Living with Her Ex-Boyfriend (The Loft #2) Read online

  Living with Her Ex-Boyfriend

  The Loft, Book Two

  Noelle Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About Living with Her Ex-Boyfriend

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Practice Husband

  About Noelle Adams

  About Living with Her Ex-Boyfriend

  MICHELLE THOUGHT SHE'd found the love of her life, but they ended up fighting all the time. So she broke up with Steve, and now it's time to move on.

  The only problem is she still has to live with him. They're still roommates for a few more months. So he's around all the time—with his hot body and his crooked smile and infuriating (sexy) attitude.

  She wants to learn to live without him, but he wants to work things out. And the passion and intimacy she shared with him won't go away just because she wants it to.

  One

  MICHELLE CARLSON WAS going braless today.

  Just because she could.

  She’d gotten up at six thirty as usual, taken a quick shower, and then stood staring down into her top dresser drawer for a couple of minutes, sifting through the random mix of bras and panties. She had a few sets of sexy underwear that she almost never wore. Then she had some midlevel stuff that was pretty and flattering but still wearable. She also had a lot of basic cotton panties in various colors, and she grabbed a pair of blue ones and pulled them on.

  No one was going to see her without clothes today. Or anytime in the foreseeable future. She didn’t want to exert the extra effort it required to wear something other than cotton.

  But bras were never comfortable. She picked out her oldest one, worn thin from use over the years. It wasn’t bad. It didn’t have underwire. The straps were so stretched they tended to slip off her shoulders.

  But she didn’t even feel like putting that one on today, so she dropped it back in with the others, closed the drawer, and reached for an oversized black T-shirt.

  She wore B-cup bras (and never threatened to spill out of them), so she wasn’t particularly large. When she checked herself out in the long mirror on the wall, she was pleased that the black shirt did a lot to hide her boob situation. When she pulled on a pair of thick black leggings, her breasts jiggled in the mirror, but it wasn’t particularly noticeable.

  She normally kept a sweatshirt on all day anyway because the classrooms and labs on campus were always cold.

  Feeling a silly thrill of rebellion, she pulled a sweatshirt on over her head.

  There.

  No one could see anything beneath the heavy fabric. There was absolutely no way even the most obnoxiously sexist guys in her program could tell what was happening beneath it.

  She was going braless today.

  Maybe other women took risks like this regularly, but Michelle never had. She hadn’t gone out in public without a bra since she’d started wearing them. She was boring that way. A rule follower. A good girl. She kept her boobs properly holstered and her voice pleasantly soft.

  She was raised that way, and it came naturally to her. The only time she’d fallen off the good-girl pedestal was during the spring semester of her freshman year, when she’d started dating the wrong guy and had ended up failing all her classes. It had taken her two years to recover from that humiliation, and she still cringed when she remembered how mortifying it had been to disappoint everyone who believed in her. She’d had to move back home and live with her parents in Richmond. She’d had to take a waitressing job at a local restaurant because they expected her to help pay for her expenses. Her father had been forced to call on every contact he had at Virginia Tech so she could return to school a year later, but he’d insisted she change her major.

  No more playing around with an education degree, which was nothing but useless fluff (his words) and wouldn’t lead her to a good job in the future.

  She had to do something worthwhile now. Take life and college seriously. Electrical engineering (the same program he’d done himself). Work hard and be the good girl her parents had raised her to be.

  She was twenty-four now and had moved on to the master’s program. She had to work eighty hours a week to keep up with her studies, and she hated every minute of it.

  She’d wanted to be a math teacher. She didn’t want to be an electrical engineer.

  She knew she should want to complete her degree. It sounded like a brave, boundary-pushing discipline for a woman. She wanted to be strong and smart and succeed in a field that wasn’t welcoming to women. Her family, friends, and professors were all depending on her to make it through and begin an impressive career.

  She hated it though. Her dream had always been to teach math in high school.

  But it was too late to change it now. After she finished this semester, she’d have only one more year left in her program. She’d be able to get a really good job. She’d make plenty of money.

  She’d be the person everyone expected her to be. She wouldn’t disappoint them again.

  Her whole life had shifted because of one stupid semester, one stupid relationship. And now her one act of rebellion was safely hidden from the world beneath a long, thick gray sweatshirt.

  When she stepped out of her bedroom and into the short hallway of the large loft apartment she shared with three others, she paused, hearing something she couldn’t immediately identify.

  Some sort of thumping.

  Michelle always got up earliest since she was naturally an early riser and she was always afraid of getting behind on her work. The two other bedroom doors off the hallway were closed, and the lights in the large common room—living room, dining room, and kitchen combined—were still off. No one else was up yet.

  But that thumping.

