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Her expression twisted into an adorable frown. “I don’t want to hear that! If he fools around with her and blows her off, she’s going to be asking me about him all the time and I’m going to have to break the news to her that he’s a manwhore!”
I let out a loud laugh that startled Emmy enough to stop and stare at me. “Well, if you’re lucky, maybe Will already shared his dating philosophy with her.”
She crossed her fingers and held them up. “Here’s hoping,” she muttered grimly.
It was strange how comfortable it was talking to her even after what happened in that storage room. I thought she would be awkward and embarrassed, or worse, emotional and clingy. Instead, she was her normal self and conversation flowed easily between us. To be honest, I was the one who kept tightening my hold on her.
Too soon, we were at her dorm room. This was the point where I had planned to not send any mixed signals and leave as soon as possible—well, any more mixed signals.
Instead, my eyes went to her bed.
Her narrow, perfectly made bed was covered in a comforter with some bohemian print and small pillows, including one with a silk-screened harp on it. I walked over and picked it up.
“Jesus, you really are into harps. You even sleep with one.”
She laughed, looking beautiful and luminous in the low light coming from her desk lamp. “I didn’t buy that. When you have a very prominent hobby or interest, people tend to get you themed gifts. I believe that was from your sister, actually.”
I threw the pillow back down and stared at the bed thinking about Drew having the fucking nerve to lie on it—putting his fucking head, his scent, on her pillow.
Almost reflexively, I found myself pulling off my jacket and dropping my body down onto the pile of pillows that currently smelled only like her—floral and citrus—and stacking my hands behind my head. The urge to imprint myself on her sheets, especially after that fuckhead Drew was here, was uncontrollable.
“Make yourself at home,” Emmy said dryly as she removed her dangly earrings and bangle bracelets. She reached up and pulled her hair out of the bun and I watched it cascade, a dark sheet of silk, over her shoulders and down her back. The decision to lie on her bed now felt incredibly reckless.
“Come here,” I said in a low voice.
Inside, I was screaming at myself to get the fuck up and leave, but my body wasn’t listening. All my body wanted was to devour the girl in front of me.
My mind was already rationalizing my decision—I’d already blown past the physical boundary, had already touched her, been inside her body, knew how she smelled, how she felt when she came.
Every siren was going off, every red flag waving, every nerve ending firing with adrenaline, but I still couldn’t get myself to do anything but lie here and wait for her.
Chapter 19
Emmy
I stared at Ivan for a moment, dumbfounded that he was lying in my bed.
After the frat party, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see skid marks on the floor after he left. I knew he wasn’t comfortable with what happened between us, that he probably thought I was spinning all kinds of fantasies about him—about us—in my head.
I mean, I sort of was, but I had done my best not to show it on the walk back to my dorm.
I’d been pleasantly surprised at how awkward I didn’t feel around him, considering the things I’d let him do to me—encouraged him to do to me—earlier in the evening. I figured when he declined Will and Delaney’s invitation for food, he wanted to end the evening as soon as possible. I had to admit, I declined the invitation for the opposite reason, hoping to have a little alone time with Ivan, but I never imagined this.
Him lying on my bed. Waiting for me. Had I slipped into a parallel universe? A universe where Ivan just casually chatted with me while he walked me home from a party, then laid on my bed as he seductively beckoned me to him. I could stand to stay in this universe.
As I walked forward, I was captivated by the look of him lying on my pillows and comforter in a t-shirt and jeans. His shoulders look particularly strong and broad against the stark whiteness of my pillows, but it was his eyes that hypnotized me. His intense green gaze focused on me, as if communicating to me in some energetic language that pulled me to him like a tractor beam.
Unsure of what to do, I awkwardly put one knee on the mattress, reaching my hand out to touch him, but he quickly grabbed me and flipped me under his body, holding my wrists down on either side of my head. I pushed lightly against his hold, but he held me tight.
This again.
Why did he do this? Why did he need it? He never answered me at the party, and though I doubted I’d get an answer now, I had to ask. “Why do you—?”
Before I could finish my question, he kissed me, and every thought flew out of my head. His tongue was just as demanding and thorough as it had been at the party. I found myself drifting in sensual haze as he explored my mouth—biting, tasting, licking, sucking every inch. His lips moved across my cheek to my neck, and I gasped when I felt his teeth sink into the flesh at the juncture of my neck and shoulder.
Then, suddenly, his mouth was gone.
“Emmy, do you have a scarf?” he asked, his hands tightening around my wrists.
