Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (43 page)

DMITRI

“Lower.”

I shift my weight a bit.

“Mmph. Lower.”

I adjust even more, grunting slightly in the effort.

“Lower.”

I suppress a shriek of pain as my calf decides to cramp up.

“Lower, Dmitri. Lower.”

“
Seriously
,” I mumble under my breath, “
if I go any lower, I’m going to be fucking your knees.
”

“What was that?”

“Is this fine?” I ask, louder.

Riley grunts in frustration. “It’s just that you’re breathing on my face,” she explains.

I stop fucking her. “Would you rather I not breathe?”

“Don’t stop!” she protests.

I resume, despite the cramp. I think I’m acquiring a throb in my head to match the one in my calf. “You want me to go down on you?”

“Ugh. Don’t ask. Just do it.”

“Alright.” I drag my mouth down her body, then recoil when I reach her pussy. “Um …”

“What?” she blurts, annoyed.

“It smells like me down here.”

“So?”

“There’s a whole lot of
me
going on down here.”

“Dmitri, are you gonna do me or not? I have a class in an hour.”

Well, I’ve had worse sexual experiences, like that time I jerked so hard that my balls went numb.

I plummet in with abandon, my tongue darting out, running the flat of it up her pussy lips. She moans her approval up above, which encourages me despite the offputting taste. I grip her thighs for support, teasing her with my tongue.

“Good, good,” she moans. “Yes, mmm … yes.”

“Mmm,” I moan, casting deliberate vibrations into her.

Her muscles tense in response.

Then I get an idea. I jut out my tongue and start to fuck her with it, pushing and pulling with a deep, steady rhythm. Her whole body rocks with me, pushed and pulled by my strength.

I hear a bang, then a grunt. I hear another bang, another grunt.

“Fuck, Dmitri! Stop!”

I rise up from between her legs. “What?”

“My head! Fucking! Hit! Your headboard!”

“Sorry?”

“Just go back to fucking me, please.”

I climb back up from the abyss of Hell—er, I mean, her pussy—and I bring my semi-hard dick to it. I give it a few hearty strokes, trying to revive it back to a fully hard state.

“Seriously?” she murmurs, watching.

“Sorry. I got a lot on my mind. What with trying not to breathe. And with giving my girlfriend a concussion. And—”

Riley’s off the bed in the next instant, gripping her pants with fury and pulling them up so hard, I hear something tear. Then she pulls on her bra, her top, and tucks her shoes under an arm, heading for the door with vigor.

“Riley?” I call out. “Where are you—?”

I hear the door to the apartment slam shut with such force, the walls seem to shake.

To my utter dissatisfaction, I find Eric lying on the couch when I make it out of the bedroom. He has his earbuds in and he’s staring at a tablet, so presumably he didn’t hear anything.
Oh, who am I kidding? Eric is a worm. He hears every damn thing that happens between these walls.

I attempt to ignore his existence and the too-tight maroon pants he’s wearing, ambling to the kitchen to make myself a snack before class. Staring at the pantry, I can’t think of a single thing I want to eat. I smack my lips, still tasting her on them, which ruins my appetite.

“Just end it already,” moans Eric.

I smirk and give him side-eye. “Riley and I are fine. She’s just …
particular
sometimes.”

“The bedroom isn’t a place for
particularity
.”

“Says the homo with the revolving door for a bedroom. Dude, get your sneakers off the couch, please,” I complain.

He ignores me, swiping something away on his tablet.

Just when I return to the pantry, he adds, “Riley adores me.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course she does. She’s like … a gay magnet. And I’m sure
you
adore
her
. She sends every gay guy she meets your way.”

“Jealous?”

“Hardly.” I decide on a cup of Easy Mac, then feel my stomach roil disagreeably.

Maybe the trouble is, my mind is so preoccupied with the fifty-thousand word story I’m supposed to finish by the end of the year that my own life is crumbling to pieces from neglect. That’s what happens when I’m trudging through the creative fire. Everything and everyone squats in a distant back burner position while my mind works and wrestles to create a world within my brain, a world I somehow have to convey with just words. Maybe Riley is acting out because she senses my withdrawal, not understanding that it isn’t her who’s causing my distance; it’s my agonizing writer’s block.

