by J. Saman
Well, now I’m nervous. He shifts on the bench to face me further, The metal frame creaks in protest from his weight.
“I know we haven’t known each other long and that we’ve only gone out a few times, but . . .” he trails off, looking away for a moment before turning back to me and taking a deep breath. “How would you feel about being exclusive?”
Wow. That’s not where I thought this was going.
I mean, it’s not exactly like I’m dating anyone else right now or anything.
But being exclusive?
I turn my head to take in his face. He’s smiling, but it’s forced. The dimple in his cheek is barely making itself known to me.
He wants this with me. And he’s done nothing but be honest and sweet and thoughtful. Why wouldn’t I want to be exclusive with this man? I’d have to be crazy to say no. So I don’t. Instead, I say, “Yes. I’d like that with you.”
“Really?” His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but the big smile adorning his face tells me that he’s very relieved and happy too.
I nod, smiling back at him. “Sure. I like you. I have a lot of fun with you.”
“Wow.” He chuckles, leaning in to kiss me softly on the lips. “I thought for sure you were going to say no to that.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Why?”
He shrugs, looking a little sheepish. “Because I heard you’re not the best with boyfriends.”
I laugh. Hard. Like throwing my head back, all out belly laugh. “Who told you that?” I ask when I can compose myself a little.
He shrugs again and I feel a little bad for laughing at him like that.
“Sorry. But that’s not true.” He seems relieved. “I mean, I haven’t dated many guys here longer than a few months, but that’s not because I’m anti-boyfriend or anything. I was in serious relationship in high school,” I say, hoping this proves my point. “I just haven’t really connected with anyone that I’ve gone out with here.” And that’s true. Aubrey and Xander might tease me that I kick them to the curb quickly, but it’s only because I knew the guys I was dating weren’t right, so why prolong the inevitable?
In fact, the one guy I always felt I did connect with, that I could see something working with, always made the fact that he didn’t want me quite clear.
“But you do with me?” He looks so hopeful and cute that I can’t stand it.
“I think I do.”
He smiles, leaning in with a kiss so passionate and full of so much meaning that I feel it everywhere. I’m dying to crawl onto his lap to deepen it further, but we’re in public. And even though I jumped into his arms before, I’m not really the PDA type.
“Can we go back to my place?” he whispers into my mouth and I instantly freeze, wondering if this is what his goal was all along—get me to agree to being with him so he can get me in bed. “No.” He pulls back to look at me, noting my reaction. “That’s not what I meant. I’m getting cold and hungry and I was going to offer to cook you dinner tonight.”
I snort. “You cook?” I raise my eyebrows at him.
“I do. I make really good pasta.” I laugh. “You in?”
“I’m in. Lead the way.”
We get up off the bench and walk hand in hand back towards where Brandon’s car is parked. He looks content, and I guess I feel that way too. But the fact that I still believed that he was just using me for sex bothers me. None of that is his fault. It’s mine and the well of poison that was implanted into my head about him.
I’m not a prude or anything. I’ve had more than a couple sexual partners. But they’ve always been people I was with at the time. I’ve never been someone to do the one-night thing. I just can’t seem to manage casual sex.
That’s just not me.
I have nothing against the notion. Nina is all about casual sex and she engages in it unapologetically and without regret. I admire that about her.
I need to get over this and trust Brandon.
Especially if I’m going to call him my boyfriend.
“How on earth can you still be hungry?” I ask once we get back to his place and he’s standing in his filthy frat house kitchen, stirring a pot of boiling water and pasta. “I’m so full from that burger and the popcorn in the movies.”
“I’m a growing boy.” He looks over at me like I hurt his feelings.
I snort. “God, I hope not. I don’t know what I’d do if you got any taller.” I’m standing in the middle of this kitchen, because there is no clean surface for me to sit.
