Pink Shades of Words: Walk 2016

by Anthology

  "You haven't been doing badly on the quizzes!" I accused. "These quizzes are all marked one hundred! Hell, Sebastian, you've been breaking the curve!"

  His lazy grin spread wider and he laid on his thickest honey-drenched drawl, which I noticed he did whenever he was trying to make a point. "I never said I'd been doing badly. That was your assumption. I simply didn't disabuse you of the notion."

  I opened my mouth to protest, but realized he was totally right. Based on nothing more than his status as an athlete and a campus god, I had assumed that he couldn't possibly be smart. Embarrassment caused me to snap my mouth shut, my cheeks flaming.

  With my fashion sensibilities and my passionate interest in books and school, I had been the brunt of so many stereotypes over the years that I hated the very idea of assumptions and stereotyping. Yet there I was, engaging in that very thing.

  I ruefully shook my head. I had always believed that, when you were wrong about something, the best thing to do was simply own up and apologize.

  So I said, "Damn, dude. That was my assumption. I saw that you were kind of stealth about your score, so I just figured that it must be a bad grade. I don't really know why my mind automatically went there. My bad. Sorry."

  He spread his arms wide. "Hey, I can't feel too bad about it. After all, that very assumption is the reason why you’re standing in my room right now. So it could never be all bad. But I do hope that this little misunderstanding lets you know that there is a lot more to me than meets the eye. Whatever you think I am on the surface, it's not necessarily the truth. If you want to know something about me, just ask. Where you're concerned, Miche, I'm an open book."

  I smiled. "Okay. I do have a question, then. Since you're offering and all."

  He folded his arms behind his head and reclined further, relaxed and open.

  I set my messenger bag on the desk and took a slow step closer to the bed. Then another. Taking a page out of his book, I made my voice low and seductive when I spoke.

  "Since it's pretty obvious that neither one of us needs an emergency study session before the big debate trip this weekend, what do you suggest we do with the rest of our evening?"

  He sat up, every muscle suddenly taut, his eyes sparking with pent-up tension and desire. The grin he gave me smoldered with lusty fire. When he spoke, his voice was raw and raspy, and it sent waves of tingling tremors up and down every inch of my skin.

  "Oh, baby girl, I'm glad you asked. Because I definitely have some ideas about that. Yes, I certainly do."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sebastian

  I could hardly believe my eyes as Michelle walked toward me, seductively swaying her hips, her eyes holding sultry promise. This very scenario had played out in my dreams and fantasies so many times over the past few months that I felt like I should pinch myself to find out if this was real or not. If that were the case I never wanted to wake up.

  I sat up straight on the edge of my bed as she came closer. She stepped between my knees and rested her hands on my shoulders. My hands rose to encircle her waist. I could feel the heat of her skin even through her clothes, and when she bent closer, the warmth of her breath mingled with mine.

  Oh, yes. She was real, all right. Very, very real.

  "Do you know how long I've waited for this? To have you here, alone, in my room? In my bed?" I rasped. I touched her face with my fingertips

  "I think I do. If it's anywhere near as long as I have waited, then it's safe to say this has been a long time coming."

  I stood and wrapped her up in my arms, holding her tight as I crushed her lips to mine. I didn't want to let her go. Now that I finally had her in my arms, with no barriers, no restrictions, I wanted to make every instant count.

  I loved the way that she felt pressed against me. Her body felt perfectly molded to mine, as if the two of us had been made specifically to fit together in this way. I wouldn't have thought that it would be that perfect—I'm so tall, and she's so adorably tiny. But the absolute rightness of the way our bodies notched together like puzzle pieces was a beautiful surprise. I hoped that it was the first of many amazing things we were going to discover about each other— that night and for many years to come.

  She snaked her arms around my neck, which caused her to stand on her tiptoes. It was about the most adorable thing I had ever seen, and it tore a low moan from my throat as I bent down and scooped her up against me. My dick strained at my jeans as she wrapped her legs around my waist. Fuck. Had I ever, in my entire life, felt anything as goddamn sexy as the tight, hot pressure of Michelle's slim legs squeezing my waist? That was a simple question to answer.

