8
Hunter
The taxi ride back to the apartment had me more on edge than normal. Maybe due to how hard it was to keep my eyes open. Maybe due to the two hours of sleep I’d gotten last night. Maybe due to my new roommate.
Sabrina had been lying when it came to her promise of getting rowdy. I’d expected a crazy party or two, trashing the place a little. But she hadn’t done that.
She’d been slow and methodical with her invasion of my space. Muffled voices on the other side of the door, just enough so I couldn’t pretend I was living alone anymore.
Plus, the lack of sleep was brutal.
Coffee wasn’t cutting it anymore. Even espresso made me jittery, but I still wasn’t functioning better than a half-dead zombie. If I could crank the music and pass out, maybe she wouldn’t hear me when I woke up—or shot up screaming, which seemed to be my MO for the past few months.
I flung the door to the apartment open. My steps rattled the lamps in the hallway.
The door to Sabrina’s room opened. Out walked a six-two guy who looked like he lived at the gym and her, sweaty and flushed with her wrist still in a brace.
A pang of guilt hit me hard. I should’ve called the town car or at least helped her with the bags even when she refused. Fortunately, her wrist wasn’t broken.
“Thanks for all the help, Ramsey.” Her rosy cheeks were full and tempting.
Not what I needed right now. I slammed the front door shut.
They both jolted, turning to stare at me.
Without another word, I brushed past Sabrina, whose scent had bored itself into my brain so every time I smelled it, the blood rushed from my head straight to my treacherous dick.
Torturing myself thinking about her with yet another guy wasn’t what I needed after the fucked-to-hell day I’d had.
This was how she waged her war.
The pair said their goodbyes at the door.
The parade had begun as a trickle but now felt like a state university marching band. Anytime I left the apartment, I’d come back to hushed voices behind Sabrina’s door. Hers and a deeper one. Male. Always.
I’d come back from work during the day, and she’d be there.
Today was the first day she hadn’t closed her door all the way.
Lights were set up. A tripod stood in front of the window facing straight at the bed. Everything centered on the bed. What the hell?
Balled-up sheets sat in a pile on the floor. So many sheets. How many was she going through?
On her computer screen, the white, now-rumpled, sheet-covered bed was the focus of the lens.
“Are you—”
Before I could say anything else, she swooped under my arm, the wafting scent of lavender coming right along with her. She stood in the doorway to her room, pushing me back out into the hallway.
“None of your business.” She slammed the door in my face. Was that the only way she knew how to end a conversation?
I lurched forward, the question nearly escaping, Are you shooting porn in my grandmother’s apartment? But I clawed it back, not sure I wanted to have confirmation and increase her invasion into the near-hallucinatory half dreams where I swore I could smell her. Instead of asking a question that might wreck me, I went for self-preservation. “Keep the noise down.”
“Same to you.” She taunted from the other side of the wood. “Now go away, Hunter. Don’t you have a party to get to?”
I braced my hands on the doorway. “Don’t forget who lived here first.”
“I’m not responding anymore, but you can sit out there all you like. I’ve got some videos to edit.”
I pushed away from the door, seething all the way to my room. Pacing the floor, I got undressed. Was she seriously recording porn in my grandmother’s guest room? Was she inviting guys into my apartment to have sex with them on film? Who were these guys? GiGi had said Sabrina was new to the area. Were these strangers? Was she being safe?
Would she get us both murdered by her sex-romp adventures?
But once I was undressed, I couldn’t stop thinking about her with other guys. I could still smell her. Her lavender scent invaded my nostrils everywhere I went, like she’d implanted it into my olfactory system with a few whiffs.
I cranked up my music and headed into the shower, trying to focus on work and the prize at the end of the tunnel. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sabrina, hot and flushed over me with her chestnut hair falling around her face like a curtain, cutting us off from everyone else while she rode me, tight and wet, to completion.
It was an embarrassingly short fantasy under the cold spray from the showerhead.
This woman was going to straight-up kill me.
“Now she’s got guys coming in and out of the apartment all the time. Between that and the fact that she never seems to leave the house, she’s driving me nuts. Not to mention the smell.” It lingered everywhere, all the time, and my stiff-dick response was nearly Pavlovian and embarrassing as hell. “Is she running through the house spraying her perfume on everything?” I drummed my fingers along the side of my highball glass.
The insistent thump of the bass didn’t totally drown out conversation in the VIP area of the Highland Club.
“And why does she have to eat all her food by picking it apart and licking it off her fingers?” It made me want to grab her wrists and lick it off myself. Would it taste even sweeter off her skin? “She’s a pain in the ass, but I’m not going to let her ruin my night. I’m not going to think about her anymore.”
The brunette with the off-the-shoulder top and deadpan expression on the plush sofa beside me uncrossed her legs. “You’ve been talking about her for thirty-two minutes.”
I rocked back in my seat.
She waved her glowing screen with the lightning-fast tenths of a second ticking away. “I’m not one hundred percent sure. I didn’t start the timer until you’d already been talking for a few minutes.”
My jaw dropped before I snapped it shut. A burn traveled to the tips of my ears and I grimaced. Tonight was about getting away from my new roommate. And I wouldn’t think about her anymore.
She stood from her seat, smoothing out the shimmery skirt strangling her from mid-thigh. “Good luck with not thinking about her at all.” Bending at the waist, she patted me on the cheek. “Here’s a word of advice. No woman wants to listen to a guy talk about how much he wants to bang another woman.”
My hand shot up, spilling whisky onto the back of my hand. “Whoa, I don’t—”
“Oh yeah you do.” She nodded and scrunched her nose up in a silent laugh. “Big-time.” Spinning, she walked off to the other side of the VIP area.
We’d all had terrible roommates we bitched about. Well, I hadn’t. I’d finessed a single every year of college and had lived alone since I’d graduated. But tons of people complained about people they lived with. That’s all it was when it came to Sabrina.
Had I wondered what she wore to bed? Possibly.
Had I thought about licking icing off Sabrina’s fingers? Sure.
Had I wanted to know what she was doing behind closed doors and had to catch myself from leaning into her smell whenever she was around? Yes, but I was chalking it up to temporary insanity.