Chapter 30 #2
I finally deem it late enough that it’s safe to go home.
All I want to do is shower the sweat and stench from earlier off me and crawl into bed.
My stomach grumbles, reminding me it’s been a while since I’ve eaten, so I might also fix myself a bowl of ramen noodles with an egg.
Avery confirmed he was back in his post outside hours ago, so Chiara should have long gone to sleep, seeing as I overheard her talking about an ungodly start time for work in the morning.
If all goes to plan, I’ll be going to bed and she’ll be just a few hours from waking, meaning I will have successfully survived my first night with my new platonic roomie.
A pang of regret for how we left things today tries to shoulder its way past my self-control, urging me to check in on her—maybe apologize—but I grit my teeth and steel myself as I key in the code and enter my home.
I walk down the hallway towards the kitchen and notice the soft glow of light. My roommate must have forgotten to turn it off. Or perhaps in a very wholesome roommates-who-don’t-fuck gesture, she intentionally left it on for me.
As I peer around the wall, I quickly realize it was neither of those, coming face-to-face with an entirely new scenario.
One that sends an electric bolt of fervent lust through my body.
Chiara leans against the bench in a cut-off tank and high cut black underwear that show off her lean legs, the script tattoo on her rib cage just visible.
She’s absently scrolling her phone and eating a banana.
The sight of her mouth wrapped around it instantly sends my thoughts spiraling back to this morning, and all the blood rushes to my dick.
He’s already in a world of hurt considering we’re sharing our space with the devil herself and we’re not allowed to touch or taste again, according to my house rules.
I’m sure my dick just called me a fucking idiot.
What is happening to me? The mystery disease must be worsening if I think my cock is talking to me.
“What are you doing?” I bite out, foregoing pleasantries and activating asshole mode in a bid to douse the lust licking at the frayed edges of my willpower and to disguise how fucking jealous I am of that fucking banana.
“What am I doing?” she repeats nonchalantly, her mouth still wrapped around the fruit, eyes glinting with mischief zeroed in on me as she makes a show of slowly dragging her mouth up and popping off it.
I stifle a groan as my cock twitches at the suggestive action.
“Eating a banana. In case it wasn’t obvious.”
“It’s past midnight. What are you still doing awake? You have to be up for work in a few hours,” I snap back.
“As we’ve just established, I was hungry, so I’m eating a banana.”
She brings the banana to her mouth, slowly pushing it between her full, pink lips, swirling her tongue around the top before biting down.
She chews slowly, holding my gaze with her signature defiance before swallowing thickly.
I watch her throat bob with the action, and I involuntarily mimic the movement.
I know what that smart, sassy, sweet mouth feels like around me, doing those things to me.
I groan inwardly as my thickening dick’s muscle memory kicks in with every second of watching the porno equivalent of her eating a banana.
“Is there a problem? I didn’t realize it was a crime to eat a banana past a certain time in the States.
But if it is, thank God my new roomie is a good lawyer,” she remarks languidly, the corner of her mouth tipping up in a devious smirk as she returns her attention to the last of her banana, licking imaginary residue of the tips of her thumb and pointer finger.
“Oh wait. Is this against house rules too?”
My half-hatched plan to let her live here after we crossed every blurred line and beyond is already biting me in the ass not even a day in.
She’s testing my willpower in ways I didn’t know existed.
I’m looking at her, but all I see are visions of filling my hands with her luscious ass and hauling her up onto the bench top before sliding into her tight, wet pussy.
I shake my head to clear them and instead grit out my next question.
“Did you eat dinner?”
“I like—no, love—you in Daddy mode, but definitely not this type,” she says, waving a hand towards me, a smirk turning up the corners of that sinful mouth.
I put my hands on my hips and look up at the ceiling, praying to a god I’m not sure exists if this is the hell I’ve signed up for in my doing a charitable thing and giving a woman in need a room.
“No, I didn’t. But thanks for checking, Daaaad.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you eat dinner?” I say, exasperated, desperate to get far away from her while she’s making it her mission to keep me in her web for as long as she can.
“Avery and I had a late lunch, and then ate popcorn and candy while we watched Sex And The City reruns in my room, so I wasn’t h—”
“You broke the rule.”
