I sooooo wished I could see what he was looking at right then.
He let go of his collar and looked back up at me. “We’re good. I just realized I’m 100% into women.”
And he gave me a look from my head to my toes that basically said, I want to rip off your clothes and lick you up and down like an ice cream cone.
My knees went weak.
This… this was not good.
I turned away to regain my composure and went back into my room. “How nice for you. Shanna’s not here to take you up on it, though.”
“That’s even better, since I came to see you.”
Oh crap.
This was soooo not good.
Remember Kevin, remember Kevin, remember Kevin! the little angel cried.
Your EX-boyfriend, your EX-boyfriend, your EX-boyfriend! the little devil hollered.
I turned around and tried to sound surprised. “You came to see me?”
“Yeah.”
I thought about mockingly asking him Why?, but I was afraid he might tell me exactly why.
Instead I just stared into his beautiful green eyes for a few seconds…
…and then he grinned at me, like the whole thing had been in good fun.
As soon as he did that, I broke out grinning, too – I couldn’t help it! – and then I looked away, shy and embarrassed.
Thank God there was a pile of laundry right in front of me: something to do. I started folding.
“Um… well… hi,” I said as I folded a cotton shirt.
He kept leaning against the doorframe, just watching me. “So, how’d the Chaucer test go?”
Oh yeah!
Something neutral to talk about.
“Really well, I think – the essay was to write about what the knight learned from the old woman, how he used it, and what it implied in the battle of the sexes.”
“Battle of the sexes, huh?”
“That was the essay question.”
“You know, in the battle of the sexes, I’m more of lover than a fighter,” he said with a playful smirk, trying to gauge my reaction.
Best sex she’d ever had.
Your roommate missed out BIG time.
I chose to ignore the comment.
“I think I might have gotten an A or a B, if I didn’t screw up any too much on the grammar or spelling.”
“See?” he said, immensely pleased with himself. “I saved your bacon.”
I made a face at him. “Yeah, after distracting me for hours on end.”
“Aaaaah, you enjoyed it.”
I did, but I wasn’t about to admit it.
“You can’t claim to save me when you’re the one who put me in danger.”
“Danger?!” he exclaimed in mock offense. “I’m not dangerous, I’m good luck. You should always follow my advice.”
“Yeah, I can imagine what that advice would be.”
“Can you now?” he said with a seductive smile.
I’m pretty sure it would include clothes flying off and naked bodies writhing around.
Then I imaged his naked body – muscular, gorgeous, absolutely perfect –
STOP it.
“Yeah,” I said, and tried to sound as disapproving as possible. “Somehow, I think following your advice would be a recipe for disaster.”
He looked thoughtful as soon as I said it. “That’s good… I should write a song called ‘Recipe For Disaster.’”
“You should name your band ‘Recipe For Disaster.’”
“How complimentary of you!” he said mockingly.
“I try.”
“But we’ve already got a name.”
“Which is…?”
“Inward Spiral.”
Okay, that was the best possible answer he could have given me.
It’s a lot easier to ignore a gorgeous, buff, Greek god’s advances when he starts talking about his pretentiously named garage band.
I tried to be polite, though. “Um… okay, that’s very…”
I must have made a face, because he became ever-so defensive. “Very what?”
I paused.
“Don’t all spirals go inwards?” I asked.
“Well, they normally go down,” he said in his deep, smoky voice.
Now I was thinking of him going down on me… those sensual lips kissing me beneath my waist…
STOP IT.
I forced myself to grimace. “What a clever double entendre.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” he said with faux innocence.
I gave him a tight little smile and squinted like, Suuuuure you don’t.
“Are you one of those chicks?” he asked.
Again, best possible answer he could have given. I can deal with double entendres, but he was being sleazily brazen. I imagined him as one of those guys who unzipped his pants and expected girls to service them, and it offended me.
Unfortunately, the idea of unzipping his pants also excited me, too.
“One of those chicks who go down?” I asked angrily – a little too angrily. I must have sounded like the uptight prude from hell.
He grinned. “I wasn’t going there, but, sure, if you want to volunteer that information – ”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t do it, or don’t – ”
“Don’t volunteer that information,” I snapped.
“Okay, then, I was talking about super-literal, anal retentive chicks who talk about spirals going inward.”
“NO.”
He could tell he was getting on my nerves.
He could also probably tell I had been getting a little hot and bothered.
He seemed to be getting off on both of those things… but he played it smart and backed off. “I agree… it’s not the greatest name ever. If you think of a better one, let me know.”
“Recipe For Disaster,” I deadpanned.
He laughed. “It’s a little too home ec for a band name. But I’ll consider writing a song.”
“Oh, you’ll deign to consider it, huh? Thanks,” I scoffed.
“Has anybody ever told you you can be a little bit prickly?”
He didn’t say it in a pissed-off way. More like he was talking to a hilarious three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum.
“Has anybody ever told you you can be really inappropriate?” I retorted.
