Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (4 page)

“Cuddling with shadows and cold sheets,” I murmur thoughtfully, staring after him. Suddenly, my mind’s arrested all over again by the sexy cat of a woman from the art class whose name I still don’t know.

A sobering lesson? Fuck that.

I want to
be
the lesson.

BRANT

I can sweet-talk my way between any pair of legs.

“Yeah, the model can’t make it,” I explain, working my best charm on the desk lady. “At least, that’s what Grace said.”

“Grace?” she repeats, her chest rising and falling with anticipation.

I’ve seen that look a million times. She’s already picturing me with my clothes off. If I lick my lips, she’ll cream all over her chair. If I give her my best eyes, she’ll do anything I want.

“Grace. The head of the Art school,” I reply, my voice as light as whipped cream on a nipple. “Now, Irene, I gotta warn you—”

“Irma,” she corrects me dreamily, her unblinking eyes glued to me.

“Cute name.” I shoot her a wink. “Now,
Irma
, it’s very possible that the original model might still show up. So, you know, if he does, he needs to be sent away. Grace’s orders.”

“Sent right away,” she agrees, furrowing her brow.

She bought the whole damn thing. I’d laugh if I didn’t think it’d blow my cover. Really, just give me a chance to flash my smile and my baby blues, and I can pretty much get a woman to believe anything.

I lift my brows. “So, doll, wanna tell me which room it is?”

“14 … um, 1401,” she stammers. “Hall A, the first one.”

Of course, I already knew. “Thanks, Irma. You saved my life,” I tell her. That’s what I tell them all—
you saved my life
. Girls eat that shit up.

The professor waits outside the classroom, a woman who looks like she hasn’t slept in days. She seems confused when I explain the little predicament, but I have her smiling in no time. She gives me a robe and tells me where to change after giving me a surprised once-over she thinks I didn’t notice. Maybe she was expecting an older model.

Maybe I also notice how her breathing changes.

Women
is a language I speak fluently.

Behind the privacy screen, I experience a sudden rush of joy. If I squint, I can swear I still see the sweaty silhouette of the dancer I pressed against that wall not two days ago. The thought makes me grin, and the next second makes my underwear drop.

Goodbye, clothes.

When I come out from behind the screen wearing just the robe, I’m faced with the backs of the artists at their easels. I lift my chin and lock my jaw. This is going to be so fucking great. I already can’t wait to see Clayton’s expression when I tell him what the fuck I did today. I’m about to be the envy of every woman
and
man in this room.

I strut through the sea of art students, drawing their attention one at a time as the professor announces my arrival. The lonely stool in the center of the room awaits my tight tush.

“Whenever you’re ready,” urges the professor, her voice a tad too tight in the throat.

Just when my eyes meet the front row, I see her.

And oh yes, she sees me.

Her eyes tighten with recognition, becoming a squint that nearly burns a hole through me. Boy, she’s one fierce-looking woman. Her jet black hair is swept over the side of her slender neck, and her deep black eyeliner lends the dissecting stare she’s already giving me an even more dangerous allure.

Dangerous to
other
men. I face her with my boldest grin, undoing the robe, then let it drop to the floor.

The room sees my cock. I observe their collective gaping.

Yeah, I’m used to that reaction.

The woman in front, however, she doesn’t seem to regard it at all, her sharp eyes penetrating me from behind her easel. She crosses her legs, unimpressed, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see a tinge of amusement in her eyes.

I’ve got her.

I take my position on the stool, doing that one-foot-on-the-ground-and-one-foot-on-the-second-rung-of-the-stool thing. I rest my hands comfortably near my hips, proudly on display, and throw my gaze to the side, as if that hot woman whose attention I totally have doesn’t mean a thing. I know how these mind games work, and she’s about to find out how expert-level I am.

The calm room becomes a chorus of pencil scratches, tiny sighs, and creaking from shifting stools.

Unable to help it, I turn my chin slightly, meeting her eyes.

She smirks, bringing the pencil to her lips and biting softly.

Fuck.

Sitting on this stool, totally naked, in front of a class full of women and men who are meticulously drawing my every outline, shadowing my every curve and cut of muscle, right down to my big dick … I find myself suddenly caught with an entirely different, unplanned concern.

I can’t let myself get hard.

Not in front of the whole classroom.

I look away from her. Then, I can’t look away, glancing back.

Her tongue teases out, touching the tip of her pencil as she quietly studies me. Already, I’m imagining what that tongue could do to me.

I’m fucking naked. I have nowhere to hide.

