Picture Perfect (11 page)

The light streaming through the windows woke me up.
It looked to be just after dawn and I was stunned to find that Flynn and I were completely entwined.  My head was still resting on his chest, my left arm was underneath his shirt resting against his stomach, his arms were wrapped around me and our legs were wrapped together.  Somehow we’d slept the whole night without ever even getting under the covers.  That was a shocker.  I always needed a blanket of some sort to keep me warm, but just being wrapped in Flynn’s arms had me toasty and comfortable. 

I was dumbfounded by the fact that I’d stayed up against him all night.  The few times that I’d slept with Lee, I’d awakened to find him glaring at me and ready with a list of all my nighttime infractions.  “You move to fucking much,” he’d say.  Gah.  Looking back I am so humiliated that I gave that asshat my virginity.  There was nothing remotely worthy about him.

My heart beat like a drum in my chest from the feeling of Flynn’s solid abs under my hand.  I knew I was playing with fire, and ever so gently I began to remove my hand.  I let out an involuntary gasp when Flynn grabbed my wrist.  “I love your hand right where it is,” he rasped.  “Go back to sleep baby.”

Whether because of his words or because I was still drowsy, I snuggled into him again and let my eyes drift shut.  The steady rise and fall of his chest sent me back to sleep in no time at all.

The next time I woke up Flynn was gently running his fingertips over my cheek and was raining kisses on my face.  It felt lovely, but I snuggled in closer to his chest, earning a chuckle from him that I felt reverberate under my cheek.

“It’s time to wake up sweetness.  It’
s after ten.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I couldn’t believe that we’d slept so long and so soundly.  Sitting up, I pushed my hair back and tried to wake up.  I groaned when I saw Flynn because he looked crazy hot. 

Knowing that I must look like a hot mess, I jumped from the bed and hauled ass to the bathroom.  One look in the mirror confirmed what I already knew; I looked like a mile of rough road.  My hair looked like I’d just taken part in an orgy and my eyes were puffy.  I also had a horrific case of morning breath thanks to the awesome Mexican dinner the night before.  After brushing my teeth, I jumped into the shower and scrubbed up before throwing on a robe and going back into the bedroom. 

Flynn had gotten up and was out in the living area on the phone
, which gave me time to throw on panties, shorts and a tee shirt.  I walked out into the living area when I was finished and when he saw me he held out his arm and gestured for me to go to him.  My stomach was one big butterfly as I walked to him.  Smiling, he put his arm around me and pulled me against his chest. He continued talking as I burrowed into his side and tried to get my heart rate under control.  Concluding his call, he kissed the top of my head.

“I’d love to kiss you right now but my breath is not pleasant.  I just ordered us room service.  Give me a few minutes
to clean up.”

“I never used the complimentary toothbrush.  It’s on the tray in the bathroom.”

Flynn laughed before giving me a high five.  “That’s great news babe, cause I was afraid you were going to throw me out for stinking.”

Watching him walk away made me weak in the knees. 

Like I said, I was in deep shit.

Waking up with Tessa was a revelation.  I had a hard and fast rule about women: after the fucking, they were out.  I hadn’t spent the entire night with a girl
intentionally
since I was in high school and I’d never (
ever
) wanted someone to curl up around me like an additional appendage.  Sharing a bed with Tessa felt right. 

Our breakfast arrived and Tess let out a laugh when she got a look at all that I’d ordered, which was basically the entire menu.  We were in the middle of eating when I made my play for the day.

“After breakfast how about you pack a bag and stay at my house for the rest of the day and night.  The house might be horrible but my pool is top notch.  We’ll lie out and then later we can go to dinner.  You’ll want to pack casual for that sweetness. What you wore last night would be perfect.”

Tess hemmed and hawed all over the place
before blurting, “Flynn, you’re moving too fast.  I’m not going to have sex with you tonight.  I don’t know what you’re used to, but I can’t be like that.”

Ah, shit.  I’d not been specific enough and now she thought I was trying to get into her panties.  I totally wanted to of course, but I wasn’t stupid and I knew she wouldn’t be going for that.

“No, babe, that’s not what I meant.  I want you to spend the night, like what we did here last night.  I want to hold you and wake up with you in the morning.  No sex,
I promise
.  I won’t do anything to make you uncomfortable sweetness.  I just need you near me. Whatever I was used to, I know you’re different and that’s
exactly
what I want. Don’t push me away Tess.  This is going to be something.  Hell, it already is.  Don’t start building walls.”

Her hesitant smile was like the sun coming out after the
rain.  “Okay, I can do that.  As soon as we’re finished eating, I’ll pack.”

After breakfast
, she packed quickly and then we were off to my house.  Once we got there, I brought her to my bedroom and put her bag on the dresser.  Her wide-eyed look of shock as she looked around the room made me laugh.  Seeing it through her eyes showed me that it really was ass ugly.  Letting out a chuckle I pulled her to me and asked, “What do you think of this room?  Cozy, right?”

She looked around and grimaced.  Like almost every other room in the house
, it was gray on gray.  Pointing to the area rug that was in my bedroom sitting area she said, “Actually, that rug really ties the room together, man.”

Oh. My. GOD.

I started laughing and couldn’t stop.  There was no question about it anymore.  I was falling in love with this girl.  She’d just quoted ‘
The Big Lebowski’
to me.  It was my favorite movie and none of the other girls I’d ever been with would have even known what it
was,
much less have been cool enough to quote it.

“You’re the coolest girl on the face of the fucking planet
babe! I knew you were awesome, but you know ‘The Big Lebowski’!  That just gave you an infinity amount of cool points.  Wait till I tell my dad and Cole.  They’re going to shit.  That’s our favorite movie.”

