20. Will #3
The voice forces us abruptly apart. I try to fix my hair with little luck as Will turns a beaming smile on the woman in glasses carrying a stack of books.
“Sorry,” Will says.
She just shakes her head, muttering, “Take an obscure course, they said—”
We shuffle past her, adjusting our clothes before we have to face the rest of the library looking rumpled and flushed. I take some satisfaction in the fact that Will has to work extra hard to hide the erection I gave him in his slutty grey sweatpants.
When he gets back to our desk, he starts bunding up his laptop and books.
“Where are you going?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “You’re really gonna just sit down and carry on studying?”
I shrug.
“Get your stuff, we’re going home.”
I watch as he tries to shove everything in his backpack and make a mental note to get him a proper laptop bag that will fit all his books in, too.
He kisses me the second I open the door, falling into our practiced routine. I remind myself—again—that this is just a convenient arrangement. A way for us to both blow off steam while we work our asses off on this degree. There’s no reason why feelings have to be involved.
But the way Will looks at me, even after we’re naked and fooling around, is nothing like how other guys have looked at me in bed.
He insists on being able to see my face when I come. It illuminates how anonymous my hook ups were before. How cold. Even when he fucks me from behind, he tilts my face and says my name and kisses my neck. I like it. I like it far too much.
“Fuck, Rosie,” Will says as he flops down on the bed next to me. I watch the condom loosening on his cock and lick my lips at how full it is because of me.
His stomach rumbles and he laughs.
“I’m starving, you wear me out.”
I watch him get up and walk across the room, admiring his magnificent glutes as he snaps the condom off. He catches me staring at him when he turns around with a cocky grin. Asshole.
“Wanna go grab something to eat?” he asks.
There’s that as well—the fact he always wants to hang around, even after he’s had an orgasm. He wants to talk to me and cuddle me and stuff.
I should tell him no. We need boundaries. And while I suppose we’ve more than crossed the usual professional boundaries, there are emotional ones we still have a chance of keeping in place.
Instead of denying him, however, I nod dumbly. “Sure.”
We talk about our research while we eat at the diner, skirting around the specifics of our individual assignments. The rivalry lingers in the background all the time but I bat it away.
Will eats a turkey burger and potato wedges while I eat a salad. After I clear half my plate, he puts a few wedges on the side without a word before continuing his own meal. He’s sharing his food with me. Why did he do that?
“What were you saying, Rosie?”
“Huh?”
He laughs softly, his brown eyes shining. “You were saying something about stocks.”
“Oh …” I clear my throat. “Yes, so I was.”
He smiles, watching me, waiting for me to go on.
Listening to me talk without an impatient film over his eyes.
When I continue to make my point, he waits until I’ve finished before adding a counter point.
We argue it out until the waitress brings us the check.
I try to pay, but Will snatches it off me and pays with cash, leaving the waitress a generous tip.
“Shall we go back to my place?” I ask.
“Sure you don’t wanna go to Atlantic City?”
I side-eye him and he laughs. No more dates, I tell myself. Sex—fine. Sex helps us relax and keeps us focused. But dates are a distraction.
“No? How about Coney Island?”
I just glare.
When Will gets back to my place, he kicks his shoes off at the door and puts some coffee on.
He looks comfortable here, like he belongs.
I think about that night I told him he was ‘unsuitable’ and cringe.
Why is he still here? No one has called me out as much as he has.
It isn’t like he can’t see how much of a dick I am, but here he is, taking two mugs from my cupboard and making himself at home.
He starts talking about equity investment with his back turned.
For a moment, I get a flash of what it could be like …
forever. Will being my partner. Coming home after a long day at work and discussing what happened at the office.
Taking turns cooking dinner, ordering take-out or going out to eat.
His shoes lined up beside mine at the door.
His cufflinks next to mine on the dresser.
His suit hung up in the closet, the pants slightly longer than mine.
The shoulders in his jacket a couple of inches wider.
His smell on my bedsheets, his razor in the bathroom, his… .
“Rosie?”
“Yes?”
“Everything okay?”
I stiffen. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He studies me with a mug in his hand and I force the stupid fantasy out. That is not going to happen. Not only is he unsuitable, I told him he is. There’s no coming back from that, surely? I’m lucky he still wants to be around me at all.