Something About a Hot Guy

by A. L. Jackson

  Smooth, Kyle. Smooth. You’d think I was back to being fifteen rather than a twenty-seven-year-old man. But when it came to Kenna? The rules went out the window. The girl different than any other woman I’d dealt with before.

  Her attention darted to the computer sitting on the coffee table. Almost like she was terrified of it. She peeked up at me. “I have work to do.”

  Right.

  Vanessa had told me Kenna taught on-line school because she had trouble standing in front of a group of people. Fucking sucked. I mean, I respected her choice. Got it on some level. But it had to be brutal, completely exhausting, letting your fears rule your life.

  I glanced around, wanting to say things I probably shouldn’t say. To tell her she was amazing and wonderful, tell her about all the things I’d observed over the years that made her the best person I’d ever met, and that it was time she shed that shell, embraced who she was.

  But did I really have the right to give that kind of advice when I’d never had to walk in her shoes?

  I needed to get away from this girl before I kept pushing it. Hell, I’d been back for all of five minutes, and I’d already pushed her harder than I ever had. Climbed right over the boundaries I’d set up when it came to Kenna Myer.

  Maybe I was just tired of ignoring the way I felt about her. No matter how many girlfriends I’d had, how many one-nights and flings, this feeling didn’t seem to know how to go away.

  “All right, then . . . I’m going to grab a shower and let you get to work.”

  Redness streaked up her cheeks, and I got the sense that she was actually imagining me naked.

  Fuck.

  Not helping things.

  “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

  She looked at me like she thought I was telling her a lie. Two of us completely aware of the other. Every step and every breath.

  And I was wondering again if maybe she felt me, too.

  I grabbed my bag from the floor and headed for the shower, turned on the heat as high as it would go, and climbed into the steam surrounded by the scent of citrus and more of the pink she’d decorated the place in.

  And I jerked it harder than I ever had.

  So, the jerking off hadn’t helped my situation at all.

  I’d tried to keep myself occupied the entire day, let her work in peace as she’d graded freshman language arts essays. She’d sat on the couch with the sunlight pouring over her, her laptop balanced on her crisscrossed legs, the girl looking like she was posing for some some kind of perfect Instagram shot.

  Hashtag hot nerd.

  I’d pretended to be busy on my own laptop at the small kitchen table, answering emails and scheduling appointments for next week, but my attention kept drifting to her. Getting locked on the soft profile of her face. At the way the lush dark locks tumbled down her neck. At the way she moved her lips as she read the essays, so into it, I could almost feel her vibrating.

  Once the sun had dimmed and begun to set, I’d ordered a pizza for us to share after she’d explained she still had a couple hours left of work.

  Now, I brushed my teeth and pulled on some sleep pants, figuring I’d make good on my promise about not walking around in my underwear, all the while wondering what she might do if I threw all rationale out the window and went for it.

  Blowing out a strained sigh toward the mirror, I tried to shake off the disorder I was feeling. I’d barely been here a day, and this was already proving impossible.

  I headed out into the hall. Her bedroom door was resting open on the jamb, a light burning around the rim. She was probably in there, changing, getting ready to climb under the covers.

  I could only picture her doing it. Bare legs and full breasts and messy hair.

  Shit.

  I wasn’t really up-to-date with proper roommate etiquette, but I was pretty sure picturing them naked was a no-go.

  Slipping by her door, I turned the corner into the main room, heading for the kitchen to grab one of the beers I’d seen in there earlier. Most of the lights had been cut, the space only illuminated by the dim lights mounted under the cabinets.

  My heart jumped into my throat when I noticed the silhouette of a body standing at the sink facing away.

  A lush, curved, gorgeous body.

  I kept my footsteps quiet as I started around the high bar that sectioned off the kitchen from the living room. She was gulping down a glass of water, totally oblivious to the fact that I was there.

  Until she wasn’t.

  Until her spine stiffened and awareness flooded from her in surging waves, a vibration coming off her that made me question if I really was the only one who felt this crazy attraction.

  If I was the only one who was crazy with lust.

  Crazy with need.

  She was still wearing the sweatshirt that fell off one shoulder, the delicate skin of her neck bare.

  I had the overwhelming urge to press my nose to the slope of it. Inhale and lick and suck.

  Instead, I kept myself in check and stopped an inch away.

  Okay, in check was stretching it because I leaned. So close I could almost taste her flesh, the aura of this girl making me feel like I was standing in the sun.

  I inhaled, filling my lungs with her scent.

  Clean, crisp lime wrapped in vanilla.

  Like she’d rolled around in a bed of those little white blossoms.

  Shit, I wanted to do a little rolling around, too.

  “Kenna.” Her name was a rough plea from my mouth.

  Do you feel this?

  Shivers tremored through her body, rising across her flesh, and she slowly turned around. Immediately, she backed into the counter, not shocked to find me there but somehow terrified at the same time.

  She swiped the back of her hand over the droplets of water that clung to her lips.

  An impossibly sexy move that she had no idea she’d perfected.

