Confused #1 (Confused Romance Series - book#1) (2 page)

I yelped and clutched my bra to my
chest. My gorgeous stranger was awake!

Cautiously, I turned my head to look
at him over my shoulder, and what I saw made my heart speed up like
a robber’s getaway car. I didn’t know how it was possible, but he
was even more beautiful awake and moving than he had been asleep.
He’d rolled over onto his side to watch me in a position very much
like one of those reclining Buddha statues, only infinitely more
erotic. His skin practically glowed golden in the morning sunshine,
and that same light highlighted the contours of his muscled chest,
his arms, his stomach – holy hell, he was fit and toned all
over!

“Hey,” I said. It was all I could
manage once I realized that, although he’d called me by name, I
didn’t know his. One of my hands flew to cover my crotch, while the
other one supported the unfastened bra that was practically hanging
on my nipples.

He noticed my skittishness and
laughed. “No need to be shy,” he said. “I saw a lot more than that
last night.”

“Did you, now?”I murmured, turning to
face him but unable to meet his eyes. Now that they were open, I
could see that they were the color of chocolate dipped in honey,
and it would have been all too easy to get lost in the warm depths
of his gaze.

“Oh yeah.” He grinned at me, playful
and lascivious at once.

I blushed to the roots of my hair, and
spread my fingers a bit wider to give my groin a little more cover.
As I said, I like to party, but having your proclivities brought up
in the cold light of day is kind of unnerving.

“Okay,” I stammered. “Great. Glad we
had fun. Just give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll be out of your
hair.”

The man (‘godlike creature’, supplied
my brain automatically) swung his legs off of the bed to get into a
sitting position. Unless I was very much mistaken, there was
genuine concern in the look he was giving me.

“Hey, don’t rush out on my account,”
he said. “Why don’t you stay for breakfast?”

My ears pricked up. An invitation to
breakfast? Thanks to my parents’ restrictions, I didn’t have much
experience with one night stands, but from what I understood, they
usually ended with a walk of shame, not waffles with bacon on the
side. Last night must have gone very well indeed.

“Or at least a glass of milk. Or
water, even,” continued the godlike creature when I didn’t answer.
“You must be thirsty after all that fun we had.”

I am very bad at saying no, and I’m
even worse at saying no to breakfast. It’s my favorite meal of the
day, and everyone who knows me knows that I’m not properly myself
until I’ve had a bowl of oatmeal, half a grapefruit, and at least
one cup of coffee. I took a couple of seconds to assess my
situation: I didn’t have classes this morning, I was hungry –
famished, even – and staying for the meal would give me more time
with this man. What’s more, it would be time that I’d
remember.

“Breakfast sounds good,” I said,
smiling. For the first time, I noticed that he was looking at my
face as he spoke to me, despite the fact that I was as good as
naked. My posture relaxed as the tension went out of me.

“Great,” he said with an answering
grin that revealed perfect white teeth. “But it’ll have to be toast
and scrambled eggs. That’s all I can make.”

“That’ll be perfect,” I assured him. I
wasn’t lying. The only thing that could possibly make it better was
if he cooked it wearing nothing but an apron.

Chapter 2

S
adly, I didn’t get to watch him
cook. He made breakfast, presumably dressed, while I was having a
quick shower, and by the time I padded out of the bathroom wearing
the T-shirt he’d lent me, the food was arranged on plates in the
dining area of his apartment’s main room. When he saw me, he smiled
like a kid on Christmas morning.

“I put some cheese in the eggs,” he
explained, standing up to pull a chair out for me. “I hope you’re
not lactose intolerant. Or vegetarian.Or a Vegan. Oh God,” he said,
giving the meal a panicked look. “You’re not a Vegan, are you? I
can go get you something else if you’re a Vegan.”

“It’s fine,” I said, laughing, looking
up at him from my seat. I had to stretch my neck to do that, he was
that tall. “I mean, it’s something I’ve thought about, but right
now, I’ll eat anything.”