  Fuck no. I had not.

  I slipped my tongue into her mouth, exploring its hot wetness. She whimpered, which caused my cock to have even more trouble staying within the tight confines of my jeans. Holy shit, she was the sexiest thing. Her moans and sighs were like erotic music to my ears.

  "It feels so good, Sebastian. Please. Please never stop. Never stop kissing me. Never stop touching me."

  She didn't have to worry about that. I lived to touch her. I had since the first moment I’d seen her, and that had been before I’d even fully realized how amazing her body would feel against mine, how incredible her soft skin would feel under my fingers. Now that I knew, her biggest problem was going to be keeping my hands off her at times when PDA would be inappropriate. Worrying that I would ever, in a million years, want to stop touching her? Stop kissing her? Yeah. Those fears were totally unfounded.

  I sat on the bed again, pulling her with me. As I leaned against the wall, she settled in on top of me, straddling me. It was almost too much to handle, the heat coming from between her legs, directly onto my cock. Even through our jeans, it felt like a raging fire. My dick pulsed with need. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to rip her clothes off, claim every inch of her naked body with my hands and mouth, and then plunge myself inside her, hard, again and again until we were both spent and satisfied.

  That would happen. It most definitely would. It wasn't even a question. But, for this first time, I needed to take it slow. I was seized by an instinct even more powerful—although I wouldn't have thought that was possible—than the instinct to ravage her: to protect her. I would have done anything it took to make sure she was happy and safe. That meant putting a leash on my caveman instincts and being tender.

  Of course, I reasoned as I began to trail butterfly kisses down her soft and sweet neck, that wasn't all bad. Those tender feelings were inside me. I just needed to make sure those came to the forefront instead of being drowned out by my raging libido.

  Underneath my lips, her pulse pounded in her neck, fast and delicate like a hummingbird's wings. So I deepened the kisses as I moved farther down her neck and her chest, swirling my tongue on her hot skin. Her moans encouraged me—and the way she arched her back toward me and tangled her fingers so tight in my hair, insistently pushing my head down.

  Although she hadn't said a word since we'd climbed on the bed together, her body and her breathing were combining to tell me more than thousands of words about how much she wanted this—how much she wanted me—ever could. And, God, if that wasn't the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world, I didn't know what was. To know how much pleasure I was giving her body, the same way she was giving pleasure to mine—it turned me on more intensely than anything I'd ever thought or felt up until that moment.

  I inched my hands up her body, gently pressing my fingers into the flesh of her belly and her torso. My mouth continued its downward progress until I was kissing the ripe flesh of her breasts, which were exposed over her neckline. I cupped her breasts, pushing them upwards and brushing my thumb over her nipples, which were hard even through the fabric of her tank top.

  She gasped and tightened her fingers in my hair, pulling it almost to the point of pain. Even that felt beyond pleasurable in the moment though. Her nipples hardened even further under the pads of my thumbs as I rotated them, massaging the firm buds in
slow, even strokes through her tank top as she whimpered and moaned.

  This was it. I knew I had her in the palm of my hand. I could feel it in her body, hear it in her voice. She was aching to be naked with me every bit as much as I ached to get her that way. I took my hands from her breasts and gently trailed them up her arms. Her skin turned to gooseflesh underneath my fingertips, and her muscles convulsed in tiny shivers with every new inch of contact between my hands and her exposed skin. God, I couldn't wait until the bare skin I was touching was in a much more secret, personal place than her upper arms—and the convulsions that rocked her were far from tiny.

  I tugged the strap of her tank top down, exposing her perfect breast, going slowly to draw out and enhance the anticipation. I took a moment to drink in the sight, but the tender, pink bud of her nipple was too tempting for that to last very long. I hungrily lowered my head and enveloped her sweet breast with my mouth, rubbing my tongue in rhythmic circles around her hard nub.

