Love Me for Me (6 page)

Well, she’d just have to think I was weird for being conflicted, then, because of all the people in the world, she wouldn’t be able to relate to my past. She’d care—oh, she’d absolutely care. But Kaylee was too sweet, too full of sunshine to darken with my secret.

“And?” Kaylee shook her head as she screwed the lid back onto the bottle of polish. “I swear, it’s like trying to get you to talk about a trip to the dentist, instead of some action with that stone cold fox.”

I felt myself blushing. “There’s no action!”

She pinned me with a
look
.

“Okay... there’s been a bit of action.” Remembering how his hand had felt on my breast, his thumb playing with my nipple, made heat wash over me. Kaylee squealed when she noted my blush and clapped her hands together.

“Action? You? Stop stalling, and fess up. Now.”

Sucking in a breath, I told her about being late for class, and about meeting Alex outside the classroom. I told her about how he’d shown up at the party, and about the puppy play session the night before.

I even told her about the steamy make out session in the parking lot. By the time I’d finished, her jaw was hanging open, and it seemed I’d accomplished the impossible—Kaylee Sawyer was speechless.

“What?” I hugged the pillow in my lap tightly. “It’s not a big deal, or anything. He didn’t say he was going to call me again.”

But I knew he would. Whatever this was between us, he was feeling it too.

“I just... I mean... wow, Serena.” Kaylee fisted her hands in the length of her strawberry colored curls and tugged gently. “He must be special.”

I tensed.

“Why would you say that? I barely know him.” Shoving the pillow aside, I pushed back the covers and swung my legs out of bed.

“Serena.” Kaylee’s voice was beseeching enough that I stopped and turned back to look at her.

“I didn’t mean to make you mad. I just—you don’t date. You don’t go to parties. You don’t even
like
most people. I don’t know why, but I know there’s a reason. So you venturing out of your comfort zone is... I just meant... he must be pretty awesome.”

I bent to pick up my shower caddy from where it sat on the floor, using my hair to hide the mist that filmed my eyes. When they were clear I stood up again.

“He’s... different.” I admitted, fingering the rough terrycloth of my towel. “And I don’t really know why he’s fixated on me. Maybe I’m just a challenge.”

“Don’t even.” Kaylee was indignant as she reached for the pillow I’d tossed aside and pulled it to herself the same way I’d held it. “I saw the way he was looking at you. He looked like he wanted to eat you alive. Like he was undressing you with his eyes. And also like he couldn’t quite figure you out.”

“See? That’s what I mean. I’m a challenge.” It stung to hear Kaylee say it. Though I knew better than to get involved with anyone, and though I didn’t have any expectations in terms of our time together, I didn’t like the idea that Alex might discard me as soon as he’d caught me.

“I wasn’t done.” Startled by the fierce tone, I looked up to find Kaylee glaring at me. “You’re a challenge, make no doubt about that. But he was also looking at you like you were a puzzle he couldn’t wait to solve. There’s more there than just the lust, girlfriend, though it looked like there was plenty of that too.”

I let out a strangled noise of frustration from my throat. “I’m going to shower.”

I had my hand on the door before Kaylee said anything else, and then she spoke so softly that I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

“You can tell me, you know.”

“Tell you what?” I didn’t turn, kept my hand flat on the cool surface of the door.

“What happened to you. Why you keep most people out.” I had never heard this tone in her voice before, that streak of vulnerability, and it was tempting, so tempting to turn and puke out the entire sad tale.

What would it be like, I wondered, to tell someone who might care? To share the burden, just a bit?

“You’re too untarnished to darken with something like that.” This was the closest I’d ever come to admitting that I had a past.

The closest I would ever come.

Grabbing the handle of the door, I turned it and pulled. Just before I left the room, I heard Kaylee, one last time.

“Not as untarnished as you think.”

***

It had been a full forty eight hours since the night at the shelter—the night Alex had kissed me senseless. I’d caught a glimpse of him in class, but he came after I got there and left before I did.

