Chapter Three
THREE
Blake hummed along to Vivaldi as he straightened the condo.
The solitude was pleasant, if unusual. Maggie had sent him a text earlier saying she would be home late, the misspellings indicating dinner had turned into dinner and drinks.
He wondered about her meeting with Chauvel.
Blake had heard of the guy—he was a key donor to a lot of causes—but from what others had said, Chauvel was smarmy.
Whatever Maggie was into, hopefully it wasn’t distasteful.
He didn’t know her as well as he’d like yet, but she seemed sensible and unlikely to get in over her head.
Blake left the music playing in the living room as he went to take a shower.
He liked to start with the water hot, even though the night was hot, and he stepped beneath the stream and let it beat down on him.
Gosh, that was nice. He turned the water lukewarm, then cooler.
Sometimes he liked the discomfort: sensation in all its forms centered him, brought him into his body and into this moment.
The water drummed against his skin, cold seeping through the surface to numb his overheated flesh.
Sometimes he would jerk off like this, skin hot in a cold shower, staying quiet so Maggie wouldn’t hear him.
He was always careful of noise, not wanting to make her uncomfortable.
Presumably she was getting off sometimes as well, equally silent in this same shower, or in her room.
He tried not to think about that, although at times the image came to him unbidden: his roommate stretched out naked on her bed, fingers dipping between her legs, hips twitching as she neared her peak …
A sudden loud knock on the door pulled him out of the fantasy. “Hey, can I come in there? I’ve gotta pee.”
Blake snapped back to reality in an instant. “Yeah, come on in.”
The opaque shower curtain kept his privacy, and he made sure the edges were pressed against the tile as the door opened.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she chanted.
“Too much champers, broke the seal, raced up the stairs, sorry, sorry.” An awkward few seconds passed while she took care of things.
“Really crossing some roommate boundaries, here, aren’t I? ” she asked.
“Definitely.” Blake had to grin at the ridiculous situation. “At least it’s not a glass shower stall.”
“We would all be getting an eyeful with that.” The toilet flushed, then the sink ran. “Thanks! Sorry again!” And she was gone, leaving him with a niggling feeling of guilt about his thoughts right before she’d barged in. Sighing, he turned off the water.
He left the bathroom a few minutes later, towel wrapped around his hips.
Maggie wolf whistled from the couch, making Blake laugh. She’d clearly had a bit too much to drink; her smile was wider and less guarded than he’d seen it in these last few weeks. “You giving us a show?”
“This is the show.” He held the towel in place and wiggled his hips, making her laugh louder.
“It’s well worth the ticket price.” She gave him two thumbs up, which was especially funny since she had teased him last week about giving thumbs ups.
He stopped gyrating. “What’s champers? You said you had too much champers.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Champagne?” Her tone indicated everyone should know that. “You’ve never heard that? I guess it’s more common in the UK.”
“I have never been there.”
“Me neither,” she countered. “But I’ve watched a lot of British TV.
” She let her head loll back against the cushions.
“I had two glasses before I ate anything, which might not have been the best call, but here I am. Phoebe and I split a bottle. Cora bailed on me for the lab, so I invited Phoebe because I didn’t want to be alone for dinner.
I was … well, I guess celebrating? Commiserating.
I was something. Let’s go with celebrating, because that sounds better. ”
He almost said that she could have invited him for dinner, but that was too forward, probably. A couple months in and they were still figuring out their rhythms. “Celebrating a deal with Arnold Chauvel?”
Maggie nodded. “I don’t think I like him, but he’s got deep pockets.
” She gave him a half smile. It was nice to see Maggie relaxed, sprawled lazily on the couch, her dark hair tousled like she had run her hands through it.
Or like someone else did, his brain supplied, and suddenly another mental image hit him, of sliding his hands into her hair to tip her head back.
Her eye makeup was the slightest bit smudged, her lipstick gone, and she wore an air of debauchery that hit him right in the groin. No, this wasn’t in the plan.
Maggie looked at the clock. “Shit, it’s later than I thought. I didn’t ruin your shower, did I?”
