~Editor's Pick~
Emerson Walsh is barely keeping her head above water.
After a wreck leaves her twin brother in a coma, Eme is returning to campus and some semblance of her life before the accident. Between visits to the hospital, shifts in the Box Office, and auditions for the Theatre Department’s new season, Eme is swamped. Move-In Day brings her new roommate, Harper, who she was hoping might be a girl she has something in common with. But due to a mix up in housing, she’s been placed with Harper “Bear” Reed. He’s one of the school’s most infamous star athletes, notorious campus playboy, and an immediate and infuriating thorn in Eme’s side.
The new roomies set off on a crash course in seeing which of them can drive the other to move out first. But when Bear finds out that Eme is working with his long-time crush, he decides to play a different kind of long game. Armed with a proposition, Bear begs Eme to help him win Olivia’s heart. He offers to do anything Eme wants in exchange, even if it means finding somewhere else to live. Eme agrees to use her theatre training to coach Bear in some desperately needed personality lessons. To get what they want, they’ll have to find some way to turn their dissonance into harmony.
And if music be the food of love … PLAY ON.
More From Spicy Shakespeare
“What do I get out of it?” she teases.
But when she asks that question, she does this thing with her body. She turns her chin into her shoulder, sort of peers at me from under her lashes. She means it to be playful, maybe. Like she’s entertaining the conversation but not taking it very seriously. But I don’t think she realizes what it actually looks like. It’s a fucking bombshell of a look. She’s totally transformed. Just changing the curve of her arm, the slope of her neck, the expression in her eyes. She goes from this sort of awkward, unsure girl instantly into this confident, breathtaking creature. I must be drooling like a cartoon dog.
Holy shit, am I into my weird roommate?
All I can do is hold up my fork.
“I’m a cocky son of a bitch, don’t get me wrong,” I tell her as she chews. “But I’m not bluffing when I tell you that I know pretty much everybody here. I get what I need and I do what I want.”
Her lips curl in a mocking sort of smile.
Now I’m forgetting about the Lord’s work and thinking maybe I could make her call out the Lord’s name—
Seal the deal, Bear.
“Tell me what it is you’d like in return, Emerson,” I say, laying on the charm, turning up the heat. “I’ll see if I can’t make it happen for you.”
She rolls her eyes, but I lean forward, capturing her gaze before she can bolt.
“What is it you want, pretty thing?” I purr, licking my lips, biting down. “Letters of recommendation? Some scholarship funding? Pulling internship strings?”
She just keeps smiling, utterly unfazed.
Am I losing my touch?
“You want to meet my friends?” I ask, leaning in, pushing the plate out of our way to make room. “I make a hell of a wingman.”
I don’t stop until we’re close enough to kiss.
“You want to sit courtside?” I murmur.
I look down at her smiling mouth, touch the tip of my nose against hers.
Most girls would be taking off their pants by now.
Emerson is not most girls.
“Maybe you’re too shy to say it,” I press, learning that she smells like lavender and mint, needing more. “But maybe you want lessons. I could teach you a few things. Maybe that’s what you really want. To fuck like I do.”
She lifts that slender hand, draws one fingertip up my throat. Just the slightest brush from the pad of her pointer, up over the slope of my Adam’s apple. She stops under my chin, tilting my face up toward hers with just a tiny press of pressure. Jesus Mary and Joseph, I would let this woman choke me. Her eyes flutter closed. She shudders out a soft exhale, just the tiniest hint of a moan in the back of the sound. As her breath hits my parted lips, I taste her. Sweet and clean. That sound of hers makes me hard enough to cut into the edge of my zipper. When she speaks, her lips nearly brush mine.
“She faked that second orgasm,” she tells me. “Probably to get things over with so you’d stop drilling her into the cheap mattress like a malfunctioning jackhammer. I’m an actress, Harper. I’m the best. So trust me when I tell you that no one screams like a bad B horror film reel unless they’re really trying to get the point across.”
