Two days later, I had “officially” moved in. In other words, my suitcase was unpacked and stashed under Nathan’s king-sized bed.

I’d left my shoes in my bag, as there was limited room in his tiny walk-in closet. At first I’d attempted to negotiate for space on his shoe racks. He didn’t understand why a girl would need six pairs of shoes for a summer in New York, which clearly demonstrated how little he knew women. Personally, I thought I’d been quite conservative with only flip-flops, sneakers, kitten-heeled slingbacks, “fuck me” heels, and two pairs of cute ballet flats. When I tried to explain, however, I lost him when I mentioned the heels.

As for me, I didn’t see the difference between his four pairs of black leather size twelve loafers hogging the shoe racks, unless they were all handcrafted by different guilds of cobbler elves.

He finally just crossed his arms and clenched his jaw. “My place, my rules,” he decreed, so my shoes ended up back in the suitcase. If he didn’t want me crawling under his bed twice a day, then he’d have to come up with another solution.

My dresses found homes on hangers, and my lacy underthings and PJs were in the long dresser occupying the wall opposite the end of his bed. My assigned drawers were the ones closest to the door, so in theory I could sneak in and grab my underwear quickly in the morning and not wake him up.

It worked the first day. And the second.

On the third morning of trying to creep in while clutching a towel around my wet body, I’d paused when I heard him grunt. I glanced over to see if he’d woken. My gaze took a detour over the curve of his ass, where the rumpled sheets were bunched. He lay on his stomach with his arms raised, his hands shoved under the pillow a few inches above his head. I might have taken a picture of his broad, muscled back, had my phone been in my hand.

I pulled out a pink bra and matching panties, hip-checking the drawer shut a little too hard. He stirred and moaned, his head turning to face me.

His eyes opened to slits.

I froze. Literally, the air conditioning clicked on and my nipples hardened painfully under the towel I had secured around me. His eyes weren’t fully open, so likely he was still asleep. I’d lingered too long over his display of masculinity, but for god’s sakes—he had dimples on either side of his lower back. I fled, breathless and wondering how I could be wearing a fluffy, absorbent towel and yet be so, so... wet.

On the fourth morning after I’d unpacked, I held my breath as I tiptoed in. I pulled the drawer open as slowly as I could, as quietly as I could. When I turned around with a black push-up bra dangling from my fingers, I shot a look over to the bed.

Nathan sat up against the headboard, naked from the waist up, watching me with eyes that had darkened to jade.

“Agh!” I dropped the bra, but managed to hang on to the towel.

His mischievous grin never faltered, even when met by my most severe glare. I backed out of the room, like he was the Queen. I felt his gaze on me all day, which was a neat trick considering that he was on the other side of town for a realtor caravan. But as a general precaution, I later decided to get my outfit ready the night before.

All in all, I was impressed by his ability to adjust to sharing his space—but he also had more space than most people.

There were a lot of nights that he was out, though, and on those nights the apartment seemed bigger and emptier. I sat on the couch with my laptop, keeping one eye on the door, until it was too late for me to pretend that “I lost track of time” when he came home. As far as I knew, he never brought a woman home. But there were a few late nights, and I didn’t really buy his “book club” excuse.

The first night that it rained, I found myself feeling restless and lonely as the storm washed away the smell of garbage and dust in the city. Did he have an umbrella? Could he find a cab? Did it matter? I drifted around the apartment before deciding to grab his blanket off his bed. I knew actually burrowing into his bed might be overstepping our new, uh, family bond, so I cocooned on the couch while I surfed the web.

I fell asleep while pupating with my laptop, rousing briefly when Nathan pulled me out of the chrysalis into his arms and carried me to my bed.

“You need better pajamas, Zoe,” he muttered, his arm like a steel bar under my bare thighs. Without his quilt, my flimsy camisole and short set didn’t stand a chance against the air conditioning. He groaned as my whole body rippled with a shiver and I snuggled into his warmth.

Cradled in his strong arms was a wonderful place to be, even if he smelled a bit like scotch. His jacket was off, and the heat of his body blazed through his shirt and tattooed itself onto my skin.

An air mattress, no matter how deluxe, is not easy to gently deposit a sleeping woman onto, as we discovered. Nathan wobbled when he put his knee on the edge of the mattress, and I tumbled out of his arms and nearly bounced off the other side into his desk.

“Wha—?” I blinked.

He seized the stretchy fabric of my top and shorts, nearly ripping them off me as he pulled me back into the middle of the bed, before losing his balance and falling on me.

“Ooof!”

Air mattresses are like trampolines with two people on them. When one person sinks, the other person bounces.

I sank. Nathan bounced, rolling on to the floor.

I didn’t sleep through all of it—who could?—but I was smart enough to fake it, nuzzling into my pillow so my big, strong, chivalrous stepbrother could escape to his bedroom and pretend that had never happened. The wriggle and moan might have been too much, but it didn’t hurt.

Only he didn’t hightail it out of there right away. Instead, I screwed my eyes shut and forced myself to relax as he stood over me. His staccato breathing was audible over the rain spattering against the windows in the living room. As he bent over me, I smelled a combination of whiskey, cigar smoke, rain and the city on him. I flinched a little when he dropped a warm, soft kiss on my forehead, but I didn’t dare open my eyes until he left my room.

When I came home from work the next day the air mattress had been replaced by a bed. It wasn’t huge, and it took up much of the room. I could easily fling myself onto it from the doorway, in fact. But it was a real bed, and that was when I knew I was really staying. Nathan brushed off my hug, mumbling something about excess furniture for staging or something.

So, I had my internship and was making friends, not enemies. I had unpacked. I had food in the fridge and my own key fob for the building—although if I lost that, I would be out a few hundred bucks. Nathan and I were getting along, even developing a shared addiction to a few Netflix shows. By all estimations, I was a rational, adult woman, making it in New York.

Then the other shoe dropped, and of course it was one of my “fuck me” heels.