Roommate in Charge

I pressed my face into the pillow, trying to muffle the whimper that slipped out despite my best efforts. My hand moved faster between my legs, fingers slick and desperate as I chased the orgasm that had been building for what felt like hours.

Just a little more. Almost there.

The fantasy playing in my head was the same one that had been haunting me for weeks now—Ethan’s hands instead of mine, Ethan’s voice telling me what to do, Ethan’s smirk as he watched me fall apart. I hated that I thought about him like this. Hated that my roommate, of all people, had become the star of every filthy scenario my brain conjured up at night.

But god, I couldn’t stop.

My breath came faster, shallow pants that I tried to keep quiet even as my fingers circled my clit with increasing urgency. The apartment walls were paper-thin—I knew that. I’d heard Ethan’s alarm every morning for the past six months, heard him laughing on the phone, heard the shower running at weird hours.

Which meant he could probably hear me too if I wasn’t careful.

The thought should have made me stop. Should have made me pull my hand away and go take a cold shower like a normal person with a shred of self-control.

Instead, it made me wetter.

I bit down on my lip, hard enough to hurt, as my hips bucked up against my hand. So close. Right there. Just—

Three sharp knocks on my door shattered the moment like glass.

I froze, every muscle in my body locking up in horror. My hand was still between my legs. My tank top was pushed up around my ribs. My shorts were on the floor somewhere. And someone was at my door.

“Mira?” Ethan’s voice came through the thin wood, amused and far too casual for how mortified I felt. “You good in there?”

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god.

“I’m—” My voice came out strangled and breathless. I cleared my throat, tried again. “I’m fine!”

“You sure?” There was a pause, and I could practically hear the smirk in his tone. “Sounded like you were choking on something.”

Heat flooded my face so fast I felt dizzy. He knew. He absolutely fucking knew what I’d been doing, and he was standing outside my door making jokes about it.

I scrambled to pull my shorts back on, my hands shaking so badly I almost fell off the bed. “I said I’m fine, Ethan!”

“Alright, alright.” His footsteps retreated down the hallway, but not before he added, “Just making sure you didn’t need the Heimlich or anything. You know I’m CPR certified.”

I grabbed my pillow and screamed into it.

This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. There was no way he’d actually heard me. Maybe he’d just come to ask about rent or dishes or literally anything else, and I was reading too much into his tone because I was paranoid and guilty and still so turned on I could barely think straight.

Right. That had to be it.

I took several deep breaths, willing my heart rate to slow down, and collapsed back onto the bed. My body was still humming with unfulfilled need, but there was no way—absolutely no way—I was finishing now. Not with Ethan awake on the other side of the wall, probably listening for any sound.

This is fine. Everything is fine. I’ll just avoid him until this memory fades into blessed obscurity.

Avoiding Ethan turned out to be impossible when we lived in a 700-square-foot apartment together.

I tried. God knows I tried. I waited until I heard his bedroom door close the next morning before I ventured out for coffee, tiptoeing past his room like I was defusing a bomb. Made it all the way to the kitchen, poured myself a cup, and was about to retreat to the safety of my room when his door opened.

He emerged in nothing but gray boxer briefs and a morning-lazy expression that shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was. His dark hair stuck up at odd angles, and there was a pillow crease on his cheek, and I hated that my treacherous brain immediately filed the image away under “wank bank material for later.”

Our eyes met.

He grinned.

I wanted to die.

“Morning, Mira.” He stretched, arms over his head, and I absolutely did not look at the way his muscles shifted or the line of dark hair trailing down his stomach. “Sleep well?”

“Fine.” I clutched my coffee mug like a shield. “You?”

“Great, actually.” He moved into the kitchen, close enough that I had to back up against the counter to maintain personal space. “Though I did wake up around midnight. Thought I heard something.”

My face burned. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He reached past me for a mug, his arm brushing mine. “Weirdest thing. Sounded like someone was in pain or something. But then it stopped.”

“Probably a car outside,” I said quickly. Too quickly.

His grin widened. “Probably. Though it did seem to be coming from inside the apartment.” He poured his coffee, casual as anything, then leaned back against the opposite counter. “You didn’t hear anything, did you?”

“Nope. Nothing. Dead to the world.”

“Huh.” He took a sip, his eyes never leaving mine. “That’s weird, because I could’ve sworn I heard—”

“I have to go.” I bolted, coffee sloshing over the rim of my mug as I fled down the hallway. His laughter followed me all the way back to my room.

It only got worse from there.

At lunch, he “accidentally” dropped his fork and asked if I could “help him with that cough problem later.”

When I came home from my shift at the library, he was on the couch, and as soon as he saw me, he said, “You’re welcome to use my room next time, by the way. More space to spread out.”

By dinner, I’d had enough.

“Can you just—” I slammed my water glass down harder than necessary. “Shut up about it!”

“About what?” He was the picture of innocence, but his eyes glittered with amusement.

“You know what!”

“I really don’t, Mira.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Unless you want to enlighten me?”

My hands clenched into fists. He was enjoying this. He was actively enjoying watching me squirm, the smug bastard.

“Drop it,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Make me.”

The words hung in the air between us, a challenge I didn’t know how to answer. We stared at each other across the small dining table, and I hated the flutter in my stomach, hated the way my thighs pressed together under the table, hated that some twisted part of me wanted to see what would happen if I actually tried.

Instead, I grabbed my plate and retreated to my room for the second time that day.

I thought that would be the end of it. That he’d get bored and move on, and we could go back to being normal roommates who didn’t acknowledge each other’s sex lives.

I was wrong.

The next morning, there was a Post-it note stuck to my door.

Bright yellow. Impossible to miss. Written in Ethan’s messy scrawl:

“Rule 1: No touching yourself unless I say so. —E”

I stared at it for a full thirty seconds, my brain refusing to process the words.

Then I ripped it off the door, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it in the trash.

Absolutely not. No way. Not happening.

He couldn’t be serious. This was just another joke, another way to mess with me. There was no universe in which I was going to follow some ridiculous “rule” written on a Post-it note by my asshole roommate.

I went about my day. Worked my shift at the library, came home, made dinner, watched Netflix. Normal things. I was a normal person living a normal life, and I was absolutely not thinking about the note.

Except I was.

All day, it nagged at the back of my mind like an itch I couldn’t scratch. Not the rule itself—that was absurd—but the way it made me feel. The little thrill that shot through me when I’d first read it. The flush of heat that bloomed in my cheeks and spread lower.

The fact that some deeply fucked-up part of me kind of... wanted to obey it.

By the time I went to bed, I was wound so tight I felt like I might snap.

I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore the ache between my legs. I hadn’t gotten off last night because of the interruption, and now it had been almost forty-eight hours, and my body was screaming at me to do something about it.

He’s not the boss of you, I told myself firmly. It’s your body. You can do whatever you want.

Right.

I slid my hand under the waistband of my sleep shorts.

The relief was immediate—just the pressure of my palm against my clit made me bite back a moan. I was already so wet, so ready, and it would be so easy to just...

“I heard that, Mira.”

Ethan’s voice, low and clear, right outside my door.

My hand jerked away like I’d been electrocuted.

“Good girl,” he said, and I heard his footsteps retreat back to his room.

I lay there in the dark, my heart pounding, my body screaming, my face burning with humiliation.

And the worst part—the absolute worst part—was the rush of arousal that flooded through me at his words.

Good girl.

I pressed my thighs together and whimpered into my pillow, hating myself.

This was going to be a problem.