He grinned. “You’re the first, actually.”
“Okay, then, let’s make it official: you’re being really inappropriate.”
“Right now?”
“No, not right now,” I said in exasperation.
“Then when? What did I say?”
I glared at him and went back to folding my laundry in silence.
No way I was going to bring up anything about anybody going down on anybody else.
“I’ll watch what I say from now on, I promise,” he said, amused.
“Thank you,” I snapped.
We continued like that, me folding laundry, him just watching in silence, for another ten seconds. That doesn’t sound like much time, but when you’re experiencing enormous attraction towards someone and know you shouldn’t, and they’re obviously flirting with you, and both of you are fully aware of what the other person is thinking – ten seconds is hella long.
The entire time, I could feel the sexual tension building – both in the air, and in my own body. Which made me even crankier, since I knew one of the two wasn’t going to get released any time soon.
“So,” I said, “what exactly are you here for, if you’re not here for my roommate?”
“I told you. I’m here for you.”
Oh God. Remember Kevin remember Kevin remember Kevin –
“Well, here I am,” I said in an exasperated voice, crossing my arms and turning to look at him, challenging him. “What do you want?”
He dropped his eyes shyly to the ground, then looked back up at me in an innocent, unbelievably sexy way, his eyes low and beseeching me from under his eyebrows.
“Would you go to
a movie with me?” he asked earnestly, no trace of arrogance or game-playing in his voice.
That took the wind out of my sails.
I thought he was going to launch into another series of sexual innuendoes, and I was all ready to get furious and kick his ass out of there.
But instead, he was asking me out.
And really nicely, at that.
“I… I have a boyfriend,” I said, my voice a little shaky.
“I thought he was an ex-boyfriend.”
Oh yeah.
“He… we’re getting back together.”
“Are you back together yet?”
“N-no, but… we will be.”
“That a definite thing?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“Okay… so you’ve got a ‘boyfriend,’” he said, putting ‘air quotes’ around the word with his fingers. He shrugged and smiled. “The invitation’s still open. It’s just a movie.”
Yeah, right.
I hedged for a second.
Tell him ‘no,’ tell him ‘no,’ that’s the only safe thing to do, tell him ‘NO’ –
“…what movie?” I asked tentatively.
“You know who David Cronenberg is?”
Do I know who David Cronenberg is.
Do I have two horror-movie-obsessed brothers?
Yeah, I know who David Cronenberg is.
“I’m not going to see The Fly with you,” I said. “Or Videodrome. Or Crash. Or whatever other fucked-up movies he did.”
He laughed. “Did you see A History Of Violence?”
My resistance faltered a little. “No, but I heard it was really good.”
“It was awesome. I think it was nominated for an Oscar or something. And the one he did after that is playing at the student center – Eastern Promises.”
Ohhhhhh… I had heard about that one.
“Is that the one where Viggo Mortensen gets naked in the shower?” I blurted.
Derek burst out laughing. “Seriously? All I had to do to sell you on the movie was say, ‘Viggo Mortensen gets naked in the shower?’”
I started giggling – and was immediately horrified to hear it. I clapped a hand to my mouth and only removed it long enough to say, “No, it’s not like that – ”
“You probably already looked up that scene on the internet, didn’t you?” he asked indignantly.
“NO – ”
“You’ve probably got, like, Viggo Mortensen ass porn all over your computer, don’t you?”
“NOOOO!” I howled and laughed at the same time.
“So, you wanna go with me and watch Viggo Mortensen get naked in the shower?”
“Oh, you want to go see Viggo Mortensen naked, too?” I taunted him. “Maybe you should rethink that ‘100% into women’ thing.”
“No, I want you to go to a fuckin’ movie with me, but apparently that’s only happening if Viggo Mortensen gets naked in the shower,” he grinned.
I laughed so hard I thought I was going to cry.
When I finally came down, I choked out, “…okay… when’s the next showtime?”
“Thirty minutes from now.”
“Okay… let me get dressed.”
I didn’t realize until later that, after he made me laugh, I hadn’t once considered saying ‘no.’
18
I threw him out of the room and hurriedly switched into a pair of jeans, a nice blouse, and a pair of suede boots, and then walked with him down to the student center.
It was a gorgeous spring day – warm but not hot, and blissfully free of humidity. The dogwoods were in bloom, and everything else was green and bursting with life. People were out biking, jogging, lounging on the grass, basically doing anything to soak up the great weather.
The entire way to the student center I walked beside him, talking and laughing, but I couldn’t stop from watching the way he moved. Even though he was a rocker wannabe, he moved like an athlete – long, powerful strides, confident, relaxed.
I also saw his ass in motion for the first time.
Daaaaaaaaamn.
Let’s just say his jeans were packed in all the right ways, and were tight in exactly the right places.
Added to that, I caught his scent for the first time. Well, the first pleasant scent. Not the dank beer and cigarette smell when he and Shanna came back from the 40 Watt the night before. He’d obviously showered, and he smelled clean. Soap and shampoo, with a hint of some kind of masculine deodorant, slightly spicy and musky.