In seconds, I’ve been converted from the cock on the block to … the cock
on
a block. I’m a dude with his junk exposed to the world, and I’m slowly being worked up and turned on by that evil girl.

Is my cock stirring?
Everyone’s watching.

The scraping of pencils on paper. The creaking of easels and chairs. A long breath in the back of the room. The clearing of a throat.

I swallow, bringing my eyes back to her.

She shifts in her seat, crossing her legs the other way.

Fu-u-u-u-ck
.
Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard.

Her eyes draw down my body, landing on my cock. The way she looks at it, I can almost feel her fingers wrapping around it.

The end of that pencil breaches her lips. I catch a flick of her evil tongue, imagining how that tiny flick would feel on the tip of my dick.

And her lips, wrapping around the end.

Her warm mouth enveloping it.

I suck in a jagged breath of air. If I control my breath, I can control my cock from getting hard. I hold my breath, blinking and fighting all the blood in my body that’s quickly rushing south.

Her lips curve into the tiniest hint of a smile.

Oh, yeah? Does my predicament amuse you?

Suddenly, I find my confidence again. The rush of heat subsides, and I look down at her legs, wrinkling my forehead ever so subtly. I consider what sort of warmth is gathering between them right now.

Haven’t I been reading the signs? She’s turned on, too.

When I look up from her sexy, squeezed-together legs, her intense eyes are on me, and they’ve changed. They’re defiant. It’s like I literally just touched her without her permission.

Now it’s my turn to wear the nearly-undetectable smirk of victory.

Her eyes narrow.

I got you.

It isn’t much longer before the professor makes an announcement, and then class is finally over. With a careless bend downward, I reclaim the robe, shrugging myself back into it and glancing at my eye-fuck-slash-mind-fuck partner, only to find her packing up her supplies.

In the noise of others chatting and gathering their things, I stroll by her easel, catching sight of her sketch.

“Hmm,” I mumble, studying it. “I think your …
proportions
… are a little on the small side,” I note with a leering nod at my junk.

She regards me with two dark eyes that struggle to hide their amusement. “Actually,” she says, her words seeming to lick my ears with their breathiness, “I think I got it just right.”

She smirks, amused, then zips up her supply bag.
Ouch.

I chuckle, undaunted. “Maybe you need a new pair of contacts,” I tease her, crossing my arms as I peer into those rich green eyes that glow like pure emeralds in that sea of black eyeliner she wears.

“Nope,” she answers curtly, tucking her supply bag under a slender arm. “Perfect vision.” Her eyes trail down my body like a smooth set of fingers, landing at my crotch. “I just draw it how I see it.”

“I’m Brant,” I tell her. “I could … give you a closer look sometime. Maybe tonight, if you’re free.”

She lifts her eyes, those gorgeous greens flashing.

She stops my breath.

Her lips curl, amused. “I’ve seen enough.”

Then she turns, her hair flipping, and she saunters away, her ass hugged by those tight, black jeans of hers. I can’t take my eyes off of them.

With a grin, I crack my knuckles. Looks like I have my work cut out for me. Hard-to-get is a game I’m quite used to.

And I’m ready to play.

NELL

Animals seem to love me.

Especially the
dogs
.

My mom had an enormous one. He was named Dog. He was so big that he looked like a deadly wildebeest thirsty for my blood when he’d barrel down the hall, even if he was just coming to give my face an innocent lick. He terrified my friends growing up, even to the point that two of them stopped coming over for my sleepovers. I think that scary beast called Dog who I loved was an omen for who I’d become.

My art wasn’t always so dark and terrifying and provocative. In fact, until the age of fourteen, I was a downright sweetie pie.

“Nell.”

I lift my chin, stirred from my thoughts. “Say what?”

“You’re up.”

Linus, my professor, waits at the front of the room with his usual calm and expectant face—his arms crossed, his eyebrows lifted. I rise from my desk and bring my picture to the front. Unceremoniously, I slap the thing onto the easel in the front for the class to observe, then stand next to it and stare dead-eyed at the crowd of them, awaiting the obligatory ten-minute critique that each of us are expected to endure after finishing and presenting work to the class.

Linus bristles at the sight of my work. His eyebrows lift further.

Someone in the front row sighs—this bitch named Iris with pink highlights in her pixie cut bleach-blonde hair who thinks my work is all shit; she’s let me know as much since my freshman year and always seems to end up in my same classes. Everyone else is either holding back gasps or swallowing laughter—I can’t tell.

I don’t care. I don’t do my work for them.

“And … what do you call this piece?” asks Linus, his words spilling out from lips I can’t see through the mess of his big orange beard.

“
Pussy
,” I answer.