Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (10 page)

My cold stare stops him short. “Let’s be real for a second,” I suggest to Brant—ignoring his soft, inviting eyes and his ridiculously terrible-yet-oddly-sexy dance moves. “The only thing you and I will ever be … is friends. You got it? I brought you here to show you art. That’s it.”

He smirks cockily. “Why? You afraid I’m too much for you?”

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Sure you are,” he retorts. “We’re all afraid of something. I, for one, am kinda afraid of leaving this art gallery without at least a kiss.” He bats his eyes dumbly, smiling with that crooked, dimpled smile.

My fists tighten.
What a tool.
“And where does that kiss lead? To me becoming just another dent in your headboard?” I lean into him. “Let’s be clear. You’re not an artist. You’re just in my school to score.”

He laughs at that. “Why would you think that about me? I’m not some … weird kind of art school man-whore.”

“No, you’re just the normal kind. Another guy who thinks he can get inside any woman he bats his eyes at. You already had your way with some girl behind that folding partition earlier this week in my studio class. Probably had one or two others that same night. And maybe two the weekend before. And how many have you had since?”

“Wait, wait, wait …”

“Hey, I don’t care,” I tell him, raising my hands up innocently. “I’m not here to judge you. I don’t know you and you owe me nothing. If you want to be a player, go ahead, play. But I’m not part of your game. I make art. I push at the world. I—”

“Yeah, well, whatever
art
you do, make sure it’s more meaningful than what this Nell freak did with her naked censored BDSM lady. What’s it called? ‘
Object’
… Okay, yeah. Do somethin’ better than this piece of crap,” he says with a smirk down at the work of art.

My
work of art.

I stand between him and my sculpture defensively, facing him with red-hot fervor. “You wouldn’t know what art is if it grew hands and feet and slapped you right in that smug-ass face of yours.”

“Okay. First, that piece of crap
does
have hands and feet,” he states with a smirking, tilted nod at it, “and seeing as it’s cuffed and doesn’t appear to have a pulse, I don’t think it’ll be slapping me in the near future. Secondly,” he adds with a wink, “you are sexy as fuck when you get all angry.”

I take a breath. “If we’re going to stand here debating realness and art and
objectification
, then I figure the least you owe me is a bit of your unadulterated candor and a little less of your player bullshit.”

It seems my words
still
do nothing to affect his slick, smooth-talking cockiness. If anything, it strengthens him. He lowers his voice and works his silkiest tone when he says, “Babe, I’m not a player.”

“Babe? I’m not a ‘babe’ on your lady list you can just wrap around your little finger.”

He presses his lips together, tickled. “I wouldn’t call it so
little
…”

“Your list? Or your finger?”

He snorts. “Alright, alright, alright. You win. We’re gonna be totally straight with one another, then. Out in the open … upfront, direct, honest. That’s what you want?”

I cross my arms and wait in a cool, patient silence.

“Alright.” He claps his hands together, gives them a quick rub, then states, “I’ve been with exactly
one
girl this past week. One. It was a dancer named …” He squints suddenly. “C-Clara. And …” He clears his throat. “And she was a very sweet girl. A
dancer
, I might add. Not an artist. Well, an artist on the stage, maybe. Not that I’ve seen her dance. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, things between us were casual, and it’s over. I haven’t even heard from her since, like … you know. The behind-the-privacy-screen thing.”

I shrug. “So?”

A frustrated sort of snort flees from him. “So, I’m not a player. I’m respectable. I treated her like a lady. I mean, well, y’know. Aside from banging her against the wall like a jackhammer so hard, I was probably dislodging bricks. I treated her like a lady, alright?”

I don’t respond to him, my arms still folded and my eyes like needles as I debate whether or not to let this whole thing go. Is it really that big a deal to win this fight? Was it a mistake to bring him here?

The warmth growing between my thighs would suggest it isn’t.

And the heart palpitations his crystalline eyes alone are inspiring within me surely don’t scream “mistake”.

I can’t deny how fucking sexy he is or what he’s doing to me … even if he makes me mad as hell with his juvenile reasoning.

“Is that what this is?” he says suddenly, giving a glance back at the work, then returning his intense gaze to me. “You think I objectify women?”

I glare at him, wordless and fuming.

“So, wait,” he goes on, gripping his temple. “You think I … You think I just take advantage of their bodies and, like …” He sighs, squinting at me with a hundred thoughts. Then, something seems to occur to him, and a smile works onto his face. He drops his hands and begins to circle around the display once again. “Alright. Fine, okay. I ‘objectify women’, you’re implying. Alright, alright …”

I watch him as he slowly stalks around my work of art, as if giving it a new consideration.

“You know,” he blurts suddenly, “I would let
you
objectify me … if you wanted.”

I lift a questioning eyebrow.

“Yep,” he says, answering some question my eyes apparently asked. He arrives finally at my other side, gently looking up at me with his forehead wrinkled and his dimples pushed out with a cheeky smirk. “I’d let you have your way with me.”

“Would you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I sure would.”

His Texan accent plays as thick as barbeque sauce into those words, and maybe it’s his sudden change in mood—or mine—that inspires my next action. Without thinking, I grab his ass and pull him towards me. He stumbles for a second, his eyes flapping open with surprise, and then he’s inches from my face. Our breath falls upon one another in hot, jagged torrents.

He was definitely not expecting that.

To be honest, neither was I.

“You … want to be my object?” I murmur, attempting
not
to admire how firm his ass is, even through his loose, low-hanging jeans.

