Page 70 of The Casanova Complex

And now I’m starting to realize that I may be the asshole in how I judged him. There seems to be more to Bennett Legros.

“It’s okay, Legros. I won’t tell anyone that you’re actually a big…” I murmur, leaning my head against his shoulder and curling my arm around his, “fat scaredy-cat.”

I don’t let myself think about the fact that I’m cuddling up against him because then I’ll find a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t and talk myself out of it.

Instead, I just focus on how warm he is and how he gently lifts his arm and tucks it around me, pulling me into his side.

I focus on how heavy my eyes are and how comfortable I feel. On how my brain feels unusually quiet right now, listening to the sound of his breathing and the steady beat of his heart with Elliott snoring quietly on the other side of me.

Tomorrow, I can freak out about how utterly stupid it was to feel so safe with someone who’s been reckless with my emotions once before.

For right now, I’m giving myself a pass to let myself do something that just feels… good.

For once.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

BENNETT

“Can you stop staring at me?” Merritt mutters, not looking up from the notebook she’s writing in. She’s sprawled out on her stomach on my bed, the dark waves of her hair falling like a curtain around her, partially hiding what she’s scribbling.

The answer to that is: No.

I can’t stop staring at her.

Trust me, I’ve tried.

I’ve spent the last forty-something minutes trying to focus on this project for Creative Writing that we’re supposed to be working on, but Merritt’s on my bed, and all I can think about is kissing her.

About how warm and soft she was when she cuddled into my side and fell asleep half a second later on Halloween night. About how much I wanted to kiss her. And not because of a superstition or for social media or because people were watching, but because I wanted to more than fucking breathing.

And I couldn’t.

If I’m being honest, I don’t give a single fuck about creative writing, this project or the class, but even less now that I’ve got the girl I can’t stop fucking thinking about in my bed for the first time. I have to keep reminding myself of why I can’t cross that line.

“Did you know you snore?” I say, bypassing her question altogether.

“What?” she mutters, finally looking up at me from her notebook. “What are you talking about?” My lip curls into a grin when her nose crinkles and her brow pinches in confusion.

I lean back in my computer chair and grab the faded tennis ball off the top of my desk before turning back to her. “You snore when you sleep. The other night on Halloween, you snored when you fell asleep on me.”

Merritt’s mouth falls open. “I do not snore.”

“Yeah… you do.”

“Bullshit, Legros,” she retorts with an eye roll, and I only grin harder when her cheeks stain pink.

“Don’t be embarrassed. It was cute.”

I bounce the ball against the wall and catch it, repeating the motion over and over again.

Instead of another snarky response, Merritt ignores me, glancing back down at her notebook, spinning the ring on her index finger.

Since I’ve spent the last hour watching her, I’ve noticed that she’s started to lose focus, and when that happens, she starts to get restless—fidgeting with her ring, flipping from her stomach to her back, over and over, tapping at the edge of her computer.

The next time the ball bounces off the wall, she whips her head back up, pinning me with a narrowed stare. “Why are you throwing a tennis ball at the wall?”

“Gotta work on my reflexes. I’m a goalie, remember?”