Page 17 of Under His Protection
“No. She’s at a track dinner. Why?”As if I don’t know.
“How long do we have the room?”
“She said she’d be back around eight.”
“That’s plenty of time.”
“For what?”
“This.” He pins my hands to the wall above my head and leans down to nuzzle my neck, breathing deeply. “God, I’ve missed you.”
Instantly, my belly drops into a free fall, and my nerve endings start singing. When his mouth covers mine, nudging my lips apart, my knees practically buckle. If he wasn’t been holding my wrists, I might have swooned. When I make an involuntary whimpering sound, he chuckles.
“We saw each other Saturday,” I remind him. “And the day before that.”
“I know, but that was ages ago.” He growls low in his throat. “I’m finding it harder and harder to be away from you. And now I have to worry about all these guys hitting on you.”
“Hitting on me? What are you—oh. You mean Mark. He wasn’t hitting on me.”
Philip pulls back and cocks an eyebrow. “Are you serious? Of course, he was.”
“I certainly don’t want him to.”
“You’re in a co-ed dorm with dozens of guys. Athletes, brainiacs, pre-med, pre-law. It’s a bit intimidating, Hale.”
“I’m not intimidated.”
“Not you,” he says with a reluctant groan. “I meantme.”
“Youfeel intimidated? What in the world are you talking about?”
He looks away, as if he regrets saying anything.
“Philip.” I break one of my hands free so I can cup his face and make him look at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Look, we both know you’re a lot smarter than I am. I slogged through high school barely making C’s. If it weren’t for football, I don’t think I would have done as well as I did. I would never have made it through physics and chemistry without tutors. I did marginally better in college, but I wasn’t a straight A student like you. And here you are rubbing shoulders with future doctors and lawyers.”
I laugh. “Not everyone is planning on going into medicine or law.”
“You are.” He shakes his head. “Ignore me. I’m being an idiot. Tell me how your first day of classes went.”
I give him the abridged version, just the highlights, leaving out the part about Mark asking me to have coffee with him after class. That wouldn’t go over well. “How was your day?”
He shrugs. “I spied on a middle-aged bank manager all day, collecting evidence to bust him on embezzlement charges. Hestole more money from that bank in the past month than I make in a year, and trust me, Shane pays well.”
“I admire what you do,” I say. “We need good guys in the world to offset the crap the bad guys do.”
He smiles at that as he links our fingers together. “Ready to go grab some dinner?”
“Yes.”
“On my way here, I spotted what looks like an authentic Mexican restaurant on Lafayette, just a few blocks away. How do tacos sound?”
“That sounds great.”He knows what I like.“Let me grab my shoes and freshen up really quick.”
When we leave my room, we come across Ryan waiting for the elevator down the hall.
“Haley, hi,” he says. “How did your first day of classes go?”
