The Perfect Guy: A Romance Novel Read online

  He was rubbing circles on my stomach and with each one he closed in on my center where I was aching so badly for him that it bordered on painful. I needed him to touch me, or I was going to break apart.

  I whimpered like a small animal when his hand almost came in touch with my slit, but he made a pass by it and went down my thigh instead. He hooked his hand around the backside of my knee and lifted my leg up to place my foot on the small ledge, that was intended for shampoo bottles, at the same time as I felt him nibble on my earlobe.

  It almost made me come undone, but I held back because of the shame that had started to creep back on me. Why was I allowing this? We had not even kissed yet, but I could not care less about that when his hand travelled back from my knee, now on the inside of my thigh, and I knew where he was headed this time.

  There was no hesitation in his touch when he came in contact with my swollen lower lips. He knew exactly how to move his fingers, up one side and down the other in sensual slow circles.

  I was pulsating and aching, but I also longed for more. He was touching me in the most intimate of ways, but who knew how many there had been before me. I wanted to be special. I needed to know that my feelings were reciprocated somehow.

  Almost as if he could read my mind, he used his free hand to turn my head toward him over my shoulder. I couldn’t see him because my eyes were closed, but I knew that he was looking at me, at my mouth, and only seconds later, I felt his soft lips press down on mine with a purpose.

  It started out gentle, but soon, it was as if some instinct took over and the kiss became fierce. He continued to touch me, but like the kiss, his fingers became more aggressive. They ghosted over my entrance and began to rub on my clit.

  I almost screamed out in shock, and pleasure, at the electric jolts that coursed through my entire body at the speed of sound from the point of where his middle finger pressed down on my button of nerves.

  He instantly took advantage of my surprise by pushing his tongue inside my open mouth. Our fast and violent breaths escaped us noisily through our noses and our teeth clashed together, but neither of us cared in our lust-filled minds.

  I wanted to touch him, too, but I couldn’t. My limbs were immobile as he brought me closer to the edge, and I had to lean away from his mouth when the need for a proper breath became too great.

  My whimpers escalated into throaty moans when my fluttering walls told me that I was close.

  Without warning, he entered me with two long fingers, and I immediately exploded in the most powerful orgasm I had ever experienced.

  I leaned back, my foot still on the ledge, and my inner muscles contracting as I rode out my climax.

  When I opened my eyes, I was met with the blurry image of my flushed face in the steamy bathroom mirror. I was still breathing harshly, my chest lifted with each breath I took.

  The warm water was still flowing down over me from the shower head as if nothing had happened, when the truth was that everything had changed.

  I couldn’t pretend anymore. It would be impossible. I was far too deep into a situation I never wanted to be in, but I just couldn’t deny what I knew anymore.

  Tears sprang up in my eyes when a new ache situated in the left side of my chest made itself known, and I heavily sat down on the shower floor.

  My tears made me feel vulnerable and exposed, but it didn’t help to curl up and hug my legs tightly too my chest; it still hurt inside of me.

  I couldn’t say who I was trying to fool: myself or the people surrounding me, but the fact was that I wasn’t just falling for James Masen anymore. I had already fallen, and I was officially screwed.

  When the door closed behind Jennifer with a resounding click, James exhaled sharply and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. The only thing on his mind was her. He couldn’t focus on anything else.

  It wasn’t her as a case, either. He wasn’t analyzing what had happened between them or plotting his next move. He was just thinking of her: her smile, her laugh, and how she had felt in his arms.

  He wanted more, and he wasn’t going to deny it. Not anymore.

  He wanted to kick himself for making himself so vulnerable in the attempt to seduce Jennifer. He couldn’t even explain what it was he had hoped to achieve. The only thing he would have gotten from it was disappointment.

  The sound of the shower reached his ears, and he tried, he really tried, to not imagine Jennifer inside that little room, naked and wet, but it did not matter. The fantasy was already there.

  James could see it in front of him—how she soaped up her entire body and ran her fingers over her naked skin, how she moaned in pleasure when she massaged the shampoo into her scalp.

  It was so vivid; James could almost swear he heard her moan from inside the bathroom.

  He straightened up and leaned back on the couch; his hands followed his movement and hid his face from view as he groaned with frustration. Those thoughts did not help. They only made it worse since now he was sporting an erection that he did not want to acknowledge.

  It was actually quite impressive that he had been able to control himself enough to not get hard earlier in the classroom. He had thought, for a fleeting second, that he had wanted Jennifer on every surface available in that room, but he had held himself back, both because of the fact that she was supposed to be a case and also because there were too many other people present.

  Here it was different. They were alone in her room with only a door separating them, a door which Jennifer was very much naked behind.

  A loud, vibrating sound caused James to startle and remove his hands from his face to look at the source of the annoying sound. Jennifer’s phone lay on the coffee table, and the display told him that Becca was calling.

  The name was familiar to James, but he couldn’t place it. However, he was positive it was a friend of Jennifer’s.

