I Want It That Way. Ann Aguirre

up with someone else and having time for slow, lazy morning sex.”

      Oh, hello. Yes. Please. The mental images his words conjured were so very tantalizing. I pictured a sleepy, horny Ty, wrapped around me, his lips on my neck, nibbling down to my shoulder while he took me from behind, his cock working in and out with infinite patience. His hands would be all over me, stroking, caressing in counterpoint to his thrusts. We’d take hours making each other come, maybe not even getting out of bed until well into the afternoon.

      I stifled a whimper.

      Oblivious to what a firestarter he was, he went on, “I miss showering after and fixing breakfast while mock-arguing about whether we should go grocery shopping or back to bed.” There was a tight, drawn cast to his mouth, as if those were memories of the girl who left him.

      Damn. Intuition whispered that he’d be a different sort of sad if she was dead, haunted instead of laced with regret. He radiated self-recrimination in the angle of his shoulders and the way his gaze turned inward when he spoke of her.

      I tried to distract him by offering an emotional snapshot of my own. “I’ve never had that. Not in high school for obvious reasons, and until this year, I lived in the dorm. Most people bitch about the lack of privacy, but...” My voice dropped to a shy whisper. “I liked it.”

      “What?” His eyes snapped open, and he stared up at me, fascinated, fully in the moment.

      I’d never told anyone this, not even Lauren. “Sometimes, when my roommate was drunk, she’d bring a guy back to our room. I always pretended like I was asleep, but I loved listening, watching the shadows under the covers, seeing them twist and move.”

      Telling him that sometimes I got off was probably too much information. So I shut up, studying his expression. At least he didn’t look sad anymore.

      “And I’m right back to wanting to fuck your brains out,” he said hoarsely. “Is this party ever going to end?”

      In his sweats, it was obvious that he was telling the truth. Tipping my head back, I implored the universe for moral fortitude. “I can go.”

      “I can take it,” he said softly. “I’m a pro at not getting what I want.”

      Like a bite of poisoned apple, I swallowed the argument that the old frustration didn’t have to apply to me. “Back to things you miss?”

      “Yeah. This will sound really specific, but...”

      “What?”

      “Little things. Like...I had a girlfriend in high school. We’d study on her bed, me lying down, her propped against the headboard reading. She had the habit of pulling my shirt up and running her nails lightly up and down my back. Drove me crazy, but I loved it.”

      “It turned you on?” Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t resist.

      He laughed. “Well, yeah. Goose bumps over my entire body. But I was sixteen. Walking to the bathroom got me hot.”

      “Fair point.” I desperately needed a change of topic, or I’d have to ask him to take a cold shower. “Is Ty short for Tyler?”

      “Yeah. But it’s my last name.”

      “What’s your first?”

      “Daniel. Your last?”

      “Conrad.”

      Glancing down, I caught him shaping the syllables with his mouth, and I was tempted to tell him that my middle name was Rose, just to see him do it again. But I had to save some secrets for next time, or he might get bored. From there, I diverted the conversation to music because I couldn’t take more sex talk; I was on the verge of vibrating, and if the sparks popped any brighter between us, we’d burn his apartment down. Small comfort, but at least I knew why it wasn’t happening.

      An hour later, he fell asleep in my lap, and fifteen minutes after, I dozed off, too. Later, the silence roused me, the absence of vibrations and cessation of music. Somehow we were tangled together, him on his back and me on his chest, though I didn’t remember shifting. He smelled incredible, so much that I surreptitiously rubbed my cheek against him, breathing in honey and shea butter along with the clean, cottony scent of his shirt.

      My heart ached as I mustered the resolve to move. One breath, another, listening to his heartbeat, then inch by inch, I slid out of his arms, trying my damnedest not to rouse him. He stirred once, his hand tangling in my hair. I froze. It would kill me if he woke up and saw me leaving when I wanted so badly to stay.

      But I can’t. I never can. When Sam wakes up, I can’t be here. Ty’s sacrificed so much for him. He’ll never change his mind about us. And I should probably be grateful for his common sense. Yet half-strangled yearning swept over me like a tidal wave, and I shivered with the force of it while Ty let his hand drop. Swallowing those feelings, I pressed a ghost of a kiss over his heart, and I rolled away, grabbed my shoes and purse and tiptoed to the door. I was a mouse creeping out of his apartment, though I did silently test the doorknob to make sure it locked behind me. No way to turn the dead bolt from this side, so that would have to do.

      I let myself in upstairs and found the apartment completely trashed. To get to my room, I stepped around four people, two of whom weren’t wearing any pants. There was nobody in my bed, at least, and it looked as if Lauren had defended it before passing out in the closet. She was drinking more these days, but I didn’t know if I should mention it. Maybe she’d just tell me I was no fun. The last time I brought it up, she said, All you do is work, Nadia. Some of us want to live a little. Sighing, I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and then stumbled to bed, wrecked by the intensity of the night.

      Yet despite gritty-eyed exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep. For half an hour, until the glowing numbers on my alarm clock read 4:30 a.m., I shifted and rolled, until I gave in to temptation. Feature by feature, I built Ty’s face in my mind’s eye, complete down to the tiniest detail like the faint cleft in his lower lip and the tiny, nearly imperceptible scar that bisected his left eyebrow. Once he was there with me, I dipped two fingers into my panties. One stroke, two, three, God, it was good, and I was still so slick. As the clock ticked over, I came in silence.

      My whole body went limp, and I passed out a few seconds later.

      The next morning, I woke in a panic, thinking I was late for class or work, then I fell back with a muffled groan. A glance at my phone told me it was just past eleven. Lauren propped herself on an elbow, looking as miserable as I’d ever seen. At some point, she must’ve crawled from the closet into bed.

      “I can feel my heartbeat in my lips,” she whimpered.

      “That can’t be good.” I knew to whisper.

      Since I wasn’t hungover, I headed into the bathroom to wash my hands, and then I got her a cup of water and some ibuprofen. “You want toast?”

      “Just let me die. You’ll have the room to yourself then.”

      “We can’t afford the place without you,” I teased. “Plus...I love you too much. So what’ll it be, toast or crackers?”

      “Crackers.”

      I padded to the kitchen and was pleased to find Max cleaning. He’d also shooed out the floor surfers. “You weren’t kidding when you said you’d be ambitious once school started.”

      “I noticed that you bugged out early last night. You okay?”

      “Liar. You were banging Courtney up against your door when I left.”

      He grinned. “Okay, so maybe I didn’t exactly notice. Lauren told me.”

      “Yep, I’m good.” I opened the cupboard and grabbed a pack of saltines. “Have you seen Angus yet today?”

      “Think he’s still in bed.”

      As I nodded, I carried the breakfast of champions to Lauren. “Here, these should make you feel better.”

      “You