He bites his lip, as if to stop himself from grinning further. “You know that’s what I want, girl. If you wanna take charge … if that’s your thing, I’ll fuckin’ let you. I’m yours to play with.”

Even
he
has to take deeper breaths between his sentences. His eyes shimmer with excitement as his face creases with the amusement of about a hundred wicked ideas that I’m glad I don’t know—despite having a certainty in my gut of where each and every one of those wicked ideas of his leads.

I lift my chin, defiant and ready to put this camera boy right where he belongs. “Take off your jeans.”

The whites of his eyes flash. “H-Here?”

“Take off your jeans.”

Without pulling his face away from mine, his fingers leap to the buttons of his jeans and he fumbles, prying them open and letting them drop to the floor. Right here in front of these tall glass walls. Right here in front of the whole damn Abernathy street, despite there being no one outside yet to observe the show. The buckle of his belt slaps the tile so loud, it rings like a bell throughout the gallery. He steps out of them and kicks them to the side.

“Shirt,” I order next.

He glances nervously at the glass walls, then swallows and laughs away his hesitance. “I took off mine. When do you take off yours?”

“We’re making you into my object, remember?” I lick my own lips, pulling his eyes straight to them. Then I tilt my head, all my dark hair shifting with it. “Shirt, camera boy.”

He has fun with the removing of his shirt, still thinking he’s got a grip on our little scene. He grasps the bottom of it tightly, turning the maneuver into a little dance without music, then pulls it over his head and casts it to the side with a flex of his bicep.

I would be lying if I said that Brant isn’t one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen. His slender, V-shaped, panther-like build is chiseled at every possible turn. It’s endless, the places in which he has definition, how his infinite abs turn into the two, smooth pecs of his chest, which rest under his taut, shapely shoulders, which lead the eyes up a neck and to a face that, even in his nakedness, still shows a striking confidence—as if he dares me to keep challenging him, testing him, pushing him …

And I will.

“Wish I could see yours,” he murmurs through a tightened throat. “Shit, it’s cold in here.” He glances behind him, then looks off to the side for a second. “Is there a showcase tonight or something?”

“It doesn’t start for another thirty minutes,” I assure him.

“Oh. That’s pretty soon, isn’t it? Won’t people start showing up?” Then he grins, his face lighting up. “On second thought, that’s plenty of time. So, tell me. Do you—”

I bring my face up to the side of his, which shuts him up right away. My lips trace—without kissing—the smooth, silky skin of his cheek as I slide ever so slowly to his ear. It’s there that my teeth find purchase, raking in his earlobe as I take a little taste.

He groans, his breath blasting the nape of my neck. “
Oh my god …
”

I run a finger up his body, starting just above the rim of his briefs—which are black, skintight, and leave very little to the imagination—and I trace up the insane hills of his abs, one by one. He bucks ever so slightly at the touch of my cold fingertip, then braces himself as I let my wandering finger slide up his core, stopping at his hardened nipple. I give it a pinch.

“
Fuck …
” he hisses into my neck.

My teeth let go of his earlobe just long enough to ask, “Feeling objectified yet?”

He doesn’t answer, lost in the ecstasy of what my finger’s doing to his poor nipple. Taking his silence for an answer, I reach down and grip the waistband of his briefs, then slowly start to slide them down.

That’s when he shakes from his trance and grabs my hands, stopping me. “Wait, wait, wait.”

“Yeah?”

“Not here. Someone could see,” he whispers, turning to look over his shoulder, then staring out at the empty gallery once again.

“No one’s seeing but me.”

“But someone else could just … People might come early and … One of the other artists might—”

“No one’s coming in. The student exhibit doesn’t open for another thirty minutes.” I meet his face with mine, reeling his bright, blue, worried eyes in. “Plenty of time, you said. Didn’t you?”

The worry seems to ease out of him, replaced quickly with that all-too-familiar cockiness. “Yeah, right. Y’know, two nipples are fun, sure. But four are more fun.” He gives my breasts a quirk of his eyebrows.

I give his nipple one last pinch, earning a moan from him, then release the tortured thing. Turning my back to him, I bend down to the art project next to which we’re having so much fun and release the handcuffs one by one. Brant stands there in all his sexy, slender, muscled glory, his nipples hard and his cock harder, bulging in those tight black briefs of his. When I glance back at him, his blue eyes watch me under his tuft of messy brown hair, hungry and waiting.

I remove the naked lady from the platform—it’s just wire and paper and weighs next to nothing—then gently pat the vacant display. “Giddy up, camera boy.”

Brant, ever slow to process my meaning, simply looks at the empty platform, confused. Then he squints at me and asks, “You want me … to get onto that?”

I lift the four handcuffs. They rattle in my clutch as they tap against one another, creating their tinny dissonant song of metal and restraint.

That’s when the message hits him. “Oh, fuck! You’re a kinky minx, aren’t you?” He laughs, his face lighting up. Then, just as quickly, he turns worried again. “W-Wait, are you serious?”

My lips curl. “Yep.”

He rubs his hands together quickly—whether out of nervousness or to keep warm, I’m not sure—then glances around one last time before crawling up onto the display, assuming the all-fours position.

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

He looks up at me, quivering with excitement. Apparently, neither can he.

“Makin’ me your object, huh?” He licks his lips, then lets his eyes go on a thorough stroll down my body, and it might as well be his hands doing the strolling, for the way they seem to touch my every curve. All his wet dreams and expectations are painted on his lively face.

In this moment, I almost lose my nerve, second-guessing myself. That is, until I hear the sound of the cuff clicking around his left wrist.

“
Fuck, this is hot
,” he whispers—to himself, I think.