Talk Dirty To Me Ginny Glass

Talk Dirty to Me

 Ginny Glass and Inez Kelley

TUESDAY 

Sleep disturbed. Had to replace car window.

Temp 98.6, pulse normal. Beginning to hate this paper.  

“So, the Byronic hero is, in essence, an idealized but ultimately flawed character.” Jarod leaned back on the edge of his desk, addressing the sea of college students seated in front of him. “Can anyone give me an example of the Byronic hero in modern-day literature?”

He zeroed in on a waifish kid who raised one finger and nodded at him.

“I think Batman is a really fine example of…”

Batman? Unreal. Jarod tuned the kid out. When he took this job he hadn’t expected to miss the excitement of New York City, but in this sleepy New Hampshire town, with its stores that closed at seven and its obsession with adding seafood to everything, he was bored stiff.

Except for Tuesdays and Thursdays at exactly 5:00 p.m.

The kid droned. Jarod crossed his arms and pretended to listen. From the single window of his classroom he could see the main quad. It didn’t get much traffic during class times. That was why she had first caught his attention.

She had been the lone traveler in the vast cobblestone path. Worn, faded jeans and a dark blue pea coat swaddled her frame. In her arms she carried a tall laundry basket. Long inky black hair flowed riotously over her bright red scarf. When the autumn wind kicked up, the mass of unruly jet tendrils tangled with the scarf and she stopped to brush her hair back.

That was when she looked over—right into his window. Jarod felt something—a shock, warmth, an unexplainable electric attraction. Well, it was explainable if you wrote it off as instant white-hot lust. She shifted the basket to one hip to free her hand. Her coat fell open and exposed what could only be described as Heaven in Underwire. The blouse dipped low enough to show a shadowy valley of cleavage, and the brisk wind tightened her nipples to button-hard points that defied her clothing. Not huge, not tiny, those breasts were the perfect size to be cupped and licked and nibbled on.

Her lips, full and free of any lipstick, moved as she walked, as if she were talking to herself. Visions of those lips wrapped around his cock had sent blood speeding to his balls. He’d bet his doctorate her hair felt like silk. Even in memory he could nearly feel it sliding against his palms as he cupped her head, those lips sucking him, those breasts bare and heaving as she swayed against him, taking him deeper into her throat.

He moved quickly behind his desk as an erection stirred inside his pants. Damn, he needed to get laid. Another thing this tiny piss-ant town lacked was single pretty women. At least, available-to-him single women. From the corner of his eye he caught the inviting tongue slide of one of the BJ girls. There were four of them in two different classes. They all looked cut from the same Barbie mold and made it clear they’d love to work on any extra credit he assigned as long as it involved him, nudity and his office couch. One had gone so far as asking him if she could earn a B on her knees. She wasn’t at all interested in the literature he assigned. The suggestive prose she slipped into her essays was closer to Literotica.

Right, as if he were going to risk his job, bland as it was, and his professional reputation for a little naughty schoolgirl romp with any of them. No, thank you. He’d get his rocks off the old-fashioned way, with his palm and pay-per-view. It was the best this place had to offer.

Four fifty-nine. He wondered what Laundry Woman’s name was. She walked past his window during class every Tuesday and Thursday and he cursed whatever fate had put them on such differing schedules. He never saw her on campus otherwise, had never run into her going to her car at night. She looked to be approaching thirty. She could be an older student but he didn’t think so. They tended to take early classes to be home with families and children in the evenings or to hurry to second shift jobs. So who was she?

Boy genius finished up his epic thesis. “And so Batman upholds justice while at the same time breaking the law by being a vigilante. That is totally Byronic.”

It was totally moronic.

Several young ladies in the class seemed to think this was not only remarkably smart but worthy of longing stares. Jarod bit his tongue and forced a smile. He was not yet forty, but each birthday rendered the mating rituals of modern youth more and more annoying. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a faint headache threatening.

Five o’clock exactly. Jarod waved a hand at the assembly. “Class dismissed.”

He was tired of missing his chance to meet Ms. Right Now. One bookish kid earned death glares when he spoke up. “But, Professor, class isn’t over until five thir—”

“Every student that leaves this room now gets an A on the next pop quiz.”

The room cleared in less time than it took Jarod to collect his coat. The chilled air was damp and the wind blew bitingly into the collar of his jacket. Dry leaves rasped with a brittle scrape across the empty brick courtyard. Spoking pathways led away from its center, creating a giant wheel made of cobblestone and brick. The sun set earlier every day thanks to the coming winter, and Jarod squinted into the fading light as he turned, searching for her.

After long minutes of nothing, he cursed under his breath. He was chasing hot random strangers after cutting his own class.

Crazy.

He turned, ready to head back toward the Gothic brick building behind him. A rolling gust of wind barreled through the quad, carrying the sharp smell of wood smoke and fallen leaves. It slammed the door to Jarod’s building closed. He opened his mouth to swear but a husky feminine curse warmed the frigid air.

There she was, on her knees in the slips of what was left of the sun, in a pile of tangled coat hangers, her laundry basket upturned beside her.

Fate, you tardy bastard.

By the time Jarod made it across the courtyard to help her, she’d gotten to her feet and was angrily shoving a mass of white linen into the tall, round laundry hamper. Mud streaked the knees of her jeans and heels of her graceful hands. A crooked nametag read Nora MacGregor, Asst. Her long white lab coat snapped in the wind over a tight caramel sweater. A canvas backpack, its top yawning open, hung over her shoulder and pulled the material taut. No cleavage this time, just rounded swells of perfection hidden under soft cotton. His jaw tightened to stifle a moan.

He might have made a sound, he wasn’t sure. She looked up and an invisible fist punched him in the gut. She wasn’t just pretty, she was stunning. Her wind-pinkened skin shone like a candle flame against the deep night of her hair. Jarod had a sudden urge to smooth the flyaway strands from her face, tilt her chin up and claim that pinched mouth. A stormy scowl only made the depths of her dark bourbon eyes glow in the dusky light.

She hefted her laundry basket and stepped back a few paces. “What are you looking at?”

A good month’s worth of stroke material and the most interesting thing this town has seen since the McDonald’s opened.

Had she asked him something? If it was an invitation to nail her, he’d blanked it out. Wait. Wow. Where the hell had his brain gone?

South.

Speaking of south, his gaze trailed over her, sliding lower. She was petite and curvy, with the kind of hips he could spend a weekend bruising. She turned and he took in a quick breath at the glimpse of her backside. God, what he would love to do to that ass. The ass that was walking away.

He snapped out of his lust-induced coma. “Wait.”

She spun, a small can of pepper spray clutched tight in her hand. “Get lost, asshole!”

Jarod backpedaled, holding his hands up. “Whoa, whoa! I was just coming to help you. I saw you fall, I—”

“I don’t give two shits. I’m having a seriously bad day, and I would appreciate it if you would back the fuck off.”

Jarod, enamored as he was by the way her gesturing made her high breasts bounce, knew when he was about to get his ass handed to him. He took another step back but did not lower his hands.

“This is me, backing the fuck off.”

She looked skeptically at him, then spun on one heel and hefted her basket toward the laundry room across the quad. Halfway there she glanced over her shoulder and paused. A twitch dipped her dark sculpted brow and she shook her head. Jarod shoved his hands in his pockets and watched until she disappeared inside.

Sexual encounters—zero. Hopes dashed—one.

Something lying a few paces in front of him glinted in the waning light. He took a couple steps, bent and picked up a sprawled paperback from the ground. A small clear mini-cassette tape lay underneath. He brushed a bit of dirt off the tape and flipped the book over. So what did beautiful, crazy, pepper-spray-wielding, completely fuckable women read these days? The title shot through him with heat, forcing the blustery wind’s bite away.

Nancy Friday’s Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies. The binding was creased and fraying. The yellowing pages were dog-eared and folded. Several loosened pages screamed “well-used book.” Small notes in the margins raised his eyebrows. Jarod skimmed the scribbled words, and the warmth spread to his entire body. Curiosity nudged at him and he examined the cassette. His eyes widened at the label. A slow smile turned up the corners of his lips.

Things just got a bit more interesting.

Nora slammed into the laundry room, her heart racing. Damn, she was turning into a psycho. Next thing you know, she’d lock herself in her apartment and become a recluse like nutty Aunt Margie, who hadn’t set foot outside since 1979.

She’d nearly assaulted that poor guy and all he was doing was being polite. Welcome to the twenty-first century, where chivalry and manners got you a face full of pepper spray and a sharp kick to the groin. She swung her laundry basket up and plunked it onto the metal table hard.

Braced against the scarred and scuffed edge, she took several slow, deep breaths before her pulse steadied. She had the good manners to feel guilty, but ever since some lowlife had started using the faculty parking lot as his personal audio-equipment shopping center, she’d been on edge. Last night he’d decided her little car was his blue-light sale and busted out her window to scam her cheap CD player. That, combined with the stress of her new position and the looming deadline for her dissertation, had kept her up many nights recently.

She started sorting the bundles of lab coats into open washers. Why had she taken this job, again? Oh, yeah, because it was the only school that had an opening in her field that actually paid something. Unfortunately it was also the school where she’d earned her undergrad degree, in the town where she’d grown up. No one took her seriously here. She was still Bobby MacGregor’s kid sister, Tom’s daughter and the girl voted most likely to succeed. Other students had sown wild, drunken, sexual oats, stretched fledgling wings in a first taste of freedom during college. She made straight A’s and watched those years pass her by. Even her coworkers, those professors looking down their tenured noses, treated her like just an undergrad. Her degree was worthless here.

Suffocating wasn’t the right word to describe the job, but the feeling—oh, yeah, suffocating was just right. Today had been exhausting—her vehicle break-in combined with no sleep compounded by the Sigma Delta fraternity’s attempt to create an alcohol still using stolen lab equipment. The stupid RA had called Security. They’d called the science lab to come dismantle the still and, as low woman on the totem pole, Nora had to brave the sweat-sock-and porn-magazine-infested dorm.

She needed a shower. She needed to calm down. She needed to interact with other people outside the droning monotony of the classroom and the lab. It was all grunt work—boring, asinine, and fruitless. Kind of like her life right now. She needed a night out to de-stress, to cut loose and just live.

Like the guy you just pulled your pepper spray on…He looks like he’d be fun to interact with.

Hello! Slow down. Back up. She wasn’t that desperate. Was she?

She had noticed the shocking green of his eyes as she’d turned. It would have been a shame to splatter those pretty irises with capsaicin.

Nora measured detergent into the open maws of the waiting machines and wondered if he was a student. No, not young enough. Not old, just mature looking in that annoyingly handsome way men get around forty.

There had been a dusting of gray glinting in the waning light, tracing highlights through his deep brown hair. Sharp jaw, slight splay of laugh lines at the corners of the eyes. Sensual tilt to firm lips. Tiny half-moon scar under his left eye, barely visible but calling for her to glide her fingertip over it. A glimmer of something in those eyes intrigued her. He hadn’t looked serious enough to be a professor, but Nora wasn’t familiar with all of the new staff for this year, either.

Slamming down the lids to the washers, she ignored the faint stir of warmth low in her stomach when she conjured the stranger’s face. Endorphins, chemical reactions, hormones. Her body often tried to usurp the cool practicality of her mind.

He was a stranger, not someone she’d be comfortable fantasizing about. Okay, she could fantasize but she’d never act on those fantasies. She liked her partners to be chosen and approached with certain requirements in mind. If she was busy a semester, she’d forego dating or date a man with an equally busy schedule so no more than coffee and the occasional dinner date had the chance to happen. It was safer that way, left her open for little complication or distraction from her work.

Still, he was certainly easy on the eyes. Excuse me, I know I just threatened you with possible long-term eyesight damage, but how do you feel about hot, sweaty one-night stands?

The niggling voice made Nora frown. Where had that come from? Sex was overrated. Sure it felt good. Good, not mind-blowing, not all skyrockets and fireworks. It was okay. Her experiences had been none too awe-inspiring, so Nora had come to the conclusion early in her adulthood that love was a messy undertaking—both physically and potentially personally. Not that she was frigid…

“The Vagina Myth—The Modern Educated Woman and Sex: A Biological Study of Female Sexuality.”

Her dissertation title had been the easy part. She knew tying biochemical reactions to the stages of courtship and sex might be considered an odd subject for a woman. Especially when women were still considered the more romantic gender, but Nora knew it could be brilliant. It was certainly different. Now if only she could write the damned thing.

Hopping onto the table beside her empty laundry basket, Nora dragged her backpack toward her and rummaged for her book. The fantasies inside were honest, vivid and real and often they weren’t attached to people the fantasizer loved. When they were, they not only made Nora’s body stir but, alarmingly, they made her chest ache with some foreign want.

It was the honesty that intrigued her. Romantic hearts and roses, her foot. Women had as many quirks as any man, as many dark, dirty thoughts. They were as much a chemical chain reaction as any man and she’d show exactly how to trip that biologic trigger.

Her hand encountered too much empty space inside the canvas sack. She wrenched the bag open and upturned it on the table. Notebooks and journals plopped out. She shook the bag. Coins, lip balm, receipts, pens, her wallet…no book. Wait, the tape! She shook the pack again but nothing fell out except for a cough drop wrapper and lint. Shit. Her mind raced. Where could they be? All her notes, ideas, the interviews…thoughts on the fantasies.

Frantically she flipped through the steno pad and felt for the thumb drive in the corner zipper. Those were still there. A small measure of calm settled over her. Okay, if she had to recreate those notes, she would have a solid start. It wasn’t the end of the world. Where could she have left that book? She’d check the library. She’d spent her morning there, it was the most likely place. Was her name in the book? She couldn’t remember.