Poking me in the stomach, she giggled.  I loved the sound of that.  “It’s me and my dad’s favorite movie, too.  We actually went to Lebowski-fest in Seattle two years ago.  It was awesome!”

“Holy shit, there’s a fuckin Lebowski-fest?  Why have I never heard of this?”

Pushing b
ack from me, she gave me a shit-eating grin.  “Guess you don’t have enough cool-points, slick.  Stick with me and I’ll have you whipped into shape ASAP.  For the record, there are a few Lebowski-fests every year.  You absolutely must go to one.”

It was probably a good thing that she didn’t
realize that I was
already
whipped.  No one needed that much power so early in a relationship.

“I’m totally going to look into this.  I’m
bummed that I didn’t know before.  I want to take you, my dad, your dad, and Cole.  Wouldn’t that be epic?”

Pulling back,
she gave a laugh.  It sounded hollow and I just knew that meant she didn’t believe me.  FUCK.  Did she really think I was such a man-whore that I made random offers like that to any girl that happened to be in close proximity?  I realized right then that I had a lot of work to do to woo Tess. 

I knew that she wa
s worth all the work, so I’d be doing it all with a smile.  Gesturing to my bathroom I said, “You can change into your suit in there.  I’m going to run into the bathroom next door and throw mine on.  I’ll meet you in the living room when you’re finished.”

After giving me a smile Tess went to her bag and grabbed he
r suit.  It was a turquoise two-piece and I knew right away that I was going to be struggling big time when I got a look at her in it.  Grabbing my own suit for the closet, I headed into the guest bath to get into my swim trunks.

While I waited for Tessa in the living room
, I fooled around with my phone and checked my Twitter.  I was all about communicating with fans of the band, but my Twitter account was really more about me keeping up with my Gram.  I knew that I was biased, but I thought she was one of the funniest people on earth.  I laughed out loud when I got to her timeline and saw that she’d tweeted that she was with Pop and was going to be playing with balls for the day – bowling balls, that is.  The woman was the queen of the double entendre.

Getting in on the joke, I responded to her tweet:
Watch yourself around all those balls!

I was still laughing when Tess entered the living room, but my laugh came to a full stop when I saw her standing before me clad i
n her turquoise bikini.  I’d either done something to earn God’s ire and he was torturing me with the perfection in front of me, or I’d done something great in a former life and Tessa was my reward.  Either way I had no intention of letting her go.

The metal circles that held the suit together on each of her hips and between her breasts were hot as hell.
My impulse was to go to her and kiss the ever-loving hell out of her, and I decided to do just that.

I crossed the room in three strides and pulled her into my arms before sliding my lips over hers.  She fit into my arms perfectly, even with the height difference.  Her lips opened for me, allowing me to plunder her mouth.  Nothing had ever felt so real or so right.  I’d known that our kiss that night in her hotel room had been amazing, but I don’t think I really realized just how exceptional the way we c
ame together actually was until we were completely wrapped around one another.

Now I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was in deep.  For the first time in my life, I wanted everything that being that immersed in someone meant.  I was holding on to Tessa, and I wasn’t going to let go.

Flynn could
kiss
.  I can’t even explain how talented he was with his tongue or how intense the feelings were that he was evoking in me.  I can only liken it to being caught unexpectedly in a storm and having to learn to swim. 

Flynn was
in charge, and I was stunned to realize that I trusted him just enough to navigate us forward.  I’d never given anyone such control over me, but I couldn’t seem to help myself where he was concerned. 

He devoured me with his mouth, the room filled with the sounds of us kissing and moaning
.  Rising on my tiptoes, I ran my fingers through his hair as I arched against him.  It was probably the worst idea humanly possible to put Flynn and me together in a room as close to naked as we could be.  So much of our skin was touching that it was hard to breathe.   

I felt us moving and instinctively knew he was taking me
to the couch.  The way he laid me down was so tender that it made my heart melt.  He treated me as though I was spun glass and I was not accustomed to that.  I’d always found guys to be pushy and overly aggressive, but Flynn wasn’t like that at all.  I didn’t quite know what to think about that.

Having him on top of me was even more intense than kissing standing up.  There was no part o
f me that wasn’t touching some part of him and it felt ridiculously good.  Better than any schoolgirl fantasy I’d had of him without a doubt.

It was like
awakening to an alternate reality.  My body came to life in a way that I’d never experienced, and I clung to Flynn for dear life as he navigated us through the new strange land that he’d taken me to.  I was breaking all of my good-girl rules, and I didn’t care.   

My legs we
re wrapped around him like a vise, and I couldn’t help myself from rubbing against him in a blatant attempt to tame the fire that was raging inside of me.  I needed something more but I didn’t know what exactly that was because I’d never experienced this with someone else before.

Lucky
for me, Flynn knew.  Pulling his mouth from mind, he stared into my eyes.  “Tess… God,
babe
.  You’re fucking amazing.”  My breath hitched at the look in his eyes and the fire reflected inside.  His head dropped to the base of my neck where he bit down and sucked in just as he ground himself against me. I let out a guttural cry as every nerve in my body came to full attention.

I felt his hands at my neck as he released my bathing suit top and I shivered when the air hit my painfully erect nipples. 
I’d never had that happen before, had in fact assumed that my nipples weren’t a very sensitive area for me.  Flynn proved that theory to be dead wrong.  I watched in awe as his head descended to my breasts.  I felt his breath as he looked at me and I was stunned to find that embarrassment was something that I wasn’t feeling right then.  I’d always felt uncomfortable being naked- or damn near naked- in front of guys before.  Sure, my experience of being naked with a man was confined to Lee and two other boyfriends who’d gotten as far as third base, but still.