  “Hey, K-k-kyle . . . I . . . I was just going to bed,” she said, flustered and sweet and shy. I wanted to dip my fingers into the well of it, stir it up, watch her bloom.

  She started to slide out around me. I stepped in her way. Her eyes widened with surprise. A timid animal that was trapped.

  I cleared my throat, not sure what to say, but knowing I needed to give her something.

  I’d waltzed in like an arrogant dick. Making demands. But I knew her well enough to know she would have sent me packing if I’d given her another option.

  “I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you being cool with me being here.”

  Incredulity filled her eyes. “You didn’t leave me much of a choice, did you?”

  I angled my head her direction. “You really want me to leave? If you really, really want me to go, say it, and I will. Don’t get me wrong, I want to stay.”

  Fuck, I wanted to stay.

  “But if you really don’t want to be around me that bad? I’ll leave right now.”

  Distress swirled around her being, the girl squirming, casting her gaze away before she finally looked back up at me. “No. I really don’t. It’s just sometimes hard for me to accept strangers being in my space.”

  I inched closer, eradicating all but a breadth between us, the air growing dense and thick. A frenzy of energy swirled around her, nerves and anxiousness, and I swore, need.

  I could taste it.

  Feel it.

  Wanted to drown in it.

  I dipped in closer. “Kenna. You think I’m a stranger?”

  I said it like a question. Hoping to God she’d take the step, make the move, or at least give me some kind of indication she might want me the way I wanted her.

  Tell me that she recognized me.

  Panic parted her mouth, and she swallowed hard. Then she fumbled to duck out from under me, spinning around with her hands pushed out like a shield between us. “I, um, so . . . I need to go to bed. Goodnight.”

  She spun back around so fast that she tripped over her feet, stumbling forward, catching
herself just before she fell. Her hand went up to tug at a piece of hair that had gotten loose from the pile on top of her head, embarrassment radiating from her as she beelined for her room.

  The door clicked shut with a finality that had me pressing my hands to my face, wanting to punch myself in my own dick.

  That did not go well.

  God damn it.

  Frustrated, I went for the fridge. Jerking open the door, I grabbed a bottle and popped off the cap. I tossed it into the trash and started to head out, only to pause when I noticed she’d left her laptop sitting on the counter.

  Open an inch.

  Like she’d still been working on it and carried it in while she got a drink of water.

  I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if I should take it to her.

  Hell, knowing I should.

  I angled back so I could see down the short hall, and the light had gone off in her room.

  Guessed that was all the go I needed to start nudging the screen up, just a fraction, wanting to feel closer to her, understand her better, maybe read one of the essays that had entranced her all day so I could see exactly what it was that made her tick. What put those twitchy, adorable smiles on her face and made her teeth clamp down on her bottom lip.

  Okay, fine, I was being a nosy fucker.

  My brow pinched when I caught a glimpse of what was on the screen.

  Not an essay.

  Pulse thudding, I glanced over my shoulder again, wondering what the fuck I was doing when I lifted the lid the rest of the way.

  The words glowing on the screen came into full view.

  I scanned over them.

  It was a blog, and a recent post was up, an answer to a question that had been posted left halfway completed, the curser still blinking like a beacon in the night, something about dealing with social fear and how it can be debilitating.

  What the fuck?

  Unease curled through my being, and I knew I should slam it closed, but there was nothing I could do but note the blog website address as I lowered the screen to where it’d been left.

  I should let it go. I knew I should. But there was an itching inside of me that couldn’t be contained, and I opened my phone and pulled up the website as I moved back to the couch. I sank down onto the blanket I’d dragged out from the hall closet and ticked into another blog post.

  I read it.

  Then I read another.

  And another.

  Until hours had passed and my mind spun and my spirit thrashed.

  I got lost as I read about a girl who was beautiful in every way.

  Inside and out.

  Just like I’d always known she’d been. What had really attracted me to her in the first place. That shy beauty ushering me up to a cliff and her kindness pushing me over the edge.

  A girl who confessed to being fearful and anxious and prone to panic attacks in large groups.

  Giving and loving and hopeful in spite of it all.

  A girl who had grown into a woman who had managed to get her teaching degree despite her worry and doubt.

  Hand shaking, I clicked into another post, titled Something About a Hot Guy. I wanted to cringe, knowing I was really invading her privacy as she opened up about her trouble meeting men. How she confessed to being a virgin because she didn’t have the first clue how to get close to a man, let alone, let one touch her.

  Then I tripped over the next words, heart pressing against my ribs so hard I was pretty sure I heard a crack.

  Words that said she was in love with her best friend’s big brother, and being unable to admit it was killing her inside.

  Fuck me.

  Three

  Kenna

  Would it be weird if I stayed in bed all day? I mean, it was Saturday. That would be cool, right? Except I’d been staring at the ceiling for the last . . . sixty-seven minutes . . . three minutes more than the last time I looked at the clock.

  Two more minutes of this, and I would lose my mind.

  I’d left my computer in the kitchen last night, too much of a chicken to go back out to grab it when I realized I’d left it sitting next to the sink.

