Nate:
Fuck me. It had to be her, didn’t it? The girl I had watched wheel her four large suitcases into the dorm’s lobby while moving in this morning—the girl who’d caused me a mini heart attack and a shocking, untimely erection in public—she had to be my next-door neighbor and the woman who had spewed out facts about me like she studied my journal and was completing an oral exam.
Shit, the image of her and the words “oral exam” turned dirty in my mind, and suddenly, I was sporting that same erection again. God, what was going on with me?
Keeping myself in check was my favorite hobby and best talent. Now, the back of my neck sweat, and shallow breaths moved my chest up and down. My body was freaking out about her. So was I.
She had no filter, considering she had listed out my every deep issue and insecurity in the public hallway while on her knees in front of me, holding my shoe. I mean, who did that? Who was she? Some secret stalker or reporter hell-bent on finding out what the wealthy Reddingtons were up to?
Whoever she was, she was dangerous, and I needed to stay away from her.
A knock pounded hard on the opposite side of my door. I sighed and approached it. A Resident Assistant’s job is never done. The knocker seemed to rethink the heavy force put behind it and added a soft and delicate knock, knock.
I opened the door, about to introduce myself as the RA when I met her gaze. Red-dress girl.
Damn it, she was frustratingly gorgeous.
Her cherry-chestnut auburn hair was tied up into a long ponytail, triggering some deeper masculine instinct in me to pull on the strands. Wrap them around my fist as I tipped her head back and claimed those red lips. The tips of her locks were dyed a flaming red, as if I needed another sign of her impulsivity and sizzling potential for passion.
The strong cheekbones of her face screamed “confidence” and “queen.” Then there was the red dress she wore, which dipped down into a “V” and revealed a hint of beautiful cleavage, causing a bit of my blood flow to change direction from my brain.
But she was off-limits.
The first rule of being a Resident Assistant: do not have a romantic relationship with one of the residents. Not an emotional relationship. Not a physical relationship. They caught George Lyell hooking up with a resident last year, and he lost his free housing, meal plan, and tuition scholarship. A total sum of over thirty-five-thousand dollars a year.
I could not afford to lose this job. Not with the money problems my family dealt with as of late. The world thought we were millionaires, and yet I took any side jobs I could find to send my younger sister lunch money.
This girl—my attraction to this girl—threatened everything. I relied on the money from my position as an RA.
Off. Limits. It’s just an itch. Scratch it with someone else.
With a deep breath, I summoned all of my resolve, laid down fresh bricks for my emotional wall, and shot her my standard icy glare. “Yes?” I asked.
She peeked up at me from under her long dark eyelashes and smiled like the cutest fucking thing on the planet. “Soooo, I wanted to say sorry about the whole ‘stick up your ass’ thing,” she said.
“I believe it was ‘a whole tree,’” I quoted her.
Her adorable smile cracked into a full grin as she shrugged. “I mean, can you blame me? The rule-book thing is…a lot.”
“Every rule has a reason to be there.”
She clucked her tongue, and my eyes glued themselves to the little pink body part. My mind jumped to other reasons she might flick her tongue. “Agree to disagree,” she said.
“You can’t disagree with me. I’m your RA. I’m the one in charge.”
“Tomato, tomato,” she said them both the same way, ignoring how pronouncing one “to-mah-to” would enforce her ability to compromise. “Anyway, I thought I would bring you a peace offering.”
She pushed her hand out between us and opened a napkin holding a single dark-chocolate brownie. The three-fourths baked kind involving an oozy, thick layer of pure fudge.
Fuck, I wanted the brownie.
I wanted her.
Apparently, my cock didn’t care about what she said in the hallway earlier, because it rose with every passing second in her presence.
“You’re not supposed to share baked goods in the dorm,” I told her, looking away from the brownie to re-establish my resolve. “Someone could have an allergy.”
“Are you allergic to chocolate, eggs, or nuts?”
“No.”
“What about love?” She tipped her head to the side and stared me down with her dark lily-pad-green eyes. “Are you allergic to love?”
“Deathly.”
She let out a small laugh but covered the brownie with the napkin again and started moving it away from me. “Well, I guess I better just take this, then….”
“You can leave it,” I answered a little too quickly. “On the dresser. You can leave it there; I’ll dispose of it later.”
She was still grinning at me like we were best friends, giggling over a shared secret.
Danger, danger, echoed in my head. “Stop looking at me like that,” I said.
She ignored me and plopped the brownie onto my dresser before she trailed farther inside my room, invading my space. “I’m Allie, by the way.” Allie. My eyes followed her every movement.
Allie’s legs made me forget to breathe. They were the things of fantasies. Bordering on the line of thick and thin. If I wrapped them around my waist, those legs would have the strength to latch on and stay there. I wanted to toss her on my bed, spread those legs, and lick her until she screamed—No.
Off. Limits.
She picked up my agenda from my desk, oblivious to my arousal from watching her breathe. “Wow, you already have the first month of assignments on this thing? Color-coded?”
“Not that I have to explain myself to you, but I like to be prepared.”
She walked over to me and did not stop until her honey and roses scent claimed every particle of oxygen my lungs had access to. At every inhale, I breathed her in.
