Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (63 page)

“This’ll sting a bit,” I warn him when I’ve taken the antiseptic wipe out of its package.

Clayton lifts a confused brow, having missed my words. Then I touch the wipe to his cheek and he hisses, flinching away.

“Clayton!”

He glares at me, then surrenders, relaxing himself back into position and letting me clean the wound.

I wonder if maybe my effort is totally insufficient and he should, in fact, see a doctor or get stitches. I’m no medic. The most of what I know is from movies and plays I’ve seen, like that one about the nurse in the ER where her love interest dies in the end from rust poisoning.

The thought freezes me.
Let’s not kill Clayton.

“Bandage,” I say unnecessarily, applying it.

His eyes haven’t left mine, I realize. Suddenly, my confidence crumbles again. Now that I’ve finished the business of properly bandaging him, I suddenly find I have nothing left for my hands to do. We’re just staring into each other’s eyes, and that look of wariness in his has been exchanged for something far more sinister … something dark and needy …

Something hungry.

“Thank you,” he says suddenly.

The words tickle me somehow, a smile finding my face, perhaps to break the tension. In response, I bring a flat hand to the front of my chin, then let it fall outward—
Thank you
.

Now it’s Clayton who smiles. After a second, he repeats the sign back to me, except a little differently.

“Oh.” I watch him. “I was doing it wrong?”

He repeats it again.

I mimic the gesture back to him.

“No,” he says, then takes my hand.

The touch of his fingers running over mine sends electricity up my spine, touching the hairs on the back of my neck.

“This,” he murmurs so quietly, it’s hardly a word at all.

He brings my hand to his chin, slowly, then directs my hand outward, demonstrating the sign using my own hand. Even when he’s done, he doesn’t let go.

“I swear, that’s what I’m doing,” I tell him, my heart racing so fast, so potently, Clayton
has
to feel my pulse in my fingertips.

“Again,” he orders.

Instead of signing it, I take the fingers of his left hand and bring them to my chin.

Then, I bring them a bit higher, touching them to my lips.

His eyes lock onto mine. Oops. Have I awakened the beast?

Not yet.
I part my lips, letting one of his fingers slip inside. It tastes salty. His skin is rougher than I expected, too. Seeing his reaction makes my heart race even more, how
his
lips part and an unblinking look of shock takes over his face, paralyzing him.

I gently nibble on his fingertip, staring at his dark eyes challengingly.

A growl, deep and wolf-like, escapes his lips like a warning.

A warning I don’t heed.

Then in one swift, powerful movement, he grabs my wrist with that hand I was tasting. I gasp, but I don’t stop him.
I welcome him.

He jerks me forward, and our lips collide, catching one another’s clumsily, then locking.

His breath bathes my cheek, jagged and furious.

A hand reaches behind my head, tangling itself in my hair there and trapping me in place, holding me against his kiss. My arms are caught between our heavily-breathing bodies. I’m a prisoner to his mouth, and I’m not going anywhere.

Oh my god, he’s so strong and dominant when he kisses me. I have never felt anything more powerful. The way his lips make work of mine, it’s so like eating your favorite dessert that you have craved and been denied for so long. The power of his jaw alone …

And then his tongue … The taste throws me out of my mind, how perfect it is, how inviting he is …

My trapped hands find his chest. He is so firm and smooth that even through the tight shirt, I feel every ripple of muscle on his sinewy body, especially as they flex in his effort to destroy my mouth with his kiss. He is a mountain of meat and fury, and I want to explore every inch.

My fingers graze over his nipples daringly.

He moans in response, bucking under my touch.

Then his big hands grip me at the hips and, in one powerful thrust, he pulls me off the coffee table and throws me to the couch. I gasp against his kiss just as he pulls away, his animal eyes observing mine.

Is he asking permission?

Clayton Watts, you have it.

As if I need more convincing, he straddles me, then grips the bottom of his shirt.
Oh god.
He slowly tugs, sliding the material up his torso and giving me a show. Inch by inch, I’m exposed to a spread of abs—yes, there’s six of them, the whole sexy pack is there—and then his two hills for pecs that are simply perfect. The tattoo that crawls up his neck also crawls down his chest in a thorny nest of ink that makes him look exotic and dangerous.

He casts the shirt to the side, and the sight of a shirtless Clayton atop me is too much to behold. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me. This isn’t real.

His slender, dimpled hips disappear down into his loose-fitting jeans, drawn tight over the meat of his big thighs, which trap me in place on the couch.

I am utterly pinned and totally at his mercy.

Then he bends down and nibbles on my neck, sending shivers of joy up and down my body as I squirm against him in pleasure.

The weight of his body presses down on mine, nearly taking the air out of me. I’m so dizzy with what he’s doing to my neck that I hardly notice. In fact, I welcome it, clinging to him in an animal effort to somehow fuse our bodies together.

Pressed against him, I experience a split second of wondering if we’re moving too fast.

The next split second, I’m crying out, “
Oh my god!
”

Clayton’s worked his way up to my ear, his tongue tracing my jawline. When he reaches my mouth again, the animals are reunited and I throw my arms around his shoulders, crushing his face into mine.