The tape was another story. She couldn’t replace that. Even if she had time to find those same women again, their stories would be different. The rawness, the realism of the interviews, would be lost. She could never recapture that.

Nora groaned and buried her face in her hands. Her deadline breathed down her neck as hotly as a dragon on an all-garlic diet. How could she have misplaced two vital components of her research? Why hadn’t she transcribed the tape as soon as she made it? Her notes were worthless without the transcript, just idle bits of thoughts jotted in response to nothing.

The timers sounded on the washers across from her, each buzzer blasting nasally into her annoyance, and she jumped. She really had to get a grip. The low sound of footsteps in the hall raised her head. Tension crept back into her spine and each muscle tightened.

The door knob rattled and she held her breath. The painted green door opened an inch…two…A paper slid in held in a masculine hand. A crude flag had been drawn in ink.

“Requesting permission to enter without risk of bodily harm.”

The deep voice raised the corner of her lip in a reluctant smile. Okay, that was cute. There was no question who it was outside the door. She was way too paranoid since the car break in.

“Permission granted.” She straightened and tugged her lab coat across her pounding heart, crossing her arms and fixing a stern look on her face.

Quad guy stepped in with his hands deep in his pockets. He lingered on the threshold. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That spill looked nasty.”

“Thank you, I’m fine.” The strain relaxed from her shoulders. “Sorry about the pepper spray. I’m a little jumpy.”

“No problem.” Light from the harsh overhead bulbs glimmered in his eyes. They were really pale for his coloring, almost sea foam. “I’m Jarod Reed. I’m filling Doc Santori’s spot.”

He held out a hand and she shook it, smiling slightly at the formality. He was cute. “Oh yeah? How is Doc?”

“Don’t know him personally.” Jarod shrugged his lean shoulders. The corduroy of his coat wrinkled. She had the sudden urge to bury her face in the fabric, wondered if he smelled like dried leaves.

“He was one of my professors.”

“You’re a student?”

“Was. I’m credit-crawling toward my doctorate. I work in the biology department right now, so I’m kind of a mutant.”

He smiled and it did something flip-floppy to her stomach.

Chemicals and neurons and he has really nice teeth…

His nostrils flared as he slowly blew out a deep breath. “I’m going to take a risk and just go for it, okay? Would you like to get some coffee or something some time?”

Nora froze. You’d think a guy had never asked her out. An impolite length of time ticked by, the rolling hum of washing laundry loud in the dead space.

Jarod raised his brows and nodded. He took a step backward. “Okay, it was just a thought.”

“Sure,” she blurted. “I mean, I’m busy, I have a paper due and classes and—coffee, yeah, I could do that.”

Hello, my name is Nora and I am a social idiot.

Jarod smiled again, a gentle widening of his mouth that deepened the lines around his eyes. Her mind went blank. “Great, how about tomorrow? There’s a little shop down on Fullerton that has decent cappuccino.”

Nora felt a sudden spike of worry. She had to take control of this situation. She didn’t know this guy from Adam. He could be the car stereo creep. “How about the library café?”

“Works for me.”

She pushed more, lying through her teeth. “Wednesdays are full for me, so it would have to be a quick one. Say around one?”

He dipped his head, but she caught a hint of mirth in his eyes. “Library café, in full view of the public, unarmed. One o’clock.” He turned to go. “See you there, Nora.”

“Wait!” She narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t tell you my name.”

When he turned back, the lines had deepened and a flicker of laughter burst into his eyes, making them dance. “No, but I can read.” He pointed to her name tag, and a hot blush worked up from her neck. “See you tomorrow, fraidy cat.”

He left. The doorway seemed to shrink without his large, lean frame filling it. Nora sagged on the washer and hung her head. Could she have acted any more suspicious? Still, he had asked her out. And she’d accepted. It was a start.

“Describe an orgasm for me in your own words. What is going on in your body?”

“There’s a slow buildup. Anticipation…tension…Everything inside me gets tighter, tighter, tighter…”

Jarod let the feminine voices wash over him, closing his eyes. His body tensed, the urge welling from deep inside him. It built. The need grew stronger and stronger. Every muscle poised, waiting. Almost there…

He sneezed. Blinking, he rubbed his watery eyes and clicked off the recorder, silencing the interview before reaching for a tissue. Damn, neighbor’s cat had his allergies working overtime. That thing must have a bed next to the air ducts or something. He was fine during the day but had resorted to OTC medication to breathe while home, and he was waiting for the damned stuff to kick in. He would be happy if he could breathe within the next twenty minutes.

Settling deeper into couch, he turned back to Nora’s book. The volume was a study on sex—women’s fantasies, their reasons for certain kinks, and the psychology behind sexual proclivities. Nora had made notes in the margins.

A good hour slipped by as he read her notes, the printed fantasies, her thoughts on those women’s dreams. His cock hardened, and he idly shifted it a few times, trying to get comfortable. Damn, Nora had some interesting theories on sexual responses. Not all of it he agreed with, but the glimpse into her mind was like an erotic trip through the nightlife in downtown Wet Dreamland.

Her sultry voice had carried over the cheap quality of the cassette. Although her interview questions were professional, nearly clinical in wording, the timbre of her words slipped over his skin like a slow tongue. The women she spoke with had accents from all over the country, from Boston nasal to Texan twang, but Nora—Nora’s soft smoky voice piped heat directly into his blood. By the second interrogation Jarod could easily make out the subtle inflections, could tell when she was amused or bored.

After a quick glance at the clock and a rub at his still-stuffy chest, Jarod set the book aside and decided to call it a night. The medication was obviously not up to the task of battling Furball McDander’s massive case of the sheds and he was tired. Besides, he’d had a nice bedtime story to ease him into sleep.

Passing through the kitchen to turn off the light, Jarod paused and snagged a scrap of paper lying on the counter.

Nora MacGregor—603-555-5782

He felt like a creep for copying her number out of the staff directory, but not enough of a creep to stop him from wondering what she was doing right now. It wasn’t so terribly late. If he just called her for a quick chat…Nora, with her fierce flashing eyes and pepper spray, her timid, terrified stance in the laundry room, her flubbed and fumbled acceptance of a coffee date.

He’d wanted to ask her to dinner but pulled back at the last second. She seemed the cautious type. A short public meeting was better at first. So he’d start with coffee. That didn’t mean he couldn’t think about more…like her riding him cowgirl style, full breasts swollen and capped with tight nipples wet from his mouth.

Her notes in the book’s margins were mostly detached commentary on the fantasies. She was brilliant, often seeming more excited by biological theory than by the explicit descriptions of the various kinks in the text. He couldn’t wait to have coffee with her, to eventually see if some of her chillier ideas about men and sex could be put to the test.

Note absence of hetero partner features. Minimal concentration on partner suggests the male is unimportant except in the biological function of penetration. See dildo/vibrator notes.

Jarod grunted. Unimportant his ass. He didn’t care if his partners used toys—they could be fun, heightening the experience—but to chalk all men up as unimportant except in penetration? Miss Nora needed to be fucked good and proper. Some things batteries just couldn’t replace.

And why hadn’t she finished that fantasy of hers she’d started writing on the inside of the back cover? Reading that had sent his imagination tumbling through erotic space. It was only the beginning, the setup. Dark and quiet room, a voice whispering naughty suggestions, her pussy aching in emptiness and her breasts tingling from her own fingers…Damn, he was horny. And intrigued.

His erection poked straight out in his sweats and he contemplated taking care of it, but the slow burn of arousal was a powerful drug, one he didn’t want to let go of just yet.

She was the most interesting thing he’d encountered in months. The allure was simply too great.

The phone was in his hand before he could have second thoughts. He carried it into his bedroom and put it on the comforter, looking at it and rubbing at his chest. He sneezed once, twice before stripping down to his boxer briefs.

You are a low-life. You are a stalker. You haven’t even had your first date yet.

His finger acted without consulting his brain. The number rang through. Just as the ringing stopped, he sneezed and coughed. He reached for a Kleenex as a whiskey-tinged voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Nora.” His voice was scratchy, gruff and thick.

“Who is this?”

A dawning realization made Jarod grin. Nora didn’t know who he was. He thought she would figure it out, know it was him, but she had no idea. He didn’t sound like himself thanks to Puffball Meowser.

Oh, he could have fun with this. He deepened his voice to a growl. “Guess.”

“This is an unlisted number.”

“I’ve got your number. You, sweetheart, have a very dirty mind.”

Her gasp over the airwaves sent a direct current of electricity to his balls. He wanted that breath in his ear as he showed her how much better a hard cock was compared to some latex dildo. Jarod heard low voices in the background and, after a moment, silence. The TV? Her voice came as cool as the underside of his pillow and he sprawled back on the bed, one arm tucked under his head.

“I assume this means you found my book and my recordings. I’d like those returned, please.”

“Sure, once I’m finished reading it. I already listened to the tape. ‘Women on Sex ’ isn’t a great title though. You should have labeled it ‘Getting Deeper.’”

“How much do you want?”

“How much what?”

“Money. That’s what this is about, right? You want a reward or something. Fine, how much?”

Jarod let his smile spread wide and chuckled. “We’ll talk about my reward in a minute. Do you really think batteries can replace a man?”

“I am not discussing my theories with an obscene caller.”

“Obscene caller? No. Consider me an editor. Some of your thought processes are flawed.”

“Flawed?” Even her indignant snort turned him on. “And you are, of course, qualified to judge something like that. Where did you get your biology degree?”

“Backseat of my dad’s Ford. Some of what I read is spot on and fascinating but other parts…Let’s just say it’s obvious you’ve never had a multiple orgasm.”

“That is none of your business!”

“Nora, I’m trying to help you, sweetheart. You’re not a dimwit. You know your biology, your chemistry and your physiology. You’re just way off base on the sexual angle. If I hadn’t read page 376, I’d swear you were a virgin.”

“I want my stuff back, asshole!”

There it was—Nora had fire. He knew it. That fire sizzled from the receiver directly into his bloodstream and ignited a white-hot flame. “If you want it so bad, it will cost you.”

“I cannot believe some arrogant, obscene caller is blackmailing me! Poorly, by the way. You really need to work on your technique.”

I’ll show her technique.

“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give your things back. No charge. Just talk to me. Share with me. Let me see inside that pretty head and help me understand how a total and complete knockout has never had one mind-boggling experience with a man.”

“How do you know what I look like? Who are you?”

“Call me Cyrano.”

“Oh hell no. What are you, twelve?”

“Twelve inches, no. A good eight maybe.”

A soft snicker caressed his ear. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not. But let’s leave measurements alone. You can call me whatever you want.”

“I can also hang up.”

“James.”

“What?”

“You can call me James. Have you ever read James Joyce’s erotic letters to his wife? Her name was Nora, too.”

“Does being a psycho stalker get you off or something?”

“If it did, would you put me in your notes?”

There was another pause. “Okay, James, how do I get my things back from you?”

“Just talk to me, sweetheart, that’s all. Have you never really lost it during sex? Just let go and let the good times roll?”

The silence on the line crackled with static and he sat up, worried he’d crossed some line. “Nora?”

“No way. I am not talking about something so private to a man I don’t know, and whose number shows up as out of area.”

That’s right, his cell was still registered in New York. He closed his eyes and took a stab in the dark, praying she understood or at the very least wouldn’t hang up on him. “Maybe because I am some stranger, someone you don’t have to face but who really wants to know. I wouldn’t laugh or judge. Hell, I’ll share anything you want me to, just talk to me.”

“I just want my stuff back.”

“Three pages.”

“Excuse me?”

“Every question I ask that you answer honestly, I’ll return three pages of the book.”

“And I don’t get it until I’ve amassed enough credit for you to return the copy? The thing is almost six hundred pages.”

“So we’ll talk a long time.”

“And the interviews?”

“Those I keep until we’re finished. Come on, you’re intrigued and you know it. Start talking.”

What the hell was he doing? He was insane. He was asking for carte blanche into her head. If pepper spray could come through phone lines, he’d be royally screwed right now.

“You’re an asshole and no, I’ve never lost it in bed,” she snapped.

Hot smoking hell, she answered me. Jarod blew out a breath and blood surged anew to his cock. “Why not?”

“Three pages.”

“What?”

“I get three pages. You ask another question, I get three more, right?”

“Sure. Give me what I want and you can have whatever you want.” Jarod wanted to sprint out of bed, find Nora and watch that full mouth spill out the answers to his deepest, dirtiest questions. The phone was suddenly too impersonal, and yet he couldn’t hang up. It was a connection, a meeting place, stripped bare of social niceties and manners. Communication, words, the very basics of human interaction.

And it was wickedly, basely enticing.

“So tell me why you’ve never just let go.”

Nora’s mind raced, exasperated and panicked. She had no idea how this man—James?—had gotten her number, but he had her research and, with it, some pretty private notes on some pretty racy fantasies. Resentment rankled in her at the embarrassing position he was forcing her into.

You need that tape back. You can’t blow all that work. It’s your chance to be taken seriously.

He wanted truth? He wouldn’t know truth if she told it. What could she say that would satisfy this stranger?

Lie. “My body doesn’t…It may be hormonal. I don’t make the nerve connections required to have an orgasm or something. I don’t get turned on.”

A choking laugh filled the static between them. “Nora, sweetheart, that is…impossible. There’s no such thing.”

He was right, at least in her case, but if he was going to mess with her, she was going to give right back. “It’s first-year endocrinology.” She bristled.

James laughed, a full-throated, sensual sound that rippled through her. “See, we’re communicating just fine. This is our first fight.”

Nora rolled her eyes. Too bad the fight wasn’t face-to-face. She’d love to aim a well-placed kick at this creep’s jolly bits. Before she could unclench her teeth, he continued.

