Page 13

Chapter Nine

I'm absolutely starving, and there are no snacks in my room. Which means I need to go downstairs and face my roommates.

They're the reason I'm so hungry, I'm certain of it, but the idea of facing them after last night has me blushing furiously and wanting to hide my face under my pillow.

It's embarrassing enough to know that I masturbated to the thought of them, but for Quintin and Miles to come upstairs and call me out on it after their game is positively humiliating, and what we did after that …

My inner thighs are sticky from my own wetness where it dried, and the memory of the things they did to my body while talking so dirty has me flushed and fanning myself for a whole separate reason from embarrassment.

I'm not sure when they left my room because I'd fallen asleep quickly after so many blissful orgasms.

And now I may have to face them when I go down to find some breakfast.

I scrub off the smell of sex in the shower and try to turn on my author brain without getting worked up again. If I loved it this much in real life, my critique partners and readers will hopefully love it too.

When I step into the kitchen, fresh and clean from my shower, Quintin and Helix are sitting right there at the table eating cereal.

They stop talking as soon as they see me freeze in the doorway, which probably means they were talking about me.

Quintin was probably filling Helix in on all the dirty details of last night's encounter, and giving Helix ideas of his own.

I shove down the urge to go hide back upstairs, but I'm hungry, and this is my house too. Practicing the confidence that I've been faking since my first day here, I walk right past my gamer roommates and head to the cupboards to pour myself some cereal.

Joining the guys at the table, I keep my eyes focused on my food and take slow, methodical bites, waiting for them to start talking again.

Helix is the first to break the silence. "I heard you were naughty last night."

I look up sharply and catch the amused glint in his eye. How much did Quintin tell him?

"Who was naughty?" asks Lionel, breezing into the kitchen and grabbing a protein bar out of the cupboard and an energy drink from the fridge.

"Clarissa masturbated last night when Miles had specifically told her not to," says Quintin over my head, as if I'm not sitting right here between the three of them.

I blush, but keep eating my breakfast. So I was right—they had been talking about me. I know I'm sharing the details of our sex life in my writing, but no one will know it's based on them. Knowing they're discussing me is humiliating.

Lionel tucks his food and drink into the pockets of his sweatpants before coming up behind me and placing his hands on my shoulders. I can feel the chill on his hands from the cold energy drink through my t-shirt.

He begins to rub my shoulders, but my body refuses to relax.

"Did Clarissa get her punishment?" asks Lionel, leaning down to whisper the words in my ear.

"Well, we did give her pussy a pretty good pounding last night." Quintin laughs. "But I'm sure she would be up for more, the way she was pushing her ass against my hard cock."

"Good," says Lionel, "because we need to take care of our girl and our needs."

"I'm hoping to have our needs met so often it will help release some tension and we'll be able to play better," says Helix.

"I hope so," Quintin agrees. "We all saw your gray screen the other day."

Helix flips Quintin the bird before scooping up more cereal.

"I'm just saying, I definitely feel better after coming in Clarissa's pretty pussy last night, so I'm ready for our game today and I'm going to kill it," says Quintin.

I'm trying to listen as a dispassionate observer so I can note down the way they're talking to each other for later, but how can I ignore the way their words flying by my head are making me feel?

I want to remind them that I'm a living, breathing woman and not an inanimate receptacle for their cum. But if I open my mouth I'm afraid it won't be to chastise them, but to ask for a kiss. Maybe more.

Before I can decide what to say, my roommates are already piling their dishes in the sink.

Finally I manage to unlock my jaw and speak. "The dishwasher is empty, put them in there."

The gamers look at me questioningly before easing open the dishwasher a crack as if they're nervous what they're going to find inside. Granted, it had looked pretty nasty in there before I ran the dishwasher. So nasty, in fact, that I had to run it twice.

"Thanks," says Quintin, his voice tipping up at the end of the word and making it sound more like a question.

I shrug my shoulders. "I live here too, right?"

