Chapter 1
She was lounging in the sun reading when he stepped out onto the balcony. Brayden had been watching her for a while, when she wasn’t looking and in short glances when her presence filled rooms. For months he’d been doing his very best to ignore her. He considered not engaging in conversation for the most part good enough, since he was failing miserably at everything else. The talks they did have, had mostly been supervised by their “mediator”, as Brayden liked to refer to him. In contrasting reality however Brayden’s “mediator” was her boyfriend, and his roommate. But today - God, today
- he caught a glimpse of one tan leg hanging over the arm of their patio couch and forgot every ounce of sense he had. She was in the apartment, alone. A newer development, she was usually only here when his roommate was, but lately he’d come home or wake up to find her waiting for James to arrive. It was making ignoring her a hundred times more difficult. She finally looked up at him from her book and he snapped out of his reverie.
Oh shit, have I been staring?
He cringed inwardly.
She smiled and cocked her head to the side. “Hi there. Am I in your way?”
His heart skipped a beat.
“OH no! I was just… admiring the view.” He winked. “And I was hoping to read out here too.” He smiled mischievously.
Her brow furrowed a bit like she was guilty, and she made a move to jump up.
“No, no don’t get up!” He rushed. “I don’t see why we can’t both read out here.” He tried his best to sound natural.
He’d been so pleased with the fact she was smiling at him he’d hardly realized what she was wearing. Black bikini top and those tiny little jean shorts she wore all the time, unbuttoned and unzipped to show the bikini bottoms underneath. He just about curled up and died. She’d really come into herself these last few months. She wasn’t afraid to look at him or smile or make small talk, he could see it in the way she walked around his apartment she was finally starting to feel sexy in her own skin. It was literally going to kill him.
“Hmm, you make an excellent point. But don’t you need a book for that?” gesturing to his empty hands.
“Right, of course.” He grinned trying to play it off, cringing again.
He disappeared without waiting to see her reaction and went back inside and grabbed the first book he could find in his room. He practically jumped over the couch to get outside. As he hurled himself back onto the balcony as gracefully as he could, he finally had the sense to wonder what in the fuck he thought he was doing. And even more sense (in his own opinion) to forget it, he’d already committed to the reading thing and like hell he was going to pass up an opportunity to sit next to her on that itty bitty couch.
She had moved around a bit to make more room for him on the couch, legs no longer dangling off the arms of the couch but gently overlapping each other on the outdoor table. She lifted and curled them up as he made his appearance, letting him sneak by and plop down next to her. She looked a bit nervous as he glanced over. And perhaps he’d lost the rest of his sense on the other side of the couch inside because suddenly he wasn’t nervous in the slightest, in fact he was feeling rather bold.
“What’cha reading?”
It was more rhetorical a question than he’d let on. He wasn’t born yesterday, he could spot a smutty romance novel 10 feet away. This one appeared to be, Brayden cocked his head just slightly to the side, hockey themed.
Jackpot!
He grinned, he used to play hockey and he knew she knew that. He glanced from the cover to her eyes suggestively.
“Oh, it’s just some silly book about hockey.” She brushed off, her ears just a little pink he thought.
It could have been the sun, it felt like the hottest day of the year and without centralized AC in the apartment, the balcony was the only reprieve. He ignored the small AC machine sat in his bedroom window, that worked perfectly fine.
His grin turned mischievous, and she noticed.
“What are you laughing at Brayden?” She dipped an eyebrow as if to scold him.
It was like everything she did set his blood on fire.
“I know a porn novel when I see one.” He casually replied.
This time her ears really did turn pink, and so did her cheeks. Shaking her head as if to shake off the blush, which worked surprisingly well for her, she smiled to herself.
“You caught me.” Shrugging and looking back down at her book. “You’ve interrupted a particularly good part as well, if you don’t mind.”
He grinned and settled into the corner opening his book to basically a random page. He still didn’t know which book he’d even grabbed. It didn’t matter anyway since he certainly wasn’t thinking about the book at all. She ignored him completely, gently rocking her foot back and forth on the table. He put his up too, just far enough away from hers that they wouldn’t brush.
He kept an eye on her over the top of his book, barely breathing. Brayden realized quickly she had not been kidding. He noticed her blush creeping back in and she was very focused on whatever was on those pages, reading furiously. Even her rocking had stopped and turned more into a squirm. He was delighted. All those months of doing his best not to look at her, he was taking her all in right now. Even her breath was hitching at odd intervals. Was she even aware of what she was doing right now? He couldn’t stop looking up from the stupid book, it was basically just in the way of his view. He watched as her muscles relaxed and her blush faded, and her eyes stopped darting so quickly back and forth across the page. He HAD to know what it was she was reading. Immediately. What had made her so turned on that he could feel the extra heat radiating off her still?
Eventually Brayden had started reading the stupid book he’d picked up. He was enjoying the middle so much he decided to discreetly start the book from the beginning. It was the new one he’d picked up last week. He was pleased, plus every once and awhile, she would twist or turn, or he’d hear her breathing change, and he’d get to watch her while she read her novel porn right in front of him.
Is this voyeurism?
He half laughed to himself.
He was pretty sure it was because at this point, he’d been half hard for what must have been hours seeing as where the sun had moved in the sky and kept having to rearrange himself discreetly. Suddenly her foot brushed his, in one swift motion all the way up the arch of his foot. The unexpected contact had him jumping out his skin, and she jolted upright and yanked her legs back towards her.
She laughed, “Did I scare you? I’m sorry. Half scared me too.” and moved her legs all the way across the table.
“Of course not.” Brayden grumbled.
He must have looked scared out of his mind and jumped a lot harder than he thought for her to laugh at him.
Brayden felt his ears warm and lifted the book back up to cover his face.