Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (28 page)

It takes quite some time for us to calm down, and soon I think the reality hits us both. Whatever walls existed between us have collapsed to the ground. I now hold Nell in a cocoon of my arms and warmth.

When my breathing levels, I chase an impulse and kiss the top of her head. One of her hands rests on my chest, the fingers slowly drawing circles around my nipple, awakening it. The sensitivity seems to be waking my cock right back up already.

“I didn’t see this happening,” she murmurs, voice barely audible.

“I did,” I joke back cockily. “It was inevitable. I wanted you since that first moment I saw you.”

“Nothing to do with the fact that you were ass-naked?”

“Well.” I smirk into her hair, hugging her tight against my body. “Actually, maybe it did have to do with that … a bit.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It was sorta like … when I first met you, you saw me in a very vulnerable position. Your first impression of me was … me baring it all. We’ve been intimate since the first moment we met.”

“Intimate,” she echoes thoughtfully.

I lower my voice to a whisper. “
I like it that way.
”

She squeezes against me, a leg of hers flipping over mine. I let my hand play with her hair as it slowly runs up and down the length of her back. And it’s like that, in each other’s arms, all our sweaty, sticky, unapologetic mess slowly growing cold between us, that our warm, breathless bodies drift into the most peaceful sleep I’ve ever known.

BRANT

It’s the best Sunday morning I’ve ever had.

I’m the first to wake up. Her face rests on my chest, one of her arms tucked between us and the other slung over my abdomen, her fingers splayed close to my cock. Just the awareness of that makes it spring to action, as if it’s ready for a round or two of her hand for breakfast.

I don’t want to move. I hate the idea of accidentally stirring her awake, even with just an innocent flinch or adjustment of my arm, and ruining whatever sort of otherworldly peace we have going on here.

I can’t remember the last time a girl’s stayed over and I haven’t wanted her to just disappear. With Nell, all of my fears feel turned back on me, as if in some sort of ironic retribution for all the girls whose hearts I’ve strung along or broken over the years. I’m worried
Nell
will want to leave the moment she wakes. What if she opens her eyes and reality sets in, and the horror of the “
horn
ucopia” she just had sex with assaults her mind full-force and floods her with regret?

Call me selfish, but I don’t want to be anything she regrets. I want to be what makes her smile and feel safe.

People call me a player. They’ve always called me a player. Even my friends do. But I’ve never been one, not truly—not in my mind or in my heart. I’m a lover and always have been. A part of me has to believe Nell knows that, and maybe that’s why she’s still around.

Her hand moves slightly, grazing the hairs by my cock. I grow even stiffer, my cock agonized by the close proximity of her fingers and the potential of what she could do with them.

Seriously, I feel like a charged piston ripe with electrical energy, this woman curled up against my body and keeping me on the brim of some sort of sexual explosion.

It’s a good thing we aren’t spooning; I’d be poking holes in her back with my morning wood.

With her cradled against me, I can’t reach the top of the dresser where the new camera my parents sent me rests. It isn’t actually new; Dad just sent one of his old ones, which he claims is only three years old.
“It’ll do for your needs,”
he told me.
“Graduate and get yourself a decent job, we’ll talk about getting you a newer one.”
I didn’t ask about the insurance or why they couldn’t just replace my stolen one.

Unable to reach the camera, I simply look down at the beauty resting on me and reflect on the words she said.
“You don’t need your big flashy device. If you didn’t have your phone, you’d take pics with your mind.”
I smile, remembering that night and comparing it to the night we just had. She breathes peacefully, evenly, as she sleeps on my chest.
“Take my picture, Brant.”

I blink, burning the sight of her into my memory. I feel like I don’t have it burned deep enough, so I blink again, harder. I’m determined to keep this moment locked in my brain forever.

Then she stirs, lifting her head off of me. It almost hurts, feeling the sudden departure of her warmth. Propping herself up, she glances around my room slowly, her hair cascading beautifully down her bare backside.

The moment she turns, I close my eyes, pretending to still be asleep. I listen, desperate for her touch as I lie there, my right hand still grazing her lower back. The unmoving silence tells me she’s watching me. A smidge of doubt tickles me, wondering if I’ve been caught and daring me to open my eyes.

Then I feel her move. A warmth draws close, close, closer, and then her lips touch mine.

I smile into those lips, returning the kiss, and then I open my eyes.

“Hey,” Nell murmurs croakily.

I bring my hands around her back, locking my fingers behind her. “Mornin’, babe.”

She sighs, smiling, and rolls her eyes.

“You
really
don’t like pet names?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why not?”

She offers me a tiny shrug, turning her head.

“You look so cute when you don’t want to tell me something.”

She glares at me through her sleepy morning eyes, which makes her look even cuter, but I refrain from pointing that out for fear of her smacking my face or giving me a titty twister. Or both.

On second thought, maybe I should point it out.

“I just prefer my name,” she says evasively.

“You had someone in the past call you cute names,” I predict, squinting in thought. “Someone called you Nelly-Poo and now you’ve sworn off pet names for all eternity.”

