Love Unexpected (18 page)

"Hmm, do you want me to?" I looked at him in the mirror. He was wearing his navy boxers with no shirt.

"If you want-" I replied.  I was still staring at him in the mirror. He wa
s really a sexy guy. His muscles rippled in all the right places. His piercing blue-green eyes and lips were a molten combination. I wasn't aware that I licked my lips until he mentioned it.
 

"Babe, I know you're sore so no round two tonight. But if you keep looking at me like that and keep licking your lips like that, I won't be held responsible for what I do." He teased. I saw an outline of his hardness tenting his boxers.

"Oh." I swallowed. My attraction for him was so strong. I was torn between going for number 2 and resting. Resting won when I felt the soreness between my legs.

"I've early football practice tomorrow so I'll leave around 6," his eyes met mine in the mirror.

I nodded, "Ok."

He walked outside the bathroom towards a baby grand piano on the far end of his bedroom. I didn’t notice it before. Obviously, my attention was somewhere else or something else when I first
went inside his room. He used the tissues to wipe the accumulated dust on top of the piano. Then, he pulled out a chair and started fiddling with the keys. 
 

I grabbed the dry, green towel from the rack and started drying my hair. I saw my reflection in the big mirror in front of me. Violet eyes stared back at me.  About 5 inches below my shoulders my hair was entangled throughout my fingers. The towel felt rough on top of my breasts. I gasped when I saw whisker burns on top of my chest and some on the right side of my cheek. I touched them and my skin tingled. I felt like a complete woman. Outside of this bathroom, was the man who made me feel that way. I couldn't wait
to spend the night with him.
 

Zander was playing a soft melody on the piano. It was a dance song by Cascada, “Everytime We Touch.” He was playing it as a slow track. I sat beside him. The play of the muscles on his arms and fingers as he ran his fingers through the keys was one of the sexiest sights I had ever seen.

I looped my arm around his waist and leaned my head against his shoulder.

“I haven’t played in a while,” he whispered. He played classical, pop, and even rock. The songs tugged on the strings of my heart. He was trying to reach for something intangible in the pieces that he was playing. In the beginning, his fingers burned through the keys. The longer he played, the more I noticed the shift in his demeanor. The tension in his
shoulder muscles began to ease up. His eyes went from stormy and tumultuous to relaxed, peaceful.

I must have fallen asleep on his arms. The next thing I knew, I was being lifted and carried onto a bed. I sank into the pillow and was slowly turning to the side when I felt his arms around my stomach.
 

He p
ulled me close to him. The last thought I had was,
His bed’s way softer than mine
.

I snuggled closer to him and drifted off to sleep.

Zander

She was a virgin.

Wow.

I was still wrapping my head around that fact when I woke up this morning. Her ass was firmly snuggled against my morning erection. Her feet were tucked under a pillow. She was such a deep sleeper.

At 22, I've slept with tons of women. I had a healthy sex drive. As long as I had protection, I've had regular sex since I turned 15. Until two years ago. Because of Chrissy. When everything in my world shifted and it had not been the same ever since.

I could not rationalize how she remained a virgin. How did that happen? I knew she was with Brennan for a year. That was what she told me the other day, over the phone. She did not have a shortage of admirers. Guys checked her out everywhere we went. She was extremely attractive. Whatever the reason was, I was dumbfounded. I did not expect that. At first, when I pulled out the condom, I thought I was rough on her and must've caused her to bleed. But I've had years and years of practice and I've never encountered that.

For some reason, she thought I was worthy to be her first. I saw it in her eyes. No hesitations. She just handed it to me without a fuss. What the fuck did I do with that? She snuggled closer to me. It was almost time for me to go.

All my life, football practice was something I looked forward to. This morning, I wanted to be here when she woke up, to look into her eyes, and greet her “good morning.”

I wanted to keep playing the piano for her. She looked like she really enjoyed it. I thought I was a bit rusty. I haven’t touched the piano in a long time. Having her here, after a great night, I felt the need to play my favorite pieces for her. The first time my fingers touched the piano keys, it felt like home. I played until she fell asleep. Her head felt so natural against the crook of my shoulder. She fit perfectly. To me. To my life.

I was so tempted to call John and cancel. I had to keep my commitments. However, Sedona had no car. If she wanted to go back to her place before I got back from practice, she wouldn’t be able to.
 

I slowly lifted her hand off of my chest. I kissed the side of her neck. Damn, she was delicious. She did not stir. I must
have really tired her out.
 

Fridays were 4 hour-gym workouts with the team. It was optional but I’ve made it mandatory, personally. If I wanted to be in the NFA, I had to stay on track and stay disciplined. Discipline sucked big time when I wanted so much to stay with her.

I stood up, brushed my teeth, and put my workout gear on. I stopped by Xavier's room and asked him to drop me off at the gym. I knew Xavier was sleeping, but this was the least he could do for me. He interrupted my date last Saturday and he stared at Sedona’s ass. Karma was a bitch. And it was being served to him cold at 7 am, Friday morning. He did not have classes until 1 PM so he could get his sorry ass up and drive me.
 

