Certified Disaster (Beautiful Mess Book 2) (4 page)

Cole pulled back, and dinner was
served.  He noticed that Jillian’s scowl deepened as she kept a close eye on
him and Bri all evening.

After everyone was through eating,
Coach got up and had the team all introduce themselves and their dates, before
he went into a speech about his hopes for the season and what to expect from
there on out.  Afterward, a DJ started playing some music, and some of the
couples started dancing.  Cole saw Matt and his date out on the floor, doing
something that might pass as dancing.  Jordan was out there, too, showing that
his moves weren’t limited to the basketball court.  Bri was talking to the girl
next to her, and he reached over and brushed his fingers up her arm, getting
her attention.

“Want to dance?”
 
He smiled
seductively at her.

Her face flushed and she nodded.  He
lead her out to the dance floor, and he kept her pressed tightly against him
all night long.

As Bri walked into the art studio,
she wondered how on earth she’d let Cole talk her into this.  She’d expected
maybe twenty people, not over double that many.  Nervousness gripped her, and
she wondered if she could sneak out before anyone saw her.

“You’ll be fine,”
Cole whispered in
her ear, sensing her discomfort.  He squeezed her hand reassuringly and lead
her inside. 

“Ah, you must be our model,”
a young man smiled
as he approached them.  “Hi, I’m Daymon, Professor Bailey’s teaching
assistant.  I’m in charge of the weekly clinics.  You must be Ambria.”

“Bri,”
she smiled.  Daymon’s mocha skin set off his dazzling white smile.  His
black hair was pulled into dozens of small braids, which he’d tied loosely into
a ponytail.  

“Alright, I’m going to go get set
up.”
 
Cole
pulled her into his side and kissed her temple.  “See you after.”

“Bye,”
she smiled as he walked off.  Turning her attention back to Daymon she
asked, “So, where do you want me?”

“Right down in front,”
Daymon motioned to
the raised platform in the middle of the room.  There were easels set up in
circular rows all around it.  “If you’ll follow me,”
he smiled and led the way through the
maze of easels.

Bri couldn’t help but feel the
weight of all those eyes on her as she made her way to the stage.  She was
wearing a black leotard and pink tights, but she may as well have been in
nothing but her underwear for how exposed she suddenly felt.  Her heart pounded
as she tied her pointe shoes and stood.  She glanced nervously around the
class.  She found Cole in the front row, smiling encouragingly at her as Daymon
got the class’s attention.

“Alright everyone, let’s get
started.  This is Miss Donnelly, and she’s graciously volunteered to be our
model today,”
he
smiled at her.  Bri felt her cheeks heating.  “To start, I’m going to ask Miss
Donnelly to do some basic ballet poses for us.  You’ll have five minutes for
each pose to capture as much detail as you can.  Then, when the timer goes off,
Miss Donnelly will change poses, and we’ll start again.  Now, I know five
minutes isn’t a lot of time, but I want you to focus on the lines of the body,
more than the small details.  Ballet dancers create the most beautiful,
graceful lines the human body knows, and that is what I want you to capture.”
 
He asked Bri to go
through a few ballet positions, and he highlighted the lines her body created
as she moved.  “Everybody understand?”
 
There were nods and yeses from around the room.  Daymon turned to Bri.  “Any
questions?”
 

“Nope, I think I’ve got it,”
she smiled.  This
didn’t sound too hard.

“Okay.  Feel free to breath, and
blink, and you know, be a living person,”
he grinned at her.  “We just ask that you be as still as you can.  But if
you need to break for a moment, or readjust, that is completely fine.”
 
Bri nodded.  “Alright,
I’ll give you all a minute to get set up, and then we’ll begin.”
 
Daymon walked back
to a desk at the back of the room.  “Now, to get us all in the ballet spirit, I’ve
brought a little mood music.  Perhaps Miss Donnelly can tell us what this is?”
 
Music started
streaming from the speaker on his desk.

“Swan Lake,”
she smiled, immediately recognizing
the piece. 

“Excellent,”
Daymon smiled at her.  “If you’ll take
your first position, we’ll start when you are ready.”

Taking a deep breath, Bri hit her
first pose.  Cole winked at her, and she smiled back at him.  She nodded at
Daymon.

“Alright, you may begin.”
 
He stared a timer
on his desk, and the sound of pencils scratching on paper filled the room.

