Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (14 page)

Of course he knew what he said.

“So how long have you been an artist?”

I keep my eyes ahead as I think of how to answer that question. I hate that question. There’s never just one moment that someone like me wakes up and thinks:
Ah, yes—I want to torture everyone around me for the rest of my life, including myself.

“Forever,” I answer vaguely.

“It always kinda amazes me, the stuff that comes out of creative people’s minds.” He jabs a button into the console and the radio turns on, blasting us with the likes of Nirvana at max volume. We both jump. He grabs and twists the volume knob at once, an apologetic wince on his face. “Sorry ‘bout that. Dmitri’s car, Dmitri’s music.”

“This isn’t your car?”

“I borrowed my roomie’s for the night.”

“I like this song.”

“Huh?” He turns the volume up a bit. “This one?”

“Mmm-hmm.” I hum along to the tune of
Heart-Shaped Box
, then glance over at Brant and catch him looking at me while driving. “Keep your eyes on the road.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” He turns forward, smiling. “You like rock?”

I haven’t heard Nirvana in years, it seems. Pangs of nostalgia rush forth of times when my dad would come home from the office, trade his stuffy suit for a tattered Korn t-shirt, and turn up the stereo as he painted his miniature model dragons. “Sure.” My answer is delayed. “My dad listened to a lot of Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana … Then he’d flip the CD and play Chopin while he painted.”

“Show Pan? Who the hell’s Show Pan?”

“
Chopin
. Polish composer. Pianist.”

“Cool.” He nods, pouting his lips in thought. “So your dad paints?”

“Miniature figurines. Used to.”

“Used to? What does he do now?”

“No idea. Couldn’t care less. Where are we going?” I ask, changing the subject as my insides tighten at all this talk about my dad. “I could eat an arm and a leg right about now.”

“I got some nuts if you need somethin’ to put in your mouth.”

I gape at him. Is he fucking serious? Am I supposed to laugh at that? “Not interested,” I tell him with a huff.

“You sure? They’re honey-roasted.”

I blink, confusedly staring at the side of his face.

“There’s a can in the glove box.” He reaches over suddenly, his hand grazing my thigh, and pops it open, revealing the can to me.

“A can … of nuts,” I say, swallowing back a laugh.

“What? You thought I meant—? Oh, you dirty girl.” Brant sneers at me teasingly. “I’d never say somethin’ that
asinine
on a first date.”

“Oh, yeah? Is that what this is? A first date?”

“Sure. Isn’t it?”

“Too early to tell.” I slap shut the glove box. “Thanks for your offer, but I’ll wait until we’re at the … wherever we’re going.”

“Lucky Dean’s.”

Never heard of it. “If they serve food, sounds good to me.”

A moment passes as we drive with the soft, grungy beat of Nirvana in the background. Suddenly Brant blurts, “Y’know, if you
want
to put my nuts in your mouth—”

I burst out in laughter. I can’t hold it in.

“Knew I could get you to laugh,” he mutters to himself through a victorious smile of his own. “Score one for Rudawski.”

I’m already chewing on my lips to swallow the chuckles, shaking my head and looking away. Despite my annoyance at my inability to keep from laughing, I can’t deny the utter release of tension that laugh just gifted me. I feel pounds lighter in an instant.

“Can’t blame you,” he says with a shrug, coming to a stop at another red light. “Every other thing comin’ out of my mouth is some sort of … bedroom invite, so to speak. Habit of mine, I guess. I might legitimately have sexual Tourette’s. Can’t blame you for what you think of me.”

I stare down at my fingers, picking at them. “What do you think I think of you?”

“Maybe you think I’m just a dumb dude who has no business in the art school. Maybe you think I got no depth in me.”

“Maybe.”

I stare out the window for a while. Then, I hear a click. I look up. Brant’s holding his camera, lowering it from having just taken a picture. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “You just look so damn pretty tonight.”

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes. I just stare at his bright eyes and that camera in his soft hands … a camera I know easily costs upwards of six hundred dollars.

“I’ll delete the pic if that was weird,” he says quickly. “I just wanted to sorta … catch you unawares, I guess.”

“Caught,” I assure him with a short nod. “Where were you hiding that thing?”

“Under my seat,” he confesses with a chuckle. “In a little black case. I take it everywhere with me. It’s like my new toy or somethin’. Can’t go nowhere without it.”

I don’t know why, but it only just now occurs to me how close together we are in this tiny car. Just a few feet separate his lips from mine, and I’m disarmed by the fact that that’s the only thing my mind bothers to measure—the proximity of our lips.

Is Brant holding his breath? I feel like I’m holding mine. Even the music seems to have left us alone in this vehicle so we can become so incredibly, sensitively, unsettlingly aware of one another’s presence, one another’s bodies …

He licks his lips.

I pull my bottom one in, biting it softly.

“You gotta know,” he says so low, his voice turns into gravel, “that it isn’t just the little horny, bouncy dude inside me speaking when I say you’re … f-fucking gorgeous.”

His eyes shimmer anxiously.

Brant just stuttered.

And my mouth is so dry, I couldn’t respond even if I wanted to.

Why am I so damn nervous all of a sudden?

“You know that, right?” He won’t let up. “You know that you’re a total babe, right?”

I look away suddenly, recoiling back into myself. It’s too much, too soon. Too intense. Too close.

“Hey, look, we’re here,” he announces when the light turns green, his voice a bit strained. I glance up just as he hangs a right, pulling into the parking lot of some restaurant I’ve never seen before. Big green lights adorn every window and there seems to be quite a crowd, even for a Monday.

