A/N: Hope you're all enjoying the holidays! I know I am except that I might be paying for this afterwards because I ate way more than I should have. Don't get me wrong—I'm grateful for the privilege to indulge myself. It's on me to show some moderation!  Anyway, here's the newest chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

BTW, in case you haven't seen it and you're a big TMMM fan, I did post a short holiday bonus on TMMM. It was just fun to write.

Happy reading!

***

I blinked my eyes open and stared at the slightly sloped ceiling of my loft bedroom.

It was a little lower than the ceiling throughout the rest of the townhouse but being only five-foot-four, it was high enough for me. It added to that feeling of being hidden away which I felt the moment I came to the top of the stairs and saw the bedroom. There was no door but the staircase was tucked against a wall, hidden behind a three-foot stub wall, and there was a good three or four feet between it and the bed. It felt private and cozy and quite detached from the world.

I smiled, happy with my decision, not forgetting for a moment the compromises I had to make to get here.

I was one of those people who always knew exactly where I was and what took me to get there.

I woke up from a long, deep sleep and automatically recognized that I was no longer in the cramped dorm room with Kendra. I was living under the same roof as Prescott's most notorious playboy and I was alright with that.

Dragging my hair away from my face, I sat up, pulling the covers back up to my chin at the slight chill in the air. I wasn't wearing much except for a white tank top and a pair of cotton shorts. I sat cross-legged on the bed, tucking my feet under my legs to keep them warm, and spent a long time staring at the beads of water that clung to the windowpane. It was raining lightly outside—a rare thing in California these days—and there was something calming about the muted blur of images, shapes and colors through the glass.

I must've been staring off into space for a while, only interrupted when I heard a thump and a clang and a loud, male hiss.

"Everything alright?" I called out, not caring if he was in the middle of a threesome on the kitchen counter.

He didn't answer and I refused to move.

This was much too precious a moment, sitting here and not worrying about anything. It was a very rare escape for me.

Five minutes later, I heard a light knock on the wall from the bottom of the stairs.

"You decent?" Julian called out.

I smiled. "Always."

"Can I come up?"

"It's your house."

I waited as he slowly made the short trip up the stairs, smiling when his head peeked out to look at me.

He caught my gaze and grinned before coming all the way up. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans, and a thick cream-colored sweatshirt with sleeves he'd rolled up to his elbows. His dark hair was shoved under a light gray knit beanie.

Damn. Even with all his clothes on, Wilde is as hot as a wild fire.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked as he handed me one of the two large mugs he'd been holding. "I think you did. It's about ten in the morning on a Sunday. You went up here yesterday afternoon."

I've never slept that long before but I didn't admit it as I looked down on the cup and the frothy surface of what smelled like hot chocolate with small white marshmallows floating on top of it.

"What if I didn't like hot chocolate?" I asked even though I now clutched the cup with both hands and brought it close under my nose. "Especially with marshmallows."

"Then you're missing out terribly and that explains the chip on your shoulder a lot," he said as he leaned against the stub wall and sipped his own cup. "Regardless of your feelings about it, you're going to drink it because you haven't had anything to eat in almost nineteen hours."

"Not that long. I spent a few hours unpacking and getting settled."

"You hardly made a sound. I was afraid you'd died on me in your sleep."

I smirked as I took a sip of the warm, decadent chocolate. "Did you really? I wouldn't think you'd notice the hours or the silence when you're doing your weekend sex marathon."

"I wore out a hole in the rug downstairs—and not from pleasurable activities," he muttered, as if annoyed by the admission. "If it weren't for your soft, little snores, I would've called the ambulance."

I wrinkled my nose. "It creeps me out to know that you listened to me sleeping."

He arched a brow at me in challenge, a faint smile on his lips. "Does it really? Or does it just make you wish in that secret corner of your heart where no one can hear, that you rather I keep you from sleeping by joining you in bed?"

I snorted even though I knew I should be less amused by his confession. "I don't have a secret corner in my heart for secret wishes and longings—especially ones that include you."

"Of course not." He hoisted himself up on the stub wall, making my heart trip over with panic.

"Hey! Don't do that!" I frantically waved at him with my hand as if I could somehow telekinetically make him get off his precarious spot. "I'm not going to mop your brains off the floor if you fall, you lunatic."

His brows rose in surprise before looking supremely pleased. "Is that concern you're feeling for me, Starlight?"

"No, it's called protecting my interest," I retorted.

His expression perked up even more. "Aha! So you admit you're interested in me!"

I snorted, trying to play it cool. "I'm interested in the fact that you've offered me basically free lodging, that's all. So if you don't mind, back away from the railing and sit somewhere safe."

