Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers, #1)

by Roxie Noir

If she’s the flame, I’m the moth, and despite myself, I want to see her light up again and again.

“You’re a damn mess,” he finally says, still laughing. “So are you,” I point out.

I’ll rub poison ivy on the inside of his jacket when he’s not looking.

Thank you, oyster Jesus.

she’d probably eat her grandmother’s ashes if it gave her a competitive advantage in something.

Violet is always beautiful when she’s angry, but now she’s angry at someone else even though I’m in the room. It might be a first. The door’s closed. I could kiss her again right now, right here. Forget Martin. Forget everything.

“I admit that I’ll be pissed as hell if you beat me, but at least I’ll know you earned it. That’s more than I can say about that slimy fucker.”

The effort that takes is Herculean.

The shitweasel is going down.

It’s been a week since Eli and I made our pact, and it’s been blissfully uneventful. No one’s sabotaged anything. No cakes

fell over.

Most astonishing of all, Eli and I have barely fought. Admittedly, I’ve been avoiding him a little, because when I see him I

can’t help but think of him in the elevator and then also him shirtless, and neither of those images are particularly conducive to a pleasant day for me.

I’d love to convince myself that it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t, and yet I seem unable to quit thinking about it, and yet I’m also unable to quit thinking about how much I enjoyed seeing him half-naked.

It feels deeply, deeply unfair that he looks hot while trying out bowling balls and wearing bowling shoes. That just shouldn’t be a thing.

Did Kevin see them in the elevator? Did he see something else? How many people has Eli slept with at work in his first week?!

I could tell you everyone here who’s ever thought about putting a dick in his mouth.”

who is wearing borrowed socks with pugs on them because he thought it was okay to wear bowling shoes with no socks,

They sparkle with the joy of being the most difficult man this side of the Mississippi, but they do sparkle.

I watch his butt and keep drinking so I can pretend like I’m not watching his butt.

His eyes don’t leave my face. I pretend like I don’t notice, but I feel like there are heat rays on my skin. I’m practically melting under the intensity of his gaze, and I don’t even know if it’s bad melting, like action figures under a magnifying glass in the sun or good melting, like chocolate in your mouth.

a man who looks hot while testing out bowling balls —

I don’t even let myself get distracted by watching her ass as she bowls, even though it’s right there. Even though I have nothing else to do on her turns, I make myself focus somewhere

I do look a few times, because Violet’s ass is unfairly spectacular, even when bowling, and especially in jeans.

It’ll be absolutely, completely, one hundred percent terrible to see her every morning. I’m not secretly looking forward to it even the slightest amount.

“Don’t worry about me, Loveless,” she says, shark eyes still dancing. “I can take it.” Are we still talking about coffee?

I’m blindsided by a sudden, irresistible thought: I want to leave here and take her with me. I want us to leave Sprucevale behind. I want to bring her somewhere new, somewhere exciting where she’s never been. I want to take her breath away and make her giddy with happiness, just like this.

“Violet, I swear to God, I’ve been back in town for three months and I’ve already spent two of them convincing you to get in my car so I can get you home safely,” I say. “Don’t make me threaten to pick you up and carry you out of here.”

It’s distracting. I’m tempted to spend more time looking at her than at the road in front of me, even though I know I’ll be seeing plenty of her when I hand her coffee every morning for the next three months.

“Because you always hated it here,”

“Remember the day you got the admission letter to the University of Chicago?”

“Probably because you acted like Jesus Christ himself had come down and personally handed you that admission letter,”

She touches it anyway, her finger cool against my skin. I hold my breath and watch the road like the answer to every question I’ve ever had is written on the asphalt, like keeping my eyes ahead means my heart isn’t pounding, my pulse hasn’t quickened.

It’s the first time I’ve admitted it out loud. It’s almost the first time I’ve admitted it to myself, but there it is: the tedious, mundane truth.

No one else has ever gotten to me like she does. Not my other friends, not my brothers, none of the girlfriends I’ve had over the years. No one’s ever even come close. She still gets to me, but something’s changed. It feels like she’s lifting up my top layer and peeking underneath, examining, critiquing. It feels like she’s seeing me raw and naked. Exposed. The strange thing is that I don’t hate it.

“I missed my mom. I missed my brothers. I missed knowing the names of practically everyone I saw walking down the street. I missed the way the air smells here after it rains.”

“I’ve never felt it,”

“I’ve never been away for long enough.” “Maybe you’re just not the homesick type.” “I doubt that.”

I want to reach out and touch her. I want to feel the curve of her cheekbone under my fingers, let her warmth infuse my skin.

I want to see if she smells like home, like pine and dirt and rocks, or whether she smells new and wholly different.

“It’s the feeling that everything around you is slightly wrong and you can’t fix it,” I say, still staring at her. “It’s a bone-deep desire to bury yourself in the familiar.” She turns and looks at me, her face unreadable. “It’s wanting what you already know and can’t have,” I finish.

“Thanks for the ride, Eli,”

“Then it’s Eli again?”

“Do you have some other name?” she asks. “Back at the bowling alley I was Loveless all of a sudden,”

“Glad to know I got my first-name privileges back.”

I shouldn’t have followed her up here. I should have stayed in my car until she got inside safely, and then just left. Being this close to Violet unchaperoned feels dangerous.

At least when I call you that I know who I’m getting. Shout ‘Loveless’ in a crowd and you could be getting any of us.” “What if you’re not the one I’m calling?” she says. I frown, my hands in my pockets. “And why would you be summoning one of my brothers?” “Why would I be summoning you?”

I know I should leave. I should say goodnight and leave right now, and I don’t. I’m going to do something I regret, and I can feel it coming like it’s a train and I’m standing on the tracks.

But I like the way my name sounds when she says it. I like the way she looks at me, the way she practically dares me to do something, the way my heart thunders with every inch she comes closer.

I know exactly how to surprise her.