I get out of the car perhaps a touch too fast. I let Brant lead the way to the door and, naturally, he holds it open and gives a sweeping gesture of his hand, letting me enter first. Such a gentleman.
And I’m sure he’s just as much a gentleman when he bends his girls over countertops and thrusts his cock in and out of them faster than a car piston.

When the hostess seats us, it’s in an outdoor patio area enclosed by posts with strands of green bulbs hanging lazily between them. The eyes of the hostess linger on Brant’s before she sets menus in front of us and makes her leave. So as I peruse the appetizers, I wonder privately if Brant might have already tried a few things here that are
not
on the menu. Then our waitress, a girl named Brianna, has a smile only for Brant when she takes his order. That same smile both tightens and darkens when she takes mine, then she sweeps away with the menus. Is she yet
another
of Brant’s conquests, or am I now presuming too much?

“I like this place,” he tells me with a lift of his eyebrows.

“It seems to like you, too,” I remark dryly.

The sarcasm goes over his head. “So do you live alone?”

I take a sip of my water. “Yes. I have a place by the Brook.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Jefferson Brook? Isn’t that kind of far from campus?”

“It’s only a fifteen minute walk.”

“No car?”

“I prefer to walk. I run errands by foot every day. I volunteer at the Westwood Light, bringing by art supplies whenever I can and … letting the kids create. It’s a bit of an unofficial thing. The head admin doesn’t like me but lets me come because the
kids
do, so—”

“What’s that? An orphanage? Homeless shelter?”

“Something like that.” I take another sip, then shiver at a sudden gust of wind, which tosses my hair. “Why are you amazed by creative minds? You act like you don’t have one of your own.”

“Because I don’t,” he shoots back.

I lift my eyebrows questioningly at him, awaiting some elaboration. Is he saying that because I accused him of not being a real artist, or is there something more behind his words?

He smiles lightly, shifting in his seat, then props his elbows up on the table. “Listen, I’ve been surrounded by people my whole life who are twenty times more creative than me. Even my roommates. I’ve got Dmitri, who writes poetry.
And short stories
. Then there’s Eric, who’s an actor. But he didn’t get cast in anything this semester or last, so he sulks a lot and talks about how he wants to write plays and win himself a Pulitzer or something. He’s pretty miserable to be around lately, if I’m honest. I think Dmitri’s a good influence on him, what with the being a writer and all. Then there’s Clayton, my bestie since childhood, and
he’s
a damn lighting designer working with … with people from New York now. Lucky bastard.”

“They’re all your gay roommates?”

“Just Eric and Dmitri. Clayton moved out. He’s my best friend, so it sucks that he’s gone. Now he’s living with Dessie, a pretty actress and singer. Maybe you’ll meet them sometime.”

“Maybe.” I offer him a smile, stirring my water with a straw.

He shifts in his seat again and I feel his shoe tap into mine. I look up and find him glancing off somewhere in the parking lot, pressing his lips together.

I wonder if this night is as hard for him as it is for me. Do I have Brant all wrong? Sometimes he acts like a self-proclaimed gift to all of womankind. And sometimes he reminds me of this timid boy I knew long ago who was so scared to ask to sit with anyone at lunch that he’d just take his tray to the corner of the room and eat by the trashcan. It was a girl in a green dress who might or might not have joined him one unassuming Tuesday in October and gave him reason to smile for the first time all school year. We might have also been laughed at by a neighboring table and then pelted with banana peels.

Also, I’m pretty sure I wore more than just that green dress when I was a kid, seriously.

“It’s a nice night,” Brant murmurs lazily, still gazing off.

Then, I’m not sure what comes over me. Maybe it’s his nervousness. Maybe it’s mine. Maybe it’s the flirty employees and an uncharacteristic bolt of jealousy that cuts through me. But suddenly, I let my foot slip out of my shoe, then gently and slowly run just the tip up the inside of his smooth, jeaned leg.

Though Brant continues to stare off, I can tell by the flicker in his eyes that my little action does
not
go unnoticed. I see him trying to fight away a smirk on his face, pretending not to feel it.

I let my toe run even higher, reaching his inner thigh.

He purses his lips innocently, still gazing off as if totally oblivious … except he seems to open his legs a bit more.

My foot welcomes the invitation.

Soon, my foot’s ascended so high, I can visibly see his breathing change by the rise and fall of his chest, which grows more dramatically by the second.

Then he snaps his eyes to me and grips my foot under the table in one motion.

I gasp, surprised.

Now it’s Brant wearing that signature cocky grin of his.

“Foot massage?” he murmurs quietly.

I narrow my eyes.

Then, he pulls my foot right to the destination I may or may not have been crawling towards all along. Upon pulling my foot into his crotch, Brant bites his lip into half a scowl and moans lightly.

Yes, he’s hard as a rock.

Then he brings his other hand down and begins to massage my foot, his eyes never leaving mine as he mashes his thumbs in all the right places. I can’t even begin to describe what his strong hands do to me. I fight an urge to squeeze shut my thighs, then fight another urge to open them wide and wrap Brant in them. The whole table seems to be magically growing smaller. If I close my eyes, I could imagine we were somehow sharing the same chair.

“Feel good?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I moan slowly.

“Is this winning me some points?” he asks. “I’m trying to redeem enough to get you in my bed.”

I flip open my eyes, glaring at him. Of course I find him grinning obnoxiously.

To that, I ignore his massage and, instead, gently push my foot even further into his hardened crotch. Brant loses all trace of his cockiness, his eyes going wide and his mouth gaping. I feel his cock flex under my foot. Yeah, I have his manhood at my heel now; I basically own him.

“Earn a few points by letting go of my foot,” I tell him politely.

“But you’re—”