Wrecking Ball (7 page)

In spite of my body/mind conflict,
I looked forward to our first date, but I was still reluctant. It was easy to see he could pretty much get any girl he wanted, and I would not be another conquest for him. If he wanted me, he’d have to earn me. I was no angel back then and by no means a virgin, but I didn’t sleep around. Sex meant something to me. Yes, I loved the physical aspect of it, a lot, but if my heart wasn’t in it, I couldn’t do it.

“So you got the hots for this guy, huh?”
My roommate Jill asked as she gazed at me over the rim of her glasses. Her purple terrycloth bath robe was tied around her tightly and her brown hair was up in a knot on top of her head. She was spending the night in to study, unusual behavior on her part since it was the weekend.

I gave her a quick glanc
e before applying my mascara in front of our bathroom mirror. “I mean he’s cute.” I shrugged nonchalantly. Cute was putting it mildly so when she snorted at my casual compliment of him, I wasn’t surprised.

“I’ve heard he gets around.” Jill gave me a pointed look
, and I avoided acknowledging it. I heard that about him as well over the last few days when I asked a few of our friends about him. The rumors didn’t exactly reflect positively on him, but I agreed to this date and I would go through with it. Besides, I had fallen victim to the rumor train my freshman year when Doug Trent told everyone he banged me in the bathroom at a frat party. In truth, I was drunk and made out with him in said bathroom, but that was all. I quickly gained a swarm of young horny college guys thinking I was an easy target for a lay. It took well in to my sophomore year and a serious boyfriend that lasted six months, for the rumor to fizzle out. I hoped maybe Brandon’s reputation was more rumor than truth, but something told me it most likely wasn’t.

“Don’t worry
, Jill. I know what I’m doing.” I smiled at her faintly.

I have no idea what I’m doing.

With a slight nod, a curve of her mouth that made me think she didn’t believe me
for one second, she spun around and plopped down on our worn out couch and picked up her book. I was impressed she didn’t say more, push me to cave in that I, too, was worried, but she didn’t.

When he
knocked on our door, Jill looked up from her book and gave me pointed look. “Let’s hope he’s better in bed than at volleyball.”

“I’m not going to sleep with him
,” I whispered as I approached the door hoping he didn’t hear what she had said. When I opened the door, Brandon grinned and something fluttered in my stomach. There was something about him that made me giddy, a charm he had. No doubt it was
that
charm that landed his past conquests.
Keep it together, Soph
. “Hi.” I opened my door a little more and stepped to the side to let him in.

“You look beautiful
,” he noted as his eyes ran up and down my body. As he passed by me, the flutter I felt only seconds before tripled.
Son of a bitch! Get your shit together, Soph!”

Jill
let me borrow her yellow sundress because it could be casual or dressy if need be. I had no idea where we were going so it was a safe choice. “Did you find the place okay?” I brushed off my moment of butterflies and got down to business.

“Yeah, your directions were good.”

“Brandon this is my roommate Jill, Jill, Brandon.” I motioned between them and Jill smiled as she waved hi to him from her seat on our sofa.

“Nice to meet you.” Brandon nodded and shoved his hands back in his pockets.

“I wanted to thank you for helping us win the game the other day. We never beat Sophia’s team,” Jill teased, and I cut her a look.

“Oh, you were on the other side, huh?” Brandon shook his head as he chuckled. “Glad I could help.”

“Funny, he doesn’t look like a dickhead, Sophia,” Jill noted giving Brandon an inquisitive look. I wanted to kill her right then and there. I should’ve never told her about running into him at CVS and helping him clean the marker off his face.

Brandon sort of moaned and ran a wide palm over his face. “She told you about that, huh?”

“It was too funny,” Jill giggled.

“Lucky she was there to help me or I’d probably have a shit ton of zits from rubbing baby oil all over my face.”

“Well, you’re not the first guy she’s done it for. Her last boyfriend had it worse. Not only did they draw all over him, they shaved one eye brow off. Seems all you frat boys like to play art on each other’s faces.”

I gave her a wide-
eyed look warning her to shut it, but it was too late. Jill was a good friend and she was worried about me. There was no reason for her to mention anything about guys from my past. She did it to torture Brandon a little.

Brandon tensed momentarily, but shrugged. “Yeah, we all dread it, but still do it to one another.” His answer was followed by a moment of awkward silence so I quickly
stepped in.

“Well did you want to have a drink before we leave or
would you rather just go?” I quickly changed the subject, knowing Jill would continue to give him a hard time until I intervened.

“We can just go
,” Brandon answered a little too enthusiastically, and I could tell Jill was making him nervous.

“
Alright, you two kids have fun and wear a rubber,” Jill said as we headed towards the door.

“
Jill,” I groaned. “Come on.” I took Brandon’s arm and pulled him out the door before Jill could say anything else to embarrass me. “Sorry about her. She likes to get a rise out of people.”

“I can take it.” He shrugged as he led me to his car.

The drive to the restaurant was awkwardly silent. Other than an extreme attraction to one another, what did we really have in common? Once we arrived and were seated I decided to take the bull by the horns.

“Why did you pay four hundred dollars to do a body shot off of me?” I asked after the waiter took our drink order.

Brandon ran a hand through his hair and smirked. “It wasn’t so much that I wanted to do a body shot off of you,” he paused. “I mean, I did,” he quickly added. “It was more about I didn’t want anyone else to do it,” he groaned. “This isn’t coming out right. You must think I’m crazy.”

“Some girls might
think so,” I answered honestly. His gaze immediately met mine and made my body clench.
Holy shit, this man is sexy.

