Hot Southern Mess (Hide Your Crazy) (17 page)

“This is stunning
, Reid,” I said softly, running my hand over the granite counter top of the double sinks.

“This was the only room I had redone when I bought the house. I wanted an oasis in a sense, somewhere private to relax and hide away from the world.”

My eyes flicked back to the tub; what I wouldn’t do to crawl into that thing right now.

“How about you clean up?
I’ll go grab your luggage from the garage then maybe after we can go get some breakfast,” Reid offered, letting a sly smile spread across his lips.

“Wel
l, if you insist. I guess I could freshen up.” I laughed, immediately leaning over and turning the knob on the gigantic bath. “Just warning you, I might not ever leave that tub once I get in.”

“A naked Molly Anne living in my bathtub.
I might be okay with that,” Reid teased, pushing himself off the door jam.

I started to pull off my tank top, when Reid’s hands grabbed my ass.

“Couldn’t resist a quick feel,” he laughed, and then rushed out of the bathroom.  I laughed at his playfulness, and then started stripping the little amount of clothing I was wearing off.

My mouth watered as I watched the water gush out of
the waterfall spout. Not only was it big enough to basically swim in, but it had its own private waterfall. Yep, I was pretty sure I was moving in.

Chapter 17
It’s called a date; you know where you ask the girl out and bring her flowers? Novel concept I know………….

Reid knocked on the doorframe and dropped my suitcase at the door. All I could do was smile at him from the chin high water; I refused to get out anytime soon.

“Want to go grab some breakfast after you get out?” Reid asked,
biting his lower lip, as he glanced down into the water.

I really just wanted to spend the rest of my morning in this tub, but I knew I had to eat sometime. My frame was already small
, and skipping meals didn’t help me maintain a decent looking weight.

“I guess,” I muttered, taking a deep breath and slowly sinking into the bath pool. The warm water rushed over my head and the silence
underwater was soothing. If life was only this peaceful all the time, I would have it made. Breaking the surface and pushing my wet hair back away from my face, I quickly glanced at the door for Reid. His sweats sat in a heap on the floor, but no naked body was anywhere near them.

Quickly spinning around in the water, I just caught a glimpse of the most perfect ass stepping into the glass shower. Steam quickly filled the stall, hiding a peek at his full package. There was something complet
ely sexy about watching that man shower. I could only make out a simple outline of his extremities, but it still sent an aching throbbing sensation through my body. Without realizing what I was doing, my hand traveled further down my body, stopping at the folds of my girly bits. It would be so easy to just crawl out of this bath and into his shower; helping him wash the parts that were hard to reach. Letting the soap glide down his hard length, feeling the width between my hands as I scrubbed all over his body.

It was a quick sensation that came over my body. My hands knew exactly what to do to get the job done, and without even thinking I let my body slide into a frenzy of passion. Moaning as the orgasm ripped through my body, I closed my eyes and savored the
few remaining moments of lust I had just given myself.

When my body finally
conceded, I realized lurking in the tub and watching him like a weirdo would look a little creepy. Slowly, I drug myself out of the amazing tub and reached for a towel Reid had laid out for me earlier. Showering back at my apartment was going to suck, not to mention the tour bus now that I had experienced this.

Reid’s shower turned off just as I was running my fing
ers through my curly mane.

“Feel better?” Reid asked, letting the remaining water droplets run down his sculpted chest.

I might have been drooling, since no words were coming from my mouth. Magically, I was able to nod my stupid head as Reid chuckled at me, quickly wrapping the towel around his waist and shaking out his hair. He wandered past my frozen body and started doing something at the sink. Finally, I was able to break away from my mini-coma, and rattled my head. Lord knows that my mind apparently did not work around this man.

Digging through my bag to try and find something clean, I silently began to swear at myself for just tossing all my laundry in together. Who
would have guessed that I would have spent the night at Reid’s place, and needed something to wear today, that didn’t reek or look like a complete wrinkled mess? Finally, I pulled out a pair of black leggings and a long purple sweater that barely grazed my ass. Not the first thing I would have picked out, but at least it was somewhat clean and presentable.