“Your past lovers must all be blazing idiots who couldn’t fuck their way out of a wet dream. You have passion, sweetheart, they just never tapped into it.”

Nora scoffed, her anger slipping, replaced by indignation. “Stop making it sound like I slept with an army of the inept. I barely date and when I do, the men are…efficient enough.” A little truth—the ease with which she’d let it slip to this phone pervert alarmed her. This perv has your tape. And a pretty nice voice. “They aren’t crass, impolite strangers. You now owe me nine pages.”

He let her dig slide. His next words smacked of arrogance, as if he knew just how to loosen the buttons on her pristine lab coat. “I could show you that your body is entirely capable of not only being turned on, but capable of being played like a violin on fire.”

Her laugh was soft. He wished he had that power. What man didn’t? Nora had certainly wished it a few times herself and always came away wanting, needy and unsatisfied. “You’re so cocky. Are you going to fix me, James?”

“I don’t think you’re broken. Let me show you. Where are you?”

He had the most delicious voice. She wondered what he looked like. Nora licked her dry lips, tasting the phantom flavors he’d suddenly made her crave—smoke and dark chocolate, sweat and the sharp edge of heat the women in her book experienced with their lovers. The breathless catches in her interviewee’s tones were something mysterious she’d wondered about. She heard them now, echoed in her own breathing.

Nora closed her eyes, dead silent. So what if she wasn’t some marabou-and-lace vixen? He didn’t have to make fun of her. Her fingers tightened on the phone as he went on.

“Safe men are boring. Safe men don’t make you writhe and beg and tremble with aftershocks. I can. Tell me where you are.”

How was it that she could be enticed by the thought of a stranger making her pant in pleasure, scream in satisfaction? His voice sent erotic, delicious tingles along her bones.

Don’t be silly, Nora. Your body is programmed to respond to masculine octaves…

The silence stretched. Nora’s stomach clenched. She was tempted and that sped her already thundering heart to a near-painful clip. This was too scary. Too fast.

“Nora?”

She hung up, her pulse jumping in her throat. She dropped the phone on the coffee table and wiped her sweating palms on her pajama shorts. She’d clutched the phone so hard her knuckles were white. A foreign trill of excitement warmed low in her stomach at the same instant fear traced icy fingers up her spine.

“Because I am some stranger, someone you don’t have to face but who really wants to know. I wouldn’t laugh or judge.”

“I could show you that your body is entirely capable of not only being turned on, but capable of being played like a violin on fire.”

Of course she’d fibbed to him a little. Her body was fine, there was nothing wrong with it—it functioned. When she’d had sex in the past, the right reactions had occurred, things got in the places they were supposed to go. But she had never “lost it in bed” with anyone. She held a large measure of disdain for sexual theatrics. Some men expected screeching, wailing, thrashing sirens during sex. Nora chose quiet men, plain men, studious men, unspoiled by the porno mentality. Men who didn’t expect her to be a three-ring circus between the sheets.

Sure, she’d only really climaxed by herself, but lots of women were that way. Three of the women she’d interviewed had never had an orgasm with a man. This James character was just trying to get a rise out of her. He was probably king of the Penthouse and Playboy set, some stoner college kid with nothing better to do than rile her up. She didn’t care about his filthy mind or his opinions on her work.

So why was her heart still pounding so hard?

After one last check of the locks on her front door, Nora carried the phone into the bedroom, dropped it into the drawer in her bedside table. She slammed the drawer shut a little too hard, jotted a few last notes, took her temperature and slid into bed. Deliberately pushing all thoughts of James and his mysteriously erotic voice out of her head, Nora closed her eyes. Her mind drifted and the whispers of a seductive caller lulled her into dreams.   

TUESDAY Addendum: 

Responses to “James”—

Temperature 99.7, sweat production increased,

heart rate increased, breathing erratic.

More study needed.

I hope he calls again. 

WEDNESDAY 

Waking temp. normal, heart rate normal.

Sleep inadequate—increased sexual content during REM cycle.

Looking forward to coffee with J. R.  

Jarod scanned the after-lunch crowd and cursed. She wasn’t going to show. She might have figured out he was James or still figured him for some creep. Guilt soured the coffee in his stomach and he tossed his half-full cup in the trash. Great, the most interesting woman he’d met in ages and he screwed up with a phone call.

“Sorry, I got held up in a meeting.” Nora breezed into the café, bringing sunshine and crisp fall air. She dropped her bulging knapsack on an empty chair and slid into the one across from him. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the wind and a small smile curved her unpainted mouth. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here.”

His stomach flopped like a high school kid on a date with the prom queen.

“Well, I am.” He smiled. “How do you take your coffee? I’ll get us a cup.”

“Three creamers, please, no flavored stuff, just normal.”

The line was nonexistent and Jarod brought two steaming takeout cups back quickly—before his guilt over last night’s charade could bog down his elation at the sight of her. She didn’t act as if she knew the call had been from him so he played dumb. “So what did you do last night besides bio lab laundry?”

“Nothing.” She sipped the coffee, her eyes fixed on the table. A slight twitch on her lips and the darkening of her cheeks denied her lie and he bit his tongue. She had no idea. “Just research. I didn’t know you wore glasses. You didn’t have them on yesterday.”

“Ah, well.” He pushed the bridge of his glasses higher on his nose. “My allergies acted up and my eyes were all swollen this morning. I couldn’t get my contacts in.”

“They don’t look puffy to me.”

“Antihistamine and getting away from my neighbor’s cat.”

One eye narrowed as she studied him. She nodded. “I like them. They make you look scholarly. You teach English Lit and Advanced Rhetoric?”

“You looked me up,” he teased.

“Of course. Had your name and picture not been on the faculty roster, I wouldn’t be here.”

Jarod tasted his own drink. “Cautious lady.”

“Just smart. There’s no phone listed for you.”

“Yeah, I keep meaning to switch to a local number but then I forget just as quickly. Besides, it keeps students from calling and claiming their computers crashed late Sunday night before a paper is due on Monday.”

“Smart man. I noticed you did your dissertation on the Romantic Classics. Isn’t that an odd subject for a man?”

“Not in Literature. The archetypal romances are the foundation for almost any prose today.”

The corner of Nora’s mouth quirked upward.

Jarod bristled at the same time his heart tripped a few beats. “What?”

“Tell me why you chose Romantic Classics, really.”

Jarod bit the inside of his lip. He couldn’t tell her he was moved by the emotion of it all, that he was drawn in by lush language and the verbose purpleness of classic literature. It would make him seem too…effete. She had been intrigued by James last night—aggressive, bold and masculine.

“Most of the Romantic Era classics aren’t just stories. They’re studies of human nature. They epitomize the world thinking of the era. Besides, for the most part, they were written by men.”

Nora sipped her coffee. Jarod hoped after watching her lips fold around the rim he was still able to form coherent speech.

“And?”

“And so they offer a unique and permanent capsulated viewpoint of the driving gender. Like textual anthropology. My title was ‘Gender Representation in the Romances: The Bones of Masculinity Past.’”

“Interesting.” Nora shifted and her lab coat fell open. The dark olive sweater lent a hint of green to her eyes and offset her skin. It did a world of good for her figure, hugging the curves. He fought to keep his eyes on her face. He liked that lab coat. It was like an outer shell hiding her from the world but underneath, she was all woman. It seemed perfect for what he knew of her.

Conversation flowed easily and without pause. The story about her car vandalism bothered him but she assured him she now waited for security to walk her to her car if she had to stay late. Copper tinged his mouth as he bit back the words volunteering to meet her himself, just to assure her safety. Too early to feel that protective but damn, now he was going to worry.

Her mind was amazing, sharp and thorough. The dry wit and almost-clinical slant she could place on anything captivated him. He made her smile with horror stories of his last essay assignment and she offered her own tales about bungling undergrads in Bio 101. She laughed and the dulcet tones tripped down his spine like water from a cool stream. He really liked her.

A rhythmic beeping from her cell phone brought him out of their soft-focus, autumn-scented world. Somehow, forty-five minutes had passed. He was going to be late for his own class. Nora stuffed a paper napkin into her empty cup and stood. “I have to go. I have to give a lecture in five minutes.”

“Me, too. Can we do this again?”

A pink tongue slicked along her bottom lip and she dipped her chin once. “Tomorrow?”

“If we graduate to lunch, I’ll buy.” He held his breath as she slung the bag onto her shoulder, her eyes averted. Sensing a rebuff, he pushed. “Here, in public. Lots of people around.”

Bourbon eyes sparkled when she smiled at him. “I guess so, but we’ll go dutch. Noon?”

This had to be what winning the lottery felt like. Jarod rose and took her hand. He dropped a small kiss on her knuckles. “Until tomorrow.”

His lips tingled and his chest ached with the rush of his heartbeat. He watched her walk away, a naughty grin widening his mouth. Her lab coat hid her hips, but her straight khaki skirt had a slit in the back that showed her long, lean legs. As he gathered his papers and leather binder, he noticed a student scurrying out of the café.

“Hey, Chris?”

“Yeah, Prof?”

“You work in the mailroom, don’t you?”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

Jarod handed him a sealed manila envelope with Nora’s name written on the front. “Drop this in the faculty inbox, will you?”

He made it to class on time and with a bounce to his step.   

WEDNESDAY 2 p.m. 

Light lunch, yogurt, wheat crackers—coffee with J. R.

Vitals unreliable (wind chill and late for lecture).

Interesting and engaging conversation.

Intrigued. Agreed to lunch.

He has nice eyes.  

Nora’s heart skipped as her cell phone chirped again. Her gaze zeroed in on the screen—out of area. Her heart sped up. Same time as last night. She flipped the phone open on the third chirp.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Nora.”

The air froze in her lungs. The pen she held wobbled. “Hello, James.”

“Did you get your mail?”

“Yes, nine pages as promised and a photocopy of some letters.”

“Good, did you read them?”

“First things first. Since you’re parsing out my book one page at time, I want a new copy as well as the loose pages.”

A deep chuckle caressed her ear. “Okay, fair enough.”

“How did you get the envelope in the school mailbox?”

“Mmm, let’s just say I have an affiliation with the college.”

Student? Assistant? Professor? Could he be one of the security guards or the cafeteria workers or any of the office personnel? Worrying her lip, she made notes and let the call lapse into silence.

“Nora, stop worrying. You have all the control here. Hang up and I’m a memory.”

“Not if I want my things back.”

“As smart as you are, as organized, I cannot imagine you don’t have these notes three other places. And the book is available anywhere. Try Amazon.”

Husky, laced with intrigue and a hint of bravado, his voice soothed her concerns. He was right. She could end the call and forget him. But she couldn’t forget those irreplaceable interviews. And could she forget what he did to her? This mysterious, faceless man stirred something in her that she craved without knowing why. The faceless thing unsettled her. She needed a face. “What do you look like?”

“Just a man, sweetheart.”

If he wouldn’t give her an image, she would have to conjure one. Jarod Reed’s face leaped to her mind and, startled, she shoved it away. No, she was not going to confuse the two. Jarod was sweet, polite. James’s voice, gravelly and edged with sin, was too deep for the English professor with the gentle smile. This man, he was dangerously tempting and way outside her scope of experience. He made her feel like a teenager with a crush on the local leather-wearing bad boy, all jittery nerves and expectations.

James was impractical, a bodice-ripper hero who shouldn’t even pique her interest. If she were to give James a face, it wouldn’t be one with Jarod’s green eyes or the slow ease of his smile. Still, Jarod’s face was the only one she could seem to summon.

“I read the letters. Joyce was a very visceral man.”

“That he was. Most men are at their core. Education and society might buff off the rough spots but when it comes to sex and love, we’re all creatures of our baser instinct.”

“Basic biology. It’s what I intend to show.”

“But you’re operating from a tragic control group. You said you’ve never let go, let the animal urges take over.”

“I prefer the human species to bestiality,” she quipped just to hear that luscious chuckle one more time. Her toes curled inside her argyle socks.

“Procreation is a biological urge. But sex isn’t all about splitting cells. It’s deeper than two bodies intertwined. It can be a spiritual experience.”

“Hmm,” she murmured, shuffling pages. The photocopied words stuck in her throat but she forced past them, a decidedly frosty tone in her voice. “James Joyce wrote ‘Nora, My love for you allows me to pray to the spirit of eternal beauty and tenderness mirrored in your eyes or fling you down under me on that softy belly of yours and fuck you up behind, like a hog riding a sow, glorying in the very stink and sweat that rises from your arse, glorying in the open shape of your upturned dress and white girlish drawers and in the confusion of your flushed cheeks and tangled hair.’ Spiritual, huh? Sounds more earthly to me.”

“Ah, sweet Nora, the passion of loving a woman you can’t wait to be inside encompasses your body and your soul. It is possible to love her with all your heart while wanting to fuck her until she screams your name.”

He had shocked her, Jarod could tell. Her sweet indrawn breath twanged a note in his belly, and his cock twitched. He expected her to pull back, to slip into her deep-freeze mode, but she didn’t.

“Okay, then tell me this,” she challenged, bravado plain in her voice. “Did I make you hard?”

“Oh, hell yes. I’m as hard as a baseball bat right now. I want to jack off but I’m waiting.”

“Waiting? For what?”

“You. You stopped writing something on the back cover, something about the dark and the voice that reached out…Tell me how it ends.”

“You just want me to play phone-sex operator.”

“Maybe I do, but that’s not all I want. I want to be with you, if not in person at least like this. You intrigue me, sweetheart. Brains turn me on just as much as breasts.”

She said nothing but he could hear her moving. A floor creaked and a light snapped.

Off or on? he wondered, trying to picture her in her house or apartment. “What are you wearing?”