Bri’s stomach began to flutter, as
the intensity of all of those eyes scrutinizing her, trying to capture her,
became overwhelming.  Needing a distraction, she turned her attention back to
Cole, and watched him as he drew.  There was a little line that formed between
his eyebrows when he concentrated that she’d never noticed before.  Slowly, her
heart slowed and her breathing evened, as she blocked out the rest of the room
and focused on him.

The next twenty minutes seemed to
fly by.  The final timer beeped, and Bri let out her breath.  That hadn’t been
as bad as she’d thought it would be. 

“Alright,”
Daymon came striding down to the
stage.  “For our final drawing, you’ll have ten minutes, and I want to you
capture every detail you can, right down to how many freckles are on Miss
Donnelly’s nose.”
 
He
smiled at her, and Bri blushed.  “So, whenever you’re ready,”
he nodded at Bri
and then went back to his desk.  Bri took a pose and nodded to him.  “Ten
minutes begins now.”

The class got to work, and Bri did
her best not to wobble.  After the timer beeped, she relaxed, shaking out her
stiff arms and legs. 

“Let’s give Miss Donnelly a hand for
helping us out today,”
Daymon announced to the class, and they gave her a round of applause.  “I’ll
give you a couple more minutes to finish up, and you can turn in your drawings
as you leave.  See you all next week.”
 
He motioned for Bri to join him at his desk, so she picked up her bag
and walked over.  “Thank you again for coming today.  You know, you’re quite a
natural at this.  Would you be interested in posing for us again?”
 
He smiled, and she
couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was.

“Um, sure, I guess,”
she replied
hesitantly.

“Great.  Here is my office number. 
If you decide you want to come back, give me a call and we’ll set something
up.  I hope to see you again soon,”
he winked at her before turning to talk to a student.  Blushing, Bri
quickly turned and went to find Cole.

He was still at work at his easel,
and she peeked over his shoulder to see what he’d drawn.

“Wow,”
she sucked in a breath.  “Cole, that’s really beautiful.”
 
She was stunned at
the collection of her renderings on his paper. 

“Yes, you are,”
he turned and
smiled at her.  “Are you ready?”
 

She nodded, and he shouldered his
bag and grabbed his paper.  He handed it to Daymon on their way out.

“Nice!  Great work, Mr. Marra.  Very
impressive.”

“Well, it’s easy when you have a
great subject to work with,”
Cole turned a proud grin at her.

“Yes, that does make it easier.  And
so much more enjoyable.”
 
Daymon smiled at Bri, and Cole’s smile tightened.  “See you both later.”

Cole wrapped an arm around her and
quickly led her out of the building.

“So,”
she began, wanting to move past that awkward exchange.  “How were you
able to see and draw all of that so quickly?”
 
She’d been amazed at the level of detail he’d been able to capture in
such a short amount of time.

Cole gave a small laugh.  “Bri, I
could draw you in my sleep.  And I happen to know that you have exactly 16
freckles on your nose, so I didn’t have to waste time counting them all.  The
really hard part was not thinking about you all naked while I was drawing.”

“What?”
she smacked his arm.  “You were not
thinking about me naked.”
 
When he gave her a wolfish grin, she paled.  “Oh crap, do you think
anyone else was doing that?”
 
She was mortified.

“Only about half the room,”
he laughed
tightly.  “But that’s not nearly as bad as watching my TA flirt with my
girlfriend.”
 

This stopped Bri in her tracks.  “What? 
He was not.”

“All I know is that Daymon couldn’t
have cared less how many freckles the chick who came in last week had, and she
was covered in them.  He was totally hitting on you.”

She gave him an incredulous glare.  “You’re
doing it again.”

“What?”
he returned.

“You’re being an idiot.  And I’m not
having this conversation again.  We’ve already been over this.”

He paused for a moment, then
deflated.  “You’re right, I’m sorry”
he relented.  “I told you, I’m working on it.”

“Well, work harder.”
 
She grabbed the
front of his shirt and pulled him against her.  “I love you, and only you.  Got
it?”

“Got it,”
he smiled, his arms snaking around
her.  “And just so you know, there isn’t a woman alive who could compare to
you.  You are perfection personified, and I will love and cherish you for as
long as you’ll let me.”

Her heart started fluttering and
warmth spread through her.  She found him even more sexy and irresistible when
he said things like that. 

“Good.  Now, let’s get home.  You
need to say more things like that, and I need to reassure you of the depth of
my affection.”
 
She
gave him a sultry kiss and sauntered away.