Sliding the leggings on under my towel I was all of a sudden bashful about dropping my towel to slip the sweater over my head. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen my boobies before. Shit, his hands and mouth were all over these suckers just a few hours earlier.
It’s just that this was a casual fuck, not one that you planned on meeting the parents’ type of deal the next morning. Turning around, I let the towel fall to the ground and quickly tossed on the sweater.

I spun back around and caught Reid smiling in the mirror with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. Rolling my eyes
, I continued to dig in my bag for my bathroom supplies. Somewhere in this mess had to be my straightener, considering I wasn’t leaving this house with Reid without it.

Reid was finished in the bathroom before I could dig out the rest of my supplies, and headed for his closet. Stepping up to the mirror I scrutinized my face silently. How in the world had I managed to be that lucky in sleeping with a man like Reid? Squirting some toothpaste on my brush, I jammed it in my mouth and started to swirl it around.
Holy Shit! Where was Simon?

Spitting the remnants out into the sink, I stumbled into Reid’s room, desperate to know where my precious guitar was.

“Reid!” I screeched frantically. I had never been so careless with him in my entire life. One night of marathon booty calls and I completely forgot about the one man who had always been there for me.

Reid came scrambling out of his huge closet with only his jeans on.

“What?” He asked hastily, glancing around the room in a panic.

“Simon
; where in the world is Simon?” My body started to shake as my breathing became shallow. I was headed into a full blown panic attack that was barreling down faster than the New York subway.

“Simon
?”

“My guitar,” m
y voice cracked. I really should be embarrassed about my behavior right now, but I didn’t give a fuck. I didn’t know where the love of my life was, and that scared the shit out of me.

“Molly Anne, breath
e,” Reid soothed, quickly moving to my side and grabbing either side of my face. “Your guitar is downstairs by the front door. Remember, Tiny left all your luggage here last night, including your guitar.”

I tried to control my
breathing, but my body was already in panic mode. Dropping to my knees, I crumpled into a ball on the bedroom floor. I was desperate to gain control once again; all I needed to do was slow my breathing.
Deep breaths, Molly, deep fucking breaths.

The first time I ever
experienced a panic attack was when I was seven. My mother had been out shopping, and of course, I got dragged along. She always barked to stay close, but in my infinite wisdom of being seven, I didn’t listen. I remember her walking into the back area where the tailor was, and telling her I was going to go look at the coats, then not being able to find her again. My world crumbled with the thought of being lost. The sales people tried to calm my erratic tendencies at that point, but I was already too far gone. I remember shaking and sobbing until my mother finally emerged from somewhere in the building, telling me to get my act together and this was not the way I should have been acting in public. There was never an “are you okay?” from my mother, just a look of disgust for my mental break. Pretty sure that was the starting point for my unfortunate panic disorder that I continued to battle even today.

Reid’s arms were wrapped tightly around me as I shook quietly on the floor. This wasn’t a side of me that people got to see very often. Sure, I was an open book for the most part, but my flaws were something I didn’t want to parade barefoot and naked on the front porch. I hadn’t had a panic attack since I left Georgia, so in a weird sense of way, I guess I was due for something to go wrong.

“
It’s okay, Molly Anne, I’ve got you,” Reid kept repeating over and over in my ear.

I fought to control my emotions as he held me tightly. For once
, I didn’t have to battle this problem alone. Sure, he may think I’m bat-shit crazy once it was over, but so did the rest of my family anyway.

When I finally managed to regain my sanity from the land of cuckoo, my mind was already working double time. There were no words that would be able to explain my breakdown.
That every once in a blue moon my entire world came to a halt, and my body got invaded by aliens. No longer was I Molly the somewhat cool, confident, kickass kind of girl. The completely irrational, oversensitive, crying like the world was ending foolish chick took the reins and made my life a living nightmare. All logic in any situation goes right out the damn window when I hit that brick wall, and coming back for the depths of the problems was something that could take a few minutes, hours, or at its worst………..days.  I tried to keep these episodes under control; quickly removing myself from situations that could cause the melt down. However, today’s little occurrence showed no warning from the pissed off rhino that attacked.