  He contemplated just letting the phone ring and sending the call to voice mail, but he also knew that if Jennifer saw a missed call from her friend, she would immediately call and their talk would be postponed. James did not want that. He needed to talk to Jennifer as soon as possible even though he had no idea what he would say.

  Before he could change his mind, he grabbed the phone and rejected the call mid-ring. Then he went in to Jennifer’s call history and deleted the evidence of the call.

  However, only seconds later, the phone rang again, Becca’s name on the display. It was obvious she wasn’t going to give up.

  James tightened his free hand into a fist to control his irritation. It was just so typical that this would happen now.

  Still, he rejected the call again and hurried to write a text, hoping that he could fool this Becca with a message.

  Busy! Call U later? xo ~B

  James had seen thousands of texts sent between women and so he was quite pleased with what he had wrote before he sent it, and once again, erased all traces of his peeking on her phone. He was sure that Becca wouldn’t suspect a thing.

  “Fuck!”

  Becca’s exclamation caused Solomon, her husband, to peek around the corner of the open door to their kitchen to check on his wife. He knew that she had a temper and a wide variety of profanities in her vocabulary, but he could also tell when she was genuinely upset.

  “Is there something wrong, baby?”

  Becca was staring at her phone with a thunderous expression on her face. “Those filthy assfaces got to her!”

  Solomon stopped chopping vegetables for the salad they were supposed to have with lunch and walked up to his wife. “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

  “Look at this!” She thrust her phone into his face, indicating that he should read the latest text from Jenn.

  Busy! Call U later? xo ~B

  Solomon shrugged. “I can’t see what the problem is. She says that she’s going to call later. Maybe she’s in class.”

  Becca stared at her husband with incredulous eyes. “You don’t see it, do you?”

  Solomo
n looked at the text again. “I’m afraid not, darling,” he said apologetically.

  “Oh c’mon! Do you think this sounds like Jenn at all? Since when has she ever used ‘U’ instead of ‘you,’ and what in Merlin’s twisted asshair does that ‘xo’ do in the end!? She sounds like one of those fuckwit sluts in Gossip Girl.” Becca turned away and made her way toward the office. “I’m telling you, either this is not Jenn or they succeeded in installing their brainwashing chip in her head today.”

  Solomon followed his distressed spouse, and when she sat down in front of the laptop on the desk, he leaned against the doorframe. “As much as it would anger me if they’ve actually changed Jenn, what can we do? She’s in Ohio, and we’re in Washington.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious. I’m very aware of that!” Becca snapped at him, but Solomon had learned not to take it personal. Becca had a hard time controlling herself when she was angry, and right at this moment, she was beyond pissed. Nobody messed with her best friend unpunished.

  Solomon could still remember how he had to almost literally restrain Becca physically when she heard what Jenn’s ex had said about her, and he nearly began chuckling at the memory.

  “Yes, but seriously, baby, what are you going to do?” he asked with genuine curiosity. There was no telling what Becca was planning in her head.

  “First of all, I’m going to do some thorough research on this so-called school. After that, I am getting into my car to drive my ass the entire way there, and you can’t stop me.”

  This time, Solomon did laugh. “I wouldn’t try even if I’d wanted to.”

  With that, he left his wife to her research and went back to the vegetables. If she needed him, she would call for him, but he doubted that she would. She was very determined to find out the truth about the school Jenn had been sent to, and when Becca had set a goal, she did not rest until she reached it.

  It was one of the things he absolutely adored about her.

  “Damn it all to the inferno in Hades’ underground!” I exclaimed underneath my breath. I could just hit myself for my stupidity.

  Who the hell would walk into the bathroom to take a shower and not bring clean clothes with them to change into, especially if there is someone waiting for them outside?

  Normally, I would have just put the old clothes back on for the short walk from the bathroom to the bedroom, but these clothes were just beyond disgusting now. They smelled of sweat and old deodorant, and they were wrinkly and stretched out. I wasn’t even going to mention the underwear that I had already planned to throw away since they were completely ruined.

  I refused to put them back on.

  But I couldn’t walk out to James in only my towel, either. That would just be the dot over the proverbial ‘i.’

  Did I really have any other choice, though?

  No, I didn’t.

  So after taking a very deep breath, I unlocked the door and opened it just enough for me to be heard when I talked to the man on my couch.

  “Uh, James?”

  He stood up and turned around toward the bathroom door, but when he only saw half of my face in the sliver between the frame and door, he stopped and frowned. “Yeah?”

  I cleared my throat when I felt my embarrassment stain my cheeks red. “I kind of forgot to bring new clothes in here, so I’m only in a towel at the moment.”

  Since my vision was slightly defused, I wasn’t completely sure when it looked like his eyes widened and his mouth fell open slightly if it was because of what I said or something else.

  “Okay…” he responded, but he made no move to turn around or get out of the way that he was blocking, which of course was the shortest way to the bedroom door.

  “So could you turn around and look at the wall or something? Just long enough for me to get to the bedroom?”

  He immediately set himself into action and turned so that he faced the front door instead. The only problem was that he was still in the way. With him still standing in that spot, it meant that I would have to go around the couch area to reach the door, and once there, I would be in the line of his periphery vision.