  Her muscles trembled under my touch, and she began to rock her hips back and forth in time with my tongue. I groaned, the friction against my cock making it grow harder and harder by the minute. I applied some gentle suction to her sensitive tip, and her breathing sped up.

  All of a sudden, though, she stiffened—and not in a "this feels so good, you sexy beast, you" kind of a way. No, this was definitely more of an oh-shit kind of stiffening of her entire body, every muscle at once. When I looked at her, her eyes were wide and her face was frozen and white.

  Shit. She was completely freaked out.

  Just as I was about to open my mouth to ask her what was wrong, what I had done, and how I could fix it and make her feel better, a slow clap started across the room. I froze as well, but only for an instant. I sprang into action, my immediate thought that I needed to protect Michelle from whoever this intruder on our private time was.

  I grabbed the edge of the comforter on my bed, then pulled it up and wrapped it around her back as I stood up. That provided enough cover so that she could yank her tank top back into place and straighten her clothes before she tossed the blanket back on my bed.

  I glanced over her shoulder as I helped her quickly dress to see who had so unceremoniously walked into my room. It was my roommate, Jackson.

  "What the fuck, dude? I thought you were supposed to be out all night?"

  He laughed. "Plans changed, my friend. Why didn't you put the sock on the doorknob?"

  Damn. He had a point. This was ultimately my fault. I couldn't get too pissed at him for walking into his own room, really. Still it didn't matter if it was justified or not. I was royally pissed.

  "Yeah, I guess we just got a little carried away," I mumbled. I looked down at Michelle, who was still standing next to me, fidgeting in discomfort. "This is my roommate, Jackson."

  "Hey, Library Girl," he said, his jovial tone matching the casual grin that covered his face.

  "Ignore him. He's an asshole," I rushed to say, but then pointedly added, "Plus, he's leaving. Right now."

  Before Jackson could argue, Michelle babbled, "No! No, I mean...there's no point. This is his room, after all. I'm gonna go. I'm just gonna go, now. Yeah. Um...bye."

  As she gave that frenzied speech, she grabbed her book bag off my desk, jerking it to her with such force that the pile of quizzes I had strategically placed there fluttered to the ground and coated the floor. ”God damn it!” she growled, bending down to gather the papers with trembling fingers.

  "Miche, don't be silly. You don't need to go. I don't want you to go. Trust me. I want you here a lot more than I want Jackson."

  "Hey, now," Jackson protested, but it was good-natured.

  Michelle smiled tightly. The intensity in her eyes on her face didn’t seem angry, just extremely uncomfortable. Somehow, though, I hated that even more.

  "No, no. I don't think that would be a good idea. I'm just...I'm gonna go. I'll, uh...I'll text you later."

  With that, she rushed out the door, closing it firmly behind her. Even though Jackson was still on the other side of the room, the dorm room had never seemed emptier. Every room Michelle was in lost all of its life and color when she left it, as far as I was concerned.

  I looked at Jackson, shaking my head at the amused smile that remained on his face. "You're an asshole," I said flatly.

  He put his hand over his heart as if wounded. "Damn. You cockblock a guy one time and it's like you never even knew him."

  I rolled my eyes. At that moment, he didn't know how close I was to wishing that were actually true. But he was about to find out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Michelle

  I stood awkwardly by the curb with the rest of the debate class, my army surplus duffel slung over my shoulder. We were waiting for the bus to rumble up so that we could load our luggage into the cargo hold and then board it for what promised to be an interminably long trip to San Francisco. Damn it all to hell. The other kids from class were already staring and whispering. I was sure this bus trip was going to be the epitome of awkward.

  Hell, at least I had a book. I'd bury my nose in that son of a bitch and shut out the rest of the world. It was a move I was used to, so I could easily pull it out again.

  This was exactly what I had been afraid of all those months when I'd been ignoring Sebastian's flirting. I had known that, once the thing between me and Sebastian—whatever the hell it was—had made any forward progress, people would find out about it. And there was no going back after that.

  Of course, I was afraid of other things as well. But this was certainly among them.