  She stood, her hand still on the doorknob, and tried to place where it was coming from.

  When she’d figured it out, she flushed hot.

  Jill and Lucas must be up after all—or at least they were awake. The walls and doors in this renovated loft were of good quality, and usually sound stayed in the rooms. But Jill and Lucas must be going at it hot and heavy already this morning, so enthusiastically that the headboard was banging rhythmically against the wall.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  It wasn’t even seven in the morning.

  When she heard a muffled cry coming through the wall—clearly Jill reaching a critical moment and enjoying it more than seemed plausible or realistic in Michelle’s limited experience—Michelle ducked her head and hurried into the kitchen, where fortunately the sound significantly diminished.

  That was the problem with having roommates.

  Sometimes their personal lives spilled out of their rooms.

  They tried to respect boundaries and give each other privacy, but occasionally something like this happened.

  Jill was one of Michelle’s best friends. Michelle was glad she was happy. Jill had gone through several months of tension and angst as she’d fallen in love with Lucas, after he’d moved into their apartment at the beginning of the year, and she and Lucas deserved their ha
ppiness and all the good sexy-times they could get now.

  But Michelle didn’t want to hear it.

  She knew damn well that she’d never had sex like that in her life. She’d never even really enjoyed sex until she’d met Steve Hardcastle, whom she’d started dating last year and had broken up with a couple of months ago. She hadn’t dated in high school. She’d been so sheltered by her conservative parents it hadn’t even been a possibility. That was why she’d ended up being led astray by that asshole in her freshman year of college. He’d been the most exciting thing to ever happen to her. He’d been selfish in bed, and sex had been uncomfortable, but she’d assumed that was normal. When she’d returned to Tech the second time, she’d met a nice guy who was almost as inexperienced as she was. He’d been clueless, but at least sex had been comfortable with him.

  Steve had been different.

  Sex with Steve had been good. Very good. She’d reached orgasm for the first time with him, and he’d always gone out of his way to make sure she enjoyed it as much as he did.

  But they’d never done it so wildly they banged the headboard against the wall.

  She’d pulled a bowl down from a shelf and poured cereal into it, and now she went to the refrigerator for the milk. Before she opened it, though, she leaned her head against the cool stainless steel.

  She wondered what it would be like. For a man to take her that way.

  Wild. Uninhibited. Primal.

  It wasn’t like her. She embarrassed easily, and she was self-conscious about being naked, about letting go, about being loud, even though she rationally knew she shouldn’t be. She’d made a few failed attempts to be more exciting in bed with Steve, but she’d never had any success in making her fantasies a reality.

  But she kept having fantasies.

  On her hands and knees on her bed. A man kneeling behind her, thrusting hard and fast. She was screaming out her pleasure helplessly, not even hiding it in the pillow, and he was bracing himself with one arm on the headboard, so fierce that he was banging it against the wall in a loud, shameless staccato.

  Michelle was washed with heat at the mental image.

  The man pounding into her from behind was Steve, of course.

  It was always Steve in her fantasies.

  But one day it wouldn’t be. One day she would be over him.

  She would probably never make all her sexy fantasies a reality, however.

  Some women were naturally wild and sexy, and some weren’t.

  She was the latter. She’d always been a nice, quiet, sheltered girl—one that other people could trust to do what she was supposed to do—and that wasn’t likely to change, no matter what she might daydream about in her room alone at night.

  “What’s the matter?”

  The familiar voice came from behind her, and it startled her so much she jumped and made a squeaking sound. She’d been standing there with her fingers tightened around the handle, her forehead leaning against the refrigerator.

  Straightening up, she turned to give Steve a cool glare. “You scared me.”

  “I scared you because you were hugging the refrigerator.” Steve had obviously just gotten up. He had his favorite flannel pants on—maroon-and-orange plaid—and a T-shirt with a year-old coffee stain on it. His brown hair was a mess, he needed to shave, and his blue eyes were narrowed slightly.

  She stiffened. “I wasn’t hugging the refrigerator. I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  She wasn’t going to answer that question. She might be stuck still living with her ex-boyfriend because the semester wasn’t over yet and it was too hard to find a good available rental until the summer, when a slew of students would graduate, move, or leave town. But she wasn’t required to talk to him anymore—and certainly not answer every intrusive question he asked.

  “About what?” Steve asked again, sounding impatient now as he picked up his mug from the one-cup coffee brewer.

  Michelle sat down at the island with her cereal and coffee and opened her laptop. She didn’t look over in his direction.

  She wasn’t wearing a bra today.

  She was free.

  She was on a cloud of comfort.

  She was rising above it all.

  She wasn’t going to get angry with Steve today.