"Very true," says Lionel with a smirk as he walks out of the kitchen.

"Don't worry." Helix leans down to whisper in my ear. "I'll come find you later."

It'd been a struggle to keep my body from squirming from their dirty talk, but Helix's words—both a promise and a threat—send a shiver through me. I'm not sure if I should be excited or scared.

I'm both.

I'm also no longer hungry, so I empty out my bowl and put it in the dishwasher beside theirs.

My phone pings with a text from Sasha.

Write in day? The Giraffe in twenty minutes. Save me a seat near an outlet.

Okay, so I guess I'm not going to go upstairs to write in my normal, comfortable solitude. I'm going to write in public, on display to an entire café and Sasha. I'll have to dim my screen a lot so no one can read the dirty things I'll be writing. Although I doubt that will work with Sasha.

See you there , I text back as I head to my room to collect my things.

Packing up my computer bag, I consider texting her back again saying something has come up, but decide that would be a stupid thing to do. I should take this opportunity to really learn from her since I'm trying to shift my career path like she did.

Plus, we're friends. We should hang out. Even if I've been feeling self-conscious around her lately, and even if I'm scared she'll try to pry information I don't want to share out of me.

I'll have to be brave. I've done things in the last twenty-four hours I never thought I'd do. I can go see my friend and hide all my secrets from her. How hard can it be?

Turns out, it's harder than Miles's and Quintin's cocks last night.

Sasha breezes into The Giraffe at least ten minutes late, looking around for me in the crowd. As soon as she sees where I've chosen to sit, she frowns. But all the other tables are full, so if she's so unhappy with my choice, she should have gotten here on time. Or better yet, early.

I'm super lucky to have Sasha as a friend, not only because she's so successful and can help guide me, but because she forces me to get out and be part of the city by coming to writing sessions like this, or attending book launches by other local authors.

It's just that sometimes she annoys me.

"Good morning!" I say, light and friendly. "Thanks for inviting me to come out for a writing session."

Or ordering me to , I think, since that's really what she did. But I was going to write today anyway, so I might as well put a positive spin on this and keep an ear out for any good advice Sasha may impart in passing today.

"Of course," says Sasha breezily as she pulls out her laptop and adjusts where her coffee sits on the table.

"What are your goals for today?" Whenever we meet to write together, we always try to set out goals so that we know what we're working toward. Normally they're a specific word count.

"You can show me what method you use to outline your books. Everyone thought it was so good last night, and so different from your normal work, I figured you could show me how you do it."

"Oh, I don't think I'm really doing anything different than before," I hedge.

"You must be doing something different for your writing to improve this much," she insists. "Besides adding in spice, of course."

"Not really," I lie. "I guess I … jot down some basic stage direction notes for my characters, and make lists of all the emotions they could be feeling during each scene, and then once both of those things are done, I go back and write out the entire scene."

"And you've always done this, or it's new?" she asks, sipping her coffee.

"I've always done it this way." I try to match her feigned nonchalance, sipping my own coffee and glancing at my screen, which has gone black because I haven't typed anything in a few minutes. "How do you begin your story process? I'd love to learn from you."

And I really would, because Sasha has done so much research to change her genre and is doing so well as an author.

I would love to be like her one day. I'm not ready to do anything so drastic as change genres yet, but adding in the sex scenes should help.

Especially with my new hands-on research method.

"I set out each beat and then thread them together for the story." Sasha frowns, setting down her coffee and abruptly changing the subject. "Tell me about your new roommates. You never did tell me how you found them."

"Oh. I just answered an ad." I laugh it off even as I'm panicking inside about how to get the conversation back to writing—or literally anything other than my living situation. "I met them, and they seemed nice enough and like they weren't going to kill me, so I decided to go for it."

This is basically the truth. A flyer is a type of ad, and they are nice enough. Giving me orgasms is nice. Fantastic, even. Mind-melting. And they definitely don't give off murder vibes. More like slightly-awkward-but-ready-to-fuck-me-at-any-moment vibes.