“Not sexy stuff. Just…panties and a tee shirt.”

“That is sexy. Did what Joyce wrote turn you on? Did reading it to me turn you on?”

Another length of silence. Jarod braced for the sharp click, the electric hum of a dead line in his ear.

“Yes,” she whispered and his throat clenched. How far was he willing to take this?

All the way.

“Are you wet, Nora?”

“I don’t—oh God. This is so dirty. I don’t even know you.”

“You do. You know me.” He flipped off the lamp and leaned back on the couch. The darkness intensified the rush, amplified every catch, every inflection in her tone. He licked his lips. “I’m always there, in your fantasies, doing exactly what you want. I’m the ultimate safe lover. I can’t touch you except with my voice.”

Her breathing rasped faster, and her slightly wavering exhalations were the only sounds that reached him. She was excited, and it turned the airwaves and the miles between them into a blank canvas. Jarod could show her anything, make her feel anything in the vast space. All he needed was her permission. The taped interviews leaped to his mind. There was one that had put a breathless hitch into her questions. He wanted to rekindle that spark of curiosity.

“Tell me about the interview with the woman who worked for the dial-for-sex line.”

Silence was still her only response. He pushed ever-so-slightly more.

“You were intrigued. I could hear it in your voice. Have you ever had phone sex, Nora?”

“No.” Soft as a summer breeze, that single word vibrated with heated consent.

“Will you let me talk dirty to you? Consider it intensive research if you like. You can be honest. You don’t have to hold back. No one will ever know. It’s just you and me.”

“Research? I’ve already told you I’m not a good subject.”

“I promise it will feel good. Let me touch you, sweetheart. Tell me what you want.” He let his voice drop to a sensual growl. “Talk dirty to me, Nora.”

For a long second there was nothing. Bracing for her refusal, Jarod closed his eyes in regret. Then he heard a mattress creak and the rustling of blankets. She was getting into bed. His eyes popped open and his balls tightened.

“I’d like…I’ve never had anyone…”

“Tell me. I’ll do anything you want. Tell me how to please you.”

“Oral sex,” she blurted.

The next wavering inhalation came from his own lips. “Oh sweetheart, I’d love to go down on you. How do you want it, slow and sweet or fast and hungry?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

Jarod’s cock pounded, heavy and hot. He slid his sweats down and wrapped his hand around his shaft, pumping with his eyes closed, picturing her spread before him. “Slow. I’d open your legs and kiss the inside of your thighs. You’re already wet for me.”

Jarod’s back arched into the next rough squeeze, wondering if that was true, if Nora was as wet as he was hard.

“You smell sultry, intoxicating. One lick, just one, shallow, just enough to tempt myself. So good.”

“Oh.” One tiny shuddered word. Gasoline on the fire.

“I need another so I lick again, just outside, just a bit.”

Ragged and fast now, she panted as he described exactly how he wanted to taste her. Twice he’d had to stop jerking himself or he’d have come already. This was the hottest, most wildly exciting thing he’d ever done with a woman and, damn, she wasn’t even in the same room.

Something hitched in his ear, a sigh maybe. It provoked images of Nora doing exactly what he was doing. “Nora, are you touching yourself?”

He actually heard the elastic snap of a pair of panties. “No!”

The denial was too swift and he groaned. “Do it, sweetheart. Slide your fingers around your clit, pretend it’s my tongue.”

“Are you? I mean…touching?”

“Yes. Picturing your pretty pussy. Can almost taste you.”

“Oh God, James. I’m so close.” A soft whimper made his cock strain. Damn, he was close, too.

“Can you come like this, Nora?”

Please, please say yes.

“Only like this, alone. Never with anyone else.”

The revelation, the confession shocked him. She could come with him. He’d show her in person, one day. “Touch yourself for me.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Tell me what you’re doing. Show me, sweetheart.”

“I’m stroking my…clit…two fingers…light, fast…I’m so wet now. My fingers feel so good. I wish…I wish it was your tongue.”

Jarod could almost feel the slicked silk of her in his mouth. “Me, too. Taste it, Nora. Tell me what you taste like.”

“That is so bad. Okay, hold on.” She grumbled, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” and he smiled. That made two of them. The phone banged and then she came back on the line. “Okay, I…Kind of earthy and salty. Not bad. I never thought…This is so hot.”

He wanted her under him, wanted to smell her, taste her. Pure lust deepened his voice. “I’m hungry now, Nora. I don’t want to be gentle anymore. I want to take your entire pussy in my mouth, feel your hard clit on my tongue, lick inside you, taste all that sweetness.”

“Yes, James,” she moaned.

His wrist whipped and his fantasy took flight, describing sucking her, nibbling, plucking at her until her muscles tensed and she cried his name. It wasn’t his name that pealed across the phone, just a whimpered growl and the barely audible liquid brush of her fingers which sent him over the edge. Thick, hot come splashed his belly and he ground out her name, back arched, teeth gritted in release.

He gulped for breath. He could barely swallow air and, when he got enough to speak, his voice rasped with a darker, deeper edge. “God, Nora, that was good.”

“Yeah.” Hushed embarrassment softened her words and he shook his head.

“No, do not feel dirty. This was nothing to be ashamed of.”

“James, I don’t even know you and I…You—oh God.”

“Listen to me. We did nothing wrong. Please Nora, don’t shut down on me.”

“I’m embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. Human biology, remember? I just tossed in a little good old-fashioned stimuli.”

A low feminine giggle loosened the knots in his muscles. “Yes, you did.”

“You’re not broken, sweetheart.”

“This doesn’t happen in real life, James.”

“It does. You’ve just never had anyone hit the right buttons.” Reaching for the tissues, Jarod grinned as an idea stirred in his languorous head. “Can I call you tomorrow? Please.”

“Yes.”

“Sleep well, Nora.” Jarod flipped the phone shut and let it drop to the floor.

Holy sweet fire of hell. That had been incredible. He popped off the couch, tossed the tissues in the trash and cleared his phlegmy throat. He grabbed his allergy medicine with a grin. If this worked out, he was buying that damn cat a lifetime subscription to Catnip World.

Flipping open his laptop, he clicked to start his Wi-Fi connection and sent a silent prayer upward for overnight shipping.   

WEDNESDAY Addendum: 11:43 p.m. 

Pulse rate: 141 BPM, temperature 100.1, breathing erratic.

Needed a very, very cold shower. 

THURSDAY 12:00 Noon 

Fitful sleep—vivid dreams, highly sexual in content.

Pulse increased. Temperature 99.3.

Today—lunch with J. R.

I pictured his face when “James” called.

What does this mean?  

Nora closed her notebook and tucked it into the inside pocket of her coat. A brisk wind whipped her hair into her eyes and she raised a hand to brush it aside. A voice cut through the dry air.

“Nora!”

Jarod Reed strode toward her, the wind wreaking havoc with his own hair, making it stick up at odd angles. His hands shoved into his coat pockets, he squinted against the grit in the air. He looked slightly rumpled, slightly rushed and…cute. An expectant grin curved his mouth and a low warmth suffused her.

This doesn’t happen in real life, James…or does it?

She’d admitted to her accidental seducer she didn’t get stirred up by men in the real world. So why had she thought of Jarod when James had growled all of those delicious things into the phone? Why did she think of James when Jarod looked into her eyes?

“You’re not broken, sweetheart.”

A rush of boldness rose. Nora hopped down from her perch on the half wall and, as Jarod neared her, held out both her hands. A confused quirk angled one brow but a pleased light sparkled in his eyes behind his glasses. He pulled his hands from his pockets and enfolded both of hers in his warm grasp.

“Mmm,” Nora sighed, “it’s cold out here. Your hands feel good.”

He flushed slightly. His fingers flexed around hers and he pulled her into him, wrapping her in corduroy and…yep, the slight scent of dried leaves. The casual yet oh-so-intimate embrace heated her blood until her skin tingled. He propped his chin on the top of her head.

“You’re freezing. You should have waited inside.”

Nora pressed her cheek into his chest and inhaled deeply. This was not a scrawny chest but one with solid muscles. The arms around her shoulders were not thin, chicken-winged arms but knotted and bunched slightly under his jacket. She felt safe, protected and more than a little turned on. The low warmth kindled slightly higher.

It was a good thing that thick layers of clothing separated them or he would feel the tightening of her nipples. She closed her eyes and hummed lightly. “I was fine out here. I like to people-watch.”

He rubbed his cheek against the crown of her head. “Are you hungry? Should we go in?”

She nodded. He pulled away but grabbed for her hand as they turned to the café. She laced her fingers in his and let him lead her inside. They chose a booth in the far back of the café, set aside in a small nook that afforded some privacy from the student-packed room. Jarod’s glasses fogged up. He took them off and polished the lenses with a paper napkin. A waitress took their orders for coffee and burgers.

He has really, really beautiful eyes.

Jarod put his glasses back on, leaned back in his seat and smiled thoughtfully at her.

“What?” Nora shrugged out of her jacket and lab coat.

“There’s something…different about you today.”

Nora smirked and folded her garments into the empty space beside her in the booth. She held up her hands, palms out. “No pepper spray.”

Jarod laughed and Nora’s gaze dropped to his mouth. His lips were full, the lower fuller than the upper. She thought suddenly of her conversation with James last night and wondered what Jarod Reed was like in bed. Would he whisper sweet, pretty words? Would he growl and bite? Did that straight-laced tweed go down to his bones or was there a naughty professor lurking under that oxford shirt?

“Nora?”

She startled, pushing the thought aside with a blush. What was happening to her? Jarod didn’t look like the type to revel in the blatant hedonism that James had…that she had with him. Nora blinked. She was seriously getting her worlds mixed up here. She was with Jarod, so she shouldn’t be thinking of James. And last night, with James—the rumpled professor should not have made any kind of cameo in her brain.

“Sorry, I’m really tired. I barely slept last night.”

The waitress returned with their coffee. She dropped two cream containers beside each cup then hurried away. Jarod nudged one of his to Nora’s side of the table and busied himself adding a single cream and two sugar packets to his cup. “So how’s your day going? Any more luck on the paper?”

Nora finished tipping the last of the creamers into her cup and sipped her coffee experimentally. His subtle sweet gesture made the coffee perfect. “Some. I know what I want to say, it’s just hard to focus nights when I’ve worked all day.”

And when velvet-voiced men call me and talk me to orgasm.

Jarod raised his cup and nodded. “I know what you mean. I crash almost as soon as I get home. I think the New Hampshire air sucks the energy from the body.”

Nora wrapped her hands around the cup, grateful for the heat and the distraction. “Where’s home?”

“I have a place outside town. It’s a rental, but it’s great. You?”

“I have an apartment that’s really close. I can walk if I want. My parents live nearer to downtown.”

“You didn’t want to stay with them until you were finished with school? You could have saved a lot of money.”

Nora shook her head. Her bear of a father and petite apple-cheeked mother were the very picture of middle-class Americana, but…

“No amount of money was worth me living at home. I mean, they’re great, but I just turned thirty. I grew up here. Autonomy is a hard-won thing in this town.”

“Thirty. Wow. I feel like I’m cradle-robbing here.”

Nora snorted. “Right, you’re not exactly ancient, Professor.”

“Almost a full decade older.”

“I’d like to think I’m not the typical thirty-year-old. I mean, if you were twenty and I was ten, we’d have a problem. But as mature adults with similar interests, I see no problem with our ages.”

“Logical and lovely.” His murmur was like buttered rum, rich and decadent. “So what do your folks think about your staying here and teaching at the old alma mater?”

“Mama just wants me to find a nice boy and settle down. Dad knows with certainty that no man is worthy of his princess.” Jarod chuckled as she shuddered exaggeratedly. “Don’t get me wrong. I love them but I have to live my life for me.”

“Good for you.”

A small smile haunted the corners of his lips. What did Jarod’s kiss feel like? Was he a wet, sloppy St. Bernard of a kisser or was he a nibbler? Down, girl. One U.S. Cellular-induced orgasm and you’re a walking hormone. Nora took a few gulps of her coffee to distract herself. Why was she suddenly so damned nervous? She scrambled for something to say as they lapsed into silence.

He teaches English Lit.

“Have you ever read the letters James Joyce wrote to his wife?”

Jarod fumbled with his cup, nearly upsetting it. Only a fast jerk saved it from toppling to the tabletop. A splash of the liquid splattered Nora’s knuckles. Beneath his open collar his Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow. His eyes met hers and sparked with something—amusement? Shock?

“I have,” he answered, his eyes dropping to his coffee cup. “They’re a bit racy. This is only our second date, Nora.”

Nora laughed. Jarod was adorable. “I…A friend sent them to me. I guess they’re supposed to help with my dissertation.”

Jarod’s eyes sparkled in the dim light and he reached over, rubbing his fingers over the back of her hand. “You can’t explain away passion like that with DNA sequences, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

Nora’s heart hit a speed bump and last night’s conversation came roaring back into her head. A tremor of suspicion narrowed her eyes. What was the likelihood that two men would call her sweetheart in the same twenty-four-hour period? Her throat tightened reflexively before a chagrined exhale relaxed it.

His voice carried the rich notes of a cello, not the sultry smoke of a saxophone. No, Jarod was too proper to engage in the wicked debauchery she and James had gorged on. From the neat edges of his classic-cut hair to the pressed pleat of his trousers, he was the epitome of debonair. She could easily see him sipping chardonnay and making polite small talk at faculty gatherings.

Her gaze dropped to his fingers stroking her hand. They were long, lean, like a piano player’s. The short-clipped nails and hidden strength in his touch churned through her blood. She was instantly hotter than the steaming liquid she lifted to her lips.

Maybe James was right. Maybe she wasn’t broken. And maybe there was more to Jarod than Shakespeare and Dickens.