The counters are covered in a film of sticky nastiness that I’m hoping is just spilled beer, but am not entirely sure. There are a million red cups, all with varying degrees of emptiness, littered on just about every available surface. The freaking keg from last night is still over by the sink, and judging by the lack of embarrassment on Brandon’s part at the state of his repulsive kitchen, it could stay like this for some time.
But I can’t stand it another minute.
So I walk over to the sink, scooting around the large barrel that holds the keg, and open the cabinet drawers beneath it. I’m beyond relieved, and a little shocked, when I see rubber gloves, large black trash bags, a full roll of paper towels and a bottle of multi-purpose cleaner. I take all of them out, placing them on the floor because there’s no space on the counter.
“What are you doing, babe?” Brandon asks with genuine curiosity. I’m squatting on the floor, putting the yellow rubber gloves on my hands because I refuse to touch anything here until it’s been sanitized.
My head turns over my shoulder to look at him. “Cleaning up. Surely you’ve heard of such a notion,” I deadpan.
He smirks at me. “You don’t need to do that. One of the guys will get to it eventually.”
Eventually?
“But not you?” I ask, standing up and opening up the garbage bag.
“No. I’m the captain of the team.” He gives me a shit-eating grin. “I pull rank constantly. It’s also why I have the master bedroom and my own bathroom.”
I laugh. “Then I hope it’s cleaner than this place. Yuck.” I scrunch my nose. “I can’t stand it, Brandon. I just can’t, so I’m going to clean while you cook and eat your food.”
“Seriously babe, you don’t have to. Come sit with me while I eat.”
I’m shaking my head before he finishes speaking. “No way. By the time I’m done, this place will be the cleanest it’s ever been.”
He laughs. “Well, that won’t be hard to achieve.” I start picking up the cups and dumping their remaining contents into the sink, trying not to gag on the smell of old stale beer in the process, before dropping them into the bag. “Have I told you how sexy you look in those rubber gloves?” he teases.
“Don’t be an ass.” I smirk at him. “I’m always sexy.”
“That you are.” He goes back to stirring the pasta that I’m sure is way overcooked at this point, but I don’t want to say anything. “You live with two guys. I’m surprised you’re not use to more of a mess.”
“Well, Aubrey is a clean guy, which is why we have no issues living together. Xander is a new addition. He only moved in last week actually, but so far he seems to be pretty clean too.” I shrug.
“So it’s just us slovenly jocks who are a disgusting mess?” he jests as he dumps the boiling water and overcooked pasta into a colander, shaking out the excess moisture before dumping the whole thing back into the pot.
“I guess it is.” I’ve somehow managed to throw out all of the plastic cups, which almost fill up an entire trash bag.
“You’re making me feel guilty.”
I turn to look at him a little confused, as I spray the ever loving shit out of the counter with cleaner.
“For eating while you clean my kitchen,” he explains.
“You could always help,” I offer.
“Not that guilty.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “It was my decision to clean. Sit and eat. Really. I’m not acting the martyr. I just hate messes.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t show you my bedroom.” He tosses a full jar of sauce into the pan, stirs it around and then dumps the entire thing into the biggest bowl I’ve ever seen. If he eats that much food, I may throw up everywhere. Something tells me that he will.
“Is it gross too?” Please say no, please say no.
“No. It’s actually very clean. I was only kidding.” He sits down with a fork and gets to work on his buffet-sized portion of pasta.
“Good, because a messy bedroom and bathroom are sort of a deal breaker for me.”
“But not a messy kitchen?”
I wipe away the spray with way more paper towels than I should be allowed to use, but it’s necessary. I doubt these guys have rags. “No, those I can handle, but just.” I throw a wink at him.
“Huh. I always thought the counters were gray and not cream.”
I scrunch my nose. “That’s so gross.” He laughs at me as he shoves a forkful into his mouth.
By the time he’s done, the kitchen is as spotless as promised. I even put away a bunch of random things that were left out and organized their meager cabinets.
