Chapter 2
Parker
What am I doing? No, really, have I lost my damn mind?
I try to gain some semblance of control while I wait for Ben to get changed. Maybe I should just leave while he’s distracted. This has bad idea written all over it. I don’t do this, and I especially don’t do this with guys like Benson Wells.
“Alright, Cotton Candy. I’m ready.”
Fuck.
Wait a second. I can’t believe I’ve been skipping right past that.
“Cotton Candy?” I ask, glancing up at this overwhelmingly attractive man.
His hazel eyes are sparkling, and he brushes back a stray piece of his black hair.
His cheekbones are chiseled to perfection, his jaw sharp and strong.
If portraits were my type of art, I’d want to paint him over and over.
Still a bad idea.
He shrugs, laughing. “Yeah, you’ve got cotton candy hair, and it’s cute. Seemed fitting. It’s what I was calling you in my head while you were shamelessly checking me out.”
I scoff. “I was not checking you out. I was sketching you. Not the same thing.”
“Sure.” Ben winks, making my cheeks flush hot. “You ready, Cotton Candy?”
Leveling him with a glare, I shake my head. “Not if you keep calling me Cotton Candy.”
Laughing, he mimes zipping his lips. He seems larger than life, and unlike the majority of people who come to our class to get drawn while naked, he stood there supremely confident and unashamed. I’ve seen what he’s packing. Obviously. There’s clearly no need for shame.
For another second, I debate making some excuse and just ducking out, but fuck. This man didn’t assume my pronouns. He didn’t make me feel shitty or undesirable, and dammit, I deserve to get laid every now and then. I inhale a deep breath. “Alright, let’s go.”
His eyes light up with his triumphant grin, and I follow him down the hall. My mom’s voice in my head rings out, warning me about being careful and protecting myself. She and my dad are both all about peace and love—until someone fucks with me, that is.
“I live in a dorm,” he says when he steps outside, gesturing broadly to our left. “Alliance Hall, but my roommates should be out right now.”
“I have an apartment,” I hear myself saying. “It’s private. It won’t take more than a couple of minutes to walk there.”
If I’m doing this, I’m not about to take any chances.
Ben shrugs. “Works for me. Let’s go then.”
He follows me silently as I walk toward my apartment.
It’s strange almost. My best friend, Darcy, thinks I’m constantly doing this, and yeah, sometimes I need to scratch an itch, but he has no idea how much I…
let’s say, over-embellish. He’s convinced that I frequently invite football players into my bed, and sure…
I get plenty of invitations, but I rarely take anyone up on them. It’s too much work.
There’s too much speculation about my body. It’s uncomfortable… and after my ex, it’s hard to even try to open myself up like that. Ben got some major points, though, by not assuming my gender.
My stomach does a nervous flip when I unlock the door and step into the living room.
It’s clear that Ben is much more experienced in this than I am because as soon as we walk in the door and I shut it behind us, he corners me against it.
My heart hammers against my chest walls, my stomach twisting as he leans in. I think I’m expecting him to just dive in. He seems like the type of guy to take what he wants, but he doesn’t. His nose bumps mine, and he hovers over my lips.
“What are you comfortable with?”
The question takes me aback. “What do you mean?”
He moves back, putting space between us, and I suck in a sharp breath. “Like with your body. What parts of you are you comfortable with me touching?”
His hazel eyes are sincere and sparkling with warmth.
“Uh—all of me, I guess?”
I can feel my damn heart pounding in my ears, each beat echoing through my skull.
Ben smiles. “Okay, Cotton Candy. Sounds good to me.”
He leans in again, and without another ounce of hesitation, slots his lips over mine. My breath catches, and my head swims. He tastes vaguely like vanilla. I have no idea why. It’s such a strange thing. It’s strange enough that it momentarily stops my freakout. Too bad good things never last.
I press a hand against his chest, and as soon as he realizes I’m pushing him away and not pulling him closer, he breaks the kiss.
“I have a dick,” I blurt out in a rush.
Ben cocks his head, studying me. “Okay. Cool. Me too.”