She shrugs. “I guess. Something like that.”

I smile, satisfied with the answer. “Want some breakfast?” I ask, giving her a few playful humps with my hips, which has the unintended effect of making her boobs bounce, bringing my full focus right to them. “Shit, I better do that again.”

She laughs, bringing an arm up to cover her breasts. Wow, really? She goes all shy on me
now
, after all we did last night?

Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard her laugh more in the past ten minutes than I have during my whole time knowing her.

“I’m seeing a whole different side of you this morning,” I remark.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep. I think I know why, too.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s because of the mind-blowing sex we had last night.”

She snorts, swallowing another laugh that dared to escape her lips.

“We should definitely have sex more often,” I decide.

“Breakfast sounds good,” she says, smirking at me as she slips off my body and scavenges my floor for her clothes.

I turn onto my side, propping my head up. I watch her as she finds her panties and slides them up her sexy legs. Then she fishes her top out from under mine near the door, but can’t seem to find her bra. It’s right by the bed, so I snatch it off the floor and hide it behind my back just as she turns around. She’s onto me right away, crossing her arms and lifting a challenging eyebrow.

“Give it back.”

“What?” I blink innocently.

“My bra. Hand it over.”

“I prefer you with your clothes off.”

“I’m not walking out there half-naked with your roommates here.”

“They’re not home. Y’know, you didn’t give
me
a choice of clothing when you cuffed me and turned me into your showpiece.”

“Oh yeah? Is that what I am now? Your showpiece?”

I grin for an answer.

She plays along, sauntering slowly across the room, then bending over to line up her face with mine. I melt instantly, reaching for her lips, when in a flash of light she reaches around, grabs the bra from behind my back, and retreats from me to put it on, smirking victoriously at me from over her shoulder.

I sit up, shaking my head at her. “You think you got some tricks up your sleeve,” I mutter at her sexy backside, watching as she puts her bra back on. “But you haven’t seen
my
tricks. Hope you enjoy spending all that effort putting your clothes on when I’m gonna be taking you right back out of them.”

“I’m hungry,” she says briskly. “Show me what’s in your kitchen and I’ll see what I can do.” Then, in just her panties and that sexy top, she strolls out of my room like she owns the place.

Not gonna lie. I’m hard as fuck right now.

I step into my closet and grab a prop I took from a show Dessie and Clayton did back in the spring. Tying it to me, I swing out of my room, chasing Nell into my kitchen where she rummages through my fridge.

“Sit back, sweet cheeks,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her onto a barstool, inspiring a hoot of protest and a laugh, “and let
me
make you my infamous spicy egg scramble.”

“Spicy egg—? Brant.” She laughs when she sees what I’m wearing. “Is that an eggplant?”

“You don’t like my eggplant?” I face her proudly wearing only the purple apron I’ve donned with an assortment of vegetables decorating the front—namely, a big ol’ swollen eggplant with two tomatoes suggestively placed. “It certainly likes you. You allergic to cayenne or garlic?”

“Nope.”

“Like grated pepper jack cheese?”

“Delish.”

“Prefer your spicy scramble wrapped in a tortilla or … with toast?”

She licks her lips, deciding. My eyes flick to them, my mind flicking somewhere else entirely at the sight of them.

“Tortilla,” she decides, biting her lip as her eyes trail down to my … eggplant.

“Tortilla,” I echo, suppressing a groan of desire. I could take her once or twice on the kitchen counter before starting up the eggs, if she’d let me. “I believe in full disclosure, so I’m just gonna come out with it: I’m hard as fuck under my apron.”

“Noted.” She props her chin up on a hand, watching me.

“And I’ve never cooked my spicy egg scramble with a hard-on.”

“Also noted.”

After giving her a very tense narrowing of my eyes, I surrender to making breakfast, pulling out a bowl from the cabinet and the carton of eggs from the fridge, along with my secret spices. After tossing a pad of butter into a pan, I go to work cracking the eggs and whisking them in the bowl as the butter starts to melt.

Then there’s a person at my back. A voluptuous, cruel, cock-teasing vixen of the best and worst kind. A woman with darkness in her eyes and talents beyond measure in her unassuming hands. A woman … who is pulling up the front of my apron.

“Nell …”

“Pay attention to your eggs,” she orders me as she works her hands under the front of my apron, my own occupied with whisking a bowl of eggs. “Don’t want to mess up and scramble your nuts instead.”

I moan when her hand reaches my swollen, sensitive cock. “This is so wrong …”

“Shh.”

“So, so wrong.”

And then she starts stroking me.

I shudder, my hand movements frozen in place by her own. I clench shut my eyes, enjoying every push and pull of her skillful grip as she works me from behind.

“Keep cooking,” she orders. “Don’t stop.”

“Nell …”

“Don’t stop.”

I resume whisking, my cock so fucking hard that I feel my butthole clench up. She senses all the tension that’s entered my body because her free hand slaps against my exposed ass, squeezing it greedily. The sting makes me even harder.

“Damn, woman.”