“Oh good.” It was cute that he was so
obviously relieved. “Orange juice?” he offered, holding up a
carton.

“Yes please.” I held out my glass to
him. “Thanks – er, this is really embarrassing, but I don’t think I
caught your name.”

This admission of ignorance didn’t
faze him as much I feared it would. All he did was give me a
friendly, knowing smirk as he sat across from me at the small
table. “I’m Nick,” he said. “Nick Gadeyne.”

“Pleased to meet you.” I offered him
my hand, glad to finally be able to put a name to that gorgeous
face. “I’m Amy Weller.”

Nick’s golden brown eyes danced with
laughter as he shook my hand. “So you said when I met you. I guess
I have you at a disadvantage.”

“Oh dear.” I didn’t have to fake my
dismay, though I did try to hide it behind a slice of toast. “What
else did I say?”

“Let me think.” Nick’s perfect brow
furrowed in concentration. “You told me you were a humanities
undergrad, that you were going to take me home and ‘demolish’ me –
your word, not mine – and that you’d just had the best lay of your
life.”

“Did I really?” I squeaked, forcing
myself to concentrate on the eggs on my plate.

“That’s what you said.”

I let out a horrible involuntary
squeak. I wasn’t usually that forward! And I’d had the best lay of
my life with the hottest man on the planet, but I couldn’t remember
a single detail of it? That was just too tragic to
contemplate!

“So you know about me,” I said,
resting my right elbow on the table and my chin on my hand. I badly
needed to think about something other than all the things that
should be filling the gaps in my brain, so I went for the most
obvious topic. “What do I need to know about you?”

“
There’s not much to
know.” He shrugged. “I was at college for a while, but I had to
stop. Right now, I’m working at a bar, trying to save up so I can
go back to school. I want to be an architect. That’s about it.”
Suddenly, Nick grinned, fast and wicked, putting his elbow on the
table to mirror my position. “And, of course, you were incredible
last night.”

I didn’t know how to take that
compliment. Coming from Nick, that was one hell of an ego booster,
and maybe I ought to have been proud – imagine, mousy-haired me
being praised by a sex god! – but I didn’t remember a second of
it.

If I were a suave
seductress, that would have been my cue to suggest that Nick might
want to find out if I was incredible in the morning, but that just
wasn’t me. Though I dearly wanted to ask for a kiss, for a touch,
for another round of sex, I didn’t even know how to begin asking
for it short of dropping to my knees and
begging
. So all I managed to say
was, “I hope we didn’t bother your roommate.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Ah.” I blinked in
surprise. Working at a bar must pay much better than I thought if
Nick could afford this place on his own
and
start saving up for college.
“Great. So we only need to worry about the neighbors.”

“Yeah,” Nick laughed. “You were pretty
loud, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Roberts puts in a
complaint today.”

“Jesus!” I dropped my fork onto my
plate and covered my face with my hands. I know for a fact that
I’ve never been loud during sex – not even when I’m coming. What on
earth had those brightly colored drinks done to me? “You have to be
kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Nope, scout’s honor. You screamed
like a fucking banshee. It was amazing.” The look Nick gave me was
so heated that the air between us should have fizzled and caught
fire.

I swallowed. I wanted to put my mouth
on him so badly. “You must have been amazing too, to make me scream
like that.”

“Cheers.” Nick raised his glass of
orange juice in a mock toast, and smiled innocently, making me
doubt that the desire I’d seen in his gaze.

That doubt made me painfully awkward
for the rest of our meal. I am not terrific at reading people, and
often have to second guess myself when it comes to figuring out
what they think of me. It was distressing on most days, and now,
with Nick sitting across from me, I was only a few seconds away
from a mental breakdown. One minute I was burning with desire for
him, positive that he felt the same way about me, and the next, I
was equally sure that he was just being nice and that breakfast was
simply his way of saying thank you for a good time.

