Page 8 of The Roommate Subtext

“I live here. Sometimes I walk around in a towel.” He shimmied his hips again, breaking the tension and making her laugh once more. “Remember, household entertainment.”

“This was not one of the perks listed on my lease agreement.” She looked to the fridge. “You want some rosé? I think there’s still a bottle in the fridge.”

A cold glass of wine was tempting. “Not going to switch to water?”

“I’m celebrating.” She got up with barely a wobble. “It’s Friday night and I’m a bit loose, and maybe I want to be a bit looser.” Then she winked at him, and something hot skittered down his spine. He suddenly felt a lot more naked than he actually was. “You wanna loosen up with me?” She took the wine out of the fridge and poured two glasses without waiting for his answer.

This was not a great idea, but he hadn’t yielded to many terrible ideas lately, and the rosé looked awfully tempting. “One glass.”

“That’s the spirit.” She handed him one glass and lifted hers. “To loosening.”

“Not this towel, though.” He kept a firm hand on it.

“Never the towel.”

They clinked and drank. The wine was sweet and refreshing, and he closed his eyes to savor it better. When he opened them, she was watching him closely in a way that sent a prickle down his spine and reminded him that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to get hard in this towel and cross more roommate boundaries than they already had.

Maggie broke the moment, stepping back and clearing her throat, and suddenly she looked completely sober. “I’ve … got some work to do. I think I’m going to take this”—she lifted her glass—“to my room.”

Blake stepped away as well, his skin unexpectedly hot. “Have a good night, Maggie.”

“Night, Blake.”

Maggie’s body burned with more than the warm night and the wine as she closed the door to her bedroom. What was up with her tonight? She was slightly drunk, yes, but not drunk enough to pretend she didn’t know exactly what she was doing when she was checking out Blake. Maybe it was lingering adrenaline from her meeting with Chauvel, or leftover social energy from gabbing with Phoebe, but her body was awake.

She switched from the rosé to her travel mug of ice water. With her hormones running rampant like they were, she couldn’t take any chances. Plus, Chauvel was likely to be sending over a contract, and she wanted to look it over with a clear mind before sending it to her attorney for input.

But more importantly? Blake had no business looking that good half-dressed.

Maggie scooted up her bed and leaned back against the headboard. She shouldn’t lust after her roommate. It wasn’t healthy and it would surely end in heartbreak, and that kind of heartbreak would land her without an apartment. She’d gotten this far without depending on anyone else, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. People let you down. If you relied on them too much, you got hurt. A relationship was pretty much putting your neck out there and asking for the sword to come down, and she knew better.

A one-night stand with Blake would be a better option. Sweet and eager; yeah, he definitely knew how to get a woman off.

But she’d have to see him every day, and he would probably make it weird.

She took a bracing swig of ice water. No, the best solution was to stay completely uninvolved. She’d run through this same line of thought late last month when he’d come back from a business dinner in a suit, tie hanging loose, top buttons unfastened to show the hollow of his throat. It was as shocking then as it was now, seeing Blake not only as a sexual being but one she would actually consider taking to bed.

She closed her eyes, his half-dressed figure coming to mind again. Towel slung around his hips, his body soft but strong, his chest and arms surprisingly broad, dark hair drawing a line downward …

Nope, nope, not going there. Maggie got to her feet again, chugged some more water, and set the thermos down with a thunk. She needed to wash this makeup off and wash her mind out at the same time.

Blake’s door was closed as she passed by on the way to the bathroom. He had the radio or television on low enough that she could barely hear. Her mind kept circling as she washed her face. Was he dressed now, or did he take off his towel and lie down on the bed naked? Did he walk around the apartment that way before she moved in? He didn’t seem like the type, but then again, he was hard to pin down.

She used a cloth to remove the rest of her eye makeup. Something about Blake was unsettling, like he was hiding something. Nothing malicious, nothing that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. When you talked to some people, it was clear you were getting their full, honest self. And some people gave the impression that you were only seeing a carefully cultivated version of who they were, packaged for you. That was Blake.

Eye makeup gone, she leaned in to meet her own gaze in the mirror. She was the same way. She didn’t like letting people get too close. Even her sister, Cora, who had been with her through the most difficult times of their lives, received a sanitized version of her personality: optimistic and in control, confident that things would be all right.

She broke her own gaze and turned to the toothpaste instead. There was nothing wrong with keeping parts of oneself only for oneself. She shouldn’t feel guilty about not letting people get too close. Especially not someone like Blake, who was her roommate above all else.

Back in her room, her residual drunkenness finally gone, she pulled on a pajama shorts set and reviewed the paperwork from Chauvel. He had clearly laid out the conditions of the agreement without specifying the actual content; it was a generic contract she might see for any short writing gig, and it looked fair enough. The delivery date felt soon, but she had time. Also, she could break the contract, although breaking the contract would come with “forfeiture of any and all fees and benefits of their partnership.” Obviously, the specific benefits were left unwritten: whatever legally questionable measures Chauvel was undertaking to keep their money liquid, he wasn’t going to share, and she didn’t particularly want to know.

She forwarded the paperwork to her lawyer, Wiggins, for examination, then leaned back in her desk chair. She might as well start investigating the Scarlet Pimpernel.

He wasn’t hard to find; his website was the first link that came up in her search bar. Before she clicked through, she scanned the rest of the results page: all info about the scarlet pimpernel plant, which she’d never heard of before. The preview images displayed a small orange flower amidst nondescript leafy foliage. She left the horticulture and went to the Pimpernel’s website.

The banner was simple, a beige background color and a swirling maroon font displaying his name. She’d been expecting all blacks and grays, but this color scheme reminded her more of a historical novel than a kink site. The home page didn’t have visible kink at all: links to a blog, an online shop, a bio, and that was it. He had a sparse contact page, with one of those questionable forms that may or may not reach its intended audience.

She started with his bio, if one could even call it that. The Scarlet Pimpernel is the pseudonym of a kink writer and educator in the Boston area. He enjoys reading and spending time outdoors. Wow, buddy, don’t give too much away. Of course, his domain was masked, as she’d expect from someone who wanted to remain anonymous. His blog appeared to be all stories, and it was active: the most recent story was posted earlier that afternoon.