by Noelle Adams
Chloe was short, curvy, and dramatic with gorgeous, dark eyes and long, dark hair. She was working on an MFA in something called creative technologies, and she considered herself an artist.
Michelle had met both Jill and Chloe back when Jill had been dating a guy who was a graduate student, and so their paths had intersected on campus several times until it seemed destined that the three of them should be friends.
Michelle had always had friends, but she’d never had friends as close as Chloe and Jill.
“So how are things with Steve?” Chloe asked after they’d rehashed all their purchases.
Michelle lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. Fine, I guess. We made it through the week without having a huge fight. Just a few minor arguments.”
“Well, that’s progress.” Chloe took a swipe at her cupcake’s frosting with one finger and then licked it off. “When does he move out?”
“He can’t until the semester is over, and then he’ll need to find a new place. Who knows how long that will take?”
“I’m sure he’ll be able to find something pretty quick. There will be a lot of places available right after graduation.”
“I know.” Michelle felt glum, but she was trying to hide it.
Not very well, evidently.
“I thought you were ready for him to move out,” Chloe said.
“I am. I really am. It’s hard having to still live with him. But...”
“You’ll miss him,” Jill said softly.
Michelle nodded. “It sounds dumb, but I really will.”
“It’s not dumb.” Chloe reached over to pat her arm. “He’s been a good friend as well as a boyfriend. Of course you’ll miss him.”
“But it will be easier when he moves out and isn’t around all the time. It’s ridiculously hard to try to move on when your ex lives in the same apartment as you and is always around, reminding you...”
“Reminding you what?” Jill asked.
“Reminding you what you fell for about him in the first place.” Michelle straightened up. “But it’s over. It’s definitely over. I can’t let myself feel the way I did about myself back then. I’m ready to move on.”
“Maybe you need to find someone to move on with,” Chloe said. “Get your mind on someone else.”
“Oh, I know,” Jill said excitedly. “The lumberjack!”
“Not the lumberjack,” Michelle groaned.
“Who’s the lumberjack?” Chloe demanded. “And why don’t I already know about him?”
Jill explained, “He just moved in across the hall. He’s housesitting for The Suit for a couple of months. He seemed really nice, and the man is built like a mountain. He’s the perfect guy to take Michelle’s mind off Steve.”
“Ooh, he sounds intriguing.” Chloe was leaning forward, so involved in the conversation she’d stopped eating her cupcake. “A big, hot lumberjack is exactly what you need.”
Michelle smiled and shook her head. She couldn’t even imagine herself dating, kissing, in bed with the guy across the hall, but she knew her friends had a point.
It would be good for her. Thinking about someone else. Putting Steve at the back of her mind instead of always front and center.
“So you’ll go after him?” Chloe asked.
“I don’t go after any guy. That’s not what I do. Any guy I’ve ever dated has gone after me. Steve...” She didn’t finish the thought.
Steve had sat at her table for two weeks straight without speaking until she’d finally talked to him.
“But Steve is behind you now,” Chloe said. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“It is. It is what I want.”
“So you should do something new, take a few risks. Why can’t you be a little different than you’ve always been before, if that’s what you want.”
It was what she wanted.
Michelle generally liked herself, but she didn’t like everything.
She didn’t like being self-conscious all the time.
She didn’t like that she couldn’t have wild, uninhibited sex—bang-the-bed-against-the-wall sex.
She didn’t like that she always felt like she had to struggle to be the person she really was, that she still was tempted to let herself be silenced.
She didn’t like that it still felt like other people were always molding the shape of her life.
She wanted to change some of those things, and it was long past time she did so.
“What do you think?” Jill asked. “You know we don’t think you have to be anything different. You’re amazing just like you are. But if you want to try something new, then you should do it, even if you’re a little bit scared.”
Michelle let out a slightly shaky sigh. “I am kind of scared, but... I do want to do something different. But I don’t think I’m cut out for coming on to a stranger.”
“You don’t have to come on to him,” Chloe said. “Maybe just knock on his door and be friendly. Welcome him to the building. See if anything happens.”
Michelle groaned and dropped her head onto her arms, which were folded on the table. “Even that sounds terrifying.”
Jill laughed and patted her back. “You can do it. We believe in you.”
STEVE HAD TO SUFFER through a torturous workout session with Lucas that afternoon, so he was exhausted and in a bad mood on the way back to the apartment.
He just didn’t like exercise.
It was as simple as that.
It wasn’t like he was overweight or unhealthy. He rode his bike all over town, and he’d worn the same size pants since college. He just wasn’t made for punishing his body like Lucas evidently was.
But Lucas was his friend, and Lucas genuinely liked for him to join him, so Steve agreed at least a couple of times a week.
It was probably good for him, but he hated it.
So he was grumbling under his breath about how every muscle in his body hurt as he and Lucas walked up the stairs and down the hall to their apartment.