I gestured to the chair by my study desk and saw that it was heaped full of clothes I never finished putting away. When I caught him smirking at me, I waved a dismissive hand in the air. "I really am a neat person—just not when I'm trying to stay awake while unpacking."

He slid down on the floor and leaned against the wall, stretching a long leg in front of him. "Do you need a hand with it? I can help you."

"No, thanks. I'd rather not have you touching my clothes inappropriately."

He laughed. "Just let me know if you want me to touch you instead. There's no need to resent your clothes that much."

I studied him for a moment. "It's just natural to you, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"Flirting. Laying down all that sweet talk before going in for the kill."

He didn't look offended as he took a moment to answer. "I can tell you that I mean it all the time but I don't. You're right. There's usually a little groundwork before anything comes out of it and I'm good at it. I don't have to try very hard. Sometimes, I don't even have to do anything."

I smirked. "At least, you're honest."

"Maybe just with you."

I laughed. "Why? Because there's no hope of it ever working on me anyway?"

His gaze was disquietingly direct when he answered, "Because I think honesty will eventually wear you down. You don't expect it because you're not big on it yourself but that's exactly what you're going to get from me."

I looked away.

I shouldn't have but there was something about Julian Wilde that saw more than I'd like him to since the first time we met. The fact that he was determined to call out what he saw made it worse.

Yet here you are, still in his bed in his house.

If push came to shove, I could handle it because I always shoved right back. It didn't mean I couldn't enjoy this, whatever this was between us. It pulled at me the same time it warded me off. It was an interesting dilemma.

"Do you like your room?" he asked after several minutes, probably after he figured out that I wasn't going to say anything else.

Julian Wilde may be often seen as a shallow sex-machine but he was sharp when people thought he wasn't paying attention.

I smiled. "Yup. It's actually very nice. I didn't expect a college guy's place to look like this."

He scratched his ear, a sheepish expression on his face. "Well, my Mom did this whole place over when they got it for me. She's a professional interior designer. I do my best to keep it clean but she comes and whips the place back up to shape every few months when she comes over to visit."

"She's not visiting anytime soon, is she?"

My alarm must've been obvious because he chuckled. "Relax. She's not going to show up unannounced. I'll give you full warning."

I didn't want to seem too relieved. I could handle meeting his parents and act like a perfectly platonic roommate but it was going to be a long shot that they'd buy it. I'd rather not find ourselves in that situation.

"Do you have plans this afternoon?"

Glad for the change of topic, I shook my head and downed the last of my hot chocolate. "I freed up this weekend so I could settle in. Just more unpacking and probably starting a paper later tonight."

"Good. Then we can go get some groceries together," he said.

My brows went up. "I thought I was getting groceries."

He shrugged. "You can pay for it if you really want to but I figured it's not a bad idea to go together the first time so we know what we each like and hate. I don't really want to fight about food with you."

I smiled faintly. "Alright. For the sake of our peaceful cohabitation, we'll go grocery-shopping."

He beamed. "You know what they say—the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

I shook my head. "If you want his heart, which I don't. The way to a man's mind is through his dick and we all know how gullible that part of the male anatomy is."

"You are simply the most unromantic girl I've ever met," he grumbled.

I smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment."

When he did nothing but smile back, I lowered my eyes. "Thanks—for the other stuff."

"What other stuff?"

I bit my lip and glared at him, knowing full well that he was deliberately baiting me. "For cleaning my bed that night. For offering me a room here. For getting me new bed sheets. For the sandwich yesterday. For the hot chocolate."

I didn't really sound all that grateful. More like begrudging. I wasn't used to thanking people and meaning it. Julian more than expected it. He was basking in it.

"I'm going to have to watch myself and not do you too many favors," he teased. "You sounded like you were having your teeth pulled there."

I smiled a little reluctantly because he was once again, bang on when it came to me. "Good idea. I'd like to keep all my teeth."

He got up to his feet and offered to take my now empty mug. "I'll get rid of these while you get ready. We can grab something to eat along the way."

I opened my mouth to argue because a meal out with a guy was categorized under my 'Activities That Induce Ridiculous Romantic Entanglements' list. It was a small thing that led to all kinds of trouble.

Does that really apply now? You're living with the guy and having conversations with him in your sleep wear.

I shut my mouth close especially when he challenged me with a look as if he knew I was about to argue.

I grinned. "Give me ten minutes."

***

"I hate whole-wheat or multi-grain bread no matter how good they are for me. I'm a white-bread guy forever," Julian declared as we turned to the bread aisle, pushing our shopping cart together. "I'd rather work out more than give it up."