I went back to my room, wrote her a quick note, and
put my car keys on top of it.
 

I kissed
the top of her forehead and left my room. Xavier groggily stood by his bedroom.

He asked, “Dude, did I hear some piano-playing last night?”

“Yeah,” I answered.

He stood straighter and walked ahead of me. I thought I heard him say, “Good.”

I pulled on my cap and followed him out. 

“Don’t jump halfway. Jump all the way.”
 

Sedona
 

After that night, Zander became a regular visitor at my place. I had a bedtime curfew of 11 PM on certain days of the week. I knew it was hard for him to grapple with the fact that I had a self-imposed curfew but he went along with it. He had football and classes. I had classes, clinical rotations, thesis, tutoring, and tons of group work. We were both really busy so we haven’t had any alone time. He called a few hours ago to let me know that he was coming over. 

He brought a bag of Indian food.
And, chicken wings?
He shrugged his shoulders when my brows lifted curiously at the Hudson’s bag of chicken wings and said, “They’re my favorite.”

I watched him open the take-out boxes in the kitchen. Gah, the way the muscles on his arms flexed as he grabbed the plates from my cupboards was so sexy. His blue-green gaze flared when he saw the way I was watching him.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I might change my mind and go for dessert instead,” he muttered.

Heat rushed my face, “Oh.”

I had the urge to go straight to dessert too, if only my stomach didn’t rumble. 

“Thanks for bringing food. I didn’t realize how late it was,” and I filled up my plate with curry and rice. It was delicious.

We ate in companionable silence. His hands lingered on me and he smiled at me once in a while. In the middle of scooping up a second serving of the minced beef and his 12
th
chicken wing, he asked, “Sedona, is it cool if we become exclusive?”

Exclusive?

I was momentarily stunned. Yes, we had sex last week. My first time. His…nth time. He dated a lot of women before me and from what I heard from Tanya, he wasn’t into exclusivity. Was he asking me this because he found out I was a virgin?

His eyes probed as I tried to find the right thing to say.

“Why?” I asked.

He was sitting across from me so I saw the distinct muscle twitch in his jaw.

“What do you mean ‘why’?”

“Zander, don’t you think we’re moving kind of fast?” I tried to reason.

“No, I don’t think we’re moving fast. I feel like everything was in slow motion before we actually got together,” he said.

“Hmm.”

His eyes flickered, “You don’t want us to be exclusive?”

How did I answer that?

“You’re still not ready for anything?” he prodded, “Let me say this, babe. This, you, are not just any thing to me.”

“Zander, just because I was a virgin,” I paused and slightly arched my eyebrows, “It doesn’t mean that you have to be exclusive with me.”

He choked on the glass of water he was in process of drinking, “What?! You think I want to be exclusive cause of that?”

“Well, let’s see, you have a different woman every couple of days and now you want us to be exclusive, after seeing each other for a week. I think there’s something wrong with this picture.”

He flinched, his shoulders sagged on the kitchen table, “Babe, I was dating. Yeah, I was with them but I wasn’t really ‘with’ them. I think I was waiting for you. I like you. I want to get to know you. I really hope that you’ll give me the chance to do that.”

“Exclusively?”

“Yeah, just you and me. Getting to know each other. Not seeing other people,” he explained.

“I know what exclusive means. But we’re not boyfriend or girlfriend, right? I just don’t have time for that right now,” I said.

“Yeah, exclusive. Cool. For now.” His smile was so wide. The show of his pearly whites blinded me.
 

Zander

Other women thought I was a great catch. Key words: other women. Sedona was a different story.

We had tons of fun in bed. Outside of it, she was salt to a man’s bleeding ego.

I became well-acquainted with the furniture in her apartment. I came to her place every other day, but she was always busy writing papers and shit. She came out of her room for maybe 30 minutes or so,
chatted with me for a few minutes, kissed me, and then disappeared. “Tons of papers to write,” she reasoned. I often ended up hanging out with her roommates.

She was ok with ‘exclusive’. She wasn’t, however, cool with having our pictures blasted in that Chatty Pepper’s website again.

Kieran’s father had informed her that legal action could not be taken against the website because technically, the public contributed the photos to the site. That Pepper lady was only the site’s administrator. Sedona disliked her privacy being violated. I didn’t like it either. I was better equipped in dealing with the public because my parents were regular news staples. She made me promise to avoid us being photographed together, as much as possible.

“You’re a popular figure, Zander. So is Kieran. Anytime I’m with you guys, my picture would probably be taken. I would have no control of it. What I do know is that if we’re around other people, then, maybe there won’t be any insinuations made about us,” she justified.

Who the hell cared? They could take whatever picture they wanted. I was proud to be with her. I wanted to be with her, in any way, shape, or form. So, if she wanted our exclusivity to be just between us for now, I had no choice but to be ok with it.

I had to bribe John or Dom with drinks, for them to go with me to see her after football practice. Her Tuesday and Thursday classes ran late so we walked to the Health and Human Sciences building (about 5 buildings away) from the football field and hung around there.