Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The Judas Maximo stood in front of Thea and signed to her. She quickly closed her stunned, open mouth as she blushed.
“ How are you doing tonight? ” he signed.
She had seen Judas once before at one of the bar gigs she attended with Mallory. He was the man in a thousand-dollar suit who ordered the most expensive scotch available, took two sips from it, nodded a greeting to Wren, and left.
She had no idea he knew she existed or knew sign language, for Pete’s sake.
She nervously signed back, “ I’m great. You know ASL? ”
“ My grandmother was deaf ,” he replied. “ I heard you did the band’s makeup tonight .”
Uh, oh. Was this where he sued her for damages?
“ They look great ,” he signed. “ You are very talented .”
Her blush deepened. “ Thank you .”
This was the part where she gave him a business card or told him to tell all his Hollywood connections about her. But instead, she clasped her elbow and shifted on nervous legs as she fought to “network” for the first time in her life. Damn it, why couldn’t she be better at this?
She was an outgoing powerhouse with her friends, but put her out of her element and with someone she didn’t know but who knew everyone else in the room, and Thea got shy. So, sue her! No, please, don’t sue her.
“ Draven said you’re trying to get into the movie makeup business .”
“ Yes .” Here it was—her ticket to market herself and her future. You want to go for your dream? All you have to do is do it . And no, Nike did not sponsor her inspiring thought to herself.
Just as she prepared to pull out her business cards, the music calmed to a stop. Judas’ head shot over to look at the band as if somebody had called his name. Thea glanced over and saw everyone had stopped dancing.
The crowd stared at Draven who now stood beside Tomi, speaking into the microphone and looking right at her.
Draven then pointed right at her, and everyone in the room moved their gazes to her.
Her blood pressure spiked under the attention.
Draven’s lips kept moving as he pointed her out to the crowd and spoke into the microphone. Her cheeks burned.
What was he saying ? She touched Judas’ arm and asked.
Judas quickly signed, “ He is telling everyone how you did their makeup tonight. How you’re looking for some jobs on movie sets and that any film would be lucky to have you .”
Thea looked back to Draven, who winked at her and handed the mic back to Tomi. A group of people crowded around Thea, and she divvied up her business cards, handing them out and running out of them by the end of the night.
Is this what it’s like to have a cheerleader?
Thea had only one question.
Was she allowed to throw her panties at Draven too?
* * *
Just friends , Draven repeated to himself. Just friends .
Thea was in the shower, getting ready to go to bed for the night, but he was too awake, too alive for sleep. Having Wren threaten to kick him out of the band. Watching Thea dance. Watching Judas sign to her.
Draven’s emotions had been up and down all night, a rollercoaster with a laundry list of lawsuits after the neck-breaking and stomach warping falls and turns.
He opened the fridge to grab a beer, closed the door, and saw a pink Post-it hanging on it. Thea had written, “ You did a great job tonight. Thank you for inviting me. You make a sexy tiger .”
His fingers folded over his heart.
Just friends. Just friends .
He slipped the pink square of paper into the pocket of his jeans, wondering if there was a store that framed two-by-two-inch-sized notes. Because people framed notes from friends. Obviously.
Just friends .
Draven settled down onto the couch, stretching out his legs. Sitting up and facing the bathroom door, he sipped his beer. He forbade his mind to think about how Thea stood naked and dripping, water flowing down her body right now, in his apartment.
Her dark brown hair probably looked black when it was wet. Like city streets on a rainy night.
He closed his eyes and tried not to listen to the sound of the shower. The rushing water brought up images of her lathering her smooth neck and supple breasts, fingers trailing down her stomach. He grunted and put down his beer.
Maybe getting a buzz was not the best idea when his cock already wanted to overrule his brain when it came to his roommate.
He picked up the notepad from the coffee table as lyrics flooded him.
“ She is no wallflower.
She is lethal ivy,
clinging to every piece of me.
A gun with a silencer,
shooting round after round at me.
So quietly.
Those eyes are cannons,
tearing my sails.
Be my anchor.
Siren and savior.
Drown with me .”
Dumb. He balled up the piece of paper and jammed it into his other jean pocket—not the one with her precious note.
Why the hell was everyone so convinced Draven would end up hurting Thea anyway? Thinking he would break her heart? As if she would even give him her heart.
Wren was right. Draven was not her type. He was nothing like her tie-wearing, snooty ex. Draven had tattoos. He sometimes painted his nails black—mostly when his younger sister Summer visited him and demanded it.
We will just be friends , he told himself, nodding at the thought.
Then, the bathroom door creaked open, and a wet, dripping Thea scuttered out, wearing nothing but a small, pale-pink towel.
Even her bath towels are pastel .
From several feet away, Draven could make out the pink flush across her cheeks and chest from the steam of the shower. The dark tresses of her hair slicked back. Thick beads of moisture dripped onto her chest and the towel and the floor.
The little pings against the hardwood sounded like, “ Haha, no chance you stay just friends with her, you bastard! She is your dream girl, and you are lusting after her hard, bro .” Stupid opinionated droplets.
She stood there, staring at him as if he were Medusa turning her to stone. Didn’t she realize the power she held over him?
More droplets fell to the floor.
She did not move.
Awareness nicked the back of his neck, an invisible needle injecting him with pure adrenaline-spiked anticipation.