"Hmm, it just seems like your writing changed as soon as you moved in with them." Sasha boots up her computer, and I hope that means she's ready to get to work and we can stop talking about this.

"Maybe a new view out my window from my desk changed my view on writing." I wake my own computer back up and find the spot I was working on, double-checking that my screen is as dim as it can go.

"Maybe," she agrees. "Okay, let's write for twenty-five minutes and then we'll get a five-minute break. We should be able to get in three of those sessions before I need to leave."

"Sure, that sounds good." I really don't care what our method is for today so long as Sasha stops asking questions about my roommates. I'll have to say more about them at some point, but this is not that time.

Besides, how do I explain that I'm using the guys to further my career?

I'm a nice person and I don't like using people, even if it is a fair exchange and they're getting plenty out of it too?

I mean, it's not like they were going to get a girlfriend by meeting her in person.

I haven't seen them leave the house once since I've moved in although I suppose Helix did have to leave the house to put the flyer up.

Closing my eyes, I focus on the way I felt this morning when Helix whispered dirty things in my ear, the pleasant shivers of anticipation that ran up my spine.

And on the way it felt to be sandwiched between Miles and Quintin last night in bed.

To be cocooned in the safety of their arms while they did filthy things to my body.

My readers will absolutely adore their over-the-top sexy-time tactics, if how well my pages went over at critique group this week was any indication.

My fingers fly over the keyboard as I let all of the feelings from last night and this morning loose onto the page, building out one scene after another.

Even during our short breaks, I'm finding the threads of scenes and planning how my FMC will move from one to another, building a relationship with the MMC.

So much of myself is going into this book, but my characters are going to fall for each other.

With my roommates, we're going to end at some point—probably when I can afford to live on my own again.

But I'll need at least a couple of new books out before that will happen, so I've no idea how long our lives will be interconnected.

At least I'm getting a lot of material out of them so even when I do move again, I'll still have research notes to go back to for future books. After all, at the rate things are going, I'll be gathering material faster than I can use it.

"All right, looks like we're done for the day. Not bad overall," says Sasha, closing her laptop and looking at me expectantly. "Let's walk to the train together."

"Oh, uh." I've written a lot more than I thought I would, but there are still so many notes I could jot down to build out my MMC. Still, if Sasha is ready to leave, it's probably best to call it a day. I can always keep writing once I get home. "Sure, let me pack up my stuff."

"We'll have to hurry though, I don't want to miss my train," says Sasha, all of her things already gathered.

"Not a problem." I haphazardly shove everything into my backpack. I can organize it on the train, or not even bother since I'll pull everything out again at home anyway.

"So when do we get to meet these new roommates?" asks Sasha, striding out the front door of the café ahead of me.

"Uh, well, they work a lot of weird hours and don't get out much." All of this is true. Their scrimmages are sometimes at weird hours because of the time differences, and they don't get out much. Or ever.

"You should have them come by a critique group sometime for a drink after." Sasha weaves through other pedestrians on the sidewalk as we head to The El.

"Hmm, we're not really friends," I say, hurrying to keep up. "I just moved in and we're still getting to know each other."

"This will be a perfect way to get to know them," she says, checking down the tracks for the train. "By introducing them to our critique group so we can help you vet them."

"I'm already living with them." And sleeping with them . We might not have had any real getting-to-know-each-other conversations, but we have for sure been spending time together. Naked. I let out a nervous laugh. "So I think that time has passed."

"Either way, you should invite them." Sasha's train arrives and she moves to get on. "I'll text about another writing session soon."

Left on the platform alone, I watch the train disappear.

The announcement board says I still have fifteen minutes before my own train arrives.

I probably just missed one. Oh, well . I reach into my overstuffed bag for a book.

May as well use the extra time to do some of the reading that I claimed I was already doing.