“Sorry, what?” she spits.
“I said no guys in my house.”
“It’s Avery for fuck’s sake. You know, the guy you said you ordered to stay as close to me as possible? Or are we going to pretend that conversation never happened, too?”
I stalk over to where she’s standing, getting so close the bench is no doubt biting into her back, and loom over her.
“Is that what you were dressed in the whole time?” Jealousy surges through me again—there’s no point claiming it’s anything but.
She peers up at me, indignation glowing in her forest eyes. “So what if it was? We’ve established we’re not friends with benefits; maybe Avery feels differently.”
“Watch it…” I rumble, not taking my eyes off her as I reach up to open the cupboard overhead.
“Or. What?” she whispers, punctuating each word, but I don’t miss the way her nipples betray her, peaking the fabric of her tank, or the quickened rise and fall of her chest that’s got zero to do with her being annoyed with me and everything to do with her being frustrated at my behavior.
How easy it would be to take everything I want in the name of giving her exactly what her body is begging for.
Except it would make me no better than every other man in her life, making her believe I could be what she needs, knowing full well I’m too much of a selfish bastard to be everything she deserves.
I have enough self-preservation to avoid taking the top spot in the long list of men who have failed her.
So I swallow hard, counting to five to get my own desires in check, then continue.
“Or you’ll miss out on my famous ramen noodles with a gooey fried egg and chili oil,” I respond, pulling out two packets of the ramen noodles I always keep on hand when I need a quick late-night meal, and stepping away from her.
She snorts a giggle, and it catches me off guard.
“Maybe I like my bananas and to eat them too,” she says before promptly bursting into a fit of uncontrollable giggles that sends her body collapsing forward into mine.
I place the noodles on the bench top and wrap my hands around her waist, the silkiness of her skin a salve to odd sensations pricking my own.
“Ah. Butchering another saying,” I muse, unable to keep the humor out of my voice as I set her upright, before she can feel exactly how hard everything is in the moment in all senses of the meaning.
“You weren’t complaining this morning or…” she quips, her giggles trailing off, and her eyes lined with moisture of happy tears piercing through me.
“I’ll let you have that point. Now, will you please sit down so I can feed you properly? A banana is not a proper meal.”
“Hmmm. I beg to differ, and in different circumstances, I know you’d consider a banana a proper meal,” she says, using air quotes to use my own words against me.
“But I’m not just a pretty face, Raffy, so you bet your ass I’m not going to turn down an offer of a midnight snack cooked for me by my roomie-with-no-benefits. Chop, chop, chef! I’m ravenous.”
And this is how I find myself eating noodles in my kitchen at nearly 1 a.m. with Chiara, who lets me peel back more of the layers of her like an onion, telling me all about her favorite dishes her mom used to make and that, no matter how many times she orders them at a restaurant, they just never taste right—like that one special ingredient is missing.
The fond memories soften her pretty features so much that in the soft glow, it makes her look truly angelic.
And not for the first time, I want to burn the world down over every single bad thing that has happened to her and every person who has mistreated or double-crossed her in a bid to clip her wings.
I don’t realize I’ve entered some trance-like state while listening to her chat away until her voice, husky from the late hour, cuts through the white noise in my ears.
“Do you know what the secret ingredient is?”
“Are you asking me?” I respond like an idiot.
“Well, I don’t see anyone else here, and I’m not going to get into my crazy on day one of being roomies and tell you that I do indeed speak to dead people.”
She says it tongue in cheek, but I feel it like a knife to the organ that is persistent in making me aware it’s not going back to the cage from which it’s broken free.
I lean back in my chair and smile at her softly.
“I do not, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”
“Love.”
She holds my eye for a beat, then gets up, goes to the sink, rinses her bowl, and puts it in the dishwasher just like I instructed her to do with her coffee cup all those months ago.
Just before she walks out of the kitchen, she pauses in the entryway and looks back over at me.
“Thanks for the late-night dinner date, roomie. It’s my most favorite ramen I’ve ever eaten.”
Then she’s gone, and I know that sleep will not find me tonight, but I pray that sweet dreams find her instead of the ghosts of dead people she speaks to.