“Passion like that…What do you know about passion like that?” She was toying with him. She lifted her gaze over the rim of her cup and locked her eyes on the warming green of his.

He set his coffee aside. His narrowed gaze raked over her. “Miss MacGregor, are you flirting with me?”

The fingers on the back of her hand curled and she rolled her palm, clasping his. The simple act of holding hands burned with eroticism. Long, slow arcs of his thumb on her skin sizzled, and her breath caught. She leaned forward, propping one elbow on the table edge, knowing the move would give him a small glimpse into the soft grey V-neck of her sweater. “Maybe.”

Interest flared like a match, and his eyes traveled slowly from her face down to her collarbone. She could almost feel the slide, the path of the emerald fire as his lashes lowered. A thrumming under her ribs spread heavy yearning through her body.

“‘My true love for you, the love of my verses, the love of my eyes for your strange luring eyes, comes blowing over my soul like a wind of spices…’” Nora stared steadily as she quoted.

Jarod’s eyes flicked up to hers. A challenging gleam brewed behind his glasses and his smile bordered on wicked. “James Joyce loved his wife, mind, body and soul. How would you explain that as anything other than purely of the heart? Passion and love aren’t an equation. They simply are.”

She fought not to get lost in the simmering sea of his gaze. “I don’t know that I believe in the intangible, and any teenager can feel passion.”

Jarod shook his head. “No, teenagers feel the rush of hormones they can’t control. Lust is temporary, easily satisfied and forgotten. Passion consumes you.”

The moment stretched, thickened. Nora’s pulse beat hard in her throat. She wanted to drown in those beautiful eyes. The waitress bustled up with their burgers. Nora pulled her hand away and Jarod leaned back, the moment broken.

His voice was light. “These look great.”

They started in on their meal and their conversation relaxed as Nora shook off the electric sensitivity skating along her nerves.

What’s happening to me?

Lunch was not supposed to be torture. It was supposed to be a burger and fries and a walk to Nora’s lab. Jarod jammed his hands into his pockets as he kept pace with her on the brick path, willing himself to keep them there. Every step he took had him inwardly switching between excitement and frustration.

James had rattled her, shaken up the notion she was frigid. When she’d held her hands out to him, it was like a gift. He couldn’t help tugging her into a light embrace and she hadn’t balked. She fit perfectly against him. Her skin smelled like ripe summer apples. He liked her. He genuinely liked her—her dry humor, her intelligence. The open flirtation over lunch only fueled his interest. Just when he thought he grasped the way her mind worked, she threw him a curve ball.

He’d nearly dumped his coffee in his lap when she’d asked about Joyce’s letters. For a minute he’d thought the game was up, that she’d figured out he was her mysterious James. His quick off-the-cuff response had made her laugh. She laughed easily, a burnt-velvet, feminine sound that stirred his gut and tickled his skin. He wanted to feel that laugh on his bare chest, with sweat-damp sheets pooled around them and the moist sheen of lovers all that separated them.

They neared the arched entrance to the Sciences Building and they both paused. Nora had put her jacket back on for the walk, but Jarod carried her lab coat draped over the crook of his elbow. She reached for it and her fingers slid over his arm. It was more than a brushing contact. Even through his clothes the lingering touch scorched him.

“Well,” Nora said, “I have to get back to work.”

She waited, and he pictured her arching in her bed, climaxing alone to the sound of his voice. His stomach flipped nervously. Could he kiss her? He had growled filthy things to her through the safety of anonymity but now, in person, just thinking about pressing his lips to hers had his palms sweating.

“Lunch tomorrow?” An arch of her brow put a sassier slant on the question than the words intended. How could eyes the shade of Tennessee whiskey glow? Was it a trick of the light or was she as interested as he was?

“Definitely. How about dinner as well?”

Her shoulders slumped slightly. “I have a late lecture tomorrow. How about Saturday night?”

“Perfect. Where do you want to go?”

“Surprise me.”

Oh, I could do that in more ways than one.

Bless the autumn wind. Not only did it do marvelously teasing things to her long dark hair, but it seemed to sway her close to him with its sharp chill. Jarod reached out and cupped her elbow, drawing her the rest of the way. The barest slice of air separated them. The apple scent of her skin teased on the brisk breeze and he breathed deeply. He didn’t want to leave and she seemed in no hurry either.

“You have to go back to work, Miss MacGregor.”

“So do you, Dr. Reed.”

Bravery comes from many places. His came from her pink tongue touching her top lip in anticipation. Jarod brushed back the stray tendrils that swept her face. “I have to do this, Nora.”

Despite his nerves, despite the fact he’d already brought her to a panting, hardcore climax, Jarod tipped up her chin and indulged in a soft, barely-there brush of Nora’s lips. It was ten times more potent than her voice across a phone line.

Once, twice he pressed his mouth to hers. The soft skin of her jaw slid under his fingers. Her hands crept up to clutch his jacket. She parted her lips and kissed him back, a slight flick of her tongue thrilling him.

“Way to go, Prof!”

The intrusive male chuckle yanked her mouth from his. She stepped back, her head dipping and a soft flush creeping along her cheeks.

Jarod bit back a curse. He glared at the undergrad with the sarcastic sneer and a snarl flew from his mouth. “Zacot, get to class! Don’t you owe me a paper?”

The arrogant smirk fell away. “Sorry, Dr. Reed. Sorry, ma’am.”

Zacot slunk away like a whipped pup. Anger churned in Jarod’s gut, damning the student to Remedial English hell for interrupting their first kiss. He hoped it wasn’t their last. Nora blinked, clutching her lab coat. Her mouth hung open the slightest bit as she gawked at him. Had he scared her?

“I’m sorry about that,” he muttered, already planning to fail the little shit who couldn’t tell a sonnet from a soliloquy.

“It’s okay. Talk to you tomorrow.” She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and dashed up the stairs. The kick of her skirt flashed her knees and he swallowed a groan. At the double glass doors at the building’s entrance, she paused and waved down at him before slipping inside.

His soft chuckle was heard only by the wind. “Talk to you tonight, Nora.”   

WEDNESDAY Addendum: Afternoon. 

Unable to monitor vitals (late for class)

Increased heart rhythm, inability to concentrate and heightened physical sensation. Physical interaction increased.

Agreed to continue lunch meetings.

Also to dinner.

Unexpected aggression from J.R.—flashed on James—

some sort of aural sexual trigger?

J.R. kissed me.

I kissed him back.  

Herbal tea sloshed in Nora’s mug as her shoulders trembled with laughter. Jarod’s e-mail listed five restaurants in the area, complete with specialties, and told her to take her pick. He also offered to cook, if she would be interested in the one thing he didn’t burn, penne pasta and sausage. A strange craving for pasta took root, but that would be too intimate, too fast. Cooking dinner, or even inviting each other into their homes, would come in the future. She hoped.

She perused the list carefully. She’d grown up in the area and could rank most of them on price, atmosphere and food quality. The three didn’t always go together. She picked two and typed an e-mail asking him to make the final selection. In less than a minute, his reply pinged her inbox. 

Nora, I bow to your home field advantage. Marcuso’s it is. Is seven too late? I also need your address to pick you up. I admit I checked the faculty directory. Your address is a post office box. I refuse to believe you live in such cramped quarters. I await your reply.

~Jarod 

A smile plumped her cheeks as she typed. 

Jarod, seven is fine, but I’ll meet you there (sans pepper spray). My apartment is pretty small, but certainly not within postal regulations. I think you will like Marcuso’s. Their seafood bisque is wonderful, or it was several years ago. When all else fails, choose the crab. That’s what I do, anyway. You know I checked the directory, too. Mullen’s Drive, that tells me you probably rent one of Claire Harper’s places. I hope you like cats! ~N 

She could nearly hear his rolling baritone when she opened his response. 

Nora, ever the cautious lady. Will meet you there. Saturday seems further away than day after next but at least I can see you tomorrow at lunch. Your powers of deduction are amazing. I despise the little rat-chasing critters. Remember my allergies? It’s late and I should let you work.

Goodnight, fair lady, ’til the morrow.

~Jarod 

A sigh expanded her chest. He was so sweet, not at all like the crude, beer-chugging men who occasionally asked her out or the insipid students who insisted CUL8R was a correct farewell.

One finger traced along the computer screen, across his name, before she pulled her hand away. She clicked offline and pulled up her dissertation notes. The script danced in front of her eyes, blurring and smudging. The power-down cycle whirled in the empty apartment and she let her head fall back.

She had a date. A real, honest-to-God, shave-your-legs-and-wear-eyeliner date. With an incredibly dashing man who had as many brains as he did manners. One who kissed like caramel—soft, addictive and with a lingering sweetness she tasted hours later.

That growl.

A shiver worked her spine. When he’d snapped at that student, his voice had filled with command, with aggressive authority. The timbre and inflection throbbed low in her belly and her thighs had clenched in sudden sexual awareness. She closed her eyes and tried to summon exactly what Jarod’s voice would sound like when sated.

Thinking of sated voices threw her suddenly into a bad mood. James. She’d nearly forgotten about the stunt he’d pulled today, she’d been so wrapped up in Jarod. Of all the stupid, childish, arrogant, high-handed, macho, ridicul—

The cell phone’s chirp interrupted her mental tirade. She glanced at the screen then flipped it open with a snap.

“You son of a bitch!”

A sharp masculine inhale rang loud in her ear. “Nora, let me expla—”

“How dare you send me something like that to my office! Anybody could have opened that package.”

Seductive laughter poured over her, richer than imported chocolate. “So you got my little gift? I was wondering. I did include thirty pages. I sort of lost count how many I owed you and took a wild guess.”

She flopped back on the futon and picked up the hard plastic package. “I got them and a surprise. I almost opened the box in front of Dr. Salih.”

The laughter turned wicked, a razor-fine edge of devilment that scored along her irritation and carved it away. She palmed her forehead. “James, what in the hell were you thinking, sending me a vibrator?”

“Come on, sweetheart, I’d think the purpose is obvious.”

“Last night shouldn’t have happened.”

“Why? You enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.”

“I’m kind of…seeing someone.”

Dead silence filled with the barest static. There was a slow exhale and a creak. A leather chair? Leather pants? “I see. And you feel what, guilty?”

“A little. I mean, I like him and think he likes me a lot, too. So this feels a bit strange.”

“Do you want me to hang up, Nora? I will. I don’t want to make you feel anything but good.”

Nora toyed with the edge of her tee shirt. Jarod was real. His kiss, his smile, his face were what she flashed on when James whispered naughty things, titillated her senses. It wasn’t that different from a pornographic movie, right? James was just a disembodied voice at the other end of the phone line. She wasn’t hurting Jarod. She wasn’t breaking any rules or telling any lies.

A secret place admitted she liked how James made her feel—wicked, naughty and a bit reckless. She could stay safe in her little apartment with the crooked bathroom door and still touch the orgasmic stars through him. Maybe Jarod was real but their relationship—if you could call it that at this point—was normal, steady and nonthreatening. James was wild, exciting and so different from anything she ever expected. He had found her research, sought her out, called her. It was a bit of an ego stroke, a feminine thrill to be the object of one man’s sexual devotion.

She drew a breath and stepped out of character. “Talk dirty to me, James.”

A luscious rumble of masculine pleasure rolled like thunder. “Oh, sweetheart, your wish is my command. Where are you?”

“My living room.”

“Go into the bedroom. I want to picture you lying there, waiting for me.”

“Okay.” A saucy gene, unknown to her, chose that minute to manifest. “Want to come with me?”

“Yes. Take me to your bed, sweetheart. Take your clothes off. Let me touch you.”

The coverlet was swirled with ridges that chafed against her ass so she jerked the blankets back and slid down on the cool sheet. Furnace-warmed air blew across her nipples and they pebbled. Her panties were damp when she pulled them off her legs, flinging them in the general direction of the laundry hamper. An excited jiggle in her tummy echoed the pulse inside her pussy.

“I’m ready for you.”

“Did you bring your gift, sweetheart?”

Her fingers tightened around the plastic packaging. “Yes.”

“Open it. There should be batteries included.”

She had to lay the phone down to tear into the clear wrapping. Her hands shook, and she dropped the package of AA batteries twice before she ripped them open. The Silver Bullet warmed to her skin’s temperature in seconds.

“Done. Did you know this thing came with a travel case?”

“Nora, forget the case. I want you to tell me something.”

Light streamed through a crack in the window blind and cut a blazing triangle across her lavender flannel sheets. The strange thought that she needed to change them before Jarod could ever come into her bed sent a heated spiral coursing through her. No, she would not think about Jarod while being naughty with James. It seemed almost like cheating. She shifted down into the pillows, fingering the smooth metal surface of the Bullet.

“What do you want to know?”

“Your fantasy, what you started to write down on the back cover. Finish it for me.”

A sultry smile bowed her mouth. “First, tell me where you are. What are you wearing, James?”

“On the couch and nothing but a smile.” A low hum made her wonder exactly what he was doing and she almost asked. His voice stopped her. “You wrote it was dark. The voice was close but you couldn’t see him. Every once in a while his breath would brush your skin.”

Her eyes slid closed and the longtime fantasy burst to life in vivid sensations. It was James crooning naughty words in her ear but Jarod touching her, kissing her. “Yes. I feel him. I don’t know who he is but somehow I feel safe, know he’d never hurt me. Something touches my shoulder.”

“Touch your shoulder, sweetheart. Lowest setting.”

The egg clicked on with the slightest buzz. Slow, throbbing pulses dragged across her shoulder, dipping into her collarbone and up her throat.

“What touches you? Is it my hands, my mouth?”

