by Daryl Banner
And her pretty face … it’s evident from the subtle makeup and the pink of her lips that she fixed herself up a little for our hanging out tonight. Even with the smog of our regrettable environment, I swear I can smell her through it—lilac and fruit and something else I can’t name, something fresh and inviting.
I can’t trust myself in a room alone with her. I would rip off that innocent-looking white top and strip down those hot as fuck jeans.
Fuck … what I’d do to her … I’d own those lips for longer than just one fleeting moment in a cherry-picker, that’s for sure.
So mesmerized by her, I belatedly realize her lips are moving. “What happened?” she’s asking.
I shake my head, then murmur a word to her.
“What?” she says, leaning in closer.
I guess the place is louder than I realized. I tell her, “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” But the words rattle my jaw and I wince against the pain.
Dmitri steps in, puts an apologetic hand on Dessie’s shoulder, then signs: Maybe you two should go back to the apartment and hang out. I’ll stay and support Brant. You’ll have the place to yourself for at least a couple hours, maybe more.
I feel my face flushing. I don’t know if it’s because of the attention Dmitri’s signing is earning us, or if it’s because of the pain, or if it’s because he’s basically giving me permission to take Dessie back to our place and have ample time … alone together.
He seems to be relaying the message to Dessie, as he leans into her and says something. I feel my heart jerk awake, hopping around inside my ribcage as I wonder frustratedly what he’s saying to her.
She gives a shrug in response, then says something back to him. I look at her eyes questioningly. She spreads her hands, then says something to me. I don’t quite understand until Dmitri signs: She said yes. You two can hang at the apartment. It’s too loud here.
Too loud. What a concept.
I lift a brow at her. “You sure?”
Dessie nods, the waves of her long, brown hair dancing when she does, and her cheeks seem to flush the same shade as her beautiful, kissable lips. Fuck.
Behave, Clayton.
Chapter 14
Dessie
Oh my god. We’re going back to his place.
This breaks about ten of the rules I set for myself before agreeing to this whole “innocent hanging out” thing with Clayton Watts.
My hands are sweating.
My mouth has gone so dry, I’m sucking on my tongue.
I can barely put one foot in front of the other without threatening to trip myself on the way down the street to his place, which is apparently a couple blocks over from the Throng.
“So …” I say out of habit as we walk, then shake my head, feeling dumb. It’s not like we can talk on the way. This was such a stupid idea. When I turn to look at him, however, he seems to have noticed my mouth move. “Sorry.” I laugh, feeling dumber. “I, um … So … You fell?”
Clayton nods slowly.
“Dmitri told me,” I explain, speaking slow. I don’t know if he can see my lips in the semidarkness that well. I deliberately time my remarks for when we pass each streetlamp along the road. “And Dmitri said he doesn’t believe you.”
Clayton chuckles dryly, though he doesn’t smile. He looks in pain. My heart crushes in.
Even as we walk, he keeps his eyes on me. I get the feeling he’s trying not to miss a word of what I’m saying. Instead of feeling self-conscious, I feel oddly touched by the gesture.
“I didn’t realize everything was so close,” I tell him. “Bowling alley, just down the street from the Throng, which is just a block or two from your place, which is right across the road from campus …”
He smiles. I’m not sure he got what I said, but I smile back anyway and continue walking alongside him in the quiet. I try to ignore how nervous I am.
We reach his apartment complex. His place on the first floor faces the main road, visible through a tall, wrought iron fence. He pushes a key into the door, then holds it open for me. I walk past him and catch a hint of his cologne. God, he smells like sex.
“Thirsty?”
The sound of that one soft, sexy word tickles me, sending chills up my neck. “I could maybe use a little something,” I admit after turning around to face him with a muted smile. “Yes,” I answer with a nod, just to be more clear. “Whatever you have.”
He walks past me, the door shutting loudly at his back, then pulls open the fridge. He turns, lifting a questioning, expectant eyebrow.
