Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (72 page)

DESSIE

I gently stroke his sleeping face.

He opens an eye.

“Dessie,” he mumbles sleepily, grinning.

I bite my lip, a giggle of delirium caught in my chest like a bird in a cage, rattling around and unable to break free. That’s basically the only way I can react after a night with a man who made me feel unlike anyone has before. None of the
boys
from my past could’ve ever done what Clayton did with that strength of his, with that strong mouth, with those massive arms that put me right where he wanted me so he could have his way. I’m pretty sure he’s ruined me for all other men, past, present, and future.

I feel the soreness of muscles I didn’t know I had. We barely slept. He brought me to orgasm so many more times, I literally lost count.

Clayton’s sleepy-eyed face emerges over mine. His lips touch my cheek gently, and then he hovers there, looking down into my eyes.

I feel like I’ve become a puddle in his bed. Clayton Watts’s bed.
I’m a puddle in fucking Clayton Watts’s bed.

“Breakfast?” he murmurs quietly. I nod.

Twenty minutes later, we sit on barstools in front of his kitchen counter eating frozen waffles he tossed into the toaster that taste like makeup sponges glazed with the gooiest syrup I’ve ever had the displeasure of eating. I’m polite and eat them anyway because, after last night’s ample physical exertions, I discover I’ve worked up quite an appetite and would probably eat the cushion from a couch.

After my last bite, I glance back at the living room to find Brant crashed on the loveseat clutching an orange-and-blue afghan, his mouth hanging open and the remote barely balanced on the edge of his knee, just a nudge away from falling off.

“I guess he didn’t make it to his room,” I note, thumbing at Brant.

Clayton shrugs as he catches where I’m pointing, then he looks at me and says, “I got class in an hour.”

“Me too,” I say back.

Then, almost like nothing, he puts a kiss on my cheek and mumbles, “Gotta put something on.”

To his sexy back and boxer-brief-sporting ass, I murmur, “Pity.”

There’s a smile as big as the sky on my face when the morning light touches it. The walk from his place to campus is already familiar to me, as if I’d done it a hundred times. We make a merciful detour to my dorm so I can quickly shower and change and look a bit less …
wrecked
. Clayton waits for me on a courtyard bench, typing on his phone. When I’m decent again, he walks me back, leaving me in front of the theater to go to his psychology class, and we experience a short moment of not knowing whether to kiss or hug or just wave. I see the uncertainty in his eyes and my hands seem to twitch with the same intentions as his. Finally, he opts to squeeze my arm, which was almost a half-hug, before he goes. His face reddens as he whips around the corner, which makes me laugh.

I push through the glass doors and waltz into the black box for my acting class, zipping right past Ariel, whose blasé stare of condescension at what she likely just witnessed through the window is not missed.

And really, after how close Clayton and I have grown in just one glorious rollercoaster of a weekend followed by a couple of surprise-filled days, how can I let anything—
or anyone
—ruin it?

My good mood is invincible. Nina gives me a harsh yet instructive critique on my performance piece while Ariel watches from the back row, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. And how do I come out of that class?

Smiling like a cat with a bird in my pocket.

Fuck you, mermaid. You can’t touch me.

I find Sam in our usual spot in the UC food court, and I insist on buying lunch for her. Something tells me she’s made a habit of coming here at this precise time because she knows I do. Plus, inevitably, I always give her about half or more of whatever I eat.

“Take off your glasses,” I say over my teriyaki sub.

Sam lifts her blunt, horrific eyebrows. “Hmm?” she moans through a mouthful of potato wedges.

“Glasses,” I order with a smirk. “Off.”

With reluctance, she pulls off her glasses. Well, the bad news is, those thick frames do a good job of concealing how big and bulbous her nose really is. The good news is, beyond those smudgy lenses, she’s been hiding a set of soft hazel eyes I’ve never noticed before. I always mistakenly thought they were brown.

“Interesting,” I murmur, studying her.

“I can’t see your face,” she complains.

“Let’s get away from campus,” I suggest. “We don’t have any classes until tonight. I want to go shopping.”

She fumbles to get her glasses back on her face. “Shopping? I don’t—”

“You’ve worn that shirt three times since Friday.”

She glances down at her shirt, as if doubting it. When she looks back up at me, she surrenders with an unenthusiastic shrug. “I guess I could use a little shopping. I think there’s a thrift shop on Avenue D.”

A thrift shop is not what I have in mind for her.

An hour later finds us in a store on the
high-dollar
side of town, much to Sam’s dismay. I run my hand through the soft, colorful racks, feeling oddly like I’m back home on some errand in town with my sister when she was a little bit less of a nose-upturned diva. Cece would rush up to a pretty dress, gasping as she spun around and showed it to me held up to her neck and draped down her body. I’d pick a matching dress two sizes bigger and we’d try them on together, then burst out of the dressing rooms at the same time and surprise each other, laughing.

I miss the way she used to be.

Sam moans from within the changing room, complaining about how she looks. “Shush,” I tell her. “Get your booty out here and let me see you.”

The door opens. I get a good look.

“Alright, not your color. Try this.” I toss another one at her. “And please, posture. No one looks good when they’re bent into the shape of a coat hanger. Be the coat, Sam, not the hanger.”

I guess I’m the new Cece and Sam’s my little sister. When she comes out of the dressing room again, her face looks lighter, and I nod with my approval.

What I foretold to be an hour-long overdue outing with my roommate turns into three, and I’m taking her down the street with an armful of bags filled with dresses, shirts, new jeans, and some sexy-ass shoes. I even throw in a few for myself.

