Enough | ✔️

+ 36 +

I look down at the vulnerable Slater below me, laid out before me in his shirtless glory and lips painted a dark pink from our impatient kisses, and then zero in on the voice ringing in my ear. With all the self-control I have, I unstraddle him and fall onto his bed, thoroughly frustrated and still full to the brim with the heat of the moment.

"Hey, Lara," I sigh into the phone, brushing my hair out of my face as the remnants of memories dissipate into thin air.

Slater seems stunned beside me, reeling from the moment. All I can hope for is that he won't shut me out or regret what we did, because boy oh boy, I do not.

"You sound frazzled. Are you alright, sis?" Lara asks, genuine concern winding itself through her words.

I purse my lips and cross an arm over my chest, "I'm fine, just a bit out of it. Why did you call?" I question, hoping my eagerness to end our conversation doesn't show through.

"I'm hurt at your bluntness, but anyhoo," she thankfully brushes it off and I hear the flipping of paper before she continues, "I'm actually free tomorrow, so I was thinking I could come around?"

Instantly, my thoughts are dragged away from the half-naked adonis next to me, and I gasp out a comical, "Really?!"

She laughs the angelic laugh that I missed, "Yeah. If you'll have me? I have news for you too."

An ear-splitting grin replaces my grimace, "Of course I will! I haven't seen you in decades, Lara. Just call me whenever you arrive and I'll let you in, yeah?"

Our conversation ends soon after that, and I end up getting so distracted by the anticipation of her arrival tomorrow that as soon as I hang up, I forget what I was doing before the phone call.

Slater seizes my gaze.

"Are we going to talk about what just happened?" he slowly draws out, as if trying to process it himself.

My body already increases several hundred degrees at the reminder.

"What's there to talk about? It's not my fault. You said you were about anything happening between us, which is pretty much like writing 'KISS ME' across your forehead in indelible ink. I took the rare opportunity, and as far as I can remember, you weren't exactly opposed to-"

A pinch at my waist cuts my rant short.

I turn to face Slater, regretting my rash decision to build up a wall of excuses in my defence. He wears a small, amused smile - mind you, still very shirtless and still very appealing.

"I meant about what we're going to do now, not why what we did was so wrong," he expands, before adding, "Although, it was wrong according to..."

After catching my flat gaze, he decides not the bring up the topic of the university's cursed rules.

"Well, like you said, we'll just keep... this," I motion awkwardly between us and realising just how close we are, "on the down low. It's not like we interact much in lectures or anywhere outside this room."

He runs a hand through his tousled hair, "Perhaps, but there is the issue where you blush at anything I say."

I gawk at him.

"Are you teasing me, Slater Donovan Hartley?" I ask incredulously, "Don't act like you don't know you're the hottest thing that's happened to planet Earth since the Big Bang."

At that, he laughs. Eyes twinkling and pearly-whites on show, he tilts his head to the side. I cross my arms at his amusement, thoroughly unamused.