A spike of confidence hits me, inspiring me to straighten my back and take one step toward him. “I’ll help myself. How about you take a seat on the couch?”
His brows pull together. “Huh?”
I grip his arm—oh my god, he’s so fucking meaty—and guide him around the kitchen counter to the living room. He stares at me the whole time with questions in his defiant eyes. “As far as bandaging your own wounds,” I tell him with a smirk, “you suck at it.”
He frowns, his eyes narrowed as I lead him to the couch, letting him sit. I’d almost call those eyes cute if he didn’t look so damn dangerous all the time.
“Sit here,” I tell him plainly, pretty sure he didn’t catch what I was saying on the way to the couch. “I’m going to rebandage your wounds.”
“No.”
“Yes. But first, a drink.” I leave him on the couch with a frustrated expression, helping myself to his fridge and searching for something safe to drink.
My eyes land on the tequila.
I return with the bottle and two shot glasses. He eyes me suspiciously when I set them on the coffee table in front of us. “To relax,” I explain to him with an innocent shrug. “Where’s your bathroom?”
He meets my eyes late, distracted.
“Bathroom,” I repeat.
He points to the hallway by the kitchen. When I enter it, I pull open the medicine cabinet and find a first aid kit. Upon closing it with a bang, I see my face in the mirror. I look so … tense. Who am I fooling, trying to act like I’m in charge? I’m about to rebandage Clayton Watts’s face. I’m in Clayton Watts’s apartment and I’m about to have my hands all over his face.
I take a deep breath in and blow it out.
When I return to the couch, I find Clayton sitting there with the two shot glasses in his hands, filled. Jaw tightened, he looks up at me with a severe look in his eyes, then offers a glass.
I sit on the coffee table across from him, take the glass, then clink it softly against his. “Bottoms up!”
He kicks his back in one animal gulp. I … slowly sip mine until it’s empty. Holy hell, that shit is strong. I turn my head to cough, my eyes watering instantly. It’s not going to take much, I realize. One’s enough.
But by the time I’ve recovered, he’s already poured us seconds.
“Oh.” My eyes widen. “I was just—”
“Bottoms up,” he says with a smirk, cutting me off, then kicks his second one back.
I give mine one rueful look, then slowly knock it back. Hissing afterward from the back of my throat, I find myself laughing and blinking away the burn. “Wow!” I shout.
When my eyes meet his, I’m instantly sobered. The intensity in his stare reaches deep into me.
Focus, Dessie. I set the shot glass down a skosh too hard. Popping open the little medical supply kit, I fish out a butterfly bandage and a tiny antiseptic wipe.
When I reach to take off his bandage, he recoils. I give him a warning look. His eyes flash challengingly. Is that a snarl on his lips?
When he finally relaxes, I gently peel the bandage off. Why does this feel like I’m negotiating with some wild beast? I frown at the ugly gash underneath. I have this strange blessing of having an iron stomach; nothing makes me sick, not the sight of blood, nor vomit, nor even big gaping wounds. Maybe I’m supposed to be a nurse. Maybe I’ve missed my calling.
“This’ll sting a bit,” I warn him when I’ve taken the antiseptic wipe
out of its package.
Clayton lifts a confused brow, having missed my words. Then I touch the wipe to his cheek and he hisses, flinching away.
“Clayton!”
He glares at me, then surrenders, relaxing himself back into position and letting me clean the wound.
I wonder if maybe my effort is totally insufficient and he should, in fact, see a doctor or get stitches. I’m no medic. The most of what I know is from movies and plays I’ve seen, like that one about the nurse in the ER where her love interest dies in the end from rust poisoning.
The thought freezes me. Let’s not kill Clayton.
“Bandage,” I say unnecessarily, applying it.
His eyes haven’t left mine, I realize. Suddenly, my confidence crumbles again. Now that I’ve finished the business of properly bandaging him, I suddenly find I have nothing left for my hands to do. We’re just staring into each other’s eyes, and that look of wariness in his has been exchanged for something far more sinister … something dark and needy …
Something hungry.