“Bro, what the fuck?” A voice from the doorway of the kitchen startles me and I twist around to see Jake standing there. “Did you do all of this?” he asks, wide-eyed and grinning.
“Yeah.” I smile sheepishly looking around the kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind that I sort of took over. I just couldn’t stand it.”
He laughs, shaking his brown shaggy hair around. “Definitely not. In fact,” he looks over at Brandon, “I may be in love with your woman.”
“Watch it,” Brandon snaps in a good-natured way.
“Can you come over every week and do this?”
“Absolutely not. You guys are on your own now, and try not to sully all of my hard work.” I wash my hands, drying them on a lowly dishtowel that I found, folding it back up when I’m done and placing it on the counter.
“Good thing it’s Sunday. We won’t be throwing any parties for a few days at least.”
“Good thing,” I agree, going over to the now sparkling counter top, jumping up to sit.
“What are you doing?” Brandon asks, eyeing me strangely.
“I’m sitting. What does it look like?”
“But I’m done eating. We don’t have to stay in the kitchen anymore.” Brandon walks over to me, placing his hands on my thighs.
“But this is the only room in the house that’s clean,” I protest, not wanting to sit in that awful living room. I realize I sound snobbish, but the notion of sitting on that sofa with him makes my skin crawl. Lord only knows what else has been on that piece of furniture over the years. And yes, I’m referring to bodily fluids.
“I told you,” he smiles warmly at me, “my room is clean.”
Decision time. Do I go to his room with him and allow whatever is going to happen between us to happen?
“Show the way, Kessler.”
He laughs. Taking my hand and helping me off the counter. “I’m not sure how I feel about you calling me Kessler.”
We walk through the kitchen, saying our goodbyes to Jake and heading back to the front of the house and up the stairs.
“What would you like me to call you then?” We stop in front of a door, at the other end of the hall from the balcony that we were on last night.
His hand comes up and brushes the hair away from my face. “Honestly, I like it when you call me Brandon.” I furrow my eyebrows tilting my head. “Very few people call me that. Everyone usually calls me by my last name. Including girls.”
“Huh. Okay. I’ll call you Brandon.” I smile up at him, suddenly feeling a little nervous.
“Good.” He leans down and kisses my lips softly.
“Show me your room, Brandon.” He nods against my face, pulling back to open the door and stepping back for me to enter ahead of him.
And yes, it’s clean. Thank baby Jesus.
It even smells good. Like fresh laundry and cologne.
His room is a good size with a large king-sized bed in the center, adorned with a navy comforter and pillows and light gray microfiber headboard. His dark wood furniture looks beat up, with a tall dresser in the corner and a desk under the window. There are two old doors next to each other on one wall, which I assume are the bathroom and a closet.
There are no posters on the walls like there are downstairs in the living room. Not even a picture of his family on the desk or dresser. It’s a nice room, sort of cozy, but lacking any real definition or personality.
I realize instantly how different his room is from mine. My walls are covered in pictures of me with my friends and family. Of concerts that I’ve been to and places I’ve traveled. This is just a room. And for some reason, that sticks up a small flag in the back of my mind.
I spin around to see him standing behind me with an unreadable expression. “No pictures,” I state.
He shakes his head. “No,” he shrugs. “I had a picture of me with my brother. He’s a marine, but the glass cracked and I haven’t bought a new one to replace it.”
“A marine. That’s pretty badass. I take it he’s older than you?”
A nod. “He is.”
“Is he home or abroad?”
“Abroad. He’s coming home on leave during spring break. I’m going to fly home to see him.”
I smile, taking a step towards his bed, before kicking off my sneakers and hopping onto it, propping myself up on my elbows, my feet dangling off the end.
His eyes darken instantly and all I can do is offer a coy grin.
CHAPTER 14
“WHERE IS HOME, BRANDON?” I ask softly, realizing I know so little about this man. He’s standing in the center of the room, watching me as I get comfortable on his bed.
