Chapter 22
AVERY MOORE
“What movie are we watching anyway?” I ask Ivy as I slip on a pair of my fuzzy socks. My toes are freezing, and the colder weather isn’t helping. I mean, my toes are usually cold, but lately, as night falls, they turn into toesicles.
Reid and Dustin are coming over for a movie night. It was their idea since we all have class tomorrow. Ivy’s already expressed her doubts about Reid and me being able to hide our dating status throughout an entire movie, but I want to see Reid, so I’m the one who agreed for both of us.
Reid and I have been dating for a full three weeks now, sneaking around and going on secret dates throughout the weeks.
Dustin often asks where he’s been but then shoos it off, thinking that he’s got a girlfriend in the building.
When he said that, I blanched, but Reid later told me that Dustin has thought that all along and had no idea that it was me.
I’ve never been in a relationship that’s been so romantic before.
I’m truly falling for this guy, and I can’t stop it from happening.
Not that I want to. What we’re doing is the stuff of fairytales, and I almost—almost—forget that we’re hiding the entire thing from Dustin the whole time.
That’s what Reid does. He makes me forget.
He makes me feel like me, the truest me.
And he worships me, both in bed and figuratively.
“Some horror movie of some kind,” she grumps.
“Whose idea was that?” I squeak. I’ve never been a horror fan. They leave me unable to sleep for days afterward, thinking the shadows of my bedroom are hiding ghosts inside them.
“Theirs,” she grumbles as she heads to the front door when knuckles rap against it.
I follow her out and laugh when the knocking becomes a tune. “We’re coming!”
Ivy unlocks the door and swings it open, huffing as she does so. Reid and Dustin are wearing huge grins and come inside as if they own the place. Reid is carrying a couple of two-liter bottles of soda in his hands, and he passes them off to Ivy.
“Avery,” Reid greets, his eyes sweeping my body, taking in my pajamas and ridiculous socks. When his gaze flicks back to mine, there’s heat in them, and it makes me blush hardcore. “How are you?”
“Fine,” I murmur, taking note of how Dustin is watching our exchange. “How about you?”
Dustin slaps Reid on the shoulder. “Dude bench pressed a new self-record today. You should have seen it. It was badass.”
Reid wears a lazy grin at the praise. “Hard work pays off.”
“That it does,” Dustin says.
“Dustin, come help me pour the drinks!” Ivy calls from the kitchen. I hear the ice maker on the fridge whirring and knocking the ice around.
Dustin immediately takes off, and I turn to Reid. “You can’t look at me like that tonight.”
“Like what?”
I poke him in the chest and hiss. “Like you’re stripping me naked with your eyes.”
He wets his bottom lip. “If only that were possible.”
The chuckle that rumbles out of his chest is sexy when I slap his arm playfully.
Dustin and Ivy return from the kitchen with our drinks in their hands. They pass Reid and me each one of our own, and then we head into the living room and find seats on the couches. They sit on one couch, and we sit on the other while we each set our drinks on the coffee table between them.
I try not to fidget with how close Reid is sitting, but I can feel his body warmth, and I want nothing more than to lean into it. The desire to cuddle is strong, but Dustin, even though he seems completely unaware, would definitely notice.
So instead, I snatch a blanket that’s draped over the back of the couch and snap it over my body.
I squeak when Reid captures a side of it and covers himself too.
Realizing what he just did, we both glance at Dustin, but he’s completely unaware, flicking through the apps on the TV.
Ivy, on the other hand, witnessed the whole thing, and her eyes are narrowed as she mouths some sort of reprimand.
Huffing when she’s finished, she asks the room, “Do we have to watch horror?”
She and Dustin bicker back and forth about it, but I don’t pay attention to it because, under the blanket, Reid is reaching for me.
His hand is sliding up my leg until it rests right next to my pussy and squeezes the skin there.
Immediately, my body lights on fire. Still, Dustin seems unaware that I’m almost cuddling his best friend under the covers, and that best friend is laying on the moves.
He begins drawing small circles, inching closer to my pussy with each pass of his fingers. A small smirk settles on his face when I bite my bottom lip to hold in any sounds that I might involuntarily make.
Slowly, he turns his head to look at me fully.
I can’t help but return the stare, and we share that moment of silent communication, the one we always do where we don’t need to actually say anything.
I could look forever in his eyes. I could just get lost in them, and as the seconds tick by, I start to.
“Popcorn!” Ivy shouts, snapping our stare. Reid immediately lets go of my thigh as if we’ve been caught, and if the narrowed expression on Ivy’s face is anything to go by, she did catch us.
“What?” Reid asks after a moment.
“We need popcorn.” She turns to Dustin. “Do you have any?”
“Yeah,” Dustin says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think we have a bag of puffed popcorn.”
“Good,” she says, standing up and pulling him to his feet. “Come on, lover boy. Let’s go get it.”
Dustin frowns as she steers him from the apartment, and when he’s out of earshot, she whips around with her finger jabbing in our direction. “You have a few seconds to get it out of your system, and when we come back, you’re going to act normal. Got it?”
With that said, she leaves and shuts the door.
We’re on each other immediately, lips clashing in a heated kiss. I gather myself on my knees and press my body into his. His hands roam my backside, and mine grip his shirt tightly in my fists. God, his hands feel like heaven. His touch turns me on and makes me feel safe at the same time.
Our tongues sweep over each other’s, and we make little urgent sounds into our mouths. And when we hear Dustin’s apartment door shut, we fly off of each other, quickly straightening our shirts and the blanket across our laps which had almost fallen to the floor.
My apartment door opens, and they both step through. A look of relief appears on Ivy’s face, and she gives me a little nod, one that I return, letting her know that we’ll behave for the rest of the night.
And we do. The only thing we do under the blanket is hold hands. I barely even notice the movie because I’m too busy relishing the fact that this man beside me is mine.