  I didn’t want to continue instructing him, so I decided to just make a run for it.

  With my dirty clothes clutched in my hands, and my towel tightly secured, I let the bathroom door swing open, and I ran as quickly as I could without dropping anything. It would be typical of me if I were to drop the towel when I was only halfway to my room.

  However, I reached the door without problem, but when I went inside and turned around to close it, I saw that James’s entire head was turned my way, his eyes glued to me with a kind of hungry look in them.

  I quickly shut the door and leaned back against it.

  If I thought I was screwed before, it was a completely new level of screwed now because I knew exactly what James’s look meant.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE TALK

  I grabbed my pillow from my bed and brought it to my face.

  I wanted to scream out my frustrations, but I knew that James would hear that, so I settled for making a growling-sort-of-noise instead. It helped a little bit.

  It was definitely confirmed to me now that James was attracted to me as well, but if it was purely physical was hard to tell. The look he’d given me before I closed the door to my room had set me on fire, and there had been a part of me that wanted nothing more than to invite him into my bedroom.

  There was that part of me, though, that knew we really had to talk before anything could develop between us. My inner slut was screaming and throwing a tantrum worse than a six-year-old, but I shut her up. I could not allow my head to swim with thoughts of sex and James now. It would ruin everything.

  I quickly got dressed in the first things I could get my hands on and went back to the living room.

  I don’t think James heard me, because I found him facing the wall with his forehead supported on his clenched fist that was between him and the wall. His eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily through his nose.

  When I let my eyes rake over his form, I noticed that he had quite the situation going on in his pants. I felt myself go warm, but since I didn’t want to startle him and cause our talk to start on a very awkward note, I silently backed into the bedroom again and closed the door.

  I stood there for five seconds before I made a noisy show that I was going to come outside now.

  When I was once again in the living room, James was on the couch, his left ankle was resting on his right knee, and I had to really fight the giggle that threatened to come out when I understood that he was still hiding his erection.

  I pretended as if I had no clue, though, and decided to give him as much time as possible to make his problem go away.

  “Do you want to stay here or go outside?” I asked with my giggle still high in my throat. I really hoped he did not notice it.

  James cleared his throat. “Either place is fine by me.”

  I nodded and exhaled when I finally felt my pressed down laughter leave me. “Let’s stay here then. Do you want anything to drink?”

  “No, thank you,” he shook his head, and I told him that I was just going to get a glass of water. It wasn’t because I was thirsty. I just found it easier to have difficult conversations if I had something in my hands or something that I could use when I needed to take a pause. Water was perfect for that.

  When I came back, I felt unsure with which couch I should sit on.

  If I sat on the other couch, it would feel like I was too far away, but if I sat next to him, I would have to turn my head completely to look at him.

  He made the choice for me when he shifted his weight so that he was leaning with his back against the arm rest and looked at me expectantly.

  I went to the couch he sat on and folded my right leg underneath me so that I could lean on the opposite arm rest.

  We sat like that for a while without saying a word, and I slowly became more uncomfortable as the seconds ticked by. I wasn’t a big
fan of this kind silence—the one that waited to be broken because we weren’t supposed to be silent—but I had no idea how to start this conversation. What were we supposed to talk about? He was the one who wanted this, so he should be the one to start.

  I continued waiting and drank small gulps of water.

  Finally, James cleared his throat. “Look, Jenn, I have no idea what to say.”

  I nodded. “Well, you wanted to talk, so let’s talk.”

  He frowned and his expression appeared to be very troubled. I had no idea if this was what he really felt, though. “Yes, I know, but the thing is that ever since we were here before class and we almost—”

  “It feels like that was days ago,” I said before he could mention our almost kiss.

  He nodded. “Yes, it does, and since then, my head’s been a complete mess.” He locked his green eyes with mine, and I felt like I couldn’t look away. “I can’t make sense of anything when it comes to you anymore.”

  He lowered his gaze, and I could almost swear I heard him say something like, “It was never supposed to go this way,” underneath his breath. I had no idea what it could mean, but I shrugged it off. If it was important, he would have said it out loud.

  “You haven’t made sense to me since the very beginning, James,” I admitted, and James raised his head again to look at me.

  “Could you explain to me exactly why you feel that way?”

  His question wasn’t a challenge. It was more as if he really wanted to know, so I decided to give him a serious and truthful answer.

  “Those first days, I couldn’t keep count on how often I thought that you were just too good to be true. It scared the hell out of me because a guy was the last thing I expected to find here. Then you started to change. There were times when you really scared me. Your mouth could say one thing while your eyes were hard and cold as ice. I knew that you were hiding something from me, but I tried to give you a chance.”

  James opened his mouth, but I raised my hand to stop him. I didn’t want to be interrupted.

  “Something was different after our so-called first date. You became almost bipolar, but you stayed on the dark side longer than you were on the happy side. Suddenly, you started to act like I was a possession. You were jealous of Peter when there was nothing to be jealous of, and normally, I would explain it as you being attracted to me and you felt threatened by him or something, but that explanation feels wrong when it comes to you.”