“Thank you,” he says suddenly.
The words tickle me somehow, a smile finding my face, perhaps to break the tension. In response, I bring a flat hand to the front of my chin, then let it fall outward—Thank you.
Now it’s Clayton who smiles. After a second, he repeats the sign back to me, except a little differently.
“Oh.” I watch him. “I was doing it wrong?”
He repeats it again.
I mimic the gesture back to him.
“No,” he says, then takes my hand.
The touch of his fingers running over mine sends electricity up my spine, touching the hairs on the back of my neck.
“This,” he murmurs so quietly, it’s hardly a word at all.
He brings my hand to his chin, slowly, then directs my hand outward, demonstrating the sign using my own hand. Even when he’s done, he doesn’t let go.
“I swear, that’s what I’m doing,” I tell him, my heart racing so fast, so potently, Clayton has to feel my pulse in my fingertips.
“Again,” he orders.
Instead of signing it, I take the fingers of his left hand and bring them to my chin.
Then, I bring them a bit higher, touching them to my lips.
His eyes lock onto mine. Oops. Have I awakened the beast?
Not yet. I part my lips, letting one of his fingers slip inside. It tastes salty. His skin is rougher than I expected, too. Seeing his reaction makes my heart race even more, how his lips part and an unblinking look of shock takes over his face, paralyzing him.
I gently nibble on his fingertip, staring at his dark eyes challengingly.
A growl, deep and wolf-like, escapes his lips like a warning.
A warning I don’t heed.
Then in one swift, powerful movement, he grabs my wrist with that hand I was tasting. I gasp, but I don’t stop him. I welcome him.
He jerks me forward, and our lips collide, catching one another’s clumsily, then locking.
His breath bathes my cheek, jagged and furious.
A hand reaches behind my head, tangling itself in my hair there and trapping me in place, holding me against his kiss. My arms are caught between our heavily-breathing bodies. I’m a prisoner to his mouth, and I’m not going anywhere.
Oh my god, he’s so strong and dominant when he kisses me. I have never felt anything more powerful. The way his lips make work of mine, it’s so like eating your favorite dessert that you have craved and been denied for so long. The power of his jaw alone …
And then his tongue … The taste throws me out of my mind, how perfect it is, how inviting he is …
My trapped hands find his chest. He is so firm and smooth that even through the tight shirt, I feel every ripple of muscle on his sinewy body, especially as they flex in his effort to destroy my mouth with his kiss. He is a mountain of meat and fury, and I want to explore every inch.
My fingers graze over his nipples daringly.
He moans in response, bucking under my touch.
Then his big hands grip me at the hips and, in one powerful thrust, he pulls me off the coffee table and throws me to the couch. I gasp against his kiss just as he pulls away, his animal eyes observing mine.
Is he asking permission?
Clayton Watts, you have it.
As if I need more convincing, he straddles me, then grips the bottom of his shirt. Oh god. He slowly tugs, sliding the material up his torso and giving me a show. Inch by inch, I’m exposed to a spread of abs—yes, there’s six of them, the whole sexy pack is there—and then his two hills for pecs that are simply perfect. The tattoo that crawls up his neck also crawls down his chest in a thorny nest of ink that makes him look exotic and dangerous.
He casts the shirt to the side, and the sight of a shirtless Clayton atop me is too much to behold. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me. This isn’t real.
His slender, dimpled hips disappear down into his loose-fitting jeans, drawn tight over the meat of his big thighs, which trap me in place on the couch.
I am utterly pinned and totally at his mercy.
Then he bends down and nibbles on my neck, sending shivers of joy up and down my body as I squirm against him in pleasure.
The weight of his body presses down on mine, nearly taking the air out of me. I’m so dizzy with what he’s doing to my neck that I hardly notice. In fact, I welcome it, clinging to him in an animal effort to somehow fuse our bodies together.
