Roommating (Preston's Mill #1) by Samantha Chase, Noelle Adams

antihistamines that always knocked her
out. She went to sleep after that, but she woke up when her alarm went off,
groggy and fuzzy-headed.
    She rolled out of bed and had to stand for a minute to fight
off a wave of dizziness.
    Too much had happened yesterday. She couldn’t process it
all. And today her dad was going to have surgery.
    It was just six in the morning, but she wanted to get over
to the hospital early, so she could sit with her dad for a little while before
they took him into pre-op.
    She went to the bathroom and then was about to head to the
kitchen for coffee when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was
still wearing the tank and boxers she’d slept in, and they left a lot of her
body uncovered.
    If Chris wasn’t up now, he would be soon. She grabbed for a
robe to pull on over her pajamas so she’d be more covered up if she saw him.
    After last night, she needed to be a lot more careful.
    She was pouring herself a cup of coffee when Chris’s bedroom
door opened. Like her, he headed first for the bathroom, so she just caught a
glimpse of a broad, bare chest and a pair of black sweat pants before the door
closed.
    She was leaning against the counter, sipping her coffee when
he came out of the bathroom and headed toward her in the kitchen. While she was
tempted to try to avoid him this morning, she wasn’t going to do that.
    The mature, reasonable thing to do was have a conversation
this morning about the kiss, so that was what she was going to do.
    “Morning,” he said, his voice slightly rough from sleep.
Very sexy. So was the sight of his strong, masculine chest and broad shoulders.
    “Good morning,” she said with a little smile.
    “Hear anything from your dad?” He leaned over briefly to
greet Lucy, who had run up to him excitedly.
    “He called last night. He sounded okay. They had him on pain
medicine, so he was comfortable enough. Hopefully, the procedure today will go
smoothly, and he’ll be on his way to recovery.”
    “Yeah.” Chris nodded as he filled his mug and brought it to
his lips. “Good.”
    She recognized that his eyes were on her face, watching her
discreetly. He was wondering about the kiss, about her reaction to it. She felt
her cheeks warming as she remembered how eager and passionate she’d been after
the slightest touch of his lips.
    Better to get it over with right away, so things could go
back to normal between them.
    “About last night,” she began, her voice cracking slightly
because she was nervous about bringing it up.
    Chris turned his head to meet her eyes. “Yeah?”
    “I was…really scared about my dad, so I was needy and…and I
made a mistake.”
    He narrowed his eyes slightly. “I’m the one who kissed you.”
    “I know. But I kissed you back, and I shouldn’t have. I was
really needy.” She’d already said that. She hated sounding so incoherent, but
she wished Chris would stop looking at her like that, like he was trying to
read her mind. “It was a good kiss,” she began.
    “Yeah. I know it was.” His eyes flared up briefly, as if he
was remembering exactly how good it was.
    That wasn’t what she wanted to talk about. Or remember. She
cleared her throat. “So obviously there’s some…some attraction between us. But
we can’t act on it.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because…” She didn’t want to tell him that she knew he
would never commit to her. It might hurt his feelings, and she didn’t want to
do that. She also vaguely knew that normal girls weren’t even thinking about
commitment at this point, and she didn’t want him to think she was even more
high maintenance and uptight than he already did. In a flurry of confusion and
anxiety, she managed to say, “Because it’s not what I want. I only kiss guys
that I want relationships with, and that’s…that’s never going to work with
you.”
    There. That was the truth. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it
was as much as she could give him.
    Chris might want to kiss her