I had never been so turned on by everyday bath products in my life.
The student center movie theater is a pretty nice one, though they play an odd assortment of films. Foreign movies, independent movies, artsy movies, gay and lesbian movies, old movies – if you’ve never seen it, the UGA student union movie theater has probably shown it. They occasionally show crowd-pleasers, and apparently Eastern Promises was one of them… although it fit comfortably into the ‘independent’ category, as well.
It was awesome. Dark and brutal and sad in places, but romantic and awesome overall.
Viggo Mortenson’s ass wasn’t half bad, either.
Although it paled in comparison to Derek Kane’s… which I hadn’t even seen naked yet.
And I’m never, ever GOING to, I told myself firmly as I walked out of the movie theater, trying to keep my eyes off his rear end.
“You hungry?” he asked me as we walked out into the purple-skied dusk.
I was, but I was going to say ‘no.’ We’d gone to see a movie; that was halfway innocent. But dinner and a movie was a bridge too far.
Only problem was, I didn’t speak up fast enough.
“I thought we could grab a bite to eat and talk about it,” he said. “I always like doing that with friends – going to see movies and talking about them afterward.”
Oh.
Well… if he did that all the time with friends…
I had a stray thought that maybe those ‘friends’ were girls he never called back again, but I pushed it out of my head.
“I could eat something,” I said, and felt horribly guilty as soon as the words came out of my mouth.
19
We went to a gyro place on Main Street, directly across from the college. The place is the rattiest restaurant ever, with decades’ worth of greasy smoke layering the walls. The tables are rickety and never clean, and the place has a scary-ass health rating.
But their gyro’s are awesome, with giant shanks of mouthwatering lamb roasting near the door as you walk in. And the feta cheese sauce they put on the pitas is to die for. And the prices are reasonable, so of course it’s insanely popular with college students.
We waited in line and then ordered. What was interesting was that all the guys working behind the counter knew who Derek was, and shouted out as soon as they saw him walk in.
“What up, bro!”
“Hey man, how’s it hangin’?”
“Yo, D!”
They were all alternative-looking guys, most with scruffy goatees and shaggy hair (which might have factored into the low health score posted in the window). I have no doubt in my mind that they were either in bands, or liked going out to see them.
The only girl working was a waitress, and she looked at Derek, too – but with love-smitten puppy-dog eyes.
I reminded myself not to look like her, ever.
We ordered at the register, but before I could get out my purse, Derek paid.
“I can get my own,” I protested.
“You paid for the movie tickets.”
“Yeah, because I get the student discount. And they were only four bucks apiece.”
“That’s still eight bucks. I got this.”
My guilt was beginning to get the better of me.
Southern guys always pay on dates. If they don’t pay, it’s not a date; it’s a clear ‘we’re only friends, and I’m not looking for more’ message. Or it was a massive faux pas, because it meant the guy was cheap.
Or, I supposed, t
he guy could just be flat broke… but in that case, it was better to hang out and watch a DVD instead of embarrass yourself.
Even though Derek didn’t have the slightest hint of a Southern accent, he was paying. And if he paid, this was so not just ‘talking about the movie over a gyro’ anymore.
“I really should pay for mine,” I insisted.
He gave me a knowing grin. “Ohhhh, you’re a feminist, huh?”
“What?” I said, taken aback. “Yeah, kind of – so?”
“You can get the tip,” he said, waving me off.
“That’s only 15 percent!”
“Tip more, then,” said the shaggy dude behind the register.
“Yeah, tip more, then,” Derek grinned. He gave his buddy a Laters head nod and then walked towards the seating area.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath as I followed behind him, trying so hard not to look at that perfect ass in front of me.
“Look, I need to pay you,” I said as I caught up to him.
He gave me a look like I was quite clearly insane. “I got it covered.”
“I know that, but I need to pay for my food.”
“Why?” he asked, exasperated.
“Because if you pay, it’s a date. And I can’t go out on a date with you, because I have a boyfriend. And that’s why I need to pay for my food.”
He looked down at me with those sleepy, half-lidded eyes… and I got lost in their green depths again, waiting to hear what he would say.
Like, for instance, Your EX-boyfriend, Kaitlyn. Which means you can do anything you damn well please.
I KNEW that was what he was going to say.
Or, You can tell yourself anything you want, Kaitlyn, but we both know what this is.
Or, Maybe I want it to be a date.
Or, You really think that paying for your food is going to change anything that’s going on here?
Or –
“Okay,” he shrugged.
Oh.
Hadn’t expected that.
“…yeah?” I asked, a little stunned.
“Sure. I understand,” he said, and gave me a friendly smile.
“Oh… okay… cool,” I said, not quite understanding why I felt so deflated.
I reached into my purse, pulled out a five, and held it out to him.
Rock Me Hard (The Rock Star's Seduction) Page 5