“Why is it two o’clock?” I ask, still not completely awake.

“Because I walked.” He lifts the covers and crawls in next to me.

I can’t believe he walked all the way to my place. It’s less than a ten-minute drive, but that means it probably took him at least an hour to walk here. I’m trying to make sense of that in my head when his chilled hand sneaks under the hem of my top, making me squeal and jerk out of his grasp.

Joel laughs. “My hands are cold!”

“YOU THINK?” I smack him away and slide my body to the edge of the bed. “I’m tired now. You should’ve come earlier.” I have no idea why I’m turning him down, other than that I’m trying to prove I won’t be at his beck and call, no matter how much I want to be.

When he presses up close, there’s no more room for me to inch away from him. His cold hand circles around my stomach again, but since he keeps it over my clothes, I don’t bat it away. “You’re really going to be like this after you made me walk all the way over here?” His hand slides up my stomach to cup my breast, and an aching starts between my legs and tightens in my core. I don’t pull his hand away.

“I didn’t make you do anything.”

Joel caresses his thumb over my soft nipple, and it perks under his touch. “Was the guy from last night better than me?”

When he pinches my nipple with icy cold fingers, my back arches, pressing my ass into his groin. His hips press forward against me, and I nearly flip over right then to lose myself in the way his lips can conquer mine and make everything else cease to exist. “I don’t remember.”

“Don’t remember how good he was, or don’t remember how good I am?”

“Don’t remember how good you are,” I lie, trying to knock Joel’s confidence down a peg because he definitely has all the control right now. I’m warm putty in his hands just waiting to be played with.

My strategy backfires when he leans forward and traces the tip of his satin tongue along my neck, bringing his lips to my ear and speaking to me in a voice that makes my skin shiver. “Then let me remind you.”

Chapter Five

EMPTY BED. QUIET APARTMENT. The only signs Joel was here last night are his scent on my sheets and the ache in my muscles. I roll onto my stomach and pull my pillow tight over the back of my head, trying to convince myself I’m content to wake alone—that I prefer to wake alone.

“You realize all you have in your fridge is butter and pickles, right?”

I push the pillow away and stare at Joel like he’s an apparition. He’s standing in my doorway with a tub of butter in one hand, a half-empty jar of pickles in the other, and one sandy blond eyebrow firmly raised.

“What am I supposed to make you for breakfast?” he complains, making me feel so warm and fuzzy inside that I’m pretty sure I need to giggle rainbows or explode into glitter. How many butterflies does a girl need to feel in her belly before she turns into a butterfly herself?

“There’s a coffee shop down the street,” I offer.

“How do you live?” He lifts the yellow tub in front of his face and narrows his eyes. His mohawk is spiked firmly in place, and I wonder how many of my hair products he had to mix to get it to stand up like that. “This butter isn’t even any good. It expired two months ago.”

“There’s ice cream in the freezer . . .”

I giggle at the look he gives me, and he shakes his head. “We need to go grocery shopping.”

“We?”

“Yes, we.” A smirk taunts me from the corner of his gorgeous mouth. “Are you going to drive me, or are you going to make me walk again?”

DESPITE HOW TEMPTING it is to see if Joel would actually walk if I refused to drive him, I take him to the grocery store, feeling awkwardly domestic. I’ve never grocery shopped with a guy before. I keep stealing glances at him as we cross the parking lot, and he smiles at me when I grab a grocery cart and start pushing.

“So is this your thing?” I ask, casting him a sidelong glance as we walk down the cereal aisle and he tosses boxes in my cart—all of them featuring cartoon characters and colored marshmallows. When he looks at me for clarification, I quietly explain, “Your shtick or something. Having sex with girls and then taking them grocery shopping.”

Joel doesn’t try to keep his voice quiet when he says, “I’ve fucked you like a million times and I’ve never taken you grocery shopping.”

The old woman walking past us, who definitely heard every foul word out of Joel’s mouth, gives us a reproachful look from behind her oversized spectacles. I smile sweetly at her and nudge my elbow into Joel’s side, but he just chuckles. I tilt my chin up to give him a look, and he tucks his hand into my back pocket and gives my butt a tight squeeze.

“You’re horrible,” I say, not removing his fingers from my pocket.

“You love it,” he counters, and I can’t even pretend to disagree. He fondles my ass until I step out of his reach, and when I glance back at him, he’s enjoying the view. I turn back around, enjoying giving it to him.

“Can you get me that creamer?” I ask when we get to the dairy section. Normally, I get coffee at school or at the place down the street from my apartment building, but if we’re seriously making breakfast at my place this morning, I need something to put in my coffee, and the crème brulée creamer I want is all the way at the back of the top rack.