Beneath The Skin(7)

Is my cock stirring? Everyone’s watching.

The scraping of pencils on paper. The creaking of easels and chairs. A long breath in the back of the room. The clearing of a throat.

I swallow, bringing my eyes back to her.

She shifts in her seat, crossing her legs the other way.

Fu-u-u-u-ck. Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard.

Her eyes draw down my body, landing on my cock. The way she looks at it, I can almost feel her fingers wrapping around it.

The end of that pencil breaches her lips. I catch a flick of her evil tongue, imagining how that tiny flick would feel on the tip of my dick.

And her lips, wrapping around the end.

Her warm mouth enveloping it.

I suck in a jagged breath of air. If I control my breath, I can control my cock from getting hard. I hold my breath, blinking and fighting all the blood in my body that’s quickly rushing south.

Her lips curve into the tiniest hint of a smile.

Oh, yeah? Does my predicament amuse you?

Suddenly, I find my confidence again. The rush of heat subsides, and I look down at her legs, wrinkling my forehead ever so subtly. I consider what sort of warmth is gathering between them right now.

Haven’t I been reading the signs? She’s turned on, too.

When I look up from her sexy, squeezed-together legs, her intense eyes are on me, and they’ve changed. They’re defiant. It’s like I literally just touched her without her permission.

Now it’s my turn to wear the nearly-undetectable smirk of victory.

Her eyes narrow.

I got you.

It isn’t much longer before the professor makes an announcement, and then class is finally over. With a careless bend downward, I reclaim the robe, shrugging myself back into it and glancing at my eye-fuck-slash-mind-fuck partner, only to find her packing up her supplies.

In the noise of others chatting and gathering their things, I stroll by her easel, catching sight of her sketch.

“Hmm,” I mumble, studying it. “I think your … proportions … are a little on the small side,” I note with a leering nod at my junk.

She regards me with two dark eyes that struggle to hide their amusement. “Actually,” she says, her words seeming to lick my ears with their breathiness, “I think I got it just right.”

She smirks, amused, then zips up her supply bag. Ouch.

I chuckle, undaunted. “Maybe you need a new pair of contacts,” I tease her, crossing my arms as I peer into those rich green eyes that glow like pure emeralds in that sea of black eyeliner she wears.

“Nope,” she answers curtly, tucking her supply bag under a slender arm. “Perfect vision.” Her eyes trail down my body like a smooth set of fingers, landing at my crotch. “I just draw it how I see it.”

“I’m Brant,” I tell her. “I could … give you a closer look sometime. Maybe tonight, if you’re free.”

She lifts her eyes, those gorgeous greens flashing.

She stops my breath.

Her lips curl, amused. “I’ve seen enough.”

Then she turns, her hair flipping, and she saunters away, her ass hugged by those tight, black jeans of hers. I can’t take my eyes off of them.

With a grin, I crack my knuckles. Looks like I have my work cut out for me. Hard-to-get is a game I’m quite used to.

And I’m ready to play.





NELL



Animals seem to love me.

Especially the dogs.

My mom had an enormous one. He was named Dog. He was so big that he looked like a deadly wildebeest thirsty for my blood when he’d barrel down the hall, even if he was just coming to give my face an innocent lick. He terrified my friends growing up, even to the point that two of them stopped coming over for my sleepovers. I think that scary beast called Dog who I loved was an omen for who I’d become.

My art wasn’t always so dark and terrifying and provocative. In fact, until the age of fourteen, I was a downright sweetie pie.

“Nell.”

I lift my chin, stirred from my thoughts. “Say what?”

“You’re up.”

Linus, my professor, waits at the front of the room with his usual calm and expectant face—his arms crossed, his eyebrows lifted. I rise from my desk and bring my picture to the front. Unceremoniously, I slap the thing onto the easel in the front for the class to observe, then stand next to it and stare dead-eyed at the crowd of them, awaiting the obligatory ten-minute critique that each of us are expected to endure after finishing and presenting work to the class.

Linus bristles at the sight of my work. His eyebrows lift further.

Someone in the front row sighs—this bitch named Iris with pink highlights in her pixie cut bleach-blonde hair who thinks my work is all shit; she’s let me know as much since my freshman year and always seems to end up in my same classes. Everyone else is either holding back gasps or swallowing laughter—I can’t tell.