Chapter 3
Chapter Three
He had filled every kitchen drawer with condoms.
Thea pinched the bridge of her nose and released a deep sigh of what had to be only fifty percent carbon dioxide and fifty percent annoyance.
Just the night before, he had made out with a woman in their living room as if to purposefully vex Thea.
He had been shirtless—because, of course. And as aggravated at her new roommate’s immaturity and blatant sexual blasé as she was, she was also pissed at herself for the pang of jealousy at watching all that potent masculine energy focused on the stranger and not her.
Yes, she found him immature and annoying, but she did not know lips could move like that. This apartment is going to mess with my mind .
Disoriented by the astonishing feeling of envy and overwhelmed by her own feelings of loneliness and lack of normalcy, Thea flipped out. She speedily signed words at Draven that he did not understand as he made eye contact with Thea and continued kissing the woman’s neck.
“ How immature are you? Do you have no respect for others? No, you probably don’t have a single thought about anyone but yourself .”
She swore he sang a jolly tune of, “I can’t hear you.”
But something particularly mind-boggling occurred when Thea tiptoed behind the living room to get to the kitchen later that night.
She had expected to see them still dry humping each other on the couch. Instead, Draven kept his hands to himself and sat straight and stiff beside the woman, trying to watch something on the TV. He looked almost uncomfortable.
When the woman placed her hand on Draven’s upper thigh, he grimaced at it like she had just randomly spread tuna salad on his leg.
Confused, Thea stutter-stepped and must have made enough noise that Draven’s gaze swung over to her, and in the next second, he’d crashed his lips to the woman’s and acted like they were seconds away from stripping off their clothes and having sex on the couch.
So, he was doing it on purpose just to upset Thea.
It triggered two thoughts:
“ Why does he care what I think about him? ”
“ This is a man of limited maturity and must be handled with an equal amount of immaturity .” Obviously.
Thus, it began. They became enemies under the same roof.
It was an unspoken battle. Passive aggressive notes left all over the apartment.
“ Because you’re single, I have to go without sex? ” He had written her his version of an apology on a Post-it note and left it on the bathroom mirror for her to see the next morning.
She had clicked her pen and written on the bottom of the note. “ You couldn’t go without sex for a week if you tried .”
His jaw fell to the tiled floor when he saw her note later that day. “ You don’t even know me .”
To which she wrote back on a new pink Post-it, “ I know your type .”
When she entered the bathroom to brush her teeth the next morning, his blue Post-it hung proudly in the center of the mirror.
He had written, “ One week without sex. Challenge accepted. Just don’t judge me for any unmanageable erections you see in the next few days .”
“ I’m sure you can take care of them yourself ,” she had impulsively written and rushed out.
After half an hour of searching online for job postings in the privacy of her new bedroom, she ran back to their shared bathroom to take down her note. It seemed too…flirty, seeming to suggest she imagined him “taking care” of himself. And, of course, she did.
She just did not need him to know that. To know that late last night, she imagined walking in on him pleasuring himself in their shared bathroom. His head thrown back as he fisted his cock and stroked—
Shoot . She gaped at the mirror. Her note was gone. He had kept it.
And he had written back, “ Oh, I plan to take care of myself a lot this week. Nothing like a little self-love. Maybe you should try it? ”
That was flirty, wasn’t it? Telling her that maybe she should touch herself.
She was definitely tempted.
He walked around the apartment shirtless . All the time. He glistened like his skin produced a light coating of liquid gold and sweat at all times to create an alluring shine.
Later that morning, when she ate cereal at the kitchen island, she could do nothing but stare as he strode into the kitchen wearing only a pair of modest boxers.
As he turned and opened the fridge, grabbing her almond milk, his muscular back and slim hips were on complete display before her. My God .
Yes, she would have expected a drummer to have muscles; he would have to be fit and full of stamina to voraciously hit those drums all night. But… Wow . Alec had never been a toned, muscular man; she never thought muscles were all that attractive, but on Draven… Everything about him was provocative. Arousing.
Thea finally understood the term “animal magnetism.”
When Draven finished making his bowl of cereal, he turned and faced her, his chest only three feet from her. When he caught her drooling over the ropes of his chiseled abs, he chuckled and smirked at her.
To which, she wrote on her notepad, “ Do you have something against shirts? ”
He grinned at her, stealing her pad. He grabbed a Sharpie from a kitchen cup of pens and bit off the cap in a tantalizing manner that made Thea’s thighs clench.
The black cap twitched between his sinful lips as he wrote back on her notepad. “ I’m anti-establishment, baby. Plus, I’ve found that you glare at me less when I’m shirtless. Just trying to keep my new roommate happy .”