He hasn’t moved, as if he doesn’t want to presume that my being on his bed is a sign of anything to come. It is, and if he doesn’t take the hint in a moment, I may have to change up my methods of seduction.
“About an hour west of Charleston.” I can hear the tension in his voice.
“Huh.” I sit up, reaching down for the hem of my sweater and pulling it over my head slowly, revealing my lacy black bra as I toss it onto the bed. He swallows audibly and his eyes widen. “Is he your only sibling?”
A nod. “W-What,” he clears the thickness from his throat, “What about you?”
“Just Aubrey.” My hands glide down my stomach to the button on my jeans, before I unfasten it. But that’s where I stop. I’m sort of hoping he’ll take the fact that I’m sitting on his bed half naked as an opening to come on the bed and join me.
“Uh huh.”
He’s staring at me. Much to his credit, his eyes don’t linger on my breasts for very long before they flitter up to my face. But he still hasn’t moved from that damn spot.
So I get up and walk to him, running my hands up his strong muscular abs and chest when I reach him. “Brandon?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to touch me?” I ask, looking up into his light blue eyes that are quickly becoming eclipsed by the darkness of his pupils.
“Yes.” He swallows hard again.
I shake my head. “I’m not saying we’ll have sex yet, but we can certainly do other things.” I run my hands up to the back of his neck, twirling my fingers through the hair that rests there.
He groans before his mouth comes crashing down onto mine with a ferocious hunger that practically knocks me off my feet. His hands snake down my back, grabbing my denim-clad ass, picking me up and walking me back to the bed.
He tosses me onto the bed with a heavy bounce that makes me laugh.
But my laughter dies out when his long strong body covers mine and his mouth takes what it wants.
We kiss like this for a while, tangled up in each other, before his hands slide down my shoulders and over my bra-covered breasts.
“You’re so unbelievably gorgeous,” he moans as his mouth finds my neck and one hand reaches behind my back to unclasp my bra
with a dexterity that I’d rather not dwell on. When my bra is pulled away, joining my sweater on the edge of the bed, Brandon sits back, gazing down at me.
God, the way he says this has me panting. He means it. Of that I have no doubt.
“Come here,” I whisper and he very willingly obliges.
After, when we’re both lying in his tousled up blankets and sheets, spent and sated, we’re quiet, oddly lacking in conversation. It’s getting impossibly late and neither of us even realizes it until I lean up to check his alarm clock on his nightstand.
“I need to go home.”
“You can’t stay tonight?” he asks, sounding a little disappointed.
I shake my head, sitting up fully and getting dressed. “No. I have a class at eight tomorrow morning and none of my stuff is here.”
“Okay,” he says, getting up and getting himself dressed too. “What are you doing after class?”
I stand up, zipping and buttoning up my jeans before sitting back down to put my shoes on. “Tomorrow is my hell day. I have classes all day until four, but then I really need to work on my manuscript.”
He nods. “Is Xander helping you with that?” And yup, there is a definite edge to his voice. Not a big one, but it’s there.
“Not anymore,” I tell him, as I run my fingers through my hair that I’m sure looks like I was just electrocuted. “That was just for the outline, the rest is up to me.”
He nods, but doesn’t add anything else about that. “I have practice tomorrow night and Tuesday afternoon.”
“I thought you were suspended?” I say, though I feel bad about bringing it up.
He ties the laces of his Nikes, before standing up and walking towards me. “I am.” He brushes some of my unruly hair out of my face. “But I’m still allowed to practice with the team.”
“What time are you done with practice on Tuesday?”
He looks away towards the wall, thinking about this. “I should be done by six or six-thirty. Did you want to grab dinner?”
“Tuesday is dinner night at my house. I always cook for Aubrey. Well, now I guess Xander too, but if you’d like to come . . .” I leave the sentence hanging.