STRIPTEASED (Roommate Reverse Harem Romance)

“She’s working on her laptop at the kitchen table,” Tonio said. “Want me to go get her?”

“I’ll do it,” I said. Tonio had just gone down to get some coffee, so it might be suspicious if he went down again.

“Don’t let her—” Austin began.

I rolled my eyes. Did my twin think I had no brains at all? “I know just what to tell her.”

Tonio looked concerned, and Austin looked skeptical. Only Knox, standing silently in the corner of the small room, appeared to have confidence in me. Or at least I thought he did. Sometimes his silences were difficult to interpret.

A moment later, I walked into the kitchen as nonchalantly as possible. “How’s it going?”

Emma was frowning at her screen, biting her lip in a way that made me want to bite it, too. “I can’t quite get the end of this scene right.”

That was too good of an opening to pass up. “Is it a kissing scene? Need any practice?” I moved in on her, my lips in an exaggerated pucker.

As I’d hoped, she laughed, shoving me away. “If I need any practice, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I’d better be,” I growled, and then I went to the fridge and got something to drink. “Why don’t you take a break for a few minutes? Might be easier if you do. Besides, I’ve got something to show you upstairs.”

Her eyes lit with interest. “Is it what I think it is?”

It most certainly wasn’t, but I played along. “Yeah, I edited the first dance video.

Emma jumped to her feet, causing certain body parts I’d spent a lot of time thinking about recently to give an enticing little bounce. “How does it look? Am I too much of a klutz? You can be honest and tell me.”

“How about I just show you?” I was already heading for the stairs.

“Sure.” She followed in my wake.

At the top of the stairs, I turned toward my room, but then I stopped.

“What?” Emma said, almost running into me.

“That’s odd,” I mused. “That door is never open.”

Emma brushed against my arm as she peered past me to the door at the end of the hallway that was open an inch or two.

“What’s the big deal? Isn’t that a closet?”

“No, it’s actually a really small room. I think it used to be a den at one point in time. It’s barely bigger than a walk-in closet, and in the last few years, we’ve mostly just piled stuff in there that we didn’t have anywhere else to put. I can’t imagine why it’s open.”

“Maybe you guys put too much stuff in there and the door won’t close.”

Except for the fact that the door opened inward, that might’ve happened, at least up until a few days ago. “Possibly. Why don’t you see if you can get it to shut again while I set up the video?”

She nodded and moved toward the door. I stayed where I was, a grin on my face. Emma grasped the doorknob and tried to pull it shut. She gasped when the door opened, yanking the knob right out of her grasp.

“Surprise!” four voices called out, three from inside the room.

Emma gasped, her hand to her chest. “You scared me. What are you doing in there?”

“See for yourself,” Tonio said with a grin.

With the three of them in there, there was barely room for her, but she squeezed in, looking around. I followed, trying to see the little room the way she might. Though small, the floors were clear of clutter, and the bookcases along the back wall had been dusted and organized. Bright light shone in from the recently cleaned window, and a crimson rug lined the polished floor.

Emma zoomed in on the most important feature: the two matching desks next to each other.

Surprised, Emma turned to me. “You said this was for storage.”

“It was. Now it’s a study.”

“For me?”

“For you. You’re trying to finish a book. That’s hard to do when you keep moving from room to room, trying to find a quiet place to concentrate. Now you have one.”

Emma’s smile was slow to form but stunning when it was complete. “You did all this for me?”

“Of course,” Knox said.

“But—but there are two desks.”

“You’re not the only one who could use a quiet place to concentrate,” Tonio said.

“You’re going to study in here?”

“If it doesn’t bother you.”

“Of course it won’t. This is so nice.” Emma spun around slowly, taking it in. The desk lamps. The power strips at the edges of the desks. Someone, Tonio I think, had even provided a mug full of pencils and pens plus some legal pads. “This was so nice of you all.”

One by one, she hugged us all. When it was Austin’s turn, he said, “Glad we finally got in on the hugging. I was beginning to think that was only for Knox.”