Not Until You. Roni Loren

and grabbed for a slice from the other box. Some things never changed. Pike could out eat a linebacker, though you’d never guess it looking at him. Apparently, a few hours of banging on drums every night was as effective as running marathons. Plus, Foster wasn’t entirely convinced that some part of Pike didn’t still worry about not having a next meal. Food hadn’t exactly been easy to come by when Pike was a kid.

      Foster sank into the love seat and set his beer on the side table.

      “You really think she wasn’t interested?” Pike asked, propping his feet up on the coffee table. “Anytime you said something to her, she got all tongue-tied. And she shivered when I touched her.”

      Foster shrugged, trying to appear as if he’d already forgotten about their run-in with their neighbor and wasn’t sitting there trying to get the image of her on her knees or those big brown eyes out of his head.

      “Maybe she has a boyfriend or something.” Pike folded another slice of pizza in half and bit.

      “Doubtful. No one ever sleeps over.” The words were out before Foster could call them back.

      Pike’s eyebrow arched. “And you would know this how? Taking up stalking as a hobby?”

      Foster tore a bite off his pizza, eyeing Pike, warning him off the topic.

      “No way.” He pointed the neck of his beer bottle at him. “Don’t give me that eat shit look. Spill it, dude.”

      Foster polished off his own beer. He had a feeling this was going to be more than a one-drink night. When he set down the empty bottle, Pike was still watching him, waiting. Foster sighed. “We share a wall—a thin one. I can hear some of what does … and doesn’t go on in her bedroom. All sex noises have been … solo.”

      And had provided erotic background music to his own solo tours more than once, imagining Cela’s hands roaming over her body, her fingers sliding between those pretty legs. He adjusted himself on the couch, his boxer briefs developing a choke hold on his quickly swelling erection.

      “Holy shit.” Pike’s mouth broke into a grin. “You dirty eavesdropping bastard.”

      Foster looked at the ceiling, wishing he could rewind and take back the admission. “I’m in my own fucking room. It’s not like I have a glass up to the wall.”

      Though he’d considered it.

      “Well, no wonder she’s so quick to get flustered around us,” Pike said, laughing. “If you can hear her, God only knows what she’s heard on her end.”

      Foster cringed. “Tell me about it.”

      Anytime he and Pike shared a woman, it was in Foster’s room. He had the bigger bed and master suite. And neither he nor Pike were quiet. Fucking was noisy business.

      He’d considered moving things to Pike’s room once he’d realized how thin the walls were, but then he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. Knowing that Cela could be on the other side, listening to them, had only served to turn Foster on more. He’d found himself talking louder, issuing his commands in a voice that he knew would carry, and he hadn’t held back his own sounds of pleasure. She’d become the focus of Foster’s attention, an unknowing part of a foursome.

      He figured if she was bothered by it, she’d complain to the office. She’d reported the couple across the hall who couldn’t seem to keep their shitty music to a non-earsplitting level, so she wasn’t afraid to speak up. But as the months had gone on, no word had come. And when he’d pass her in the hall, arm full of books, scrubs hiding that cute little body, he’d catch her sideways glances, the way she held her breath when they passed each other. He scared her on some level, set her off balance, which only served to prod his dominant side, tease it. It’d turned into one, tortuous exercise in restraint.

      “You think she’s going to get herself off tonight?” Pike asked, shifting on the couch and peering in the direction of Foster’s bedroom. “She looked pretty keyed up.”

      There it was again—illicit images of Cela on her knees before him, those wanting eyes locking with his as she unzipped his pants and wrapped those plush lips around … “Ah, hell, we have to stop talking about this. I’m getting a headache and a hard-on. And aspirin’s only going to help one of those.”

      Pike chuckled. “So go bring her a couple of slices of pizza. Maybe you’ll catch her at the right moment.”

      “No.” Foster undid his tie fully now and untucked his shirttails, everything irritating him at the moment. “She’s not our type.”

      “She’s not your type. I have no problem introducing a good girl to the dark side.” Pike swigged his beer. “Sometimes the quiet ones turn out to be the dirtiest of them all. All that pent-up frustration, digging up those repressed fantasies and making them happen for her.”

      “And then they freak out, blame you, and bail the minute the guilt catches up with them,” Foster said darkly. He’d been on the receiving end of that dynamic before, and had no intention of taking that not-so-scenic tour again.

      Pike frowned over at him. “Of course they all leave eventually. Good girl or not. Women don’t come to guys like us for an I-do, my friend. Thank God for that.”

      “Right.” ’Cause having someone to come home to besides your pizza-inhaling best friend would just be the most horrible thing imaginable. Foster’s appetite left him, and he lost a taste for the beer. “I need a shower before the movie.”

      Pike snorted. “Sure you do. Extra lube is in the hall closet. Just don’t call out her name too loud when you blow.”

      “Fuck off.”

      Pike smacked his lips in an air kiss. “Love you too, pumpkin.”

       Chapter 3

      I stood in front of my freezer, contemplating the uninspiring microwaveable meals and letting the frosty air wash over my still-burning skin. I’d changed out of my graduation outfit into a tank top and pajama bottoms, but I couldn’t seem to cool my temperature or get my heart to stop pounding. My two hot-as-sin neighbors had flirted with me, invited me over.

      I hadn’t imagined that, right?

      Maybe I had. Picking up the signals when a guy was interested had never been my strong suit. My stay away from boys at all costs rules as a teenager along with my all-girls Catholic high school had left me with an emaciated female intuition. And any boys that came around the house were scared off by either my father or brother.

      Maybe Foster and Pike had just been joking around—or worse, teasing me. They had called me a college kid after all. I’d seen some of the girls who’d made the walk of shame out of their apartment. They certainly didn’t look anything like me. Maybe all the innuendo I’d read into the brief conversation had been my hormones inserting my own hopes into their words.

      I groaned and slammed the freezer door. Like I’d act on a sexual invitation anyway. I hadn’t done anything more than kiss someone since starting grad school. And I didn’t even know these guys, not really. And there were two of them.

      My body quivered at the thought, and a hot ache pulsed between my thighs. I collapsed onto one of the stools lining the breakfast bar. “Good Lord, what is wrong with me?”

      I uncapped the bottle of tequila I’d left on the counter and poured a shot into a juice glass, then lifted it. “Happy graduation to me.”

      I kicked back the shot, the alcohol burning like liquid lightning on the way down. My face scrunched up as I tried not to cough. Wow. Maybe that’s why you were supposed to do those with salt and lime.

      As the fire cooled in my throat, I looked around my empty apartment, wondering what to do for the next few hours, because I sure as hell was too wired to go to bed. Every night was usually spent in front