“Well you’re not just
some
girl,” he replied with a deep tone that vibrated through me. “Something tells me you’re worth acting crazy for.”

Heat covered my face
with his words. Every girl wants a guy to be crazy for her, yet it can be scary when you find that guy. “You barely know me, Brandon. How could you know that already?” Our gazes remained fixed on each other and slowly his mouth curved on one side and I had to squeeze my legs together. I knew that look was the one. The one that hooked, lined, and sinkered women and made them willing to climb into bed with him without any promise of tomorrow. It was a dangerous look. A look that promised to destroy me if I fell victim to it. But how could I not? I’m pretty sure a nun would at least second-guess her convictions if she saw Brandon Dalton look at her the way he was looking at me.

“Because I’ve never r
eacted this way over a woman. It’s like you put a spell on me, because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since that day at the lake.”

“So you just want sex. To hook up?” I asked blatantly. Might as well lay all the cards on the table right out
of the gate. I hated to pussyfoot
around.

“No
,” he answered quickly. “I want that…” His sentence trailed off as his eyes shifted to his hands briefly and his sexy smirk turned into a soak my panties smile, before they met my gaze again. It wasn’t hard to tell the thought of having sex with me had just rolled through his mind like a rip tide. It sure as hell rolled through mine. “I want to know every bit of you. But yes, I want sex, too—eventually.”

His answer seemed very honest and even though I asked for it, I was still surprised he admitted he wanted to have sex with me.
“Maybe you’re
just
attracted to me. Lust is often mistaken as…something else.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. The discussion got intense fast. I guess that’s partly my fault as I didn’t want to ‘pussyfoot’ around.  I wanted to be direct with him, find out what his intentions were, but it only intensified the need growing inside of me for him. The need to have him on me, in me, touching me everywhere.

He leaned across the table and placed his hand over mine. The touch sent shocks through me, li
ke current zinging my skin.

“Sophia.” He said my name softly as he stared into my eyes. My heart thundered in my chest. “You’re the kind of girl that makes a man want to be his best. I don’t want to just take you for one night. I want you for all nights.”

Damn, he’s good.

The waiter dropped our drinks off breaking our conversation
, forcing Brandon to pull his hand from mine, and I let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding since he touched me. I quickly took my wine and gulped down a few sips, needing any reason not to look at him for a moment. A way to break the spell I was drugged from where I believed every damn word coming out of his mouth. After we placed our orders, Brandon took the lead with the conversation, changing it to more basic first date topics.

Our conversation turned into twenty questions which had us laughing
hysterically and earning us many dirty looks from the people at other tables.

“Sibling
s?” he questioned as he cut his steak.

“A sister. She’s twelve and bossy, but I love her to pieces. You?”

“Only child. What do your parents do?”

“My mother stayed at h
ome with us, my dad is a police officer. Yours?”

“My
dad is lawyer and my mother is a doctor.”

“So that’s where you get your
brains from,” I laughed before sipping my wine.

“Still surprised I’m a science major, eh? I guess it’s hard to see my big brains behind a
ll of my good looks.” He waggled his brows at me and I rolled my eyes.

“Maybe it seems like
you think too much with the wrong head,” I blurted out and immediately regretted it. Brandon was so good-looking, funny, charming, everything I would want in a man, but his reputation was shit and even though I barely knew him, I liked him. But his past gnawed at me. His smile faded quickly and he sipped his high ball before changing the subject.

He talked about his plans for the future
, and I talked about my plans for the summer. We talked long after we got the check and paid, laughing at each other’s stories and jokes and when we headed back to his car he placed his hand on the small of my back and it made me tremble. From my peripheral vision, I thought I saw him smile slightly. He felt what his touch did to me. He knew he had me baited and I hated it. Any plans I had of playing it safe to make sure he had the best intentions were melting away.

“Are you ready to go home or are you up for some fun?”
he asked as we walked to his car. He drove a shitty Ford Focus which I appreciated. He had money, but he wasn’t spoiled like a lot of the kids at Alabama.

“Depends on what you mean by fu
n,” I challenged. “Will we be wearing clothes?” The wine was short-circuiting the filter to my mouth and pretty much letting me say anything I wanted, even if I sounded like a bitch.

Stupid filter.

But Brandon didn’t miss a beat and went right with it, taking my verbal punches with finesse. “Trying to get me naked already? It’s only our first date,” he quipped, and I blushed. “Geesh, at least wait until date three.”

I fought the urge to snap at him and tell him, it would take a lot more than three dates to get in my pants, but he was trying to be funny and lighten the mood
, so I let it go. In spite of my inhibitions, I had enjoyed myself hanging out with him and really didn’t want the evening to end. “I’m game for a little fun. What’d you have in mind?”

“My friend is having a party. We could stop by
,” he offered almost apologetically, as if it was a lame idea and he hoped I wasn’t insulted by it.

“Okay.” I shrugged as he opened my door and I slid in.
Maybe being around a lot of other people would help break some of this intensity going on between us. A party sounded like a great idea.

His friend Jake’s apartment was packed and the bass from the music playing inside could be heard from the parking lot. When we entered the apartment, I saw a few of my friends and waved to them. “I’m going to go say h
i,” I shouted to Brandon.

“Okay, you want a beer?”

“Yeah. That would be great.”

“Sophia!” My friend Rachel hugged me tightly
as I approached the group I knew. “Are you here with Brandon Dalton?”

“Yeah.” I nodded and hugged her boyfriend Jason that stood beside her.

“Be careful with that one,” Jason warned.

“He’s a nice gu
y, Soph, don’t get me wrong, but he is a bit of a player.”