Up close, everything clicked. Allie was a provocative mermaid with her long reddish hair, her big seaweed-green eyes, her soft yet fierce face, and her succulent curves. A fucking siren.
The siren bent over and put her face close to my backside. “I don’t see anything stuck up there, but maybe—” I pushed her hand away when she went to cradle the back pocket of my jeans.
“No touching,” I said, taking a few steps away from her.
She inched in front of me again. Her palm drifted to my chest, trailing down. A light caress, heavy with promises of loud whispers and soft skin. “You’re very good-looking,” she whispered as if she was the one entranced.
It was definitely me.
The warmth of her hand through the fabric of my shirt had my blood humming in my veins. When her nails dug into me, my blood switched from humming to operatic singing.
I did not have the willpower to take her hand off of me, but I managed to get out in a strained voice, “What did I just say about touching?” She disobeyed a direct order. No one ever went against my word. No one.
She pursed her full, succulent lips. “I didn’t see a rule about touching in the handbook.”
“Then you didn’t read it.” There were many rules about touching. Public displays of affection were frowned upon for multiple reasons. But public displays with the RA? Forbidden.
And yet, watching her stand in my room filled me with all the dirty thoughts of what else we could be doing in there. She looked so good; it was almost scary. I felt like a starving person smelling baked cinnamon rolls for the first time. I was already on edge, and she kept a constant push at my back to fall off the cliff of temptation.
Allie bent over again, surveying something in my room, and the back of her dress lifted, revealing more creamy skin.
I groaned and let my fisted hands drop in front of me, trying to block my rising erection from her gaze. She turned and stood close, her eyes focused on my face while my body focused on her proximity. How was I supposed to calm the rapid beat of my heart when she was still within touching distance?
“I don’t have a habit of reading instructions or rule books,” she said.
“Do you have a habit of diving into shallow pools and using power tools without safety goggles?” With the last ounce of my self-control, I moved backward to place more space between us. “Rules exist because they need to.”
“Why are people not allowed to make popcorn?”
“Because it’s one of the rules.” And because the smell permeated the entire hallway and hung there like sweaty gym socks for two days before dissipating.
She tilted her head, exposing more of the neck I kept imagining kissing. A red mark caught my eye. Did she have a hickey? Why did that make me so fucking furious? Who was the guy she’d allowed to mark her, and what was his greatest fear so I could exploit it?
“But why?” she asked.
I had forgotten everything but the hickey. “Why what?”
“Why have rules? Life is short and full of uncertainties. Why not live every moment doing what you want to do?” she asked.
Because life was not about doing what someone wanted to do. It was about living. And living was about money.
She peered around my room again before jumping three fucking feet off the ground, backward, onto my bed. She wrinkled the sheets beneath her, making a mattress angel like a kid might do in fresh snow. “Comfy,” she said, rolling around and covering my bed in her addicting scent.
I gaped. Half in medically diagnosed shock. “You’re on my bed,” I said like a genius narrator. What was I supposed to say or do? This woman tossed and turned in my bed, the same bed I would sleep in, dreaming about her at night.
A normal person did not jump onto a stranger’s bed. Who was she?
Her dress rode up her legs from her actions as she tangled herself in my sheets. “Get off,” I told her, my voice strained from shock and need. Typically, when I brought women to my room, my voice stayed cool and even. Typically, the women did not push back or give me lip the way Allie did.
She grinned; her hair sprawled over my pillow. Now it would smell like her. “Make me.”
I wanted to. I wanted to make her moan, scream, come with my name on her lips—
Fuck.
She was wild. I did not do wild. “Seriously, get up.”
“What?” she teased. “Am I breaking a rule?”
“Several.”
“Good.” She stopped rolling and sat up on my bed. “I’m worried about the way you’re living. You seem to have an obsession with rules, and don’t even get me started on that color-coded calendar of yours. I think we should go do something fun together.”
I scoffed. “I have fun.”
“You have every dinner scheduled at five o’clock. Elderly women eat later than you.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Look, Control Freak—”
“My name is Nate,” I said. “Nate Reddington.” I paused, waiting for her big reaction. But she remained silent. No recognition lit her eyes. “Of the Reddingtons.”
“As I was saying, Control Freak, I, Allie of the Parsers, am a psychology major and, therefore, take responsibility for helping push people in the right direction. I think I can help you.”
“Help me?” I questioned, and she nodded. “And what is it you think I need help with?”
“I think you need to throw out your schedule and live a little. With the walls you’re putting up right now, I’d say you have some issues you need to work out. You also seem to be pushing me away for some reason.”
“Get out of my room.”
The change in my tone caught her attention. She got up from my bed and stared at me. “I think you’re pushing me away because you know I see through that icy rule-abiding exterior you put up, and you’re scared of living without everything planned out.”
“I’m pushing you away because you just insinuated I need therapy.” I opened my door for her to leave. “You don’t even know me. Don’t assume you know what’s best for me.”
Her cheery attitude slipped away, and now she stood there with an analyzing expression, trying to read me. “Fine,” she said, finally making her way to my door. “I’ll go, but I think I can help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
She grinned. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”