with me. To now not just be living with his sister but checking out her ass at every opportunity felt like a step too far.

Was I going to do anything about it? No. We’d been enemies so long that messing with the guy was a reflex.

I dropped a box onto the floor of her room. “That’s the last of it.”

“Thanks for your help.” She ripped the piece of tape off the top of the nearest box and started pulling things out.

Lacy things.

Silky things.

Fucking hell.

She picked up what looked like a pair of red and very revealing underwear and started folding them.

“Uh, yeah, no problem.”

It was a problem. One that was rapidly getting bigger and threatening to tent the front of my jeans. The biggest issues I’d had with any of my past roommates was fighting over what to watch on tv. This was literally a harder thing to deal with.

She looked up and quirked an eyebrow at me. “You okay? You’re all red. Don’t tell me my box was too much for you.” She gestured to the box at my feet but her words just made the blushing situation worse.

“I-I can handle it.”

She put the red ones into a drawer and was now folding something that was neon pink. “Oh good. Since you see yourself as a big brother and all.” She finished with the neon pink and moved onto a black pair. “Helping move boxes is kind of part of the job, right?”

I cleared my throat and tried to push aside the very not-brotherly thoughts I was having.

She toyed with the silky fabric of the black pair as she waited for my answer.

“Right, of course. Uh, I’ll see you later.” I backpedaled out of the room. I was pretty confident that Derek hadn’t sent her here to torture me, but that didn’t mean looking and not touching wasn’t doing exactly that.

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