It was maddening. Though I’d told myself it didn’t matter, I’d waited, and I’d wondered why he hadn’t called.

I’d thought about calling him, but the stubborn part of me said that I’d called last time. It was his turn. And if he wasn’t interested, I was certainly not going to throw myself at him.

When the text came through I nearly swallowed my tongue with excitement. I’d just come back to the room from a shower, and was dripping wet and shivering, but I dropped my shower caddy and picked up the phone in fumbling fingers, typing out a reply.

I waited for the reply, biting my lip with excitement when it came.

I sucked in a breath.

I held my breath as I hit send. I wasn’t normally so bold, but something about Alex erased my inhibitions.

And so I found myself in the lobby of the apartment building he’d given me directions to two hours later, nerves a series of pinpricks that danced over my skin.

As I pressed my finger against the buzzer to Alex's apartment, I remembered his lips slanting over mine nights earlier and shivered. It was new for me, this... this
wanting
. I couldn't believe that I'd gone so long without it.

I just wanted to embrace it now. I'd been in the shadows for so long-- I wanted to
live
.

"Hey." How could one syllable be so sexy? But that was Alex all over, a bundle of mouth watering contradictions.

Tattooed bad ass. All American athlete. Lover of puppies.

Was it any wonder that I couldn't stay away?

"Come on up." He buzzed me through the front door, and I climbed the flights of stairs to his third floor apartment, then wished I hadn't. The wisps of my hair suck to my forehead with perspiration as I knocked on his front door. And when he opened it, wearing faded blue jeans and a deep blue shirt that was only buttoned halfway up, I couldn't tell if the pounding of my pulse in my veins was from the vigorous climb or from the sight of his rock solid chest.

I followed him into his apartment nervously, my heart stuttering in my chest when he bent to press a soft kiss against my left temple. My lips parted of their own accord. I expected to pick up where we'd left off last night in the parking lot, his tongue trailing down my neck and his thumb strumming my nipple, but the soft brush of his lips on my skin was all the physical contact he gave me.

Confused, needy, I looked up at him, and received a wide grin in return.

"How do you feel about board games?" Linking his fingers loosely in mine, Alex pulled me through the small apartment. "And I'd give you the grand tour, but there's not much to see."

"Board games?" I followed him into a small, galley style kitchen. Even with just the two of us in it, it was a tight fit.

"You know. Monopoly. Cranium." I squeaked when he suddenly clasped his hands around my waist and lifted me up until my butt brushed against the counter. I couldn't help but gape at the way his biceps rippled when he lifted me. "Yahtzee. Especially Yahtzee."

"You invited me over to play board games?" I knew that my past experience with the male species was incredibly skewed, but I would never have guessed this.

"That, and to dazzle you with my amazing culinary prowess." He squeezed my waist before me let go, his fingers lingering just a second too long.

"You're cooking for me?" My mouth fell open as Alex opened the oven. After donning cheery red and white striped oven mitts, he pulled out a battered ceramic casserole dish, which he carefully placed on the stove top.

"I hope you like pasta." When he turned towards me again, still wearing those ridiculously over sized oven mitts, I felt my heart do a wobbly flip flop in my chest.

"I do." Before I could prevent it, I felt my nose clog and my eyes sheen with a hint of impending tears. Mortified, I slapped my hand over my mouth, pressing hard, trying to discourage the flow.

I couldn't break into tears just because a boy was being nice to me. I was better than that.

But...

"You're so nice." I could hear the incredulity in my voice, as well as the wobble from emotion. "I..." I trailed off, not sure what to say.

Alex's face darkened, and he looked down at the oven mitts.

"Nice." His voice held a hint of disbelief. I bit into my lower lip, wondering if I'd said the wrong thing. "You think I'm... nice."

"Yes." I had to force the word through a thick throat. I eyed him warily as he cast his eyes up and down my body in a way that was anything but
nice
.

