Roomies - Christina Lauren Page 0,87
kiss me.”
The living room is empty when I walk inside, dropping my keys on the counter and hanging my coat over the back of the chair. The bathroom door is open—he’s not in there, either. The apartment feels oddly still; there’s no rattle of the radiator or clinking of dishes being washed. It feels like I’ve been gone a week, instead of twenty-four hours.
I find Calvin in my bed, leaning against the headboard and staring at the doorway.
His expression relaxes immediately when he sees me. “Hey.”
Kicking off my shoes, I give him a little smile and sit on the edge of the bed, but he pulls back a corner of the covers, patting the mattress. “Come here. We can talk in here.”
It’s a hard offer to refuse. I tug down my running pants and pull off my sweatshirt before burrowing under the sheets. I’m immediately hit with the solid heat of his chest and crawl into his arms; he’s completely naked, and somehow feels warmer than the sun. Calvin slides a hand up my back, unfastening my bra and pulling it away to toss it somewhere over his shoulder. He lets out a quiet groan, and a tiny thrill winds through me that he needed to feel skin on skin as immediately as I did.
“I’m sorry.” He sucks his lower lip into his mouth and stares into my eyes. “It wasn’t fair, what I said. I think I was just embarrassed that I didn’t realize you’d been honest at the immigration office. Or, maybe frustrated that all that time I’d wanted you, and you were pretending not to want me. It seemed so easy. I think I felt confused.”
I smile at this and it unlocks his own grin; he looks relieved.
“I’m not sure I totally trust why you’re doing this.” I press a hand to his chest. He looks down and shakes his head a little; he doesn’t know what I mean. “You could stay in the apartment and have the job without having sex with me, you know.”
His eyes fall closed and he lets out a little “Ahhhh,” as if I’ve just confirmed something for him.
“We could be convincing without this,” I say quietly. “But now that you know I had a thing for you before we met, I’m not comfortable doing this without knowing where you stand. It feels really unbalanced.”
His eyes flicker back and forth between mine. “My desire for you as a lover is entirely separate from my desire for the job you helped me find.”
I struggle to speak past the glow these words trigger in me. “Really? Because as you said yourself, it would be incredibly shitty of you to play me like that.”
He leans down, close enough to kiss me, but stops just shy. “Really. Of course my feelings are influenced by your understanding of music. Your opinion matters more to me than even Robert’s, or Ramón’s. But that isn’t about the job, that’s because music is part of you, too.”
I move in, resting my lips on his, and he groans, rolling over me, bringing a hand up to cup my jaw. Tension melts everywhere inside, and I rock into him when he settles between my thighs.
Making up is . . . pretty fun.
Calvin pulls back slightly, grinning down at me. “Six months before we met, huh?”
“At least,” I say, laughing and blushing. “It was a pretty epic crush.”
I slide my hands around his shoulders and then into his hair as he kisses lower, to my breasts, and my stomach, and then beneath the covers, where he kisses one thigh and then the other, and then sweeps his tongue across me.
Wanting to watch, I push the covers away, and he looks up, smiling into another kiss. He teases, pointing his tongue, nipping—almost as if he’s performing for me.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I whisper.
A long, soft suck and then: “What’s that?”
“And the answer is yes, I imagined you doing this before I met you.”
He pulls back a little, expression heating. “Imagined me kissing you here?”
I nod, and a deep ache builds just watching him watching me.
“Would you touch yourself?”
“Sometimes.”
He glides a finger over me, up and down, and then pushes it inside. “You’re getting wet just telling me about it.”
I dig a hand into his hair. “I’m not going to apologize for fantasizing about you.”
“I would fucking hope not.” He watches what he’s doing. “I don’t want you to stop fantasizing, either.”
“What do you fantasize about?”
He closes his eyes and bends to lick me,