Page 32 of Apparently, I’m Torture

None of Lilly’s sorority sisters came here besides Mia. She didn’t expect them to, not when we had everything we needed within walking distance of our university. Lilly bit her bottom lip, nodded, and started restocking the pastries behind our glass display.

“You didn’t come all the way here for a cup of coffee, did you?” I asked, standing behind the machine and flaring it to life.

She leaned enticingly on the counter, her smile teasing. “Oh Shawn, you know I came to see you.”

Tristan shot me a concerned glance, Stacey’s flirty tone finally digging into his dense, I-see-no-one-but-Nikki brain.

Thanks to his wife, he grew more perceptive over the years, and it’s helped him in more ways than one. But when it came to women, the guy was still clueless. But, given my situation with Lilly, maybe I was too.

“Okay… what can I help you with?”

She sent her glance across my body, her eyes hooded and lazy as she tracked and traced me. Before Lilly, if a girl looked at me like that, it meant she and I were ending the night in my bed. Now, it made my muscles tighten, like some kind of fight-or-flight response, and I wondered if this was how Lilly felt when her anxiety made her want to throw up.

Stacey gave me her order and flicked her hair back as she leaned her elbow on the countertop. Her chin was in her hand, fingers curled around her sharp jaw, as she watched me make her a cup of coffee.

“You know, watching you do this is, like, very helpful, actually.”

I placed the cup in front of her and forced a brightness to my voice, the same way Lilly would. “Well then, if that’ll be all, ma’am–” I smiled wider as her face dropped “–have a great day.”

She straightened; all her flirty posturing gone. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Shawn. Will you just take me on a date?”

I jerked back and fought the urge to laugh. “Woah. Where’d that come from?”

Then Lilly’s hand was on my shoulder, pulling me back just enough so she could wedge into the space between my hip and the wood. As her front pressed into the counter, and my body pressed against her backside, a hot prickle of want melted into my blood. I shifted, moving my hardening cock away before it could push into her.

“Stacey, is this about Trevor?”

The blonde’s blue eyes narrowed, and she bent until she was leaning over the counter, somehow popping her breasts higher as she menaced Lilly.

“Why would I come here to talk about my cousin?”

Not for the first time this month, I was thrown. What was going on?

“Well… why are you here then?”

She scoffed; her face twisted with disgust. “Believe it or not, I’m just here to talk to him.”

Lilly flicked a glance at me over her shoulder. “He already said he doesn’t want to… date you.”

Stacey’s icy stare burned into her. “I heard him. I do have two functioning ears, after all. What I want to know is, why.”

Lilly was rigid against me. I wanted to knead away her tension, force her to relax, make her see that Stacey’s tantrum wasn’t our problem. Instead, I kept my hands to myself as she turned her beautiful face up to mine, her stare practically begging me for help.

Like it or not, Stacey was her sorority president. She could make Lilly’s life hell until graduation.

I shut my eyes and shook my head. “Fine. We can talk.” I scouted the room for an empty booth, and pointed at one. “Can you wait there for a minute?”

Stacey turned to go, and Lilly let out a sound of relief before locking her arms around my neck.

She whispered, “Thank you,” into the curve of my shoulder as I angled my stiff cock away from her. My whole body was pounding; she was so close to me. So close, and still not mine.

I swallowed thickly, my chest sinking as I mumbled, “It’s nothing.”

She let me go and smiled apologetically up at me. “I’m sorry I got you into this. But maybe if you talk to her, she’ll ease off a bit.”

Ease off a bit? In… what sense? Did she mean Stacey would ease off me, or her? But before I could ask, Lilly turned back to the register and gave her attention to another customer.

I went to the booth, watching Stacey’s expression pinch with irritation. Her hands clutched the edge of the table as she asked, “Okay, I really need to know. Why don’t you want to sleep with me? Everyone wants to sleep with me.”