She straightens, stretching one arm over the back of the barstool.
“Lots of kids grow up without lots of things.”
I fetch a napkin and pass it to her. “What’d you grow up without?”
She wipes the corner of her mouth. “Nothing. I had the perfect childhood.”
“Liar.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. It feels good to catch her off-guard.
She looks away, and that’s when I spot a streak of purple on her throat.
“You missed a spot.”
I lean over and brush my finger over her skin.
She’s soft and warm under my hand.
I try to ignore it but arousal stirs low in my gut.
Neon lights.
Music pounding through the floor.
I was having a rough week but the guys dragged me out.
She appeared like a mirage, beautiful and passionate.
“I’m Kat.”
“Daniel.”
“You look like you need to get laid.”
She said it with a reckless smile.
I almost answered, “If you’re offering.”
She looked so damned free, so vital, in a way I had forgotten.
But she was Liv’s friend. A student.
Sawyer was already in way over his head. My friend has had challenges in his life, but he’s set. He can afford to make mistakes.
I have responsibilities.
Now, I wet a napkin under the faucet and motion for Kat to tilt up her head.
She does.
I carefully scrub the last of the paint off her neck, leaving her skin pink.
Her pulse thuds under my touch; her chest rises and falls in irregular intervals. Her breasts are full and round, the thin fabric clinging to every curve.
“There.”
I crumple the napkin in my fist.
“Thanks, boss.” Kat flashes a smile. “I should get back to homework. What’s your internet password?”
“Gardenia.” Sawyer reset it as a prank and I haven’t had the time to change it.
Her expression turns smug. “Knew it.”
“How did you know it?”
“No, I mean, I knew you were a guy to name your internet.”
She shifts off her stool, bringing her plate around into the kitchen.
“No life is perfect. But I will help you give Andy everything I can.”
Her cheeks are flushed, her hair a mess from the couch. She smells like vanilla, and suddenly I’m hungry again.
Later tonight, I’ll blame this on the long day. But I need to ask.
“Why did you say yes when I asked you to move in?”
Kat straightens. “I needed a place to stay, and the money is amazing.”
She’s a few feet away.
So close.
But just out of reach.
“It was nothing personal?”
“I might have been a little…dazzled.”
Did she just look at my mouth?
The night of the club, she was seeking someone to have a good time with.
Not only me, but anyone.
“By the offer,” she adds.
“Right.”
Fuck, get a grip.
You’re paying her to do a job.
Only a terrible person would hit on a woman living under his roof. One who’s on his payroll and a decade too young. Even if she is gorgeous and interesting and fun to talk to.
Even if more than once I’ve imagined how the night would’ve ended if I’d said yes.
“Good night, Kat.”
“Good night, Daniel.”
She crosses to the coffee table to grab her computer, glancing over her shoulder before she disappears down the hall and up the stairs to her room.
I toss the two empty LaCroix cans away, then rub both hands over my face.
I should have put her in the room down the hall instead of the one next to my bedroom.
7
KAT
“No shrimp.”
“Never again. But the rest of the menu looks set,” Liv decides, flipping her notebook closed.
“Fall Ball practically planned itself this year,” Jules says. “Which is good, because classes are destroying me. I have four essays due before November.”
“You want to swap for ten hours a week of labs?” Liv counters.
We’re at our favorite pub for Hoes over Brews, rescheduled from the other night. The bar buzzes around us, mostly upper classmen with a few wide-eyed freshmen venturing off campus.
The first few days of school have flown by in a blur of caffeine, lectures, alarm clock early mornings, and a steady stream of chatter from Andy, a kid who never runs out of energy or things to talk about.
I begged student housing to give me a few weeks to finalize my plans, and whether it was my charm or the lower than usual request for on-campus housing, they agreed.
Now if I can just show Liv and Jules they’re missing out, maybe they’ll change their minds.
Liv leans over her phone, frowning. “Adam wants me to ask you a favor. Some basketball thing to do with your brother.”
“That’s ballsy,” Jules drawls.
“I told him I couldn’t promise,” Liv goes on.
I shift off my stool and grab a dart. “Relationships are a bad idea. Case in point: the pond scum ex.”
“So it didn’t work out with Adam. But I met Sawyer the night we broke up.”
“Your head is messed up by the glow of amazing sex with your filthy professor.” I throw the dart toward the board and it lands smack in the middle. “Doesn’t matter what people do in good times, L. It’s what they do in bad ones that shows you who they are.”
I throw the rest of my darts, landing two right in the red zone at the middle of the board.
“Hell, no,” I say when I return to sit and Jules pushes the pitcher of beer across the high-top table toward me.
“Come on, you’ve only had one. Usually, you’d drink us under the table.”
Math has never been my strong suit, but even I can tell this won’t add up.
I shake my head and push the pitcher back. “Andy gets up early. Which means I get up with him.”
Since the night I painted with Andy, it’s been three nights of watching him. Three nights of sleeping under the same roof as Daniel.
Spending time in the place he lives is intimate. It’s like having a roommate who’s gorgeous and makes you food and is way too considerate.
My room is comfortable except for the fact it’s next to his. Daniel’s room has an en suite, which means I can hear him shower.
It would be wrong to think of how he looks naked in the shower.
Or slip out of my room quietly in the morning in the hopes he might have left his bedroom door ajar while he was searching for a towel.
“I felt bad about leaving you without a roommate, but it sounds like it worked out,” Jules says.
I shrug. “It’s a gig. I have my own bathroom. My boss is a good cook.”
“He cooked for you?” Liv takes a sip of her beer, fascinated.
“Once. He also makes a mean sandwich.”
The night he came home late lingers in my mind.
“It was nothing personal?”
He touched my face, scrubbed paint off my neck.
I was a second away from asking him to check the rest of me.
What 19th century bullshit is that?