Beneath The Skin(70)

So I have to keep up with her.

By the time she returns from cleaning up, I’ve ditched the soiled apron, finishing breakfast in the nude. A pinch of spice here. A sprinkle of spice there. I lay out the tortillas on a plate, then offer two more plates for the eggs with a glass of orange juice each.

She sits at the barstool, eyeing the plates, then she glances up at me in all my naked, exposed, objectified glory.

I grin at her, lean against the counter opposite of her and start rolling up a tortilla with my spicy eggs, bring it to my lips—my eyes never leaving hers—then I give the whole length of the breakfast taco a demonstrative sniffing, like a wolf scoping a meal, then bite off the end with due ferocity.

Following the best night and the best morning I’ve ever had, this may be the best breakfast I’ve ever shared with anyone. I can’t stop staring at her face as we eat. She is gorgeous. Yeah, sure, I’ve had a one-night thing with many gorgeous girls, some of them a two- or three-night thing, but Nell has a special something that transcends beauty. I’m not even sure I know what it is yet. Maybe it’s the puzzle of that that intrigues me.

When I take the plates, a thing she said floats into my mind. “All in.”

Nell stirs out of some thought she was having. “Hmm?”

“You said you’re all in.” I set the plates in the sink, then run the faucet and look back at her. “About us. Last night. You said you’re all in, right before we left the Throng. What’d you mean?”

Nell presses her lips together, her eyes disconnecting. I’m just about to tell her never mind when she says, “You and I.”

I lift my eyebrows. “You and I?”

“Us.” She nods finally, as if making a decision. “I want to try it.”

I study her, making absolutely sure I know what she means. My heart rate is accelerating all over again. “You mean … this thing between us? This thing we didn’t want to name or label or box up or call anything? This nameless work of art we got going on?”

“Yes,” she answers right away. “This … thing … between us. I want it to be a thing. A real, acknowledged, certain thing. I … I don’t want to see other guys.”

“I don’t want to see other girls.”

She bites her lip. Then a smile creeps into it. “I want to call you my boyfriend. I haven’t … I haven’t really had one. Not a real one.”

“Me neither,” I say back, drawn in by the sudden seriousness in her voice. “I mean, a girlfriend. Like, a real one.”

She circumvents the counter. I slip my hands around the small of her back, pulling her against my naked body. Our eyes are so close, I see flecks of green in hers that I hadn’t noticed before.

We lean into each other and our foreheads touch. I smile at her, puckering my lips goofily. She bites her lip to fight off a grin.

“Girlfriend,” I murmur, tasting the word.

“Boyfriend,” she says, doing the same. “I’m super wet right now.”

“Noted,” I grunt.

Then I lift her onto the counter, earning a shriek of delight from her, before gripping her panties, yanking them down, and bringing my face in for an early brunch.





NELL



Don’t mistake my submission to Brant as some kind of sign that I’ve lost my mind.

I haven’t gone all noodles in the knees and butterflies in my brain. Please. Have we met?

No, I didn’t go soft and stupid.

I know precisely what I’m doing.

And if I’m being blunt, I think it takes a certain amount of bravery, in fact, to engage in any semblance of a relationship with a person like Brant who is known campus-wide for being a man of fleeting pleasures (that’s putting it kindly, isn’t it?) and opening myself up for potential heartache.

Sure. There is a risk that he will do to me what he’s done to countless lustful ladies before. And that’s a consequence that I’m half-expecting, even walking into this as brazenly as I am. So if it happens, I simply won’t be surprised; I’ll accept the time I had with him, huff at the inconsequence of letting anyone into my heart at all, then put it all into some tortured art piece I’ll pass off as my means of “getting over it”. Reluctant praise and dark, concerned glances will be my reward.

And if it does happen to work out … well, then I suppose it was worth leaping in headfirst.

And face first.

And cock-into-pussy first.

And hands-all-over-my-tits first.

It may seem counterproductive when building a sustaining, deeply meaningful relationship to have sex all of the time like a pair of high schoolers who just discovered their private parts, but that’s precisely what Brant and I seem to be doing.