Make Me Over_ Getting Real - Leslie Kelly [36]
“Get your mind outta your pants, man,” he whispered aloud as he sat in his room Thursday morning. “Mind over body.”
That basic philosophy seemed to have deserted him. His emotions had twisted him up inside, and his intellect seemed to have abandoned him as he got wrapped tighter and tighter in this reality-show noose.
Though Tori was the cause of his most basic problem—an overactive libido—she was also the only pleasure he had in this madhouse. He wanted her like crazy, but he also truly liked her. He liked spending time with her, and her presence was just about the only thing he looked forward to every single day. So he put up with the sensual torture if only to gain the emotional relief.
They hadn’t stopped the reading lessons altogether, they’d simply moved them indoors. For an hour each day, they sat together in the open area in the upstairs hall, where they’d sat the first time they’d read Tom Sawyer, in full view of the camera and the crew.
It hadn’t taken long for the other girls to find out he was giving Tori private lessons. It seemed to annoy them for some reason, because suddenly he was being asked to help Ginny with her geography and Robin with her world politics. And he’d probably soon hear from Teresa who’d say she needed to learn…well, probably whatever she could about poles. North, south or brass.
As long as it wasn’t his, he really didn’t care.
The women’s nonstop attention had gone beyond tiresome to outright annoying. Drew liked women. Hell, he’d been crazy about a few of them in his life. But he preferred to choose his own, not have them chase him down like he was the fox to their hounds. He’d seen less-determined grad students.
As the week went on, it became harder and harder to leave his own unwired room without stumbling over one of them clad in a skimpy robe, or another asking him to help her fix something in her room. Like he was stupid enough to get himself trapped in a bedroom with one of them? Christ, he’d be safer pulling up a chair next to a vampire than letting one of these women get him alone.
Which was why he was spending nearly every spare minute he had locked inside his room, like now, as he sat by the window looking outside, counting the hours until he could get out of here. A soft knock interrupted his contemplation of the snowy lawn, and made him stop wondering if he could make snowshoes out of tennis rackets and escape on foot.
“Yes?” he asked, knowing better than to actually unlock the door again. Last time, he’d ended up with a face full of Tiffany’s breasts, barely covered by a skimpy bikini. She’d asked him to join her in the hot tub. He’d told her he was allergic to water.
Somehow, he couldn’t even claim too much surprise that she’d believed him.
“Drew? It’s me. Tori.”
Her voice got his immediate attention. He undid the lock, opened the door and drank her in with his eyes. She’d started dressing differently, due to the influence of the show, he suspected. He liked the pale pink sweater draping softly across her curves, and the beige slacks that emphasized them even more. But the naughtiness in her eye—that hadn’t changed a bit. She was still the saucy, outrageous woman she’d been on the day of her arrival.
Thank God in heaven.
“I need your help,” she said. “Can I come in?”
Come in. Into his bedroom. Where there were no cameras. But there was a bed. A big comfortable bed.
And him with the same hard-on he’d had for going on four days now.
No. She definitely could not come in.
But somehow, his upper brain lost control over his vocal cords. Because it was surely the one below his belt that answered, “Sure.”
T ORI COULD HAVE COME UP with any number of excuses to see Drew over