The first thing Steve heard was Michelle laughing.
He would know her laugh anywhere.
There was something about the tenor of it this afternoon. Something that immediately set off alarm bells in his mind.
He saw why as he approached the front door.
Michelle was across the hall, looking slim and pretty and irresistibly sexy in skinny jeans and a fitted top that made her breasts look fantastic. She was leaning against the doorway of The Suit’s apartment, giggling and smiling.
The lumberjack.
Michelle was flirting with the damned lumberjack.
The wave of hot outrage and possessiveness that slammed into him was like nothing Steve had ever experienced.
He wanted to stomp over there, haul her over his shoulder, and carry her back where she belonged. To him. To his bed.
His whole body tightened with the need to claim her that way.
“Easy, man,” Lucas murmured very softly, giving his shoulder a light nudge.
Steve folded his fingers into fists and tried to breathe. What the hell was Michelle doing over there? That lumberjack wasn’t her type at all.
Steve was her type.
Steve was the only man she should be with.
“You can’t do anything,” Lucas said in the same very low voice. “I know how you feel. Believe me. But you can’t do anything, or she’ll never forgive you.”
He was right.
Of course he was right.
Steve wasn’t a caveman. He wasn’t some sort of obnoxious alpha male asshole. He didn’t treat women like possessions.
Even when one woman in particular had always felt like his.
He’d worked very hard to always treat Michelle like she was special, like she was treasured—and he wasn’t going to stop doing so now just because they were broken up.
So he blew out a breath, trying to dispel the tension, and he gave a brief nod.
Evidently taking that as a sign that it was safe, Lucas gave Steve a little shove to g
et him going, and they walked the rest of the way down the hall.
Michelle turned to look at them when she was aware of their presence, and Steve saw discomfort on her face briefly before she hid it with a smile. “Hey, guys. Brent, these are two of my roommates, Steve and Lucas.”
Roommate.
She’d just dismissed Steve as her roommate.
He’d always be more than a roommate to her.
He managed to shake the lumberjack’s hand without incident, and then he tried to think of something to say that would let him remain part of this conversation so he would know if he had anything to worry about.
But Lucas nudged him toward their front door. “Nice to meet you, Brent. We’ll see you around.”
Before Steve could object, Lucas got him inside and shut the door.
Steve snarled.
“Whine all you want,” Lucas said. “But I know from experience that interfering is the worst thing you can do. You can’t get in the way of her. It’s not fair to Michelle, and it will only make her resent you. It’s never going to do what you want it to do.”
Steve slumped and let out a breath, hating Lucas for a moment, even though he knew his friend was right. “Fine.”
He waited, and Lucas didn’t move.
Lucas said, “No use in lingering. I’m going to stand right here in front of the door until Michelle comes back in. So you might as well give up and go take a shower to cool down.”
Steve felt like growling. Michelle was right there in the hall. Just a few steps away.
He could reach her in about five seconds.
He could get her back.
Except he couldn’t.
“If you want her back,” Lucas added, “this isn’t the way to do it.”
Steve just stared at the closed door over Lucas’s shoulder.
Lucas went on, “If there’s something you need to fix to make her happy, maybe you could just fix it.”
Steve rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know what to fix.”
“So ask her.”
“I did.”
“What did she say?”
The memory of their conversation in their bedroom that morning was so painful that Steve could barely rehash it in his mind. But he managed to admit hoarsely, “She said... she said that she didn’t feel like she could be the person she wants to be when she’s with me.”
Lucas’s expression changed, grew a little less hard. “What did she mean by that?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. She said... she wants to be with someone who can really let her be her.”
“Fuck,” Lucas breathed.
That just about summed it up.
MICHELLE LIKED THE lumberjack. He seemed like a nice, smart, and surprisingly shy guy. But he didn’t do anything for her.
Not anything.
He was good-looking in a big, rough, bearded way, but he didn’t trigger even the slightest shiver of attraction in her.
She did her best to be friendly, though, determined to follow through on her friends’ advice so she wouldn’t be hung up on Steve for the rest of her life.
But she returned to the apartment feeling heavy and restless and a little depressed.
She was stuck.
It felt like she was stuck.
Endlessly connected to Steve but never in the way she wanted.
He’d looked so shut down when he and Lucas had come in from the gym a little while ago. It wasn’t like him to be so guarded. It was like he hadn’t even really seen her.
He’d probably been hurt that she was talking to another guy.
She didn’t want to hurt him.
But she wouldn’t have minded if he was a little jealous.
She’d have thought that would be a natural reaction. She’d have been jealous if he’d been flirting with another woman. And a little part of her wanted to see it, wanted to see him riled up to primal possessiveness because of her.
But no.
That wasn’t Steve.
At least not about her.
No one had ever been primal about her before.
She tried to push the thought away because she didn’t like to feel sorry for herself.