“Dessie,” he whispers when he pulls away for one fleeting breath.

“Clayton,” I agree to nothing in particular, each of our breaths blasting against the other’s face, before plunging our mouths back together.

Our lips locked, he lifts his chest and runs his hands down the length of my body until they reach my hips. His fingers tease under my top, tickling the sensitive skin there.

Oh god.

Slowly, cruelly, his mischievous fingers work their way back up, taking my top with it.

I sit up for one moment.

My top’s gone the next.

His face hovers over me as his hand trails down from the top of my lace bra to my exposed stomach, then traces the waistline of my jeans, flirting with the buttons. I feel a quiver of anticipation below. My legs squeeze together and I feel a jolt of excitement.

“Wait.”

Clayton saw my lips move. He lifts his eyebrows, breathing heavily.

“Wait,” I repeat, placing a hand on his warm, bare chest. “Wait, wait, wait.”

He obeys, his dark eyes locked on me and waiting, for whatever reason, he doesn’t yet know. The only sound in the room is our erratic breathing. I watch my hand rise and fall as his chest does with his every breath. His body is so perfect, I can’t even compare it to anything or anyone. The shape of his pecs, the definition of his abs, the subtle ripples of muscle that work down his sides, his artful tattoo … There’s just too much for my eyes to drink in all at once.

“Too fast?” he breathes.

I nod once, warily looking into his eyes.

What I see isn’t frustration. In fact, he seems to agree, like a thought or two has worked through his brain. He holds himself up with a hand pressed into the cushion on either side of my head, his face over mine as we each catch our breath.

His lips twist into a smirk. “Can’t handle me?”

I laugh, despite our circumstance. “You are a lot to handle.”

He pulls away, giving me room to sit up. I fetch my top from the floor and slip it back on. It doesn’t escape my attention that Clayton watches my every move. At some point, he had managed to undo the top button of my jeans, so I fix them up as well.

I give him a smirk of my own. “Quit staring.”

He shrugs. “I like what I see.”

After a moment of staring into his eyes, feeling oddly powerful, I grab his shirt and throw it at him. He catches the sleeve with his teeth, biting it like a dog and growling at me.

I can’t help but laugh.

Clayton holds up the shirt. “Put this back on?” I nod in response. “That’s a first,” he says teasingly.

I love the way his teeth, tongue, and lips form the word “first”, a hint of Texan accent in it and the “s” muffled slightly.

“Well, unless you want me to hold a conversation with your
chest
…” I tease him.

He throws an arm over the back of the couch, the shirt dropped to his lap and forgotten.

I sigh with pleasure, unsure if he heard me or not. My eyes are helplessly glued to his muscles. “Fine,” I say breathily. There are worse things I’ve been subjected to. “You going to tell me how you got that thing on your face?”

Clayton’s forehead screws up. I assume he didn’t catch what I said, so I indicate my own cheek, then point at his expectantly.

He sighs and looks away, biting his lip. I slap the couch, drawing his attention back. “I know you didn’t just … ‘fall’.”

He shakes his head no, confirming my suspicion.

“So?” I prompt him.

It seems to take a measure of effort for him to even think about it, which casts a lightning bolt of worry through me. Finally, he pulls his phone out, taps a bit on it, then shows me the screen:

Some punk assholes

from the corner store

followed me out n jumped me.

“Oh my god!” I blurt out as I read it. “Why??”

“Bad attitude,” he answers quietly. “Dumb.” He shrugs, all the muscles of his shoulders moving with him. His eyes linger on my lips.

I remind myself that he’s staring at my lips for the functional purpose of grasping what I’m saying and urge myself not to be so damned turned on by it.

“You don’t like to talk much,” I observe, though I meant it as a question.

His eyes detach from mine, caught in a thought. Then, with a short sigh I’m not sure he meant for me to hear, he types into his phone again. I watch his face work through a bunch of different word choices as he struggles with how to say whatever it is he’s typing. With a pinch of reluctance, he shows me the screen:

I’ve always been weird

about talking out loud

since I can’t hear myself.

Been this way

since I lost my hearing :/

I nod slowly, then take his phone from him, earning a snort of protest as I delete what he typed and write my own message. I reveal the screen:

I like what you sound like.

Not that you need any more boosts

to your insufferably large ego.

He grins, and half a laugh escapes his lips, all his pearly whites shining. He meets my eyes with his head still tilted down to the screen, his forehead scrunched up in an adorable way.

“I like what you sound like,” I repeat, shrugging.

His eyes harden. “I … wish I could hear what
you
sound like.”

“My voice is pretty boring,” I assure him. “You’re not missing much.”

“I doubt that.” His eyes brush over my face, a hint of curiosity in them. He reaches for the tequila and pours two more shots. When he offers me one, I shake my head and gently push it away. To that, he shrugs and downs them both, one at a time. His face visibly loosens, his eyes turning watery. “There’s a lot about you I’d like to learn, Dessie.”

I put an arm over the back of the couch. Utterly incapable of enforcing discipline on my hands, I find myself curious about his tattoo. The moment my finger touches his neck, he seems to freeze in place, staring into my eyes intensely as I observe his ink, tracing the shape.