  As for Sebastian himself? Yeah. Nowhere to be seen. And I hadn't heard from him in the past two days, either. Uncharacteristic tears pricked my eyes. Frickin' hell. I was sure he was over me, based on the way I’d lost my cool and bugged out of his room on Wednesday night.

  When he had listed off the things he liked about me that day in my grandma's backyard, all the attributes he had named revolved, in one way or another, around my being centered, self-possessed, and basically an all-around badass bitch. Not, in other words, the kind of girl who gets embarrassed because someone caught her making out.

  Yeah. I was sure he was Audi 5000. And it made me feel like shit.

  The bus pulled up in a cloud of exhaust, interrupting my self-pitying thoughts. I sighed. Well, it was time to get this weekend over with. I lined up behind the rest of the class, adjusting my duffel and choking on the exhaust that blew into my face.

  We inched forward, person after person tossing their bags into the cargo compartment. When only three or four people were in front of me, a car horn started honking insistently behind the bus. I figured a very frustrated motorist was being held up by the oversized vehicle. But, as I was about to toss my bag into the luggage compartment, someone called, "Miche! Hey, Miche!"

  I froze, then straightened and looked around. I edged out of line and walked toward the sound of his voice, back along the length of the bus. Was I imagining it? My heart beat faster with every step. What did this mean?

  There, parked behind the bus, was Sebastian. He was in his idling truck, a broad grin covering his handsome face as he locked eyes with me and waved. I hurried over to the driver's side window to talk to him.

  "What are you doin', darlin'?" he teased.

  "Um..." I wasn't sure how to answer, so I opted for simple and factual. "Getting on the bus. To go to the debate trip."

  He shook his head in mock disappointment. "Oh, now, Miche. Please tell me you don't really want to ride in that smelly, crowded, ol’ bus?"

  A smile tugged at my lips. His teasing could always do that to me.

  "Depends on what my other options are," I said archly.

  He burst out laughing. "Woman, throw your bag in the back of this truck and get your ass in here," he commanded good-naturedly.

  I grinned and rushed to comply. He wasn't going to get any argument from me. An hours-long trip with judgy strangers from my class? Ugh. No, thanks. An hours-long trip sp
ending one-on-one time with my sexy Sebastian? Oh, hells yes!

  By the time I had tossed my bag into the truck bed, Sebastian had turned the truck off, hopped out of the driver's seat, and hurried around behind me to fasten straps over my bag to keep it secure. When he was finished with that, he opened the passenger door for me and snaked his arm around my waist, getting ready to boost me up.

  That contact with Sebastian's body, after I had convinced myself I had felt it for the last time, gave me a head rush so intense that I saw nothing but white for a moment. I breathed out and unconsciously pressed back into him.

  "Mmmmm...that's what I like to feel," he murmured against my ear.

  "Me too," I whispered, snuggling into him, reveling in the strength of his arms, the warmth of his skin, and the musky aroma of his cologne.

  It seemed like the rest of the world was blocked out, like Sebastian and I were alone in a beautiful bubble made for two. It felt that way pretty much every time I was in his arms. He had the power to make everything around us disappear. It was something in his eyes that held the secret, the way his soul shined through them and made me feel like I was the most important person that had ever existed. God. I could spend forever lost in that magic.

  Our lovely bubble moment was interrupted by the loud roar of the bus engine as it rumbled away, trailing exhaust, enveloping us in a noxious diesel cloud.

  Sebastian chuckled. "I guess that's our cue," he said lightly, boosting me the rest of the way up into the truck cab.

  He gracefully pulled himself up into his seat, and I couldn't help but be impressed by the easy flexing of his muscles. A flutter went through me, from my heart to my torso and then farther down. Then an ache and tingle made me squirm in my seat.

  Sebastian looked over, concern all over his gorgeous features. "You okay, babe? You comfortable?"

  I nodded, my throat clenched too tight to form sounds, let alone words. Damn, this was going to be a long trip. But in the very best way.

  His face lightened. "So, you need anything before we hit the open road? Coffee?"