I raised a brow. "Do you really worry about that? Last time I checked, your six-pack was intact."

Julian's eyes crinkled at the corners as a ridiculously wide smile stretched across his face. "I didn't know you were checking."

My cheeks warmed at the slip but I didn't see a point in denying it. "Kinda hard to miss when you flash them at everyone all the time. It's like your business card for sex."

Julian leaned his head in until his forehead touched my temple. "Is it selling it to you?"

I lightly bumped his head away with mine as I laughed. "No. I have something against business cards that have been licked, drooled on, and had all kinds of kinky stuff done to them."

Julian made a face and snatched a loaf of white bread from the shelf. "This business card is cleaned and well-cared for, baby. Don't you worry."

"Save the slick sales talk for the next girl," I chided mockingly, slapping said six-pack with the back of my hand and getting an exaggerated yelp in return. It caught the attention of two girls who were looking over the rustic loaves two shelves away and they smiled demurely at Julian.

"And girls apparently just show up out of the blue to line up," I muttered under my breath, watching the whole choreography of hair-flipping, eyelash-batting and lip-biting tricks being deployed for Julian's sake.

He grinned at them and gave them a little wave, giving me a 'What-I-was-just-being-friendly' look when I rolled my eyes and started to push the cart forward.

"You've got something on your shirt," I told one of the girls as we passed them by. She glanced down at her pristine pink blouse frantically. "It's drool, I think."

Julian gasped in what I strongly suspected was his laughter as we walked away from the dumbfounded duo.

"You're terrible, you know that?" he murmured to me as we turned to the main aisle. He was leaning close to my ear again, because it turned out that Julian had no real concept of personal space, and laughed softly. "The girl looked mortified."

I shrugged. "She'll live. She might thank me one day for saving her from a crushing heartbreak when she realizes that you're not interested in anything else other than what she has between her legs."

"That's not true!"

"Fine. Other than her rack as well."

"Hey," Julian said, straightening up and halting our cart mid-aisle. "It's always for mutual pleasure, never just mine. I'm not like that, okay?"

I raised my brows at him. "Like what, precisely?"

He really didn't look too happy, his forehead pinched. "Like some guy who just uses girls like... like..."

"Like they're mere seminal receptacles?"

He glared at me. "You're a cold-hearted woman."

I laid a hand on his chest for effect (and maybe because I liked how hard it felt). "And you're a big-hearted man, loving so many women even with so little time."

Catching my hand, he pressed it flat against his chest, somehow pulling me in closer to him. I was going to shove him off with a laugh but his mossy green eyes felt ridiculously magnetic the moment I looked up and found myself caught in them.

"Maybe if I loved you, some of that ice would thaw," he murmured, the curve on his mouth taunting yet the intensity of his gaze searing a shot through what I suspected was my heart. "Maybe it'll start a fire so hot we'd both go up in flames."

My breath rattled as I pushed it out out of my lungs. "I don't like to get burned."

His voice felt soft and sensual against my skin. "What if I promise you wouldn't?"

"Then I'll call you a liar," I said, lowering my eyes away from his searching green ones. "Everyone breaks their promises."

"Damn, Wilde!" a loud male voice jarred us out of our little bubble. "Is this why you skipped practice this morning?"

I glanced at the small group of three guys walking toward us, freshly showered and sporting nearly identical stupid grins. The apparent ringleader was the shortest in the group by only a couple of inches. He was all muscle and no neck—and apparently no good manners either.

"You ditched us so you can play church with your newest babe? Was she a good Christian and got down on her knees to pray?"

He guffawed and the other two snickered behind him.

I felt Julian tense like a bow strung too tight, his hand tightening around mine like a vise as he took a step forward.

Before he could utter a word though, my own mouth launched its own quiet attack. "I could get down on my knees right now and surgically remove each of your testicles so you could choke on them while you sing your praises to heaven."

I gave them my brightest and sultriest smile as icing on top, knowing that despite being in sneakers, jeans and an oversized sweater, my smiling face could still pull balls with little effort.

"I love you, I swear," Julian muttered under his breath as he slightly trembled with the effort not to laugh out loud at the paling faces of the three guys whose mouth had just comically dropped open at the same time.

I would've laughed, too, if my chest weren't so busy twisting this way and that at Julian's teasing declaration of love. I was reading way too much into this. The guy probably proclaimed his undying love to every girl whose panties he was trying to get into.

"And this is why, gentlemen, you should watch your filthy mouths around a girl who's going to shut them for you if you're not careful," he announced in amusement now as he put his free arm around my shoulders. "Everyone, this is my roommate, Star Matthews. Star, these assholes are my team mates, Tyler, Davy and Flynn."

