out a low moan that was more felt than heard and one of his hands disappeared into the back of my hair, pressing me closer to him. He tasted like I remembered and the memory caused my legs to part, my muscles to go slack. Shivers passed over the small of my back. I wanted to run my fingers over his arms and chest, feel how hard he was, then go south and feel him even harder. Even though, just kissing him, feeling his tongue against mine, made me crave him like a junkie craved their next high.
And I was terrified of coming down.
I pulled back, maybe too hard. Dex flinched, but dropped his hands away from my face. He was so still, so close and breathing hard, his eyes glistening and pupils larger than life.
“I’m sorry,” I said, having difficulty forming the words. “This isn’t…this…”
He nodded and straightened up. “No, I’m sorry. You’re right…this isn’t…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence either. It wasn’t wrong and it wasn’t right either. God, we were fucked up.
I gave him a small smile and smoothed down my hair. “If we’re going to be roommates for the next while, we should probably avoid doing… that . You know, make some house rules.”
He breathed sharply out of his nose but I saw the acceptance in his face.
“Sort of like, you do the dishes on certain days, I do laundry on others, no smoking, no kissing, no sex?”
I felt my ears burn. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.”
I shot him a killer look and he showed me his palms.
“Kidding,” he said. He cleared his throat and went back around to the stove. “So, hungry now?”
Actually, I wasn’t. All I could think about was how cold and empty my mouth felt without him there and food wouldn’t cut it. But I told him I was famished and we soon settled down on the couch to eat and watch mindless television. He sat in the middle, and I shrank up in the corner with the vague fear that if I touched him, I’d be straddling him in seconds.
I turned in early with bedding he had found. After texting back and forth with Ada, failing to ignore the huge mess I left behind, I was left in the dark room with only my thoughts.
Somehow, despite the fact that I had just left home for the first time, that I just hurt every member of my family, and that I had no clue what the hell I was doing, I could only think of Dex. Sleeping in the next room. Alone.
My insides swirled as I replayed the kiss in my mind. Moving out wasn’t a mistake. But moving in with Dex might have been. I didn’t know how long I could go with someone like him around me all the time. Scratch that, not someone like him. Him, period. No matter what happened, he was Dex and I was Perry and that combination only led to trouble.
With a sleepy head, I started plotting out my next plan: get a job, fast, and move out, even faster.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Shut your piehole, Fatty Rab!” Dex bellowed from the bathroom where I could hear his electric razor running.
There had just been a knock at the door, which got the mutt all excited and yappy, even though it was just Rebecca coming by to take me out for lunch.
“I’ll get it,” I told Dex, and wiped my hands on my jeans. I was a tiny bit nervous about seeing Rebecca again. The last time I had seen her, I wasn’t very cordial. She had come to Portland to try and convince me to give Dex another chance and I pretty much told her to fuck off. I cringed a bit, remembering my behavior. Perhaps I was already not in the right frame of mind at the time.
I took a quick breath and opened the door. Rebecca looked immaculate as always, dressed in a red shift dress under a grey tweed, funnel-necked coat, with spiderweb tights and platform booties. Her hair was still a shiny, raven bob and her face was bare except for red lipstick. Next to me in my ponytail, mutt-slobbered jeans and black-and-white striped sweater, she looked positively Hollywood.
She gently pushed away Fat
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