Pressed against him, I experience a split second of wondering if we’re moving too fast.
The next split second, I’m crying out, “Oh my god!”
Clayton’s worked his way up to my ear, his tongue tracing my jawline. When he reaches my mouth again, the animals are reunited and I throw my arms around his shoulders, crushing his face into mine.
“Dessie,” he whispers when he pulls away for one fleeting breath.
“Clayton,” I agree to nothing in particular, each of our breaths blasting against the other’s face, before plunging our mouths back together.
Our lips locked, he lifts his chest and runs his hands down the length of my body until they reach my hips. His fingers tease under my top, tickling the sensitive skin there.
Oh god.
Slowly, cruelly, his mischievous fingers work their way back up, taking my top with it.
I sit up for one moment.
My top’s gone the next.
His face hovers over me as his hand trails down from the top of my lace bra to my exposed stomach, then traces the waistline of my jeans, flirting with the buttons. I feel a quiver of anticipation below. My legs squeeze together and I feel a jolt of excitement.
“Wait.”
Clayton saw my lips move. He lifts his eyebrows, breathing heavily.
“Wait,” I repeat, placing a hand on his warm, bare chest. “Wait, wait, wait.”
He obeys, his dark eyes locked on me and waiting, for whatever reason, he doesn’t yet know. The only sound in the room is our erratic breathing. I watch my hand rise and fall as his chest does with his every breath. His body is so perfect, I can’t even compare it to anything or anyone. The shape of his pecs, the definition of his abs, the subtle ripples of muscle that work down his sides, his artful tattoo … There’s just too much for my eyes to drink in all at once.
“Too fast?” he breathes.
I nod once, warily looking into his eyes.
What I see isn’t frustration. In fact, he seems to agree, like a thought or two has worked through his brain. He holds himself up with a hand pressed into the cushion on either side of my head, his face over mine as we each catch our breath.
His lips twist into a smirk. “Can’t handle me?”
I laugh, despite our circumstance. “You are a lot to handle.”
He pulls away, giving me room to sit up. I fetch my top from the floor and slip it back on. It doesn’t escape my attention that Clayton watches my every move. At some point, he had managed to undo t
he top button of my jeans, so I fix them up as well.
I give him a smirk of my own. “Quit staring.”
He shrugs. “I like what I see.”
After a moment of staring into his eyes, feeling oddly powerful, I grab his shirt and throw it at him. He catches the sleeve with his teeth, biting it like a dog and growling at me.
I can’t help but laugh.
Clayton holds up the shirt. “Put this back on?” I nod in response. “That’s a first,” he says teasingly.
I love the way his teeth, tongue, and lips form the word “first”, a hint of Texan accent in it and the “s” muffled slightly.
“Well, unless you want me to hold a conversation with your chest …” I tease him.
He throws an arm over the back of the couch, the shirt dropped to his lap and forgotten.
I sigh with pleasure, unsure if he heard me or not. My eyes are helplessly glued to his muscles. “Fine,” I say breathily. There are worse things I’ve been subjected to. “You going to tell me how you got that thing on your face?”
Clayton’s forehead screws up. I assume he didn’t catch what I said, so I indicate my own cheek, then point at his expectantly.
He sighs and looks away, biting his lip. I slap the couch, drawing his attention back. “I know you didn’t just … ‘fall’.”
He shakes his head no, confirming my suspicion.
“So?” I prompt him.
It seems to take a measure of effort for him to even think about it, which casts a lightning bolt of worry through me. Finally, he pulls his phone out, taps a bit on it, then shows me the screen:
Some punk assholes
from the corner store
followed me out n jumped me.
“Oh my god!” I blurt out as I read it. “Why??”
“Bad attitude,” he answers quietly. “Dumb.” He shrugs, all the muscles of his shoulders moving with him. His eyes linger on my lips.
I remind myself that he’s staring at my lips for the functional purpose of grasping what I’m saying and urge myself not to be so damned turned on by it.