Draven slowly rose from the couch, staring right back at her with what he hoped was not an intense expression that revealed his inner thoughts of, “ Baby, I’d fuck you so good, you’d never think about your cheating ex again .”
From the distance, he could not read her expression. Just felt the click as their gazes locked. A bomb could have gone off, and Draven didn’t think himself capable of flinching or blinking. Blinking meant a second of not seeing her, not seeing this sudden show of interest and vulnerability from her.
Why is she just standing there? What does she want from me?
“Are you okay?” he asked as he stepped around the couch, hesitantly moving toward where she stood.
She tilted her head and peered at him. Her mouthwatering grapefruit scent slammed into him the closer he got to her.
I want to lick her .
“ Are you okay ?” he signed.
Her eyes widened just a bit at his signing. Her pink tongue dabbed out to wet her lips, slicking them and securing all of his attention.
Just friends . The thing about Thea was that when she opened up, when she got silly and goofy with Draven, it made him feel like her partner in crime. Like best friends.
But he also wanted to kiss every centimeter of her body. Kiss, lick, suck, bite.
He wanted to leave so many hickeys on her neck that, to cover them, she had to wear a scarf or ten sets of pearl necklaces. He wanted to sit her on the couch and set up a wine tasting, where she had different glasses to sip from, and he had his own tasting where he splayed open her thighs and dove his face between them, devouring her. He wanted to hear her whimpers and watch her face twist with ecstasy as she came.
She gripped the side of her towel.
“Baby, are you trying to seduce me right now?” Draven asked in wonderment. He had no idea what was going on in her pretty, talented head. “Because it’s working.”
Not understanding him, she pursed her lips and exhaled.
“Or are you just trying to ruin my floors by dripping there?”
She bit her lip, and her gaze flicked down his body as he prowled closer.
“Thea, Wren will kill me if I touch you,” he muttered to himself, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He sucked his top lip into his mouth, perusing her damp bare legs and thighs beneath the towel.
Groaning, he asked in a tortured voice, “Do you know what it’s like to want someone so bad you don’t fear death?” His feet stopped just in front of her. With his height, he towered over her.
He leaned down so he could look into those piercing gray eyes, little mirrors reflecting his soul. Or maybe trapping his soul? The woman was obsessed with horror movies; she probably practiced witchcraft at some point in her life, even if it was just buying crystals or bespelled candles.
“ Little witch, I’d burn at the stake
for a touch. Burn for a touch.
She took my eyes that very first day.
She cast a spell.
Now all I see is her,
but they tell me one touch will take me to Hell .”
Draven shushed the lyrics in his head. “Thea, you standing naked in that towel in front of me is giving me ideas I really should not be having right now.” Friends. Friends . Chandler, Monica, Rachel, Ross…
Her fingers tightened around the towel; her chest moved up and down more noticeably. She licked her lips again.
Draven was close to panting. Because she still stood there—like an invitation he wanted to RSVP and stamp and lick the envelope closed.
His cock tingled and hardened behind his slacks, clearly enjoying this teaser, whether it was a mind game or not.
“Fuck, baby, I can see your pretty nipples poking through that towel.” Draven ran a hand over his mouth and chin. “Do you know what that does to me? I should win the Nobel Prize for self-control right now.”
She blinked slowly.
“Don’t act all innocent, Thea. Do you know how hard you’re making me right now? There’s a thing called blue balls, and I’ve had it since you moved in and started leaving pink Post-it notes all over the apartment.”
She reached toward him, and his breath caught when he thought for a moment that she reached for his waistband. Instead, she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the steam-filled bathroom.
“Not making me any less hard, babe,” Draven mumbled.
She turned to position him in front of the mirror. Leaning forward, she grabbed a container of makeup wipes and pulled a few white towelettes out. She scrubbed his face with them, taking off the tiger makeup.
“This was not where I thought this was going,” Draven said sourly as she roughly rubbed the wipes over his cheeks, jaw, nose, and forehead. “Can you at least accidentally drop your towel? Make a man’s dream come true?”
She paused her vicious scrubbing and narrowed her eyes as if she heard his comment. Or maybe she just saw right through him and knew he would say something indecent and provocative like that. She resumed removing the makeup.
“So, that’s a ‘no’ to the towel dropping?”
She shoved his head downward so she could get to his forehead. This new position forced his line of sight directly onto her breasts—breasts barely covered by the thin, damp towel.
Yup, those were definitely hard nipples poking through the fabric. Hello there, darlings. Would you like a kiss? I promise to use tongue .
The sweet, sour, lush scent of grapefruit clouded his brain as he breathed her in. His dick thickened faster, getting threateningly close to a full-on erection.
Draven clenched his eyes shut and mentally screamed, JUST FRIENDS .
When Thea finished, she dropped the dirtied wipes into the trashcan and crossed her arms in front of her, nodding at her job well done.
“Be honest,” he joked. “You liked me in that makeup, but I’m a masterpiece au naturel too.”
He swore she could hear him because her lips curled at the edges as if she fought off a smile.
Friends .
But then, she leaned forward, yanking down his head and turning it to the side to press her plush lips tenderly to his cheek. The graze of her lips and the resulting waft of grapefruit bliss had Draven’s heart wringing itself in his chest, as if the organ was clearing house to make room for something new.
She kissed his cheek, spun around, and left the bathroom.
She left him, stunned, at the sink.
Staring into the mirror as he swallowed the rising, irrevocable truth.
I want to sleep with my friend .