Lucas and Jill were on the couch, watching TV, but Steve wasn’t anywhere around. He must be in his room.
“How’d it go?” Jill asked, straightening up as Michelle approached.
“Fine. Fine. He’s nice.”
“Any interest?”
“I don’t know.”
She did know. There was no interest. But she didn’t want to admit that and confirm the truth she knew deep down.
She still wanted Steve more than anyone else.
“Well, give it time and see what happens.” Jill was smiling, and so was Michelle.
She kept smiling until she’d reached her room and closed the door.
It was all wrong.
She shouldn’t still want Steve this way.
She’d come to the conclusion two months ago that he could never be the man she needed. It wasn’t his fault. He was amazing. They just weren’t the right fit.
He was an old-fashioned guy, and he needed a woman who would let him be that. A woman who wanted him to nudge her toward the path he’d already chosen for them. And that just wasn’t who Michelle wanted to be.
But her heart didn’t want to admit to that yet.
And her body seemed to have no clue.
She leaned against the door for a minute, feeling depressed and torn and increasingly restless.
She knew what the restlessness was about.
Since she couldn’t indulge that particular feeling, she decided what she needed was some exercise. She changed into her sneakers and then went outside to walk.
She walked through downtown, staying on the sidewalk until she’d reached a small park. She walked around it about four times, until she decided she was tired enough to finally clear her mind, and then she finally headed back home.
She had to take her sweatshirt off on her way home and wrap it around her waist. Her heartbeat had accelerated, and her cheeks were warm. She felt like she’d exercised, but that underlying restlessness hadn’t gone away.
Exercise was all well and good, but what her body wanted it hadn’t yet gotten.
She’d reached the exterior door to her apartment building and was just about to open it when a voice behind her surprised her.
“What are you doing?”
She jerked and whirled around to see Steve.
He looked strangely intense, and his eyes were running up and down her body.
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m minding my own business.”
It would have been easy enough to tell him the truth and explain she’d just gone out for a walk, but he was staring at her like she’d done something wrong and he didn’t deserve an easy answer.
“Is something going on?” he demanded.
“No! What the hell, Steve? Nothing is going on. I’m just about to walk up to the damn apartment.’
His eyes were still raking over her face and body. Suspiciously. Disapprovingly. “What have you been doing? You’re all flushed and breathless.”
His tone and expression triggered all her simmering resentment, and she ended up making a squeaky sound of exasperation. “Screw you, Steve.”
Satisfied that she’d expressed exactly what she thought of him, she turned away and started to open the door to the building.
He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Wait. Don’t walk away from me like I’m irrelevant.”
She made another guttural sound of surprise and anger. “Irrelevant? Irrelevant? I’m walking away from you because you’re infuriating. Not irrelevant.”
“How am I being infuriating? All I did was ask what you were doing, and you blew up at me.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was sweating a little. He looked hot and frustrated and intense and... really sexy.
Michelle was suddenly aware of how sexy he was, stan
ding so close to her. So big and hot and masculine.
So Steve.
His hand was still on her forearm, so she shook it off. “You didn’t just ask me what I was doing. You demanded I tell you.”
“Why shouldn’t I want to know what you’ve been doing? I thought you were in your room, and then I suddenly see you out here, looking all...”
“Looking all what?” When he didn’t complete the thought, she shrugged it away. “It’s not about you wondering what I was doing. It’s about you demanding I tell you like I was doing something wrong.”
“So I can’t even ask what you’ve been doing anymore?” He was breathing heavily. Tense.
So incredibly hot.
She kept trying to force the thought to the back of her mind. “You can’t demand I tell you.”
He made a frustrated sound in his throat. “What is it with you? You were never like this before.”
She stared at him, suddenly hit with the truth yet again. He didn’t know her. He didn’t understand her. He’d always thought she was one thing, when who she’d always been inside was someone entirely different.
It hurt. Again. So much.
She swallowed over the pain and said, “You have no idea what I was like before.” She took a ragged breath. “No idea at all.”
She turned around again and reached for the door. Yet again, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Michelle, wait.” His tone was different now. Hoarse. No longer angry.
She turned around and met his eyes.
Trapped by his urgent expression—full of emotion as deep and conflicted as she was feeling herself—she couldn’t move for a long moment.
They stared at each other, both of them panting.
His hand on her arm felt like it was branding her bare skin.
He let go of her suddenly, as if he’d realized what he was holding on to her.
It hadn’t been his hand trapping her in place like this. It had been his eyes.
But she was free now. She could move. She couldn’t do what she really wanted to do. She couldn’t reach out and kiss him.
So she sucked in a breath and forced her body to move.
She ran inside, up the stairs, and into the apartment until she’d finally reached her bedroom.
She leaned against the closed door, feeling even more wired, restless, than she’d felt before her walk.
