She laughs. “It didn’t take much convincing. Bex is guy repellant, you’d have to be deaf, blind, and ugly to want to hook up with her.”
“Um, isn’t she your cousin?” Listen, I’m not saying Riley’s wrong. Bex is…a little scary. But where I come from you don’t shit talk your own family, no matter how fucked up they are. My cousin Ronnie got his front teeth knocked out by a mule and drinks his own urine for “health benefits”, but I’d never talk shit about him to an outsider because he’s blood. Family first.
She groans. “Yes.” She attempts to pop the top of her LaCroix but her long fingernails can’t seem to get the job done. “But she’s such a freak. The whole family thinks so.” She hands me the can.
Without her asking, I open it and hand it back.
“Thanks.” She takes a long sip and then presses her fingers to her lips, her cheeks puff out ever so slightly and then exhales through her nose and—holy fuck, was that a burp? Her eyes are a little watery, she did just burp, but in no way I’ve ever seen. God, that looked like it hurt. “Anyway, I searched her room for your phone and it wasn’t there.”
“What? You’ve gotta be kidding. I know I left it there.” I don’t want to tell her this, but I need my phone and I can’t afford to buy a new one. My off-season job starts this week and it’ll take me months to save up that kind of cash. Not to mention my parents are already spread thin having both me and my brother Levi in school at the same time, so it’s not like I can put in a call to them for a loan.
“I swear, I looked everywhere.” She takes another sip of her drink and then sets it down on a furry coaster. She stands and crosses to me, her eyes sparking with heat. She takes my drink from me, and I realize I never even opened it and sets it down on a coaster next to hers. “Now, let’s talk about something else.”
I grip her hips as she straddles my thighs, my entire brain turns to static as I try to remember my original purpose for being here. “Wait, is your cousin in her room right now?”
Riley’s seductive smile falls and she slouches to pout. “I already told you she doesn’t have your phone.” A knock sounds on her door. “I’m busy!”
A small female voice says, “Sorry to interrupt, but we have an emergency. The photographer for the formal double-booked so he’s out.”
She huffs out a breath and ignores the girl. “You think Bex is lying?” she asks it as if she doesn’t believe her cousin is capable of such a thing. I wonder if she knows Bex set a snake loose on my nuts to get me out of her bed.
“I know it’s in there.” I give her hips a squeeze and lift her off my lap to set her on her feet. “I need to see for myself and then I’ll be right back and we can pick up where we left off.”
My dick is kicking me in the shins for walking away from a sexy and willing woman in search of my phone, but the brain in my skull reminds me that my entire life is on that phone, my connection to my family, my team, even my teachers text me. And I know the snake girl has it!
When I open the door a small girl in the hallway shies away from me. “She’s all yours,” I say to the girl then call over my shoulder to Riley that I’ll be right back.
I find the door I remember from the morning before and know I’ve got the right one when I read the whiteboard hanging from it. “What do snakes clean their car windshields with?” I read softly to myself. “Windshield vipers.” I suppress my urge to smile at the utter stupidity of the joke and knock firmly on the door.
“Come in!”
With my stomach in my throat I peer in cautiously. The three snake habitats on the far end of the room are closed and each contain a coiled serpent. I spot the yellow and white one and shake off the creepy crawlies. The room is nothing like Riley’s, neat and tidy, but decorated in natural wood furniture, indoor plants, and little white lights.
“I’m in here!”
An old Garth Brooks song comes filtering out of the open bathroom door along with the overpowering scent of cleaning supplies, which tells me I’m not going to walk in on her naked. I step into the doorway and she’s on her knees wearing nothing but a sports bra and leggings. Her long, thick curls are gathered into a knot on top of her head that bounces as she scrubs the base of her toilet vigorously.
“I know you have my phone.”
Her entire body freezes and seconds pass before she slowly sits back and looks up at me. She’s not wearing her glasses, but her eyes are still big and framed in thick, black lashes that make their pale brown color look almost yellow. She obviously has no make up on, and her skin glows with a light sheen of sweat making her cheeks pink and the curls at her hairline damp. “What are you doing here?”
I lean against the door frame, cross my arms at my chest and feel a sense of triumph when her eyes fall to my pecs making her cheeks flush even more. “My phone. I’m not leaving until I have it—hold on, is that my shirt?”
She looks down at the now trashed and bleach stained BSU Football shirt she’d been using to scrub her toilet and shrugs. “Is that what this is? Huh.” She hands it back to me.
“Keep it. I just want my phone.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“I can’t possibly imagine what you’d want to keep my phone for. It’s password protected, it’s not even the latest version, so please, just give it back.” I contemplate the rationality of sharing anything personal with this girl and decide it’s worth it. “It’s the only way my family can get in touch with me.”
That seems to do the job because her shoulders drop and she nods. She pushes to standing and I catch my breath at the sight of her body. Long legs, round hips that taper into a narrow waist, and her boobs…I stare at the ceiling, it’s the only safe place to look. While I’m staring at the ceiling she squeezes by me, and her skin is like warm velvet as it brushes against my bare arm. A delicate floral scent follows her past me and I wonder how anyone could smell this good while sweating. My blood tingles and gathers and I’m reminded of an article I read in Men’s Health that talked about human sex pheromones. How the smell of a person can lead to intense arousal. Is that what my body is reacting to?
The sound of drawers opening and closing behind me send me turning around and I frown when I see she’s slipped on an oversized t-shirt. Good. Because her figure is the type that can make a man forget his own name, or his reason for coming here in the first place.
She holds out my phone and when I open my hand she slaps it into my palm. “There. You can leave now.”
Nope, it doesn’t matter that she’s wearing a t-shirt, the memory of her topless is branded into my brain and her scent still fills my nose. “Why’d you keep it?”
“I didn’t.” Her big eyes grow bigger as she dramatically states the obvious. “You have it.”
“But why not give it to Riley when she asked you for it? Why lie?” The way her shoulders tense makes me wonder… “Why didn’t you tell me you had it today when I saw you with Ro and Emery?”
A fire lights behind her golden eyes. “Why didn’t you ask me for it in front of Rowan and Emery?”