Tyler, the ringleader, flashed me a dazzling smile. "Roommate, huh? Does that mean this star is fair game to anyone with a wish?"

I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes. I've heard all kinds of pick up lines with my name. "What sport?"

"Water polo, baby," Davy, one of the two wingmen, said with a not-too-subtle roll of his shoulders. It was no great mystery that they all had broad shoulders, especially Julian. Swimmers.

"No surprise," I mused flippantly, freeing my hand from Julian's and running it through the hair I'd allowed to hang down my right shoulder. As averse as I was to coy hair moves, they really worked with men if expertly deployed. "All those times the ball hit your water-logged brains must've done some real damage. It explains your limited mental function."

Julian choked a little as he cleared his throat. "I'm part of the team, too, you know?"

I smiled up sweetly at him. "Yeah, but I like you. These three," I paused and waved a dismissive hand at the trio who were flapping their mouths like fish in the water. How appropriate. "I don't."

"Meow!" Flynn, the only sensible guy in the the group, said with a rueful laugh as he smacked his buddies on the heads. "Come on, you idiots. The lady clearly isn't interested and I don't like being ripped to pieces. Let's get the snacks we came here for or we're going to miss the game."

"Sunday Ticket at my place, Wilde?" Tyler asked, grimacing when he glanced at me. "She can come even though she's not very nice."

"Only because you're rude, you dumbass." Julian laughed and waved them off. "But I'll skip, man. I told coach I was taking a home emergency day today and that's what I'm going to do."

"What home emergency?" I asked, turning to him.

"The kind with coffee brown eyes and a sardonic smile that turned my house upside down," he murmured ed to me with a meaningful wink before he started pushing our cart. "See you at next practice."

"Bye, Star!" the three of them called out with big smiles on their faces.

"I think they're in love with you," Julian said. "Even after you threatened to castrate them and called them stupid."

I shrugged. "Men are easy. They have toothpicks for defense. You blow them a kiss and you take them down."

He smiled. "Not like you, of course, barricaded with spiked steel walls that could hurt anyone who comes close."

There was actually no judgement in his expression or voice even as his words hit home. He was probably starting to get it.

I chuckled. "I only draw blood if it's absolutely necessary. I don't want to clean it up if I don't have to."

"That's at least reassuring," he said with a smile and a sigh before we carried on with the last leg of our grocery run.

Twenty minutes later, we headed home. The light drizzle had stopped before we even left the house so we decided to walk the five blocks to the grocery and back.

We each had a large shopping bag in one hand, and because we didn't have enough free hands, Julian insisted we share one large latte and a chicken wrap. He would bring the cup to my lips for a sip and I'd hold up the wrap to him for a bite. I would've never contemplated doing this with anybody but as much as I hated to admit it, Julian had a talent in making people comfortable around him. He didn't take himself too seriously and he was always smiling and laughing. When I asked him if he had any contagious diseases before I accepted his idea of food-sharing, he told me no with a straight-faced before volleying the question back to me. We talked, mostly about his water polo team where he was goalie, and other random things that we never seem to run out of. I barely thought of the thirty-minute walk that seemed to go on forever or the fact that we seemed naturally attuned to each other as we shared our food back and forth like we've been doing this for years.

It was one of the few good moments I had in recent history but as comfortable as I was that afternoon, alarms were flipping on in my head.

Julian's laughter simply drowned them out.

***

So, what do you guys think? 

As you might have noticed about a lot of the heroines in my story, they're usually a little feisty, some more than others. Star's no different except that she's a little rougher about it than the others. She'll never earn a sainthood and that's what I like about her. Obviously, Julian is no saint either. It'll be interesting to see who becomes the bigger person first and whether two people who couldn't trust themselves to others could trust each other.

Anyway, hope you liked it.

Please vote and comment! 

P.S. Reading the comments on my stories is probably my favorite thing about reading Wattpad. If you've seen the comments in The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield, you'd know what I mean.  

See you in 2016!

XOXO,

Ninya

♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: Runby Matt Nathanson ft. Sugarland ♪♪♪

I wanna watch you undress

I wanna watch you glow

Let your hair down

All around, cover us both

You come in a wave

We crash and we roll

You surround me, pull me, drown me, swallow me whole

You turn, turn, turn, turning me on


Like a slow fire burn 


Know that it's wrong


Still I run, run, run, run right into you


Yeah, I run, run, run, run right into you

You pull me in close


You buckle my knees


I shake and I shiver just to feel you breathe


You trace my lines


(You trace your lines)


Stirring my soul


Shoot sparks at the heart of the world and I watch it explode
 (I watch you, I watch you)