“They want you to think it’s a perk,” I said. “The nice little apartment right on campus, so easy that you can just roll out of bed and trod downstairs for an overpriced and badly tasting breakfast of too-ripe bananas and bran cereal. Perks of living in the same building, right? But really, it’s how they spy on you to make sure you’re doing no evil, like having sleepovers with girls and sneaking out for keg parties.”
“You’re not wrong,” Jayce said. “Fortunately for them, I don’t really have girls over for sleepovers. You, Macey Britton, are the only one I’ve ever considered asking.”
“I find that exceptionally hard to believe,” I said.
And then his body was closer to mine, closer than it had been before, and somewhere near the middle of my thigh, the soft sensation of Jayce’s finger’s feeling for my hand yanked me out of this blissful reality and into an overwhelmingly titillating cocoon of warmth. The lump in my throat grew uncomfortably as Jayce’s hand met mine, and he curled his fingers around my own, securely taking my hand in his. I smiled, realizing now that my entire body was on fire with that red-hot iron burn, and in between my legs, I was wet. Forhim.
“Listen.” As we stepped up to the door of my apartment, I stopped before entering and turned to Jayce, knowing damn well that if I didn’t do this now, I might never have the confidence to do it again. “Listen,” I said again. “You already met my roommate Kylie. She is not home tonight because every Wednesday and Thursday, she has to attend her People Watching Club, which, yes, is a thing where basically all they do is go sit as a group together somewhere on campus and observe people and take notes. She calls it art, but I’m pretty sure it’s just weird.”
“Macey,” Jayce said, a smile tugging on one side of his face. “It was lovely walking you home.”
I knew he was about to kiss me goodnight and leave, mostly because if I was coming to learn anything about Jayce Gregory, it’s that he was a complete gentleman, and he wasn’t about to invite himself in.
“Don’t leave,” I said, face-palming myself and then immediately regretting it. “None of that was the point. The point was...would you like to come in? Because I would like you to come in.”
Chapter 13
Jayce
Macey stood in frontof her closed front door, standing a small half a step higher than me. Her body was still so close to mine that I had to resist the painful desire to reach my hands out and place them on either side of her hips, to feel her movements beneath me, the soft curve of her ass. I couldn’t even be around her without that desire lighting a fire in the pit of my groin. I had a hard enough time not thinking about fucking her when she was around, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I liked her a lot, and that was still slightly unfamiliar to me. I’d always loved girls, sure, but nobody had impacted me like Macey Britton did. The things we spoke about, the jokes we made, the flow of our conversations, the way it was all so...easy.
Had it always been this easy? With every girl I’d ever known?
“Macey,” I said again and then stepped up in front of her, bumping her back slightly with my waist as I joined her on the step. “I would love to.”
With a smile that could have been either anxiousness or excitement, Macey turned to unlock the door, then I followed her through into the living room, taking in the cute little place where she and her roommate lived.
“It’s not much,” Macey said, tossing her phone down on the breakfast bar in the kitchen. “It used to belong to just me, but rent went up, and I had to find a roommate.” She sighed, following my eyes to the framed photos on the wall and the cozy throws draped over the couch, to the live flowers in a vase sitting on the kitchen table to the modest flatscreen TV sitting on a black lacquered shelf. “I miss living alone,” she continued. “My uncle says I’m an empath, and that’s why I like to be alone so much, so I can recharge.”
“Your uncle sounds like he knows what he’s talking about,” I said, running my fingers over the beautiful oak breakfast bar. For a tiny two-bedroom apartment, Macey had kept it nice.
“He does. He knows more about me than even my parents, I think. Or at least, he does now that I’m older.”
“You’re not close to them?” I turned back towards Macey, sliding into one of the kitchen barstools as she went to the fridge for two beers. She handed me one before opening her own.
“Close enough,” she said with a shrug, throwing her head back to take a long drink, exposing the curvy lines of her neck. She shrugged off her jacket and draped it over the chair, and even though she was only wearing a loose t-shirt, it didn’t matter. I was mesmerized by her, pulled into a world that only existed when I was with her, with Macey. A world I knew nothing about and was just barely coming to understand.
