“Did anyone have a vein fetish like you?”

I wiggle my eyebrows. “They would have if a specimen such as yourself had been around to provide doctor porn,” I say, and grab her arm again, running my finger along her vein as if I’m mesmerized.

For a brief second, her breath catches. The soft, barely-there hair on her arm stands on end. A strange sensation runs down my spine, as if I’m floating.

Which makes no sense, so I shove the idea away.

I look away from her arm and meet her green eyes. There’s something different in them. Something I haven’t seen before. I don’t know what it is. I can’t name it.

“I’ve been using your hairbrush,” I blurt out. I’m not entirely sure why I’m confessing right now, but here, with those wide eyes staring into mine, I can’t help myself.

Her mouth lifts. “I know.”

“You don’t mind?”

She leans forward and runs a hand through my hair. That strange feeling? It doubles. It triples. It multiples exponentially. “No. But I think you’d look nice with pink hair someday.”

* * *

Five

* * *

The smells.

The other thing about living with a woman is that everything smells good. The bathroom is like an opium den of feminine delights. Most days, Josie wakes up before me and leaves right when I rise. When I enter the bathroom, it’s like wandering into a lair of womanhood.

I stand and inhale.

Cherry scents and swirling aromas of vanilla sugar lotion and honeysuckle body wash linger in the air, like a fucking delicious dirty dream. Every morning, I’m enrobed in the scent of woman. It’s sweet and seductive and intoxicating, and it smells like her.

In short, it’s the fucking perfect environment for a shower jerk.

What? Do you blame me? I wake up with wood, and I’m alone under a hot stream. Of course I do some morning handiwork.

* * *

Six

* * *

That’s the other thing about living with a woman that a man just has to battle. Something he can’t avoid.

Morning wood.

Waking up with a hard-on is a fact of having a Y chromosome. Most of the time Josie’s gone before I even leave for work, so who cares? But, every now and then she’s not. Like on Saturday morning. Clad only in black boxer briefs, I pad out of my room, rubbing my eyes and yawning. There she is in the hallway wearing the most adorable little pair of pink boy shorts that do nothing to reduce the tent in my pants. In fact, the view of her soft thighs and the swell of her tits under that flimsy T-shirt material enhances the outline in my shorts to completely fucking obvious levels.

Because . . .

She’s. Not. Wearing. A. Bra.

I’m not a religious man, but I’m seriously considering taking up praying. To her chest. I think this is what heaven looks like. Those globes. God help me, I’m seeing an angel in front of me.

“Morning, Chase.”

“Morning, Josie,” I say, my voice gravelly from the hour and the view.

Her eyes drift down, and she blinks. My gaze follows hers, and my dick is pointing at her, like a happy billboard.

She doesn’t seem fazed.

I shrug. “I meant, it’s a very good morning indeed.”

Josie smirks, and I can’t help but notice she stares a little longer than one would expect. Can’t say that bothers me.

But that night isn’t so good at all when I learn the thing that sucks most about having a female roommate like Josie.

She’s going on a date.

9

I try to leave before she does.

I don’t want to know what she’s wearing. I don’t want to know how she does her hair. I don’t even want to know where she’s going.

Until she tells me. My hand is on the doorknob, ready to hightail it out of the apartment, since I can’t be the pathetic ass who’s home when his fuck-hot roommate heads out on a date.

Josie calls out to me from the hallway. “Hey!”

“Yeah?”

She walks into the living room. “I’m going to Bar Boisterous in the Fifties.”

I narrow my eyes. “Okay. Why are you telling me?”

“So you’ll know where my last-known location is.”

Annoyance threads through me. “Please don’t tell me you’re going out with someone you think is going to dismember you.”

She shudders and wags spooky fingers. “Yes. I’ll have him send my head to you in a box.”

“Not funny.”

“What if he puts a bow on top? Like a gift?” She steps closer and adopts a Vincent Price narrator style. “He’s going to cut me up in tiny pieces and feed me to the wolverines.”

“Seriously. Not funny. Are you really worried about this guy?” I ask, not giving in to her attempt at humor. Though, in all other circumstances, Josie wins major points for being not just a humor consumer, but a humor producer. And that’s rare. Humor producers are diamonds.

Just not this second.

She parks her hands on her hips. She wears a white top with a scoop neck and a pair of slim jeans. Her date doesn’t deserve her. I don’t know who he is, what he does, or a thing about him, but I don’t need to. He doesn’t fucking deserve this amazing humor-producing, big-hearted, glorious-chested, kitchen-talented woman. “You asked a ridiculous question, Chase.”

Sternly, I say, “You’re the one who wanted to tell me your last-known location.”

“I’m just being cautious. Not paranoid.”