“It starts as your fingers, then your tongue…slides down my chest, over the curve of one breast then the other…I want you to pinch my nipples, lick them, but you don’t. You tease everywhere else.”

“All in good time, sweetheart, draw it out. Feel my hands, my mouth. I imagine your skin smells like apples. Tart, crisp, juicy fall apples bursting with sweetness.”

She panted. How could he know that was her favorite scent, her preferred body lotion? A zing of forbidden intimacy washed through her. The egg buzzed along the heavy bottom curve of her breast.

“Nipples, now. First my fingers, then my lips. I want to taste the sugared apple of your breasts. A lick, then a nibble and then all of it, deep and sucking.”

A tremulous breath shuddered as the vibe circled her peak. Her finger slid the speed up one notch higher. For every step of her hottest fantasy, he was there, talking her through it, taking her further, holding her just at the precipice. The egg speed went from low to intense then slid back to moderate.

“God, your skin is like silk. My hands are stroking down your stomach. Run the Bullet around your bellybutton, slow. That’s my tongue, Nora. Trace your hip all the way down, sweetheart. No, I hear you turning it up. Leave it alone, medium setting. I like to take my time.”

Goosebumps erupted along her tummy, the soft vibrations channeling lust through her body, igniting a growing need at her core.

“Go right to your bikini line. Drag the tip just across it. Now up to your navel again.”

“James, please…”

“Shh, let me explore you. Turn it up just a bit. I want to nibble a line straight down your hip to your leg.”

A whimper eked out before she could stop it. James chuckled.

“I’ve got a taste of you and now I’m starving for more. I want you to slide the Bullet across your inner thighs. There and only there.”

She did what he asked, shivering. Her nipples ached with delicious pain, and her wet pussy thumped in empty need.

“Now what?”

“Imagine my fingers there, skimming across the muscles. Back and forth, back and forth. Don’t you dare touch anywhere else.”

She fell into the rhythm of his words, rocked to the low bass of a voice that had no body. He was everywhere, but nowhere. It was deliriously wicked and entirely not enough. Sweat covered her body. “Touch me more.”

“I’m waiting for you. I want your hand over mine. I want you to guide me right where it feels best. Show me how you do it when you’re alone, when no one else is watching.”

Nora slid the tiny vibrator down, slipped it between her drenched folds. “Oh, this is…I’m teasing myself. Barely brushing my…”

“Say it, Nora. Barely brushing what? Show me.”

He echoed her harsh gasp, growled when she said, “My pussy. I start slow, just below my clit, small circles until I can’t take anymore, and then I move up, Oh—oh, James…”

“Do you want to come, sweetheart?”

“Please, yes…with you,” she panted. “I want you to come with me.”

“You will. Come with my tongue on your clit. Turn it to high, and don’t take it away. I want to taste your orgasm. Hurry, Nora, because I’m close.” His ragged breath blasted her ear and she tweaked the speed up. Under the muffled, liquid slosh of the Bullet, she could hear the slick sucking noises as he stroked. The sound charged through her with a lightning bolt. “Come with me. Say my name. Oh, sweet fuck, Nora!”

As if he commanded her body, Nora shuddered and twitched at his frayed cry. Her thighs tensed and her neck arched on the pillow. Stars exploded behind tightly squeezed lids. “Oh…oh…James, yes!”

A loud sated groan reverberated in her ear, echoed by the shift of leather. “Damn, sweetheart, this gets better and better.”

The Bullet snapped off and she rolled to her side, cradling her cheek on her hand. “Tell me you don’t think I’m a slut or anything.”

“No.” The force in that one word soothed her. “You’re a normal, healthy, intelligent woman with an active imagination. That’s doesn’t make you a slut, it makes you human. And sexy as hell.”

“You’re pretty steamy yourself, James.” Every bone in her body had dissolved and turned to mushy oatmeal. Dry-mouthed and languid, she smiled against the phone. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Sleep well, sweetheart.”   

Special Notation*: 

This week has been incredible and thrilling and confusing. I have never felt so alive. I have no resolve to step back and examine. I am addicted.

J.R. is something I would wish for on a star but James touches that dark, secret part of myself I’ve never acknowledged.

Is it possible to fall in love with two different men for two very different reasons?

One is smooth, controlled and kisses me until my toes tingle. The other whispers naughty words that vibrate my soul. Both are intelligent and sharp and quick to laugh. I want to tell one my most farfetched dreams and the other my wickedest fantasies.

In my mind, J.R. is James and James is J.R…my boring little life is a soap opera.  

Jarod had offered her a bite of his Veal Marsala, and Nora had used her fingers to let him taste her scallops. That was the extent of her recollection of dinner. It had lasted for hours, conversation had never ceased, yet she couldn’t remember a damn thing. She thought there had been wine, could have been talk of his English mother and Southern Baptist father, might have been a discussion on the faculty Christmas party announcement.

The only thing she was sure of was that Jarod kissed like a god.

He’d been late to lunch Friday, courtesy of the Dean of Students. Rather than food, they opted for a couple quiet minutes staring into each other’s eyes and a few hastily stolen pecks before she hurried to her lab. He tucked a note into her lab coat and the beautiful sonnet kept her smiling all day. Saturday she awoke to an e-mail with a ticking countdown, counting the minutes until he saw her. She replied with a flirt, asking him his favorite color. When he saw her, the soft jade knit dress made his eyes sparkle and linger on her visible cleavage.

He’d brought her a rose, a single creamy bloom tipped with the darkest crimson. The restaurant played soothing music in soft jazz notes that wrapped them in a sensual haze of moist heat. After dinner he held her coat and, as she slipped her arms in, he brushed a slow, licking kiss under her ear.

With her hand tucked in the crook of his arm and the heady rose fragrance lulling her, they strolled through the frosty parking lot toward her little car. Not even the nipping air and drunkenly dancing snow flurries cooled the tension between them. He bent to kiss her goodbye and that was it, her mind was obliterated. She lost herself to the velvet glide of his lips, the wet thrust of his tongue, the spicy red wine of his kiss.

Was it possible to crawl inside a man and just melt in his embrace? She wanted to.

Ridged muscles in his back shifted under her hands, which she buried under his jacket. Her coat fell open and the heat of their bodies combined, twisted together into an inferno. Her ass met the freezing car door. Nora’s pulse jerk-started and rushed lust-laden blood through her system. It wasn’t the chilly air that tightened her nipples, it was the hot desire brewing between them. Jarod’s hips pressed into hers and the hard length of his erection skyrocketed her libido. A slick warmth flooded her panties.

His mouth slid down her jaw, nipping until her skin quivered in excitement. Her fingers kneaded up his back then curled. She dragged her nails downward in a slow, deliberate trek. Heat blazed as Jarod groaned against her neck. Nora could taste his hunger when his tongue dove into her mouth. That same unfed need roared in her as his firm palms covered her breasts. Her nipples, already pebbled by the chill, tightened to aching points under the broad caress of his thumbs.

With a gasp Nora arched closer to his touch, thrusting her breasts deeper into his hands. God, he felt so good, made her feel so good. Jarod’s fingertips grazed the edge of her bare skin, where she’d placed the tiny dab of perfume in her cleavage to tease him. That single brush of skin on skin ignited a bonfire. Jarod whispered her name against her lips and slid his fingers under the material.

Despite the arctic bite of the wintry air, his hands were hot and they scalded her in deliciously enticing ways. They left an aching trail of want across the upper curve of her left breast. Not even the scalloped edge of her bra thwarted his touch. He circled her taut nipple, catching it and rolling it between two fingers.

A squeal of tires ripped through the air and Nora stiffened. She’d nearly forgotten they were in the restaurant’s parking lot. Jarod pulled his hand back, sliding it down to cup her waist. Mist streamed from both their mouths when they parted. Hot, gusty breaths were sucked in to cool a fire that threatened to explode. Her heaving chest brushed his.

Jarod swallowed and framed her face in his hands. “I don’t want to let you go yet. Let’s go get a drink or go dancing or find a dark street and fog up the car windows. I’d beg you to come home with me but I know you’d say no and I really can’t handle the rejection right now.”

“You don’t know how tempted I am.”

“Tell me.”

Those two pleading, provocative words shrilled through her with guilt. James said that. “Tell me, sweetheart. Talk dirty to me.” Last night had brought her to another shattering orgasm to his decadent, husky voice. James’s voice, James’s words, Jarod’s face, Jarod’s touch—everything was blurring in her mind. Fragments floated like a kaleidoscope and she couldn’t separate the two. Was she responding now to Jarod or to James?

Shame lanced across her heart and she flinched. “I have to go.”

“Why? It’s the weekend. You’re over eighteen, you won’t turn into a pumpkin.”

“I’m expecting a phone call.”

Jarod jerked. His chocolate-brown eyebrows crashed together and formed dual lines between his eyes. He hadn’t worn his glasses tonight and she missed them. “From who? I mean, it’s kind of late for a phone call. It’s nearly eleven.”

“I know, it’s just…a research friend who’s helping me. He calls every night about this time.”

His jaw went stony. Straightening his shoulders, he stepped back, his body heat leaving hers. He jammed his hands into his pants pockets. The air chilled as cold as the ice in his gaze. “I see. Couldn’t you skip it one night?”

Could she? The image of a scale formed in her brain, one side weighted by the man in front of her, the other with a faceless stranger who knew her most erotic thoughts. The scale bobbed back and forth, up and down, never resting, never choosing one man over the other.

Jarod bristled with jealousy—that was plain to see—but Nora was too torn to pick one over the other. It had been less than a week since both men appeared in her life. She didn’t know what the right path was, which avenue held the truth. James awoke part of her she’d never known existed and it flourished under his silken tone. Jarod thrilled her mind and sped her heart rate. She didn’t know how to choose. So she didn’t.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” The smile on her lips quivered but she kept it in place. “Maybe we could ge—”

“I’m busy tomorrow.”

“Oh.” His brisk rebuff hurt, and her chest twinged sharply. “Okay. Are we still on for lunch Monday?”

Snow twirled down in lacy clusters, settling on his shoulders and hair. Sea-green eyes stared deep into her face and the forced lift to one side of his mouth did nothing to reassure her. “Yeah, Monday.”

Jarod dropped a brief, hard kiss on her lips and strode away, his spine stiff and his mouth pinched. She’d dropped her rose when she’d kissed him and glistening flakes dotted the flower like frozen tears. She bent and picked it up, touching the frosty cream to her lips. It felt like his mouth—slick and soft—and against her lips the petals were as cold as his eyes had been.

Nora climbed into her car and shook, both from cold and confusion. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked the hot, salty sting away. The rose spun in her fingers. An ironic snort burst from her lips. She almost envied physicist Ernest Rutherford. All he had to do was split the atom. She had to decide between James and Jarod.

The lotion bottle hit the wall and rebounded with impressive force. The plastic split along the side, leaving behind a cherry-almond scent and a splatter pattern worthy of a crime scene. It was a damned crime—an atrocity that, despite an hour’s worth of fantasizing and the usual man props, Jarod was unable to arouse anything but his own temper. In fact, the moaning and groaning streaming from his flat screen turned him off rather than on.

He jammed the power button, silencing Moan-a and Her Ménage, and paced the floor of his living room, the hardwood cool under his bare feet. He raked a hand through his damp hair. Damn her. Damn Nora for doing this to him. He refused to pick up the phone, even though he knew satisfaction was only eleven digits away.

Better than the worthless five digits you’ve been using. Call her.

He refused. He fought the urge. He fought the memory of her climaxing throatily into his ear, fought the way the sound meshed and merged with the real taste of her—a taste he now knew firsthand. He winced. Poor choice of words.

Nora didn’t want him. She’d made that clear when she’d brushed him off to go have her little play date with “James.” Jarod’s pride rankled to know that while she’d been with him, her pretty head had been filled with thoughts of someone else. He was jealous, he could admit it.

Except, yeah. He was James, and the gut-deep resentment that twisted in him was partly his own fault. Okay, more than partly, mostly. He’d given in to the sexual thrill of being with her in the silence and solitude of a phone connection. In person she stirred tenderness and romantic thoughts. On the phone his mind and body leaped straight to sex. Jarod got the slow simmer of brewing possibility. James got the raging boil of unbridled lust. He’d cooked his own damn goose.

Tonight had been fantastic. They’d flirted and talked, touched those sensual touches that bridged the gap between friends and more. He wanted more. He should’ve come clean with her tonight. Confession was good for the soul, right? Unless it blew up in your face, then it was bad. She would have either slapped him senseless and never seen him again, or she would have been writhing in his bed with the right name on her lips.

It was the former he was afraid of and the latter that tortured him. Nora had quickly become not just a disembodied voice on the phone, not even just a piece of ass he was after. What he was doing with her, the way he was confusing her, was wrong.

But it felt so very good.

He itched, no, he ached to call her. He couldn’t get it up—who knew if he could even sleep without the sweet wringing lethargy that set in after one of their amazing shared climaxes? She’d worried about him thinking she was some kind of a slut and he’d assured her he didn’t. Far from it. He thought of her as a goddess, a gift, a mystery he would love to spend hours unraveling, in and out of bed.

Though she had fallen asleep after their last session, the line had stayed live. The even cadence of her breathing through the tinny speaker of his phone lulled him to sleep. He’d wondered as his own exhaustion claimed him what it would be like to wake up next to Nora MacGregor. What was it like to hold her close and smell the spiced apple of her damp, sated skin? What would his name, his real name, sound like on her lips in the throes of orgasm?

Jarod scowled at the lotion mess smearing the floor and swiped his cell phone as he stormed into his bedroom. He didn’t turn on the light. He wanted the dark because that was James—dark and demanding and bold, not the play-it-safe nice guy who got left in the cold. After ripping back the comforter, he sprawled out and thumbed through the cell’s address book, hovering over Nora’s number.

