Hardwired(31)

Blake brought everything upstairs for me. He ascended the steps, his arms lined with about ten bags each while I hurried to unlock the door.

Just as we started putting things away, Sid walked in. Blake straightened immediately from his task of folding towels, which he was doing all wrong but I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

“Sid, hey. This is Blake. Blake, you remember me talking about Sid, our developer.”

Blake visibly relaxed and the twitch in his jaw disappeared. What was with him and staking his claim in my apartment? Sid could be easily agitated, so the last thing I needed was for Blake to make him uncomfortable on day one.

“Sure,” he said, walking over to shake Sid’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Sid towered over him but his arms were about half the diameter of Blake’s. The two men could not have been more different, in physicality or temperament.

“You too. And you are?”

“I’m Erica’s neighbor,” Blake said quickly.

A pang of disappointment shot through me. What had I expected him to say?

“I guess you’re my neighbor too then.” Sid shrugged out of his enormous hiking backpack.

The twitch was back, and the taut line of Blake’s jaw made me question my grand plan.

“Great,” he said.

I walked over quickly, hoping to neutralize the situation that Sid had no idea he’d just walked into. “Yeah, Sid is going to crash here until we figure out the financing thing. Dorms close this week, you know.”

“Right,” Blake said, running his hand through his hair.

I’d fill Sid in on Blake’s association with Angelcom later. In the meantime, I had a kitchen to organize, a meal to cook, and an awkward dinner to host.

I showed Sid his room. All I had was the blow up mattress and bedding that would have to do until we got some real furniture. He didn’t seem to care much, so I returned to the kitchen and started prepping the meal. Before I knew it, Blake was behind me. He spun me around.

“You never told me about the roommate.”

His voice was low and serious enough to set my heart beating a mile a minute. Was he angry? I couldn’t really tell, but I felt like a child about to go to time-out.

Inviting Sid to be my roommate had been a rash decision, granted. I knew how he lived, typically in a pile of pop tart wrapper rubble, and it worried me a bit. But in truth, I wasn’t ready to live solo anyway, and I could use his presence at the apartment to deter Blake’s advances, though it wasn’t working at present.

I swallowed hard before replying. “You haven’t exactly been straightforward with me either, Blake. I don’t know what you expect.”

“It’s a complication. I suppose we’ll have to work around it.”

“Oh?”

“We’ll just be spending a lot more time upstairs is all.”

He stepped between my legs and lifted my knee over his thigh with a single fluid motion. My breath rushed out of me, and I gripped the edge of the counter as he pinned me to it. He pressed a hot kiss on my neck before taking my earlobe between his teeth.

I gasped at the sensation and held on tight and squeezed my eyes shut, reminding myself of every good reason not to give in to him. There was a line with Blake. On one side of it, I wanted him desperately, but somehow I could muster the willpower to refuse him. We were on the other side of that line, where I was completely at his mercy, helpless against his determination to have me.

His hands crept under my shirt and stroked the bare skin of my back, the contact sending me into orbit. My nipples hardened and brushed against his chest as I arched into him.

“I need you, Erica. Tonight.” He pressed the evidence of his desire into me.

His mouth was on mine before I could say no, obliterating any remote ideas about putting him off again. He kissed me hard and deep, sucking and licking with an urgency I fully met. I finally released my hands and raked my fingers through his hair, urging him closer. He pulled back to catch his breath, and I gripped him tighter, willing him back to me.

There we were, Blake’s hands on their way up my skirt, each of us on fire for the other, when Sid shuffled out of his bedroom and stopped short in the living room.

I froze, petrified by being caught in the act. With Sid entirely out of his view, Blake slowly retreated. He gave me a little smirk, letting me know our little show had gone according to his plan. He adjusted himself before turning around and busying himself with something at the island.

Flustered by my desire and newfound irritation, I channeled my emotions into the food, ignoring Blake’s requests to help. We were obviously playing a game, but I was already growing tired of it. The only move I could think up was to ignore him, to not give him what we both wanted even though I was ready to combust with sexual frustration. If I could get a handle on that, maybe he’d learn I wasn’t someone to toy with.