The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2)(69)

It was embarrassing. She hadn’t even had the good form to be smooth about it. The way she kept him at arm’s length didn’t hold any strategy. The difference between teasing and avoidance was intent.

This was ridiculous. Enough was enough.

She stormed out of the bathroom and grabbed his hand. Then, tucking her chin and batting her lashes, she did the voice, just a little. “Show me your bedroom.”

“Okay,” Ethan said, low and soft, and pushed against the door at the end of the hall with one hand, letting her lead the way.

Naomi swayed her hips, calculated, camera-worthy, an exaggerated one foot in front of the other right up to the foot of his massive, well-made bed. She picked up one of the two books resting on top of the comforter.

“Rilke, huh? This keeps you warm at night?”

He moved so he stood behind her, close enough to raise goose bumps on her arms even though he didn’t touch her.

His arm snaked against her side as he reached around her and took the book. “This,” he said, letting his breath hit her neck, his lips trace the shape of her ear, “is how I stop thinking about you long enough to fall asleep.”

It was the perfect segue. All she had to do was pick up her cue.

Might need something stronger after tonight. The line practically wrote itself, but she saved her quip and turned to kiss him.

Ethan kept his arms at his sides for a moment. Maybe he was nervous or waiting for something. Or maybe, she realized when she ran her nails down the nape of his neck and he groaned, biting her lip hard enough that she clenched everything below the waist, he didn’t trust himself not to push for more than she wanted to give.

Her head went fuzzy, lust and other emotions she didn’t recognize and refused to examine fighting for purchase. Getting him naked seemed like the best antidote. Once she had him undone, then she’d know what to do, surely.

Naomi Grant’s got a pleasure-seeking missile beneath her skirt. Some reporter from GQ had actually written that about her, once upon a time.

She sat on the bed, spreading her legs wide so Ethan stood between them, and started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Are you sure about this?” Ethan tried to make her look him in the eye.

Naomi didn’t want to, for some reason. In fact, she suddenly decided that would be a terrible idea. So she pulled her top over her head, enjoying the few blissful seconds when she had an excuse not to make eye contact almost as much as the cool air pressing against her heated skin.

She was a professional, so she got almost all his buttons undone even as he twisted to drop to his knees in front of her. Bringing their faces level.

“Hey,” he said, and it was the softest word she’d ever heard. Not in volume but in intent.

“Hi,” she said back, because her brain wasn’t working that well.

She tried to kiss him, to cut this conversation off so he wouldn’t realize how off her game she was, but he pulled back, out of her reach again, concern drawing his brows together.

“Wait. What’s going on? Talk to me for a second.”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” She reached for his wrists, trying to get his hands on her. Anywhere. If this was how it felt to be naked in a new way, there was no doubt in her mind about which one was more vulnerable.

“It’s not nothing,” Ethan said. “Naomi, hang on.”

Her heart hammered against her ribs, dangerous, thunderous. She started taking her bra off before she could fall into the abyss of it. A missile indeed.

“Wait.” Ethan’s voice came out strangled as he took in her breasts, but he still shook his head. “Please.”

The please almost killed her. How could she be this horny and this confused at the same time? It was ridiculous. Unacceptable. An unwelcome exception to her lauded experience.

“I just . . . need some water, I think. I’m thirsty.” She did a little cough that was wafer thin and just as transparent.

“I’ll get it for you.” Ethan’s unbuttoned shirt flew open as he stood. The moonlight coming in through his curtains cast his chest in shadows. He was beautiful. Defined but not overly muscled. His nipples flat and brown and begging for her teeth.

After all the people she’d fucked, this was the scenario where she couldn’t land the plane?

She’d never considered herself wicked. In fact, Naomi thought of herself as a pretty good person at the end of the day. But tonight, this disconnect between her mind and her body felt like punishment, and frankly, she was pissed.

When Ethan came back, he had two waters, one with ice and one without, that he held out for her to pick from. She took the ice water and wrapped both hands around the smooth, cold glass. The ice cubes knocking against her teeth as she took a sip helped ground her, oddly enough.

How could she tell this man—who she was more attracted to than anyone she had ever met—that maybe she wanted something less than carnal tonight?

Naomi took a deep breath while Ethan stood there, accepting her empty glass once she’d drained it.

Okay, she needed to back up. What were the facts here?

She wanted to have sex with Ethan. To feel his body in and around hers. She wanted possession of his heat and his scent and the growl that came from low in his throat. But she’d never been nervous like this before.

Not the first time she’d fucked her high school boyfriend. Not her first day on set. Never.