Finally, I just couldn’t stand it any
longer. I wanted Nick, and I was going to have him again or die
trying. When he got up to put our dishes in the washer, I asked for
a glass of water. He got one for me, with all the graciousness I’d
come to expect from him, and our fingers touched when he handed it
to me. That was the last straw for me. I stood facing him,
shivering with lust and praying that I could pull this
off.

I hadn’t really thought things through
yet. My first idea was to drink that water, slowly and seductively
as though I was trying to give the liquid a blow job, and things
might have gone very differently if I’d done that. Instead I took
the glass of water, and poured it over my head.

Cold water gushed down my face,
between my breasts, down my neck, and stray droplets sprayed Nick
when I undid my hair and shook it out.

“What on earth are you doing?” he
demanded, taking me by the shoulders, and moving me out of the
puddle I’d made.

Still flushed, still breathing hard, I
laughed, and reached between his legs. I was rewarded when Nick’s
breath stuttered as my fingers brushed his erect penis through his
sweatpants.

“I was trying to turn you on.”
Suddenly, I felt foolish, but I wanted him too badly to turn back.
“God, I’m sorry if I’ve got it wrong, but I am so into you – I
can’t stand it.” At that point, I couldn’t help myself any longer.
I went up on my tiptoes and kissed him.

It was pure magic after that. Nick
gave in to the kiss, quickly exerting dominance. He licked his way
into my mouth, tracing my lips with his tongue. He must have been
able to taste the breakfast we’d eaten, but that didn’t put him off
at all – in fact, he was so enthusiastic that he had me weak at the
knees and groaning into his mouth in no time at all. His hands were
on my waist, and he’d pulled me so close that his hard-on was
grinding against my throbbing crotch.

“
It worked,” he told me,
his hands moving from my waist to the curve of my buttocks as he
licked a wet stripe down my jaw line. Warning bells went off in my
head (I was going to be in such deep shit if my parents ever found
out about this), but I wasn’t about to refuse what Nick seemed so
willing to give me.

I
happily nuzzled his sculpted chest, moving my leg so that it was in
the perfect position for him to rub against. “Thank God. I thought
it was going to be harder than this.”

“Isn’t it hard enough already?” He
pushed his dick against my leg to prove it to me.

“I know that, silly,” I said, and I
threw caution to the winds. I grabbed his cock through his clothes,
and squeezed, making him moan. “I meant that I thought that I’d
have a harder time convincing you to fuck me.”

That made him stop. Breathing harshly,
he held me at arm’s length, and looked at me intently. The pupils
of his honey-chocolate eyes were unmistakably dilated, and he
licked his lips in an unconscious invitation to a kiss.

“Is that really what you want?” he
asked. “There’s nothing to hide behind now if you regret it – we’re
both sober, we can’t even say we got swept up in the
moment.”

“I could never regret this, Nick,” I
answered, plucking at the hem of the shirt he’d lent me. The water
I’d poured over my head was making it stick to my body in all the
right places. I’m not saying that I’d have won a wet T-shirt
contest, but the expression on Nick’s face said that it was working
for me just fine.

“I know you want to,” I continued.
“Come on, I’ve seen how you’ve been looking at me all
morning.”

“We don’t have to do this.”

“And you must have noticed how I’ve
been looking at you.” Nick was about to argue, but I silenced him
by peeling off my shirt.

His jaw dropped as he stared at my
naked torso. He’d seen me naked last night and he had the advantage
of memory, but I guess seeing me properly, in the clear light of
day, had a pretty strong effect on him. It was all the incentive I
needed to put on a show for him. I cupped my breasts, rubbed the
pads of my thumbs against my nipples, groaning hungrily as I
touched myself.

Nick came undone, his reserve and his
doubts vanishing into thin air. He went to me, put his hands over
mine, kissed me again, and began to kiss his way down my throat to
my breasts. He kissed them, sucked at them, bit until I squealed
and fisted a hand in his brown hair. I had never hoped for this,
and I was going to take as much as I could.