I shake my head. “No, I mean. I know I—I don’t want you to think I’m false advertising or anything.”
The way he’s studying me feels intense, like if he looked long enough, he’d see beneath the front I put up for the world. It’s unsettling and unnerving.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “That doesn’t matter to me. Is your dick off-limits for touching?”
What? “No. It’s fine.”
“Okay, then.” He graces me with another smile, then dips his head again.
This time, the kiss gets more heated, and I’m surprised to find that the moans I’m hearing are coming from me. My very interested dick is tenting the dress I’m wearing. The panties I have on are cute, but not much for concealing a hard-on.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Ben bends down, hooking his arms under my thighs as he lifts me to pin me against the door. I choke on a gasp, my head falling back against the wood with a thunk, and then his lips are on my throat.
“I never do this,” I say, my skin heating up under his skilled lips. “Like never.”
He huffs a laugh but doesn’t speak.
“I don’t know why I agreed. It’s like…” I groan when he sucks on a tendon in my throat as he grinds his hard dick against my ass. “This is so not like me.”
He hums, dragging his lips up and down, eliciting a full-body shiver. “Do you want to stop?” he murmurs, breath gusting over my overheated flesh.
“No. I—no, I don’t think so.”
“Where’s your bedroom?”
I wave broadly. It’s the only bedroom, and if he can’t find it, that’s his problem.
My back leaves the door, and Ben carries me through the apartment like I weigh nothing, his arms still hooked firmly under my thighs.
He somehow manages to push open the door, and all too soon, I’m sprawled across the center of my bed, my dress riding high on my thighs, and Ben’s eyes are greedily taking in my body.
Look, I know some people really struggle with their body, and when I was younger, I did too, but as I’ve gotten older, it’s become less and less important to me.
My parts don’t determine who I am any more than the color I’ve chosen to put in my hair for the month.
But under the weight of Ben’s stare? I feel unsettled.
Like everything’s too real, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
“You’re fucking stunning, Cotton Candy.”
I screw my face up, then glare at him. “I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”
His loud laugh echoes through the room. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I guess I’ll just have to keep coming up with names until I find one you like.”
He crawls in beside me, leaning over me. “Fat fucking chance of that happening,” I say, scoffing.
“I bet I could,” he says, his voice teasing as he leans down to kiss me again. He hums against my lips.
Even though I should be focusing on the way my cock is throbbing, the heat of Ben’s body, and the slow swipe of his tongue along my bottom lip, I can’t. My brain is too loud, and when my brain gets loud, so does my mouth.
Instead of my usual snark and sass, all that comes out is rambling bullshit.
“I really never do this,” I mumble against his lips. “I know I keep saying that, but I don’t.”
He breaks the kiss, sitting back on his heels to look at me.
“Darcy—he’s my best friend—thinks I’m like… fucking around with everything that walks, but I’m not. I don’t.”
Ben blinks at me, and my chances of actually getting laid instead of bragging about conquests that never happen go up in smoke. I’m not sure how to shut the fuck up, though.
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with me.” Other than my inability to shut up, perhaps. “It’s just—”
“Hey,” Ben says softly, cutting off my rambling. “You’re good. We don’t have to do this, you know? Hooking up is supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, we don’t do it.”
Well, that’s the simple answer and also the way I usually live my life, but dammit, I wanted something different this time.
“How about this?” he says, going on like we weren’t just making out. “My friend West has a real obsession with this cookie place down the road. They deliver. So how about we just chill and eat some cookies?”
Now it’s my turn to blink at him. “What?”
His laugh is loud and carefree. He doesn’t even seem mad that I made what should have been a fucking hot hookup an actual nightmare. “Cookies? You down? I’ve been watching a lot of true crime lately. We could eat some cookies and watch TV.”
He waggles his eyebrows at me, and a smile splits my face despite the protests from my brain. “Okay… yeah, that would be nice.”
Plopping down beside me, he fishes his phone out of his pocket, then makes a call, ordering a variety pack for delivery. When he glances at me, I rattle off my address in a daze, watching him until he hangs up.
I’m surprised, I can’t lie, but also… intrigued, and I can’t lie about that either.