Cole blinked, and rushed up to
capture her from behind.  “I’ll take all the reassurance you’ve got,”
he whispered hotly
in her ear.

Somehow they managed to make it back
to Cole’s room.  It was the safer choice, as it was more likely to provide them
some privacy.  Cole opened the door to a dark, empty room, and Bri thanked her
lucky stars.  Finally, a stroke of luck. 

Cole flipped her around, pressing
his body against hers, pinning her to the wall.  “You should know better than
to tease me like that,”
he grinned.  His lips attacked her neck and shoulders, every inch of
bare skin they could find.  And thanks to her ballet leotard, there was a lot. 

“Who said I was teasing?”
she returned. 
Wanting to feel his skin against hers, she grabbed his shirt and tugged it over
his head.  He gave her a wicked smile before devouring her lips again.  When
his hands couldn’t get the access he wanted, Cole lifted her and carried her
over to the couch.  He sat, letting her straddle him, as his hands moved over
her butt and up her back.

Bri had been going back and forth on
the whole sex thing, but right then she knew exactly what she wanted.  By some
miracle, she and Cole had found each other, and managed to survive everything
that had tried to tear them apart.  Cole loved her.  Suddenly she had no idea
why she had been holding back.  She was ready, and she wanted him more than she’d
ever wanted anything.  So, when his fingers stilled on the straps of her leo,
she pulled back from his delicious lips and smiled.

“So, there was some talk earlier
about you imagining me naked,”
she felt her face flush, and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.  “Want to
find out if you were right?”
 
She chanced a glance up at him through her lashes, as she trailed her
fingers over his chest.

He sat there frozen for a few
moments.  Then a beautiful smile broke out over his face, one of pure happiness
and expectation.  If there had been any doubt before that he owned every 
single piece of her heart, this smile just demolished it.

“Really?”
he asked quietly.  “Are you sure?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been of
anything.”
 
She
was barely able to get the words out before his mouth crushed hers. 

“Besides,”
she managed against his mouth, “I’m
dying to see if I’m right, too.”

“About what,”
he sucked on the tattoo behind her
ear, and she moaned.

“About what you look like naked.”

He pulled back and grinned at her.  “You
think about me naked?”

“More like dream about it.  Every
night.”

He practically groaned, and he
kissed her like he would devour her with just his lips if he could.  He lifted
her and walked them back to his bedroom.  Bri’s heart was already beating fast,
but when he closed the door behind them, it started pounding.  This was really
it.  She was really going to do this.  Her stomach clenched with nerves, but
also with anticipation.  It was a weird dichotomy, to feel nervous about
something you wanted so badly. 

Cole set her gently on the bed, and
laid down beside her.  The butterflies in her stomach quadrupled.  He trailed
his lips and fingers up her arm, stopping again at the strap on her shoulder,
and looked up at her.  He didn’t say anything, but his eyes asked for
permission.  He was giving her one more chance to change her mind, making sure
this was what she wanted.  Instead of using words, she drew his lips down to
hers and let them answer for her. 

He pushed down the straps of her
leo, and she heard a disappointed groan.  Looking down, she saw the thin sports
bra she was wearing underneath.

“Um, I probably should’ve thought
through my choice of outfit a little better,”
she laughed nervously, thinking about all the layers of tight clothing
she was wearing.  Not the easiest things to get off in the heat of passion. 
Great, she was already messing this up.

“No,”
he smiled, and helped her sit up.  “I’ll just get to unwrap you.”
 
Kissing her
softly, he pushed the leo as far down as it would go.  Then he lifted her arms
and pulled her bra up and over her head. 

Her first instinct was to cover up,
but she kept her arms at her sides.  She could feel herself blushing and hoped
that he wouldn’t notice.  As Cole pulled back and his eyes began to move
downward, she suddenly forgot how to breath. 

For a moment, doubt flooded her. 
She couldn’t help it.  What if he didn’t like what he saw?  What if she didn’t
measure up to the other girls?  What if he was disappointed with her?

One look at the wonder and awe on
his face as he looked up at her wiped all of those thoughts from her mind. 

“Even better than I imagined,”
he smiled.

Bri let out a relieved giggle, and
then Cole was kissing her again.  He laid her back against the pillows, and his
hands and his lips roamed over her, like he was memorizing her.  She brought
his lips back to hers, pulling him on top of her.  The feel of his warm, bare
chest against hers was intoxicating.  Her fingers and mouth roamed every inch
they could reach.  She was getting drunk on the feel of him.