“No, of course not. I’m always hoping someone bangs on the door right in the middle.” He smiled with no hard feelings, but she looked sheepish anyway.
Her eyes lingered on his bare torso in a way he’d never seen from her. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was checking him out. “Forget your clothes?”
“I live here. Sometimes I walk around in a towel.” He shimmied his hips again, breaking the tension and making her laugh once more. “Remember, household entertainment.”
“This was not one of the perks listed on my lease agreement.” She looked to the fridge. “You want some rosé? I think there’s still a bottle in the fridge.”
A cold glass of wine was tempting. “Not going to switch to water?”
“I’m celebrating.” She got up with barely a wobble.
“It’s Friday night and I’m a bit loose, and maybe I want to be a bit looser.
” Then she winked at him, and something hot skittered down his spine.
He suddenly felt a lot more naked than he actually was.
“You wanna loosen up with me?” She took the wine out of the fridge and poured two glasses without waiting for his answer.
This was not a great idea, but he hadn’t yielded to many terrible ideas lately, and the rosé looked awfully tempting. “One glass.”
“That’s the spirit.” She handed him one glass and lifted hers. “To loosening.”
“Not this towel, though.” He kept a firm hand on it.
“Never the towel.”
They clinked and drank. The wine was sweet and refreshing, and he closed his eyes to savor it better.
When he opened them, she was watching him closely in a way that sent a prickle down his spine and reminded him that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to get hard in this towel and cross more roommate boundaries than they already had.
Maggie broke the moment, stepping back and clearing her throat, and suddenly she looked completely sober. “I’ve … got some work to do. I think I’m going to take this”—she lifted her glass—“to my room.”
Blake stepped away as well, his skin unexpectedly hot. “Have a good night, Maggie.”
“Night, Blake.”
Maggie’s body burned with more than the warm night and the wine as she closed the door to her bedroom.
What was up with her tonight? She was slightly drunk, yes, but not drunk enough to pretend she didn’t know exactly what she was doing when she was checking out Blake.
Maybe it was lingering adrenaline from her meeting with Chauvel, or leftover social energy from gabbing with Phoebe, but her body was awake.
She switched from the rosé to her travel mug of ice water. With her hormones running rampant like they were, she couldn’t take any chances. Plus, Chauvel was likely to be sending over a contract, and she wanted to look it over with a clear mind before sending it to her attorney for input.
But more importantly? Blake had no business looking that good half-dressed.
Maggie scooted up her bed and leaned back against the headboard.
She shouldn’t lust after her roommate. It wasn’t healthy and it would surely end in heartbreak, and that kind of heartbreak would land her without an apartment.
She’d gotten this far without depending on anyone else, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.
People let you down. If you relied on them too much, you got hurt.
A relationship was pretty much putting your neck out there and asking for the sword to come down, and she knew better.
A one-night stand with Blake would be a better option. Sweet and eager; yeah, he definitely knew how to get a woman off.
But she’d have to see him every day, and he would probably make it weird.
She took a bracing swig of ice water. No, the best solution was to stay completely uninvolved.
She’d run through this same line of thought late last month when he’d come back from a business dinner in a suit, tie hanging loose, top buttons unfastened to show the hollow of his throat.
It was as shocking then as it was now, seeing Blake not only as a sexual being but one she would actually consider taking to bed.
She closed her eyes, his half-dressed figure coming to mind again. Towel slung around his hips, his body soft but strong, his chest and arms surprisingly broad, dark hair drawing a line downward …
Nope, nope, not going there. Maggie got to her feet again, chugged some more water, and set the thermos down with a thunk. She needed to wash this makeup off and wash her mind out at the same time.
Blake’s door was closed as she passed by on the way to the bathroom.
He had the radio or television on low enough that she could barely hear.
Her mind kept circling as she washed her face.
Was he dressed now, or did he take off his towel and lie down on the bed naked?
Did he walk around the apartment that way before she moved in?
He didn’t seem like the type, but then again, he was hard to pin down.