Love Interest by Clare Gilmore

Author:Clare Gilmore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The thing about sex is, it’s great until it ends (honestly, they should put that on the abstinence pamphlets we always got handed on campus, which would later get defaced with dick drawings and left on classroom desks). But here’s the other thing about sex: afterward, things get really awkward, really fast, and half the time, the only way to stifle it is to just leave, bucking up and putting on your walk-of-shame face as you head out the door.

I worry my lip between my teeth as Alex sits up, tugging on his boxers. Mentally, I’m preparing my casual “Wow, it’s getting so late!”

But Alex goes completely off script and says, “Want a drink? I’m parched.”

“Um.” I start gathering up my clothes. “That’s okay.”

“I’ve got raspberry lime seltzer,” he calls, heading to his wannabe kitchen. “Diet Coke, bottled tea, and beer. What’s calling to you?”

I hesitate for a second before I decide he’s genuinely asking. I, too, am parched from the excessive sexual intercourse. “Diet Coke.”

Alex comes back holding a Diet Coke and a can of seltzer. “Catch.”

I have to drop my bra to stop the can from hitting me in the face, but I catch it, setting it beside me in the bed. I grab my bra from my lap and try to put it on.

The sinking of the mattress only makes my hands tremble with urgency, but half a breath later, his hands are gently tugging my bra away. Deeply he says, “Could you be naked for, like, thirty more seconds, please? As a personal favor?”

The shock is obvious on my face. I’m unable to disguise it, considering I’ve never heard any line like that before. Alex grins at my expression, hair falling over his eyes, and he turns his gaze on my body, slowly but deliberately cataloging.

Though I wouldn’t consider myself fair skinned, I do flush head to toe at the slightest provocation, and right now, I’m on fire.

Let’s put it this way: I’m not ashamed of my body by any stretch, but I’d also never walk naked around a guy’s place on purpose.

He settles beside me, a finger trailing across my stomach. “I’ve thought of you like this more often than I should admit,” he whispers. I gulp, feeling heat bloom in my core again. “The fact that I infuriated you only made me want you more desperately.”

Want. It’s a very deliberate way for him to phrase it. My body gets dunked in a metaphorical ice bath when I consider that, to Alex, maybe this was all one big chase.

The girl he couldn’t get. The one who, for so long, wouldn’t bend.

He wants me. Physically. I’m an accomplishment, a win. But he also told me point-blank he understands why I think I’m nobody’s dream girl.

I want it stated for the record that I do have the thought End this now, before it starts to hurt. It blips across my mind at the speed of light, but his breath warming my ear erases it.

Completely.

“Case?”

Through my brain fog, I try to pick up the last thread of our conversation.

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