Page 12 of Tempted
“Your seven minutes are up. It might be longer, I lost track of time.” Ander’s grinning face appeared in the doorway, and I gritted my teeth. He caught my expression, rolling his eyes. “Don’t give me that look. You should be thanking me. You can use my room. Or JJ’s. He’s gone for the night.”
“Fuck off,” I muttered, glaring at him, and then turning my attention to Niccolò, who was unnaturally still on my lap. “Nic? Want to come back to my halls of residence so we can talk in private?”
He bit down on his lip in the most distracting way, but he eventually nodded. “Okay. Or you can come back to mine. My housemate’s working tonight, so we won’t be disturbed.”
“Okay, yours,” I murmured, forgetting Ander as I stared into Nic’s huge brown eyes. So fucking gorgeous.
“Come on.” Slipping his hand into mine, he climbed off my lap, pulling me up and out of the cupboard. We both blinked in the sudden brightness—even though the hallway lighting was dim, it was like staring into the sun compared to the darkness of the cupboard.
I angled my body away from Ander in the hope that he’d miss my erection, still fucking prominent thanks to Niccolò’s proximity, but from the smirk on his face, he hadn’t missed it.
“Have fun. Thank me later.” With a wave of his hand, he disappeared, and after throwing up my middle finger, I turned back to Niccolò. “Your house?”
As we headed towards the front door, he nodded. “It’s not far. You can tell me about the picture you saw on the way.”
I groaned. “No.”
“Yes.” His voice softened as he glanced up at me. “Please, Ben.”
The manipulative little fucker. All pouty lips and blinking lashes. I was helpless to resist.
Giving in to the inevitable, I sighed. “Okay.”
7
Bennett was holding my hand, and he didn’t seem to care. He didn’t seem to be uncomfortable with being out in the open like this. I smiled to myself. This was unexpected in the best way. When JJ had invited me over, telling me he had a special surprise for me, I had no idea what to expect. I’d never bothered going to one of his housemate’s parties before, because I thought they’d be too full of straight, annoyingly drunk boys. In my head, I’d pictured their parties to be like American movie frat parties, full of super-straight dickhead jocks. It was a stupid viewpoint, I knew now. I suppose my teenage years hadn’t helped, where some of the idiot popular boys seemed to act like my gayness was a contagious disease. Whatever.
Anyway, here I was, walking across campus with a cute football player next to me, casually holding my hand like it was no big deal. Why?
Raising our joined hands, I glanced up at Bennett. “What’s all this about?”
His gaze flicked to our hands, and a wry smile curled over the corners of his mouth. “Honestly? No idea. It just…happened. Somehow. Wait, didn’t you grab my hand to drag me off to your house?”
“I did. And you’re okay with that?”
He shrugged. “Why not? Are you okay with it?”
“I hold hands with my friends sometimes.”
One brow lifted. It was distractingly hot. “Yeah, but we’re not friends, are we?”His thumb stroked across the back of my hand, sending tingles through my body.
The path split in two, and I tugged him to the left. “Not far now. Don’t you want to be my friend?”
“I don’t know what I want. You…confuse me, Niccolò.”
Stopping dead, I reached up, gripping his throat just underneath his jaw and pulling his head down. I brushed a kiss across his lips, and then another. He sighed, and then dropped my hand in favour of wrapping his arms around me, drawing me closer as he deepened the kiss.
When we drew apart, he stared down at me with dark eyes. “Fuck. I know one thing I do want, and that’s to do more of that.”
“That can be arranged.” I grinned happily at him, doing my best to ignore the erection pressing insistently against mine. I had him back in my arms, and yes, I’d told him I wanted to see him naked when we were in the cupboard—a cupboard! The audacity!—but I didn’t want to scare him off if he was feeling skittish. For a change, I’d take my cues from him. Unless he wanted me to take charge, of course.
At least he hadn’t freaked out after kissing me, so that was a good sign, and he’d said he’d been wanting to kiss me again since the library, which was three whole months ago. Which reminded me… What was his picture comment all about? I had an idea, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. I decided to drop it when it became clear that he didn’t want to talk about it, but I wanted to mention it so badly.
Now wasn’t the time. I had to remember that.
We reached the row of small redbrick terraces where I lived with Dexter, and I fished my keys from my pocket. As I glanced back over my shoulder at Bennett, I caught him staring at my ass, and I smirked at him. His cheeks flushed.
“Like what you see?” I arched my back, and he groaned low in his throat.