The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)(91)

I shrug and set the beer down on the coffee table, reaching for the remote. “My obsession from… what did you call it… burning the shit out of my throat.” I flash a grin at her, not telling her the real reason I’ve cut back on the hard liquor. That I’m trying something different, aiming for a somewhat clearer head, so I can fully be aware of everything going on between us. It’s hard sometimes, though, and kind of painful, now that my nerves are heightened to everything.

“Did I say that once?” She angles her head to the side, tapping her finger on her lip, pretending she can’t remember. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d say.”

“That sounds exactly like something you say,” I tell her, changing the channel.

“You sound like you know me or something,” she teases with a grin as she shuts off the faucet.

“Are you saying that I don’t?” I retort, picking up my beer again as I kick my bare feet up on the table.

She pauses, wiping her hands off on a paper towel. “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.”

“So you’re saying I know you.”

“As much as I know you.”

“I don’t think I know you completely,” I say, peeling off the label of the beer. “Not yet anyway.”

She stacks some plates in the dishwasher. “You know a lot of the important parts.”

I toss the damp label onto the coffee table. “I know I do.”

“And you’re still here.” She looks down as she says it, like she could care less about my reaction, but the nervousness of her tone suggests otherwise.

“Of course I’m still here,” I joke in a light tone because I know it’ll make her feel better. “I don’t want to go back to being homeless again. Beside, where else do I get to sleep with a girl who purposely pushes her ass against my cock every night.”

She looks up at me with feigned annoyance in her eyes. “I did that once and it was because I was having a weird dream.”

“A weird dream about me f*cking you?”

She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t argue as she collects some dirty glasses out of the sink. “I’m surprised that you still want to sleep with me at all,” she says. “I thought you’d be sick of my crazy gasping ritual.”


I tip my head back and gulp my beer. Every morning Violet wakes up the same way she woke up in my dorm room, gasping for air. It scared the living daylights out of me for the first week, but now I just want to know what’s causing it. All she’ll tell me is that it’s a nightmare, I’m guessing about her parents, but she won’t talk about it. “What can I say, I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.”

“I guess so,” she muses, setting the glasses upside down inside the dishwasher. “You know, I feel like the maid around here. It always seems like I’m the only one who does the dishes.”

“Hey, I clean a lot,” I protest, putting the empty beer bottle onto the table. “It’s Seth and Greyson who don’t do anything.”

“Greyson at least cooks,” she remarks. “All Seth does is leave Kit Kat wrappers and energy cans all over the place.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to argue with that,” I say as I watch her ass stick out of the bottom of her shorts as she bends over to load plates into the bottom rack of the dishwasher. “You know,” I continue, “I think if you’re the one who’s going to do the cleaning, we should get you a naughty maid costume.”

She stands back up, straightening her shoulders. “Why bother with the maid costume, when I could just do it naked?”

I shake my head, biting on my lip so hard I nearly draw blood. “One of these days when you say something like that to me, I’m going to take the situation and make you follow through with what you said.”

She relaxes back against the counter, folding her arms. “Oh, I wish you would.”

My body burns with a controlling urge to touch her. I’ve felt it a lot of the last few weeks and Jesus she knows how to push my buttons and make it worse.

“You think I’m kidding.” She moves forward to scrub the dishes in the sink, facing my direction. “But I’m not.”

I watch her as she turns the water on and begins rising off a pan. She’s smiling to herself and I start to get to my feet, ready to finally give in to my needs or hers—it’s becoming hard to tell anymore. I’ll take her back to the room and give her what she keeps teasing me about. But then my phone starts to ring.

“Saved by the bell,” she singsongs with a grin on her face.

“Oh, this isn’t over,” I assure her, retrieving my phone from the pocket of my jeans. “I’m starting this right back…” I frown as my dad’s name appears on the glowing screen. He’s been trying to reach me a lot recently, probably because the wedding’s getting nearer.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Violet asks, putting the pan in the dishwasher and then bumping the door shut with her hip.

“I guess,” I mutter, hating that getting a simple call can ruin the entire vibe of the night. I hit talk, putting the receiver up to my ear. “Yeah.”

“Hey,” my father says, sounding desperately cheerful. “You haven’t been answering my calls.”