Page 5 of Misadventures with a Professor
“What?”
“You!” Her entire face lights up. “You could be the one!”
I stare at her. “You’re joking.”
She’s too excited to catch on to the rhetorical nature of my statement, already bouncing on the balls of her feet. She’s so short that even on her tiptoes, the top of her head barely clears my chin. “I’m not joking! It’s perfect, don’t you see? We’re even staying at the same hotel! You can have sex with me and then just go right back to your room!” She beams up at me, as if expecting some kind of approbation for working out this problem of hers.
“You cannot be serious,” I say in something very close to a stammer, which pisses me off. I’m not uncertain, I know how I feel about everything always, and I know how I feel about this: the girl is mad and I’m leaving.
“I am serious,” she says, brow furrowed, as if puzzled as to why that would even occur to me. “I would just like to have sex with someone tonight, and you’re handsome and you’re here.”
And that’s when I realize she’s not mad. She’s something much, much worse—she’s innocent. And willing.
I turn to go, and she catches my arm, her little watch flashing in the shimmering glow of the streetlights. A stupid little watch that I bet she puts on every morning so she won’t be late for whatever burlesque antics she has devised for that day. I bet she’s on time for everything. I bet she’s early to every class or meeting or shift, sitting with a straight back and with a pencil caught between her teeth, a spare pencil speared through a bun of soft, glossy hair…
Fuck.
I pull free of her arm. “Keep the jacket,” I mutter, ducking back into the rain and away from this creature who seems to be built out of my most shameful temptations, every inch of me protesting at the distance between us, at pulling away from her.
But there’s no other way. For the sake of her soul and mine, I should stay far away from her and her little watch and her wanton body with its big, soft curves and needy nipples.
The chilly rain sluicing down is a relief, soaking me straight through without my jacket and quelling the heat inside my blood just enough so I can think again. So I can remember the life I built, free of temptation, free of chaos, free of sin.
I take a deep, rainy breath. It’s going to be okay. I was tested and came up with full marks. And now to my reward, which is a chaos-free night. Alone.
Fuck, what cold comfort. Comfort even colder than the rain soaking me through.
But the cost of giving in to my urges would make my life even colder still.
“You’re not married, are you?” a voice comes from beside me.
I look over at the girl following me. She peers closely at me through the rain. “Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”
“I’m not married, and I’m not seeing anyone. Not that it matters.”
I try to walk faster, shoving my hands in my pockets and ducking my head from the rain, but she keeps up, nearly jogging now. My jacket hangs open enough that I can see what effect jogging has on the glistening rounds of her breasts peeking up over her bodice.
Christ.
“I’m not either,” she says. “Married or dating, that is.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you think I’m pretty enough to have sex with?” she says, her voice growing louder as a bus sloshes by.
“What?”
“I mean, if you’re not attracted to me, I totally understand.” She hops over a puddle in an expedient, unself-conscious move that almost makes me smile.
“Most men aren’t attracted to me. That’s why I had to come all the way to London to…” She trails off, clutching the jacket tighter around her. “Anyway,” she continues in a defeated voice. “I’d understand if you weren’t.”
The lonely note in her voice draws me up short, even though the safety of our hotel shimmers mirage-sweet just across the road.
I turn to her in the rain. “You think I’m not attracted to you?”
“Well, most guys—”
“I’m not most guys,” I growl, and her lower lip goes between her teeth again. But not in fear like it should.