“You okay
, Molly Anne?” Reid whispered into my hair, still gripping my body tightly.

I managed to nod my head. Words were crashing around in my head, but I kept my lips tightly closed. Opening them would only create an awkward sentence
of verbal diarrhea. There was no way to salvage the massacre Reid just witnessed another fantastic quirk in my already messed up life.

“
So, do you want pancakes or eggs? Maybe waffles?”

Pulling out of Reid’s arms
, I couldn’t stop a chuckle from escaping from my lips. I just displayed all ten sides of crazy right in front of him, and all he could think about was eating?

“I’m starving, so hurry the hell up. We can even bring your guitar with us if it means that much to you,” Reid teased.

I rolled my eyes and pushed myself off the floor. “His name is Simon, and he really doesn’t do breakfast,” I taunted back, throwing my middle finger up at him.

“My apologies
, Princess,” Reid snickered, pretending to bow.

“Well, my mother would
have never settled for princess; it was always a supreme title or nothing.”

“Huh?” Reid’s face twisted in confusion. It was super cute how the creases furrowed above his brows. All I wanted to do was
grab his face and smash our lips together.

“Princess was
a lower title. You didn’t want your name to be called for princess, because that meant you didn’t supreme.” I shrugged my shoulders. I had always cringed when my name got called for princess of divisional queen. There were no supreme titles in my short pageant career, but it wasn’t from the lack of my mother trying.

“Princess?
Supreme?”

“Pageants,” I mumbled, immediately turning my back to him.

“Oh, and the day just keeps getting better.” Reid laughed as he pushed me to the door. “There will be more of this ‘pageant’ talk at breakfast.”

I shook my head and gritted my teeth. I really needed to lea
rn to keep my damn mouth shut.  

“So, you
’re telling me, you use to get all dressed up in frilly shit and paraded yourself across a stage?”

I glared at the man
sitting across from me at the small diner. All he wanted to talk about this morning was the time period in my life that I would rather forget. All the rhinestones in the world would have never prepared me for life. Sure, my sister accomplished her goal of becoming the perfect trophy wife, and pageants were the platform on which she credited all her success to. My little crowns were probably packed in a box somewhere in storage; that was if mom didn’t chuck them out the window on the drive home from the event.

“I’m guess
ing by the scowl on your face that it wasn’t a happy time in your life there, Molly Anne.” Reid laughed, letting a smirk creep across his face.

Never have I wanted to smack a man more
than I did right then. That smug little grin just grinded my gears; mocking the years of torture my mother and sister graced me with.

“So tell me
, Reid, how many woman have you actually slept with?” I stabbed a bite of my pancake harshly on the plate in front of me. Narrowing my eyes, I stuffed the fork into my mouth, savoring the sweetness of the warm syrup as I watched Reid squirm in his seat.
Suck on that, jerk face.

“
Let’s go to dinner tonight,” Reid stated, completely avoiding the answer to my previous question.

“I can’t,” I sputtered, swiftly stuffing another bite into my mouth.

“Why not?”

I don’t know why I couldn’t just come out and tell him that I had plans with Brantley tonight. Maybe it was
because we spent the night naked together, and mentioning another man right now just seemed rude. There was no commitment between the two of us; just simply two consenting adults having a good time. Going out with Brantley was something I should want to do.

“Well
, for starters, I have to go pick out a costume for the Halloween thing with Danielle this afternoon, and……………um……………..I’m going to this open mic thing with Brantley.” My body tensed with that last part, waiting for a reaction from Reid.

“Okay,” Reid replied, his eyes narrowed as he set his silverware down. I half expected for him to fly off the handle, go ape shit
, and start beating his chest like King Kong. However, a reaction like that would only signify that there was something more than just amazing sex between us. Sadly, we just sat there in silence, letting the ‘okay’ linger in both our minds.