He could call her and take her halfway. He could stay on the line just long enough to scratch his own itch and then hang up. He could call her and revel in the dishonest debauchery that satisfied his body but left his heart unfulfilled. He could tell her the truth and then beg to come to her place and spend a few consecutive days naked, making it up to her.

He could be told to go to hell, with directions and a map.

Groaning, Jarod sat up and lobbed his cell phone at the far end of the mattress, watching irritably as it bounced once, twice before landing on the floor at the foot of his bed. He flopped back and gritted his teeth. He was an intelligent thirty-nine-year-old man. How in the hell had he screwed this up so badly?

After a few rough scrubs of long fingers over tired eyes, he swung resignedly up out of bed and went back to the living room and the corpse of his lotion bottle. That mess was easier to clean up.

“Godda—”

This was a waste of time. She flung the obviously malfunctioning Bullet on the nightstand. It hit her phone and she dove to catch them both, nearly toppling off the bed. Her stomach plummeted as she read the screen. No new calls.

Nora’s head pounded and she ached, unsatisfied. She shoved the metallic egg under the pillow and stomped into the bathroom. She swallowed two Tylenol, snapping the bathtub faucet to high. Apple blossom steam filled the air as she tossed in a handful of bath salts with a frustrated flick. James hadn’t called. Her present was just a shiny lump that gave her useless, auto-reaction goose bumps and nothing else. It wasn’t the battery-aided vibrations she needed. It was his voice. Damn him.

She jerked off her clothes and sank in the too-hot water, hissing as her skin tingled. Relax, she needed to relax or she’d never get to sleep. Sliding back into the water, she used her foot to turn off the faucet. Damn James. He’d turned her into some sort of orgasm-crazed monster.

And damn Jarod Reed for being the man slowly replacing her faceless Romeo. The low ache returned with throbbing force at just the thought of Jarod pressing against her in the sharp chill of the night air, his green eyes on fire, his mouth sending hot desire charging through her. He’d wanted her tonight. She’d wanted him. He’d been tense with promise. She’d wanted to step back into his arms and take him up on his decadent offer.

“Find a dark street and fog up the car windows…”

It got her going instantly. Her nipples tightened and she pressed her knees together in the heated water of her bath. How was it that the sweetly seductive professor sparked the same reaction as James? James was her hardcore liberator, the man who made her feel as if sex and synapses were vastly disconnected, despite her theories. Jarod was, on the surface, a man she would compare schedules with to decide if they could steal a few sweet moments before her Advanced Chem class.

James was fantasy sex. Jarod was practical magic. She wanted both, but the choice wasn’t as simple as it should be. She was greedy after those frigid years for what James gave her—complete freedom to let go of her inhibitions and just be. What would gentle Jarod think of a woman who got off on the phone with a stranger, who had left him standing in a soft fall of snow to rush home and do it again? What would he think if he knew the raunchy, naughty thoughts she had about him while listening to another man?

Water lapped at the curve of her breast as she sank lower. She’d hurt him. She’d basically rejected his attention and wounded his masculine pride. Shame settled bitterly. She needed to apologize. But how? She didn’t even have Jarod’s number, that’s how new they were to one another. She couldn’t even call him and apologize—or explain.

Toeing open the stopper on the tub, Nora slid down and let the water drain around her. With each inch that flowed out, she felt her limbs grow heavier until she lay naked against the bare, chilly porcelain, tears stinging her already damp lashes.

Jarod’s phone woke him from a deep sleep, an exhausted sprawl he’d fallen into when he finally succumbed to frustrated fatigue. He jerked up from the pillow and fumbled toward the foot of the bed—the last-known whereabouts of his cell phone. He hung haphazardly off the edge of the mattress as he answered.

“Hello?”

Nothing but raspy breathing on the other end. Jarod pulled the phone away from his ear and squinted at the screen. Private number. Annoyance spiked.

“Look, is this some kind of joke?” His voice rasped, cracked and gruff. He cleared his throat. “This is not funny. I was asleep, you little shit.”

Jarod punched the disconnect. If he wanted to hear someone pant into the phone, he’d call Nora and put himself out of his misery. He buried his head under the comforter with a moan.

Cold shock descended like an ocean wave, crashing with a deafening roar. Her knees buckled and her back slid down the kitchen wall.

Jarod?

James?

Jarod was James?

She’d caved under guilt, called the head of Campus Security and told a fib. The older man had commiserated over a mix-up with computer files and supplied Jarod’s phone number. Nora had screwed up her courage and dialed as soon as the clock ticked to seven on the dot Sunday morning.

She’d expected a possible cold shoulder. She’d expected tense silence. She had not expected that gruff, husky, just-out-of-bed voice that flooded her panties with erotic warmth. Jarod was James? Oh God.

Numbed shock faded, replaced by blistering anger. Jarod was James, the lying son of a bitch. He knew. He’d known the whole time. He’d played her like a hot tip on a race pony. Did he laugh at her? Was he chuckling under his breath at the frigid little phone nympho he’d thawed with a few whispered eroticisms? Did he sit across from her over burgers and coffee, wondering what sexual twist he could titillate her with next?

A teardrop hit her thigh. She swiped a vicious hand across her wet cheeks. No, she was not going to cry over that asshole. He was cruel and petty and…God, it hurt. How could he do this to her? Was everything a lie? The notes, the sweet kisses, the conversations, were they lies? Her watery gaze fell to the lone rose in a cheap bud vase on her kitchen table. Was that a lie?

She needed to move, to do something. There was no way she could concentrate on her paper today. There was no way she could calmly and logically write about sex and the modern educated woman. What a joke. He’d made a fool of her and she’d allowed it.

Determination fueled her and she spent hours cleaning her tiny apartment from ceiling to floor, including weeding through her closet and drawers, a task she despised. Her brain bounced in her skull, tumbling from one emotion to the next. Lysol, bleach and Pine-Sol worked to leave her apartment sparkling, but Nora still felt tarnished.

Bits of conversations blurred in her mind, blending, weaving, mixing until her head pounded. Logic said walk away—no, run away—as fast as she could, with her tail tucked between her legs. Legs she’d spread for a seductive voice on the phone. Legs that trembled in anticipation as she wondered if Jarod was going to kiss her on the pathway. Legs that had deliberately brushed his last night beneath the table.

The rose mocked her. She snatched it from the vase and threw it in the trash. Hot tears leaked over her lashes and she succumbed, curling into a knot of humiliated shame. She should have known. There had been enough signs. Jarod taught English Literature, studied the Romantic Classics, of course he would know all about James Joyce’s letters. That right there should have been her first flaming clue upside the head. Of course she’d gotten turned on when he growled at that student. That was the same voice that dirty-talked her to orgasm at night. Why hadn’t she recognized it then?

The truth turned her tears bitter. She didn’t recognize the signs because she didn’t want to. She’d felt desired and pretty and wanted by two men. Two men who didn’t exist. The sweet-natured Jarod who had delighted her heart was a cruel liar. Spicy, wicked James was nothing but a figment of his twisted imagination. She’d been suckered. The linoleum under her cheek was scented with cool pine but she smelled only deceit.

Jarod-as-James was right all along. She was never broken. But she was now. At least her heart was.   

MONDAY 7:45 a.m. 

Will request extension and collect new interviews.

I hate this damn paper.

Called off sick from work.

I can’t face him.  

Jarod paced, the sharp morning air knifing through his jacket and stinging his eyes. Where is she? If he waited in the parking lot much longer, he was going to be late for his first Monday morning class. Nora hadn’t answered her phone yesterday. He’d called four different times before finally giving up around midnight. He’d left her a voicemail, as Jarod, but she hadn’t returned his call. She didn’t answer when he called at James’s allotted time either.

Damn his pinched ego. Why had he told her he was busy Sunday? He’d done nothing but sit around the house feeling sorry for himself.

Ankar Salih whipped his pretentious little sports car into his assigned slot and climbed from the vehicle with a bounce. He nodded politely toward Jarod then clicked his automatic lock. Jarod didn’t think twice before he sprung.

“Dr. Salih!” He sprinted across the gravel. “I’m looking for Nora MacGregor. What time does she usually come in?”

Small dark eyes squinted as a frown tugged his mouth. “Why?”

“We went to dinner Saturday and I couldn’t reach her yesterday. I thought I’d try to catch her before her first class.”

There was no policy forbidding faculty from dating but a strong wave of displeasure rippled from the science professor’s body. Salih’s upper lip thinned and Jarod had to concentrate to understand his thick accent. “Ms. MacGregor is ill and isn’t working for a few days.”

Jarod sighed. It was early for flu season but maybe she was one of the first. “I don’t suppose you have her address. Maybe I’ll take her some chicken soup.”

Dr. Salih shifted his briefcase, staring hard into Jarod’s face. “Professor Reed, she requested that I tell anyone who asked after her that she was ill.” Jarod started to speak, but the older man held up a hand. “I’ve been married for thirty-one years. I know when a woman is lying. I suggest you examine your relationship with Ms. MacGregor and see if perhaps you are the real reason for her absence. Excuse me, I have students waiting.”

The gusting wind didn’t carry half the chill of those snipped words. They sank into Jarod’s belly like pushpins, each one a bloodless sting. His eyes slid shut as Dr. Salih walked away.

Oh shit.

Nora knew. She figured out he was James and was so furious she couldn’t stand to be on the same campus as him.

No, wait, that wasn’t right. Nora had too much grit to curl into a ball and hide from the world. When he’d sent her the Bullet at her office, she’d scorched the airwaves with her anger. Her vehemence had nearly stabbed into his eardrum. If she knew he was James, she’d come after him in full blazing fury, those whiskey eyes snapping fire and that delicious mouth thinned into a tight line. She’d hand him his balls in a test tube. She didn’t know. So why was she hiding from him?

Jarod groaned, mortified, and his hand shot through his hair. The goodbye beside her car. The kiss that had nearly exploded. You fucking idiot. He knew she was the careful type, insisting on public lunches and keeping a restrained distance between them. Blinded by the simple flirtations over dinner, the brush of her leg against this knee, he’d let his desire for her almost overwhelm him. He’d felt her up in the parking lot. He’d moved too fast.

A few loud, hot curses vented into the frosty air as he mentally kicked himself. At the tantalizing flavor of Nora’s kiss, James had taken control of his body. Their fledgling relationship had been following pre-set societal norms—coffee, lunch, a sweet kiss, a few more light kisses, then dinner with a longer goodnight kiss. Then he’d screwed up by shoving his hand down her dress.

Jarod hurried across the quad to the Literary Arts Building. The remembered satin of her warm skin taunted him, mocked him. He had a sinking feeling he’d better hold tight to that memory, because it might be the closest he was ever going to get to her now. Unless he could grovel and apologize enough through cyberspace.

Jarod didn’t bother removing his jacket when he strode into the classroom. Students milled around, chatting and swapping weekend tales. Every word grated on his taut nerves. He barreled straight toward his desk.

“Quiet reading. ‘When We Two Parted’ by Byron, expository quiz in five minutes.”

“Professor, one of my fraternity brothers said you promised your Tuesday-Thursday class an A on the next pop quiz. Any chance you’ll share that wealth with us?” The frat guy with a cowlick smirked at his buddy.

Jarod’s hands fisted on his desk calendar. He was in no mood to play grading games. “Nope. Get reading.”

A collective sigh whooshed out beneath the sound of opening books. Jarod jerked his chair out, yanked his laptop from his bag and powered up. He wanted to call Nora, but he couldn’t do it during class. He’d e-mail her instead.

He wracked his brain for a bit of literary magic to make his apology work. Men had been courting for centuries and royally messing things up for just as long. His hands trembled on the keyboard. 

Nora, let me use better words than my own. Lord Byron said in his poem “When We Two Parted”: “In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget.” Please forgive me. I shouldn’t have come on so strong Saturday night. I never meant to scare you or push you in any way. I could say that I’d had too much wine, but that would be a lie. You captivated me at dinner and I forgot myself. It will never happen again, I promise you. Please, can we talk? Call me any time, day or night, (917) 555-6975.

I’m sorry. I wish the English language allowed me to express that more.

~Jarod 

After calling Salih at the ungodly hour of six o’clock in the morning and faking a stomach flu, Nora hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. She’d planned on burying herself in her dissertation for a few days. She could find some way to work without those interviews. She would have to request an extension, claiming lost research files, and could only hope and pray the committee would understand. If not, she’d have to figure something out.

One hundred and forty-three games of Spider Solitaire later, the new e-mail window popping up in her browser made her stomach roll. Firming her lip, Nora clicked the e-mail. The subject line almost made her open the message. “Forgive me.”

Not likely. She jabbed the delete button, sending the message to the trash folder without reading it. Jarod and James could both go take a flying leap off the nearest bridge overpass. Curiosity nibbled at her and she wondered what, exactly, he was apologizing for but she refused to give in to any more of his lies.

Still, she caught herself remembering the gentle caress of his thumb on her hand over coffee, the wind tossing his chocolate brown hair every which way, the rolling sound of his laugh. Nora slammed the laptop closed mid-game. She had to snap out of this funk. She shouldn’t be thinking nice romantic thoughts about a man who deceived her. Running a hand through not-yet-brushed hair, she decided she needed fresh air.

Maybe she would buy a self-indulgent dinner for one, pamper herself a bit. She deserved it. And if a pint or two of ice cream just happened to jump into her grocery cart, then so be it. A quick trip to the grocery store would get her moving and then she’d buckle down and get working. Once she had her doctorate, she could look for a position elsewhere.

Right now she would take any job, as long as it was far away from a certain silvered-tongued English professor.