  And she definitely wasn’t going to let him know she’d been having naughty, sexy thoughts (about him) over by the refrigerator a few minutes before.

  Steve strode over with his coffee to stand beside her stool. “I’ve just asked you a question. Twice.”

  “And I don’t want to answer it.”

  “Why not?”

  You’re not wearing a bra. You’re not going to get angry. “Because it’s none of your business what I was thinking about. You’re not my boyfriend anymore. Remember?”

  Steve was so tense beside her now she could sense it radiating off him. She wasn’t looking at him, but he was standing very close. She could feel him. His body was warm and hard and fit with broad shoulders and mostly flat abs—evidently gifted by genetics because he only occasionally worked out.

  She could smell him too. Toothpaste and laundry detergent. She’d always loved the scent of him. When he came home from work, he smelled like dirt and plants, since he worked in a greenhouse. Raw. Earthy. Natural.

  She loved the smell of him in the mornings too.

  “Yes, I remember. I’m not likely to forget you dumped me, am I?” His voice was gravelly with resentment, and it made her both angry and guilty.

  He hadn’t wanted to break up with her two months ago.

  She’d been the one who insisted on it.

  She’d been sure—and still was—that it was best for both of them, but that didn’t make it any easier to know how much she’d hurt Steve when she’d ended their relationship.

  She’d loved him.

  He was the only man she’d ever loved.

  She stared at her laptop screen and tried to type out a quick email response to a classmate who’d sent her a question last night about one of their projects.

  “You’re just going to ignore me today?” Steve demanded. He was still looming over her, and his body was close enough to touch.

  Another wave of heat crested over her as she imagined him taking her from behind like an animal.

  Steve was a nice guy.

  He’d always been a nice guy.

  An old-fashioned guy who still read paper newspapers, spent hours in the used bookstore down the block, and almost never replied to texts on his (six-years-out-of-date) phone.

  He might be grumpy this morning—and a lot of mornings since they’d broken up—but he was nice about all the important things.

  It was one of the things she’d most loved about him.

  But it meant he was nice in bed too.

  It was a good thing. She’d appreciated it. She’d needed it at the beginning of their relationship since she’d been self-conscious and insecure about sex, inexperienced in a lot of ways she assumed other women her age couldn’t imagine.

  Steve would never take her like an animal. He’d liked missionary under the covers at night, and he’d assumed she liked it too.

  He’d been so confused the very few times she’d hinted at doing something different. His surprised confusion had been enough to stop her from completing her suggestions.

  Embarrassment and arousal clashed inside her head for a minute as she kept trying to write out the email.

  Then she realized that Steve was still waiting for an answer. She said, “I’m ignoring you because you’re making me mad. If you’ll stop annoying me, I’ll stop ignoring you.”

  When she glanced up, she saw Steve’s expression had changed. He was still looking at her but with more scrutiny now. He reached over and palmed her right cheek. “What’s the matter, Michelle?” he murmured.

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He’d seen how much she was blushing. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and fairly fair skin that
flushed easily, so she was incapable of hiding embarrassment, arousal, anger, or other heightened emotional states. They all showed themselves very clearly on her cheeks.

  But he wouldn’t know exactly what was prompting the flush.

  Please, please, please, please, God, don’t let him know.

  “Nothing’s the matter.”

  “Something is. You don’t get hot and red like this for no reason. Did I really make you mad?”

  Having him think she was angry was greatly preferable than his knowing she’d gotten turned on by his big body near hers and the vision of him doing wonderful, naughty things to her in bed.

  “I’d resolved not to get angry with you today, and then the first thing that happens is you come in and make me angry. It’s frustrating.” Telling him part of the truth was better than the whole truth, and he might believe it.

  He seemed to. He dropped his hand from her hot cheek “I don’t do it on purpose.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “You think I do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He sighed hoarsely. “I don’t know either.”

  Perversely she felt a little tug of understanding and kinship with him. Maybe he was as torn and confused about their relationship as she was. He certainly sounded as exhausted by it.

  The clench in her chest softening, she said, “It’s bound to be awkward, living together the way we do. But you’ll hopefully be able to move out next month if you can find a new place, and that will make it a lot easier.”

  “Yeah.”

  She darted a look up because his tone was gruff again. She frowned when she saw his grumpy expression.

  The man was impossible. Even to have a normal conversation.

  In the silence that followed, she could still hear—just slightly—the rhythmic thumping of the bed down the hall. How the hell long were Jill and Lucas planning to go at it this morning? Surely Lucas was worn out by now and Jill was ready to shower and dress and stop having endless orgasms that made her scream until she was hoarse.

  The only times Michelle had ever screamed herself hoarse was when she was fighting with Steve. She’d never screamed in a good way.