"Serena, I have to tell you something." He stalked—there was no other way to describe the movement—the few steps towards me, insinuating himself between my thighs as I sat on the counter. I gasped when I found my knees pressing into his waist.

He placed one hand flat on each of my knees, then leaned in until our lips were almost touching.

"I—what?" I couldn't think when he was touching me.

"Guys don't like being called nice." Bypassing my lips, he bent his head and pressed a hot, damp kiss to the hollow of my throat. I threaded my fingers through his thick dark hair, my entire body clenching with need.

I began to pant when he slid those lips down, and over the upper swell of each breast. When he kissed his way back up my shoulder, my neck, then nipped at my ear, I groaned.

"Being nice is right up there with being called cute. Or maybe being told we have a great personality." Suckling the lobe of my ear into his mouth for just a second, he released me and stepped back, leaving me with my head reeling.

My fingers clutched at the edges of the counter as I stared at him, trying to slow my breath back down to a normal rate. He looked back at me, his face blank but for the barest hint of a smile that ghosted around the corners of his lips.

"That was
not
nice," I informed him as soon as I found my voice. That hint of a smile broke out fully.

"I was proving a point." With a small smirk, he opened a cupboard and pulled out two plain white plates and a measuring cup. After placing a generous scoop of pasta casserole onto one plate, he handed it to me.

"I have a little table set up through there." He gestured to one end of the galley kitchen. "Go ahead and get started. I'll be right there." I watched for a second as, rather than spooning his serving right onto his plate, he put it into the measuring cup, filling it carefully to the two cup mark before dumping it onto his late. It was strange. He didn't seem like the type to be on a diet.

Alex looked up and found me still standing there.

"I'll just be a sec." He smiled, but the expression clearly told me that whatever he was doing, he didn't want me to see.

"Sorry." Flushing, I fled in the direction he had shown me. It didn't matter what he was doing-- it wasn't any of my business. I had things I didn't intend to tell him, either.

"How is it?" Alex joined me at the table a minute later, one hand holding his plate, the other absentmindedly rubbing his side. "I've made this a million times, but I have no desire to poison a beautiful woman."

Blushing at the compliment, I ducked my head and speared a tube shaped noodle with my fork. "I haven't tried it yet."

I scooped the noodle off the fork with my lips, hissing when it hit my tongue. It was steaming hot, and I licked my lips as I rolled it around in my mouth, trying to cool it a bit before I swallowed.

As I chewed, I saw Alex watching the movements of my mouth with undisguised lust. My mouth suddenly dry, it was hard to swallow, even though the casserole was surprisingly tasty.

"It's... it's good." He wasn't making any attempt to hide his desire from me, and I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know what to do with
him
, this man who could have had any girl and yet seemed to have chosen me. This man who so clearly wanted me, and yet hadn't tried to have me yet.

At least, he hadn't yet tried to go all the way.

"Eat up." He rubbed his side again as he sat and began to eat his own meal. "You're going to need your strength if you hope to beat me at Yahtzee. Not that it will happen... but you can try."

***

"This is painful for me to admit." Alex leaned back on the couch, his hands behind his head. His smile was rueful. "That last roll is a three of a kind."

I blinked down at the dice that I'd just poured from the blue plastic cup onto the battered coffee table. I'd rolled them a full five minutes ago, but had been distracted by something Alex had said.

The single game had taken almost two hours, because we’d talked so much. We laughed. Somewhere along the line I forgot that I was supposed to be nervous and wary, and just had fun.

"It is?" twisting at the waist, I squinted down at the five dice. Sure enough, three of them had landed with their number six sides facing up.

I looked at my score sheet, and couldn't help grinning as I crossed off the last column.

"I won!" I couldn't stop the ridiculous sense of happiness. It was just a board game... but it had been so much fun. Spirits high, I turned and poked a finger into Alex's chest. "I do believe you said that would never happen, sir."

"That I did." His movement lightning quick, he grabbed the hand that was touching his chest and tugged until my torso was bent in his direction.