She pursed her lips at his words. Had she glared at him that much? She had only been living there three days and mostly hid in her bedroom. Draven tended to sleep in late, fumble into the kitchen for breakfast, then stumble out of the apartment to head to his band practices, the recording studio, or wherever he went.
He was not a struggling artist; the man was a drummer in a well-known, successful rock band called Medusa’s Tears . Thea knew Mallory was excited to join Wren on their world tour in a few months.
So, the question Thea had was: how irresponsible with money does Draven have to be to need a roommate ? Was it gambling? He did not seem like someone who did drugs. His vice is sex , she thought to herself, remembering the lingerie she found between the couch cushions. But he’d never have to pay for it.
Knowing Wren’s wealth, Thea strived to understand how much Draven had to spend to not have his own apartment—maybe one with two bathrooms instead of a shared one. Though, maybe that was her financial brain tingling to solve a money management issue.
She tsked her thoughts. Other women might look at bad boy Draven and think, “ I can change him .” Thea thought, “ I can save his finances .”
Thea took her notepad back from him and jotted down another note. She spun it so he could see. “ That’s my almond milk, you know ,” she told him.
His lips moved, but she didn’t know what he said. After years in public school where hearing students expected her to read lips, she still failed at it. Only about thirty-five percent of the English language could be read on the lips.
It did not help that Draven’s lips were particularly distracting. He just always licked them. Suggestively. He flashed that seductive tongue at her and expelled all other thoughts from her brain.
Even now, as he lifted his spoon of cereal to his mouth, she swallowed and watched with wide, fascinated eyes as his cupid’s bow lips moved together, and his jaw flexed with each chew. She should have been annoyed that he used her almond milk. Instead, she shifted on the barstool and crossed her legs, suddenly very aware of a tingling occurring between them.
Those lips .
She blinked and glanced down at her notepad where he had written back, “ Check your facts. That’s my almond milk .”
She frowned, looking back up at where he loomed over her. Even as she sat on the high barstool, he was so tall in front of her. The island counter between them blocked the view of anything below that lickable, defined V at his hips.
“ That’s my almond milk ,” she wrote back, underlining “my.”
He read it and shook his head. He took another bite of almond-milk-soaked cereal.
She nodded her head. Mine .
He shook his.
Nod. Shake. Glare .
“ Using the groceries of your jobless cohabitor is not a good look ,” she wrote.
He did not seem to like that at all. His jaw clenched. His eyes narrowed angrily at her note. His shoulder blades drew up in a defensive manner.
Oh geez, you’ve pissed off the drummer now, Thea .
“ I bought that milk, princess ,” he wrote. “ I’m sure you are used to your Wall Street man supplying all your food for you, but I’m not him .”
She made a hand gesture as her expression screamed, “ Obviously .”
Alec and Draven were polar opposites. Alec once said he didn’t like the texture of pumpkin pie on his tongue. Thea was fairly certain Draven had his tongue pierced .
Oh God, what if his cock was pierced too? Some men did that, right? The metal piercing was meant to increase male and female pleasure during sex. Not that she, uh, read up on it or anything. She certainly had not not stayed up late reading about such a thing.
Draven’s bad boy, rocker image messed with her mind.
What if he is pierced? What would that even feel like?
Her gaze fell to the countertop, which blocked his crotch.
Draven put his bowl down and clapped, gathering back her attention. He then said something and pointed to his face. She assumed he said something along the lines of, “ My eyes are up here .”
His Sharpie rapidly moved over the notepad. “ If you’re going to tell me to put a shirt on, maybe try not to leer at me so much ,” he wrote.
She blinked. The drummer had just used the word “leer.” Regaining herself, she wrote, “ You must be cold, walking around half-naked all the time. ”
He smirked and dragged a hand down his left bare pec. Do not drool, Thea . That sinful tongue dove out again, wetting his lips. He wrote back, “ Oh, I always run hot .”
She felt hot whenever he was around. The man emitted radioactive warmth.
Draven turned, opened the fridge, and wrote “Draven’s” in marker on her almond milk.
This means war .
* * *
Always run hot, huh? As the day passed, Thea lowered the thermostat by two degrees every hour. Draven played his drums in the living room, shirtless and shivering once the apartment reached sixty-three degrees. Still, he never added another layer of clothing.
In fact, the next time Thea went to the thermostat, she saw it was lowered two degrees more than what she had left it.
The temperature was now a battle.
They went back and forth that evening, lowering it until Draven shivered and wrapped a blanket around himself as he drummed—still shirtless.
Thea wore her puffy winter coat as she poured herself a glass of almond milk in the kitchen.
From his spot in the corner of the living room, he glared at her.
And as cold as the apartment was, she felt especially warm.