I think.

SAM

The cordless dorm phone rings on the desk in front of me. I barely hear it because of the glorious musical magic that’s coming from my boyfriend Tomas’s bassoon and his infinitely skillful fingers.

Just kidding. I’m dying a slow death. “Hello?” I answer the phone.

“Hey.”

It’s Dmitri. My insides sink with relief. “Hey, Dmitri.”

“How’re you doing?” he asks over a coarse C# that Tomas hits.

“I’m suffering in Hell,” I answer.

“What?”

“I said everything is swell.”

“Oh. Great, cool. Um … yeah. I’m sorta in a rut right now. I thought maybe you could help me sort through it.”

My posture straightens. I bite the inside of my cheek, listening.

“See,” he goes on, “Riley’s and my anniversary is coming up. And, like, I want to do something really cool for her. The thing is … well, I mean, she’s just not a fan of anything. And anything I think of, I can already hear her complaining about it, or asking why I didn’t do something else, or—”

“Who’s that?” cuts in Tomas, stopping his bassoon-playing.

I press the phone to my chest. “It’s Dmitri. You can keep playing.”

I can’t believe I just told him to keep playing.

“Alright,” he grunts, then hits a low G that turns my stomach over.

“You’re probably busy,” mutters Dmitri. “I’d normally call Brant about this sort of stuff, or shoot Clayton some texts, but—”

“I wouldn’t recommend either of them for advice on peculiar women. What about Eric?” I suggest.

“Last person I’d want to ask is
him
,” moans Dmitri. “I really miss his ex-boyfriend. He was so laidback. Eric was such a better person around him. Why are gay guys so adored by women? Maybe Riley should just date him instead.”

“I know what you mean,” I say back. “I have two gay uncles on my dad’s side of the family and everyone adores them without question. Well, except my grandma Lou, but it’s only because she caught Uncle Ty doing his husband in the laundry room. He loves telling that story every Christmas if you get enough eggnog in him.”

“Remind me to spend Christmas with you,” teases Dmitri.

My heart flutters at that statement. Or maybe it’s the abhorrently long note Tomas is playing right now and my heart is trying to thump its way out of my chest to run away screaming.

“Anyway. Wanna do lunch tomorrow or something?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say right away. “Can Tomas come along? He’s going to get crabby if I don’t invite him too.”

Tomas stops playing. “What?”

“I said we’re going to get crabs,” I tell him, cupping a hand over the phone. “Lunch tomorrow. Dmitri and I. Want to come?”

Tomas’s face recoils. “I’m allergic to shellfish.”

“Oh.”

He returns to playing, his tiny lips wrapping around the end of the bassoon. His eyes squint and he blows out a B flat.

“So it’s just us?” Dmitri confirms.

“Yep. See you then. I’d better, uh … get to finishing up this thing I got before class tomorrow.”

“Sure. Thanks, Sam. Can always count on you.” Then, he hangs up.

I stare at the phone for a long while, considering my situation. I fight an urge to call Dessie, who is always the first person I try to get ahold of when I’m in any sort of mental fix. She never sounds annoyed or put off by my calls, but I feel like I’m annoying her nonetheless. I guess it’s my own insecurity.

I’m so absorbed in the phone, I don’t even realize Tomas stopped playing and he’s at the door saying something to me. “What?” I blurt.

“I’m going down to the cafeteria to get a bite. Hungry?”

I purse my lips in thought, then shake my head.

“Love you,” he says sweetly, then closes the door behind him.

I move from my desk and sit cross-legged in the middle of the room on the rough, ugly grey carpet. There is no music playing. There are no voices or instruments filling the air. There’s not even the stirring of the air conditioning, or the hum of a computer, or the buzz of a TV. I’m surrounded by brilliant, beautiful, wonderful silence.

And sometimes, in a rare moment, it’s just this kind of utter silence a musician like me needs to feel any true peace.

Want to read the rest of Dmitri & Sam’s story?

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With These Hands
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Continue on to find out how it all began between Dessie & Clayton in
Read My Lips
, which includes a brand new previously unreleased bonus epilogue!

by

Daryl Banner

Read My Lips
A College Obsession Romance
#1

Copyright © 2016 by Daryl Banner
Published by Frozenfyre Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.