Beneath The Skin(76)

“Juliet Montague,” says Brant into my ear, “and Bach Van Gogh.”

“Should I ask?”

“Bach and Van Gogh, my dad’s favorite composer and painter, respectively. And Juliet Montague because … well … my mom believes in happy endings.” He rolls his eyes.

“I do,” Mrs. Rudawski chimes in, having heard him despite his whispering. “Do you want raspberry or peach?”

“Peach,” blurts Brant.

“I was asking our guest, Brant. You can help yourself,” she teases with a smirk at her son. The smirk gives away her laugh lines, though I still couldn’t believe she’s a day over forty, even if she is. She must’ve had him young. “Peach or raspberry, Penelope?” she directs at me.

“Peach will be fine,” I answer, not wanting to be difficult even though I like raspberry more.

Mrs. Rudawski smiles and places a hand on my back just as the dogs race past us, knocking into her feet and nearly tripping her. “Jules! Bach! Crazy dogs. Please, Penelope, make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rudawski.”

Brant leads me down a short hall and into his bedroom. I’m not sure what I expected—walls filled from one end to the other with posters of naked chicks and sports teams—but that’s not what greets my eyes. The bed is fluffed with several comforters and blankets in alternating orange and blue colors, the headboard utterly engulfed by a mountain of plush throw pillows. A giant mirror overlooks a dresser that has bumper stickers lined down its side, and the word “faithful” is etched into its face. The window on the other side of the room overlooks a little backyard hot tub, a deck, and a fire pit. It’s a very slapdash mix of suburban stereotypes with a country vibe.

“Wow,” I finally say after letting myself be struck by my environment. This is quite a departure from my loft, or from all the inner-city apartments I grew up in.

He flicks on a lamp at a desk I didn’t notice, then sets his bag down in the chair there. “Yeah, home sweet home.” He lifts a crooked smile at me, then nods at the bed while pulling out his phone to give it a glance. “You can put your stuff anywhere. Kick back and—”

“You called me your girlfriend.”

Brant freezes. He tilts his head innocently. “But … you are.”

I close the distance between us, pull the phone out of his hand, and gently set it on the desk. My face is inches from his. “I sure am.”

He clears his throat, swallowing hard. “I mean, we call ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend, don’t we? I thought that you …? Did … Did I just make it weird?”

“Weird as fuck,” I confirm. “Just how I like it.”

My lips latch onto his, and we breathe in one another as the kiss consumes us. The whole room seems to shrink as I taste Brant in his own bedroom, the room he supposedly grew up in, the room that holds all the secrets of what made Brant into who he is today.

He pulls away and stares at me longingly, his fingers linked at the small of my back as he holds me against his hips.

He’s hard. I announce my timely observation. “You’re hard.”

“Throbbingly so,” he agrees.

I hook a finger into the waistband of his jeans. “We better do something about that.”

His eyes flick toward the door, his confidence suddenly shaken. “Yeah … uh, maybe later. Y’know, when my, uh …”

“When your mommy and daddy go to bed?” I finish for him. “Wow, I feel sixteen again.”

“I’m pretty sure my parents know we’re boning,” he spits back flatly.

The heat between my thighs is unimaginable. I don’t know if it’s the excitement of sneaking around that has suddenly worked me up so much or if it’s just that I’m crazy as hell for Brant, but all I can think about is his cock slipping inside me as I plunge into his eyes.

“I wonder what you were like as a teen,” I ponder out loud, “and whether we would’ve gotten along, had we … grown up together.”

He licks his lips, touching his forehead to mine. “I was a bad boy back then.”

“Compared to now?”

“Bad, bad, bad boy.”

I smirk wickedly. “You know what a bad boy needs?”

The next instant, I throw him onto his stomach on the bed, folded over the edge. After giving his shirt a tug up and his loose jeans a tug down, his tight butt is exposed to me. Seriously, I’ve never been much of a “butt girl”, but damn. Brant’s is a fucking work of art.

He turns his face, craning his neck to see me with a mild look of concern. “Uh … N-Nell?”