Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (40 page)

“Smiling …” A smile of my own twists my lips.

“And I saw your piece.”

I turn away and watch the people slowly moving between the different exhibits, the whole scene disrupted slightly by the flashing lights of a couple parked campus security vehicles. I wonder if even the campus security folk are looking at the exhibits, perhaps after they’ve determined that no one was in immediate danger.

I can’t really say anything, and Brant seems to sense that—in the brilliant way he seems to know exactly what I need at any hour of the day and in any state of mind—because he takes off his jacket and lays it over my back, cuddling it into my sides. Then he lies down next to me, propped up on his elbows with our shoulders touching, as we both stare down at the scene below.

“I miss you,” he whispers.

I press my lips together, feeling pained about how I’d left things, the emptiness consuming me despite his efforts to show compassion. Do I really deserve his compassion?

“The truth is,” I start to say, then stop, clenching shut my eyes as I feel too much emotion rushing up to my face too quickly. For some reason, the last thing I want to do is cry, maybe because I know in an instant that he will try to console me and make me feel better, and that’s the last thing I deserve.

“Yeah?” he prompts me gently.

I blink away the tears that are trying to happen. “You have been … ceaselessly kind to me. Maybe when we first met, I just assumed it was your flirty way of getting me into bed. And a part of me wanted that too, but I knew that once you had your fun, you’d be gone. I couldn’t have that. There’s too much in my life that comes and goes. I’m so used to saying goodbye. Whenever I finish a piece of art, I suffer a little death, having to say goodbye and let it go. I couldn’t stomach another goodbye in my life. I was just biding my time until you’d had enough, and the fear consumed me.”

“I’m afraid too,” he returns. “I’m afraid of how I’m like around you. I’m afraid of what you do to me. I’ve never felt like this about anyone, Nell. You are the only person I’ve ever met who … makes me feel like a better person. Like someone who’s worth more than their dick. Like someone who’s worth more than their charming smile, or their sexy body, or—”

“Wow. Flattering ourselves, much?”

He shoots me a cocky grin. “Just stating facts, babe.”

My tension breaks, giggles raking my body as I try desperately to suppress them.

“If I may interject,” he goes on, “I’d, ah, like to say that I’m in a very similar situation with my feelings. Every girl I meet sorta just … passes through my life. No one stays, not even my exes. It’s become such a way of existence over the years that, like … I don’t even know what it feels like to have someone there at my side. Someone who will be there. Someone who doesn’t leave my bed in the morning. I … I really want someone there to wake up to. I want someone to share my shit with. I want someone to share my spicy egg scramble with every morning, to share my latest set of photos with, to take care of my spontaneous boners throughout the day …”

“And there it is,” I say with a mocking smirk.

He nudges me teasingly. “I want you, Nell. And I want you badly. I want you so much that I feel fucking … empty without you. I know we didn’t quite break up or whatever, but it feels like we did, and … and damn it, I don’t feel like I’m a better artist without you. I’m a crap one. You inspire me, Nell. Don’t I inspire you? Like, even a teensy bit?”

I shrug, considering his question. “Maybe a little.”

“So how can you make art without your muse?”

“Good question. And this is all about you, after all,” I tease.

“It’s about you, too. I’m a mess without my mistress of darkness at my side.”

“Mistress of darkness? Really?”

“It’s a catchy name,” he insists cockily. “You should totally steal it. Run away with it. Or with me.”

“With you,” I echo.

“I’m in the dark without you,” he says, his face suddenly serious, his eyes burning blue. “Be with me. Because the truth is, I’m afraid of the dark. The truth is, I’m still that fuckin’ awkward kid at the party who doesn’t really know what he’s doing and who … desperately wants that perfect girl at the other end of the room. He doesn’t want anyone else. He doesn’t want the easy catch. He doesn’t want to just get off and go. He only wants her. That girl is you. It’s always been you, Nell. I’ve been chasing you my whole life and didn’t know it.”

He shifts his weight to one elbow, then brings a finger to my shoulder, letting it trace down my body. The touch sends a party of goose bumps and delight throughout me. I have to close my eyes now, consumed with the way he’s making me feel.

Then he asks: “Do you want me?”

I shiver pleasurably under his touch.

“Nell?” I hear his voice draw closer to my face, bringing his lips with it. “Do you …” His lips press lightly to my ear, then to my cheek, then to my jaw near my mouth where it’s most sensitive. “… want me?”

I turn toward his lips, catching them, and the kiss that ensues casts an earthquake that rockets down to my core, shaking away all the pain and the doubts that have so plagued me. It leaves but one thing in its wake: a ringing assurance that this is precisely what I need, both as an artist, and as a human being.

“Yes,” I answer. “And now.”

BRANT

That thing I was missing …

That one, elusive thing I was missing that I couldn’t figure out before the showcase …

This is it.

I bring her tightly into my arms as my lips warm against hers. I taste her and feel a flood of comfort and excitement and heat that fills me completely. “I want you,” she whispers between our kisses.

The gravel of a rooftop is not the most comfortable choice to do the sexy-sexy, but neither of us seem to care. I roll onto my back anyway, pulling her over me so as to spare her the discomfort. She straddles my body as we kiss, and I feel the warmth between her legs as she rubs and humps my fast-growing stiffness.