“I can’t let you pay for all this,” Sam complains at the counter of the next store.

“I’m not,” I tell her innocently. “My credit card is.”

Swipe.
Cha-ching.

Soon, the front glass window of a beauty salon greets our eyes.

Sam scowls at me. “We’re
not
gonna have one of those moments where you push me in there and have them give me some swanky makeover and I come out looking like last year’s prom queen.”

“No,” I assure her. “You’ll come out looking like
next
year’s prom queen.”

Since each stylist’s area is hidden by big annoying bamboo walls, I don’t get to see Sam until the sun is setting the horizon on fire behind me and the haircut is completely finished. I literally don’t recognize her.

“That’s … not the cut we discussed,” I murmur, staring at her wide-eyed.

“It’s kinda the one I wanted,” she says, then rubs her eyes. “I can’t see how it looks. They made me take my glasses off.”

Her hair is about eighty percent gone. What’s left in its place is a short spread of talon-shaped spikes that sweep near the front into some sort of jet-colored tidal wave.

Sam’s breathing quickens. “You’re worrying me.”

I hand the girl at the front counter my card without even looking at her, my eyes glued to Sam’s hair.

“It’s horrible,” Sam groans, deadpan. “It’s hideous. I’m gonna scare children. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

I get my card back, swipe Sam’s glasses off the counter, and put them on her. The next instant, she slumps over to the nearest mirror, then engages in a strange sort of staring contest with herself, many odd, unreadable emotions cutting through her face.

I come up behind her. “Pretty damn hot, huh?” I murmur, breaking a smile.

Sam’s eyebrows, completely reshaped, slowly lift, as if she were seeing daylight for the first time. She doesn’t say anything, staring at herself in a daze.

Now it’s
my
turn to wonder if she hates the cut. “You know, hair grows back,” I reason with her, “and if you don’t like it—”

“I love it,” she says with her brand of deadpan joy. “I love it so much. It’s really the best thing. Wow.”

Every one of her words, monotonous and flat. She makes “joy” sound miserable. She makes “love” sound like an exhausting climb up a hillside. Yet even with all that indifference that is Samantha Hart, I know better than to rely on the mere sound of her words; she
does
love her haircut. She loves it so much, she can’t look away from the mirror.

I smile inside at a job well-done.

By the time we get back to campus, I realize I’m already five minutes late to my lighting crew shift. The glass door nearly meets my nose before it meets my hand, and I stumble going down the short hall to the auditorium.

Clayton waits for me, his legs dangling over the lip of the stage. He’s since changed and showered, as is evidenced by the new white shirt and jeans. Also, his hair seems to be fixed up a bit, like he threw a splash of water over his head and gave it a few rubs.

“I’m late,” I mouth soundlessly when I reach him.

He seems amused, smirking out of the side of his mouth as he gives me a once-over. “Doesn’t look like appropriate attire for crew work.”

“I picked up this dress today when I went on a shopping spree with my roommate,” I tell Clayton with a coy smile. “I thought that you … might like it.”

“Like it?” he echoes.

From the look on his face, I think he more than likes it.

“By the way,” he goes on, “Dick won’t be by pretty much for the rest of the semester.” I wrinkle my brow questioningly. “It means I’m your boss. It’s
my
say on how late or inappropriately dressed you are.”

I cross my arms and squint defiantly at him. “So … am I in trouble?”

Watching my lips so intently, a dark, roguish glint enters his eyes. He nods slowly, then hops off the edge of the stage and saunters up to me, staring down at me over his big chest and intimidating size.

“Big trouble,” resonates his deep, silky voice.

I bite my lip.

“I was told to send you to rehearsal after we finish everything on this list.” He waves a piece of paper in the air, then slaps it onto the stage. “Just so happens, I finished the list an hour ago.”

My heart races. “Oh?”

“But I don’t feel like sending you to rehearsal.”

“I don’t feel like going.”

A hand firmly settles on the small of my back. “Let’s double-check some of the items on this list.”

I stare up into his dark gaze. “Yes, boss.”

He grins.

Then, with a superior flick of his chin, he leads me up the steps to the stage. I follow, my heart fluttering excitedly.

“Lighting rack organized?” he inquires, his eyes finding me.

“Check,” I say, then press my lips together.

He rounds about the stage, coming to a bunch of hooks that line the back wall. “All the cords wrapped and sorted?”

Feeling playful, I pull at one of the hooks, a set of yellow cords dropping to the ground in a pile.

His eyes zero in on me.

I shrug innocently. “Oops.”

The very next instant, he has that cord in his grip. He steps forward, and suddenly I’m against the wall.

“This needs to be wound back up,” he says quietly, grabbing me and beginning to loop the yellow cord around my wrists.

“Clayton,” I hiss at him, my eyes darting around.

“No one’s here,” he assures me with a mischievous tone, wrapping the cord around and around itself, then pulling tight. “No one at all.” He flips it over the hook, then pulls.

My bound hands fly up with the cable, startling me.
Oh my god.
My heart hammers like a prisoner in my ribcage. My breath is stolen.

Hanging onto that cord, having all the power in his mighty grip, he puts a finger of his free hand into his mouth, sucking it long and hard. I watch his lips work, biting my own.

Then he pulls that finger out of his mouth with a pop and, his evil grin tightening, he thrusts that hand under my dress.

“
Clayton!
” I protest again.

His face intensely boring into mine, his hand negotiates its way under my dress and into my panties with the same slick persuasion as his lips.

His finger glides inside.