  Crap.

  I flung off my covers with the dramatic flair of one of my freshmen high-school students, and I jumped from the bed, only to slow, slinking to the bathroom across the hall all ninja-like. As if I were the intruder rather than the other way around.

  It didn’t really matter.

  I could feel him the second I opened the door, a surge of energy that crashed through the morning air, filled with intensity and zest and life.

  Kyle Love was the kind of guy who could reach out and take the world in the palm of his hand. Stretch it out and all the amazing things would intrinsically be drawn to him.

  Dull, frumpy, awkward things, too.

  I raced through my morning routine because I definitely didn’t want him to think I was in there doing you know what, cringing at the thought, self-conscious and unsure as I edged back out toward the kitchen.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that he was out on the balcony, a cup of coffee in hand as he leaned on the railing, his back bare and delicious and muscular as he stared out over the bustling city below.

  Oh God.

  He was magnificent.

  A god who’d descended on the common folk.

  Want tremored through me like an earthquake. Shaking through my being. Strong enough that it threatened to fracture the thin threads that held my safe, little world together.

  I allowed myself creeper status for exactly five seconds, swallowing down the sight of him and filing it away in all the reasons Kyle Love was five-thousand miles out of my league.

  My mind was only taunting me last night, torturing me with the idea that he might see me differently. That he might want me the way I wanted him.

  Prying myself from the morning view, I headed into the kitchen, in dire need of one of those cups of coffee he was nursing. I fumbled for a cup in the cupboard, trying to keep my hand from shaking all over the place when a rash of goosebumps skidded across my flesh when a shadow fell over me from behind.

  The same way as it had done last night. Only this time . . . this time it felt entirely different. This time, something about it felt unstoppable. Overwhelming and crushing and irresistible.

  My shoulders curled in as if I were trying to find a place to hide, but there was no place I could go. Nothing I could do to escape the magnitude of him inching up behind me, his steps slow and somehow purposed.

  I sucked in a staggered breath, then all the air whooshed from my lungs when he set a hand on my neck and pressed his cheek to the opposite side, right up close to my temple.

  Sensation rushed.

  Overwhelming.

  Delicious and decadent and dizzying.

  I had to be dreaming.

  That was it. I was still in bed, finally succumbing to the tossing and turning that had kept me up all night, lost to the idea of the man who had to be asleep on the couch and not currently touching me.

  Right?

  Only this felt real. So freaking real.

  “Kenna,” Kyle murmured, low and rough, and even in my inexperience, I was pretty sure it was loaded with seduction.

  A rash of chills shuddered through my entire being.

  “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” His lips whispered across my skin, and I was sucking for air, trying not to pass out.

  I wanted to reject it and accept it. Push away and fall into his arms at the same time. This felt . . . dangerous. Dangerous and perfect and more than anything I’d ever felt.

  I swayed under the magnitude of it, and he edged even closer, keeping me pinned with my belly against the counter to keep me from falling.

  His hard, hard body molded to my back.

  Nothing had ever felt so good.

  A big hand came to my shoulder, skimming down my arm. Chills crashed like waves climbing the beach, rising higher.

  A desperate, shaky feeling seeped all
the way into my blood stream.

  Pulse wild, a thunder that was riding completely out of control.

  Kyle’s tone deepened, the man inundating every sense. “I bet you don’t have the first clue, do you? How gorgeous you are? How people turn their heads every time you walk down the sidewalk because there is just something special about you? Something beautiful and bright and inspiring?”

  “I . . .” I couldn’t form a response, couldn’t process what he was saying.

  Was he really saying he thought I was beautiful? Did he really mean it? Or was this the cruelest prank that had ever been played on me? God knew, I’d endured some brutal ones.

  He feathered those lips down the column of my neck, and my heart took flight. Shooting into orbit. I was pretty sure I was floating with it. No gravity left to keep me grounded.

  “I bet you look in the mirror, and you don’t see what the rest of the world sees. What I see.”

  He nuzzled his nose along my jaw. “What I’ve always seen.”

  The last was raw and grating. Penetrating all the way to the soul.

  Tremors took hold, nerves and anxiety and need. It was the last that was blooming bright, sprinting out in front of the others, my belly tightening and my heart battering against my ribs.

  I wanted him.

  I wanted this.

  And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I was freaking out by the brush of a hand. This felt . . . safe. Safe and right and terrifying.

  I wanted to tap into the feeling, make it a part of me, keep it forever.

  I sagged against his chest, giving him permission to touch me however he wanted, praying that would be everywhere, and he spread his hands down my sides and tucked me closer. “Did you know that, cupcake? Did you know I spent my whole life wanting you? Wondering what your little hands would feel like on my body. What your mouth would feel like on mine. The way you’d taste.”

  The last evoked an embarrassing moan I stood no chance of holding back, a fire lit in the middle of me, flames licking up and scorching all those places a man had never been.

  “Did you feel it, too?” Kyle pressed, his hands cinching down tighter on my hips.

  His hardness pressed to my lower back, and a gasp was escaping, shock and desire and confusion.