Yeah, this isn’t going to take long.

“HEY!”

Startled, the pair of us crane our necks to peer over the ledge where the voice came from. One of the security officers down below seems to have spotted us.

“Oh, fuck,” Nell blurts.

We’re on our feet. Despite the agonizingly hard
situation
in my pants, we tumble for the door and race down the stairs. I catch the side of her face, and when our eyes meet, we find ourselves laughing. I take her hand and she grips mine tightly as we push through the door to some random floor of the building. The hallway is dim and no one’s in sight, but still we run, chased by a security guard who might not even be pursuing us.

Nell’s laughter rings in my ears, and it might be the most beautiful sound I’ve heard all day. I wonder if I’ve ever truly heard her laugh before.

We shove through a random door, which slams against the wall in our abrupt arrival. A classroom of ten or so students look up at us, startled from their apparent boredom.

“The End Of Year is just simply
amaze
balls,” I announce to them.

“Yes, really,” Nell agrees, clinging to me. “You should all be there instead of—um, what’s this class?”

We don’t wait to find out. Rushing back out of the room, I burst into laughter as Nell, red-faced and tittering excitedly, races by my side. Our hands fumble, finding one another’s again, and we tear down another flight of stairs. My foot catches on a step halfway down, but I manage to keep myself from falling.

And then we’re in a totally empty hall. Nell shoves me against a bulletin board full of “submit here” and “seminar there” and “sign up for this and that”. It’s against that bulletin board that her hand presses firmly against my crotch and her lips hover by my face challengingly.

“You want me, Brant?”

“I want you.”

“Come and get me.”

She slips out of my grasp as fast as a cat sprung by a sudden sound. Her hair whips around the corner and I follow, a dog in pursuit, until I turn the corner and find her so far down the hall, I have to wonder how the hell she runs so fast.

I pick up my pace, running faster.
You’re not getting away from me.

When I make it around the next turn, I don’t see her at all—but I also don’t hear her. I slow down, my dress shoes tapping loudly on the tile. Annoyed with my utter lack of stealth, I pull off my shoes one at a time, hopping and grunting as I do so, then pitch each shoe in an opposite direction, forgetting their existence. Padding down the hall in my socks, I listen and look for her. Our chase has become a sudden game of hide-and-go-seek.

I see a classroom door wide open, the inside dark. At the foot of the door is a pair of jeans.
Nell’s
jeans.

I move inside quietly. Easels are sprinkled throughout the dark space, looking like giant pointy creatures protecting a treasure.
My treasure
. I stalk further inside and my foot catches a shirt.
Hers
. I pick it up off the ground and press it to my nose, inhaling her scent as I continue my slow, patient pursuit through the room.

A bra hangs from the easel to my left. I cast her shirt to the side, grinning as I move on. Then I see a pair of panties hanging from the next easel. I stop, take them into my hand, then press them to my face, inhaling so deep, the room fills with the sound of my breath.

It’s all Nell. It’s intoxicating.

And it makes me so hard, I ache.

With the panties still in my fist, I come around the final easel and happen on a little stage with a stool … a very familiar stage and a very familiar stool. Perched on it is Nell, completely naked, with a finger at her mouth and a set of seductive, lusty eyes locked on me. Her breasts are so full and perfect, it takes everything in me not to rush up and bury my face between them. Her thighs are smooth and glowing in the subtle light that washes in from the distant windows. Her hair, partly cascading down her supple shape, casts a shadow that masks the beauty of her petite shoulders and that irresistible ridge of collar bone that makes me want to lift her into my arms and protect her from all the darkness of the world.

I approach her.

“Not just yet,” she murmurs.

I stop, lifting an eyebrow. “What is it? You expect me to … take an easel and draw you? Are you the nude art model, now?”

“No. Just yours.” She crosses her legs the other way, which pulls my eyes straight to the prize.
Fuck, she knows how to work me.
“I need you to do something first.”

“Name it.”

She draws her hair behind an ear, lifting her eyes to meet mine. The green in them, even with so little light, seems to glimmer.

“Take my picture,” she says.

I give a gentle shrug. “I don’t have my camera.”

She smirks teasingly. “Have I taught you nothing, Brant?”

I lick my lips, understanding. When I reach the lip of the stage, I go to a knee, looking up at her and catching just the right angle. She watches my every move. I close just one eye and lift my fingers in front of my face, creating a rectangle with them.

“Turn your face, babe.”

She does, taking my directive.

“A bit more.”

She obeys. Just that tiny adjustment brings the light onto her cheek, illuminating her face perfectly.

“Bring a hand to your breast.”

She doesn’t move her head, but her face furrows. “Are we shooting a porn, Brant?”

“No. Just you.” I open both my eyes and crane my neck around my own fingers, as if pulling my imaginary finger-and-eye camera out of the way. “If you want me to take your picture, you’re gonna need to obey the photographer.”

She presses her lips together, succumbing, then gently lifts a hand to her breast.

“Good.” I return to my position, squinting one-eyed through the rectangle of my fingers. “You’re doing a great job, babe.”

She tries to play off my compliment coolly, but I see the hint of a proud smile in her otherwise untelling lips.