Not even the liquor could wash the taste of self-loathing out of Jarod’s mouth. He drained the last sip of Irish whiskey and stared at his empty inbox. Nora hadn’t replied. His phone never rang and she hadn’t answered when “James” called her either. He’d spent the majority of his Tuesday Intro to Lit class staring out the window, waiting for her to traipse across the quad. Even knowing she wasn’t on campus couldn’t rip his watchful eyes from the barren pathway, hoping against hope that enough longing could conjure her from frigid air.

After the students filed out, Jarod had tried again, pulling borrowed words from literature to plead in an e-mail. She ignored that one as well. He’d rushed home to fire up his computer, only to find his inbox as empty as his apartment. His head hit the back of the couch. God, he’d really fucked up this time. He turned off the computer and the lights and got ready for bed, ignoring a stack of ungraded essays.

He’d thought his biggest challenge was going to be confessing that he was her cell-phone lover. Instead, he’d never even get that chance because he’d quit using his brain and allowed his dick to think for him. Why had he touched her like that, knowing how cautious she was? How could he have thrown away a chance with the most interesting woman he’d met in years over a momentary sexual impulse?

Because she felt so right in my arms after everything we’d talked about together. Punching his pillow, he stared at the blurry glow of his alarm clock. Sex wasn’t the only thing he wanted with Nora. Maybe it was what he thought he wanted at first, but that was before he knew that her laugh was like church bells in the winter air or that she took three creamers in every cup of coffee. He could see the fire in her eyes over the steaming rim of that cup. The memory made his chest tighten with a deep, unreachable ache.

He wanted everything, all those courtship rituals that had spurred men throughout history to pursue one woman above any others. He wanted the heart-pounding ache of waiting for her to walk through a door, for every flirtatious smile, for every tiny, thrilling step toward more. He wanted more with Nora.

Sleep was elusive and he was dressed before the sun broke over the frost-gilded mountains. He ate out of habit, not tasting the muffin but Nora’s kisses. He drove through gray morning light but saw only the blush on her cheeks. He automatically stopped for a newspaper and coffee, but his mind never left the dark-haired Helen of his personal Troy.

Jarod paused as he handed the cashier a five-dollar bill to pay for his purchases. His gaze landed on a magazine cover. Some actress in a too-tight gown at some Hollywood party clutched a bouquet of cream roses, the tips tinged in dark blood red. Roses like the one he’d given Nora. The picture stayed with him as he drove onto campus. He pulled into the parking lot, peeled through a U-turn and headed back out into traffic.

Jarod still made it back before Ankar Salih’s little red sports car sped into its designated spot. Dr. Salih grimaced when he saw Jarod waiting, but Jarod was ready for him.

“Look, I’m not a love-struck frat boy so don’t treat me like one. I made a mistake. You can’t tell me that in thirty-one years, you’ve never been in the doghouse.”

Salih stared for a beat, then snorted. “A time or two.”

“I know it’s none of your business, but I’m asking for your help.”   

WEDNESDAY 4:41 p.m. 

Extension denied—Scrambling to recover.

Will check with a Women’s Studies group in Concord,

they may be willing to be interviewed.

Revenge idea: send Jarod a litter of kittens.  

Nora caved and retrieved Jarod’s e-mails from her trash file. She blamed it on her skyrocketing blood sugar from the mostly frozen diet she’d existed on since Monday. The first e-mail nearly made her laugh in brittle irony.

He thought she was angry because he’d touched her breast? After all the dirty things they’d talked about, the whimpering orgasms he’d coaxed her to with only his voice, he thought a little boob feel had ticked her off? How obtuse could one man get?

A chink was gouged out of her indignation as she read. There was a lyrical hint of chivalry in his words. This was the Jarod she missed—the debonair gentleman with the old-world manners. Swallowing the rush of tenderness that brought a blur to her eyes, she clicked the next message—the one with “Please, Nora” as a subject.  

Nora, I can’t blame you for ignoring me. I had hoped we were beginning something that might grow, and I am so sorry I messed that up. My behavior was brash and forward, too much for so new a relationship. It’s impossible for you to be any angrier at me than I am at myself.

I miss our time together and pray you’ll give me another chance. I can’t make it right but I can try to make it up to you. Please answer this or call me. Even if it’s just to tell me to go to hell, let me talk to you. If not, in the words of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, “…you will leave me with nothing—neither the laurel nor the rose.”

Hopeful, Jarod  

She slammed the netbook onto the cushion. Hopeful? Well, he wasted his breath there. No way in hell was she going to respond to those, those…

Incredibly sweet notes of apology and concern.

Beside her on the futon her phone rang but she didn’t even bother to check the number. Dr. Salih had left a string of terse voicemails she was ignoring quite well. She had stopped jumping each time the phone shrilled after these long days of silence. She didn’t care. She liked the quiet. Sequestered in her apartment, surrounded by the detritus of much moping—empty ice cream pints, Fresca cans and a stack of chick-flick DVDs, Nora was dangerously close to permanent hermitdom. Maybe nutty Aunt Margie needed a roommate.

Nora glared at her computer. There was a desperation in Jarod’s e-mails that tore at her. She wanted to go to him, but it wouldn’t be logical. Her eyes trailed to the stack of movies. Cosmic misunderstandings always led to the perfect kiss just before the end credits. Too bad real life wasn’t like that. Woman scorned, in the thinking woman’s brain, always equaled no second chances. So why did she want to run back to Jarod and slap him silly, just before she kissed him senseless?

Her doorbell rang and the chime startled her. She scrambled, her heart racing. Jarod couldn’t have found out where she lived, could he? There was no way she could face him. No way she could look into those hypnotic green eyes and cling tight to her fury. No way she could watch that incredible, delicious mouth spill out some weak apology and not crave to lick the words from his lips.

When she jerked the lock and then the knob, the door opened not to Jarod’s sheepish face but the sour expression of Professor Salih. Nora froze. Her frayed flannel pj bottoms and worn tank top weren’t exactly proper conversation-with-the-boss clothes.

“P-professor.”

Salih looked at her down the bridge of his nose. The man never seemed to smile. “Ms. MacGregor. I apologize for my unannounced visit, but you haven’t returned my phone calls.”

Nora crossed her arms. “I’m sorry. I needed to take a few days for personal reasons. I promise I’ll catch up on work as soon as—”

“Yes, it’s your personal problems I’m most concerned with.”

“Profes—”

“Your biggest personal problem has been haunting the faculty parking lot like a whipped dog for days.” Nora’s reply was lost in shocked silence. A slow weakness stole into her. Salih’s eyes softened. “I feel like a fool for humoring the man, but he does grow on a person.”

“Like mold?” Nora forced ice into her tone.

Salih untucked something from inside his coat. “Certain molds have great use, become medicines that save lives. Anyway, I agreed to play go-between this once. I’m to leave you with this and tell you ‘All my laurels you have riven away, and my roses.’”

The ice cracked and a sigh escaped on an uneven breath. “Cyrano.” Nora held out trembling fingers to touch the perfect white rose tipped in scarlet that Salih held.

“I suggest you resolve this situation with Dr. Reed and get yourself back to my lab as soon as possible.”

Nora nodded dumbly. She raised the flower to her nose, breathing deep. The slender stem was wet and cool, tiny notches marking the green stalk. No thorns. No risk of accidentally drawing blood, of inflicting pain. She blinked away hot tears to see Salih’s back striding toward his car. She closed the door with a soft click.

Jarod’s e-mail shone from the computer screen and she sank into the couch, rereading his words with the fragrant bloom held to her nose. Something niggled at her brain and she did an Internet search for “de Bergerac” for the quote about the rose. She found the line in Act Five but a few lines away, something else caught her eye.

“How obvious it is now—the gift you gave him. All those letters, they were you…All those beautiful powerful words, they were you! The voice from the shadows, that was you…”

Realization parted her lips, and the flower fell to her lap.

“I don’t think you’re broken.”

“You have all the control here. Hang up and I’m a memory.”

“I’m the ultimate safe lover. I can’t touch you except with my voice.”

“Do you want me to hang up, Nora? I will. I don’t want to make you feel anything but good.”

Jarod had given her a choice. A choice she’d made based on her hormones rather than her common sense. Yes, he’d lied technically, by omission, but he wasn’t solely at fault. Jarod had prodded her to think beyond the biology and into the intangible of passion. Jarod might have more polish when not in James-mode but his intelligence hadn’t dimmed, his word choices hadn’t varied, his style remained the same. Jarod called her “sweetheart,” touched her, held her in broad daylight. Jarod kissed her with raw need.

Her anger fled as her more scientific mind kicked into gear. Why would an educated man take such a daring risk when she’d openly shown she was willing to go out with him? There was that whole pepper-spray thing and she had been less than trusting at first. Had that weighed into his decision? Why hadn’t he simply told her when they had dinner? Sure, she might have reacted in anger first. That was human nature.

“Most of the Romantic Era classics aren’t just stories. They’re studies of human nature.”

“You can’t explain away passion like that with DNA sequences, sweetheart.”

“Passion and love aren’t an equation. They simply are.”

“Lust is temporary, easily satisfied and forgotten. Passion consumes you.”

Nora buried her face in her hands with an ironic wail. Jarod had become the anti-hero of her dissertation. He said her theories were flawed and damned if he wasn’t right. Sex was sex, a strictly biological function of reproduction unless you added the mysterious, invisible element of passion. Of love.

Did she love Jarod? No. Not yet, anyway. But the seeds were there if she could let them grow. She picked up the rose, twirling it between her fingers. Jarod was like the creamy petals and James was the fiery edges. Together, they were perfect.

Jarod was James and both men struck a fundamental chord in her. He’d seen it even when she couldn’t, coaxed her to respond and to enjoy. On some level, maybe she had known they were the same man. Maybe her subconscious was smarter than she knew.

She slid the rose under her nose, the deeply vibrant scent warming her blood. She lifted the computer off the couch and fingered her lip. Her subconscious was also a little wicked. She took a minute to consider backing down. Nope, Jarod deserved to suffer from a little bit of subterfuge. Her nails clicked on the keyboard. 

Jarod,

I received your rose and your messages. They were beautiful. Thank you.

I should be the one apologizing, not you. Please forgive me. I’ve had a lot happen in my personal life in the past few days and I needed a little while to sort out some things, get my head on straight. One thing I’ve realized is that I like where we we’re heading and I don’t want endanger that.

I think I hurt your feelings. For that, I’m very sorry. You were absolutely correct. Saturday night I should have skipped my research phone call. You deserved that much. I’ve found that my friend no longer lives up to the standards I need. If he calls again, I’ll tell him that. I’d like to make it up to you, if you’re still interested. Meet me before class? I’ll be in the Sciences Building by eight.

I miss our lunches.

Nora smirked. She felt sure “James” would call tonight to say goodbye. He had a surprise coming. Payback was a bitch.

The phone rang at eleven sharp. Nora took another sip of her wine, picked up the phone and flipped it open.

“Hello, James.”

The other end was silent for a brief second, and Nora waited, resolve making her staunch, the silence shoring up her determination. She waited.

“I’ve missed you.” His voice was just as husky, just as seductive, and it planted the same rapid-fire reactions in her head, her stomach, in between her legs.

“Have you?” she asked lightly. “I’ve been busy with a lot of things.”

“Oh? Like what?”

Nora smiled slowly, knew the slyness would edge into her own voice. “You ask what and not whom?”

“As much as I applaud your correct use of the word whom, I have no concern about whom you might have been with. I am disappointed that you didn’t miss me. Have you been coming before bed all alone?”

“Not exactly all alone.”

He nearly purred into the phone. “Your Bullet?”

“Oh, no. A fantasy.”

“Another? Tell me.”

“Well, I did have a date last weekend.” Nora let the static lapse for several seconds. “Another member of the campus staff. He teaches English Lit. You two would get along well.”

“If he wants you, I doubt that.” James’s—Jarod’s voice heated, and not with passion. The jealousy in that rasp sounded like warm cherry brandy, decadent and biting.

Nora grinned wickedly, delighting in torturing the man at the other end—those expressive eyes, that slashing mouth. She stretched out on her bed, curling her toes. “I cut the date short. I made an excuse, told him I had to come home and take a call from a research partner, but God, James, if I hadn’t left at that minute, I’d have fucked him in the parking lot.”

“What?” His astonishment charged through her. She had him now.

“You’re right, James. I’m not broken. He kissed me and everything in me caught on fire. He touched me and I got so, so wet.”

“Nora.” His exasperation bled in a tortured moan. “What in the hell makes you think I want to hear thi—”

Nora let loose the softest, lowest, most tremulous moan she could. “I’m wet just thinking about him. I came home and had the best fantasy. I’ve had it for days now. It keeps getting better, hotter.”

“I don’t want to hear about another man, Nora.” His objection sounded weak.

“It starts out in a classroom. I’m finishing up a late project. He’s at his desk grading papers.” His moan, a deeper twin of her earlier exhalation, burst through the earpiece and pushed her on. “He has these broad shoulders, but he’s lean. Strong. He could haul me up and have me on his desk easily. He has fantastically sexy hands. I still feel them on my skin. I want them on me—in all the ways we’ve talked about.”

“Nora.”

Nora suddenly understood the high Jarod had gotten from his alter ego, understood the power and the drugging perfection of it. There was a strange, electric intimacy in deceiving Jarod, in making him a voyeur in his own head.

“He comes around me, behind me. I know he’s going to touch me, but he’s making me wait.”

“Why?” The word was a victory; it gave Nora the advantage, told her Jarod ached to hear every dirty detail about how she wanted him.

“Because it turns me on, knowing he wants me, knowing he’s going to take me, any minute, any second. His breath is warm on my neck, my ears. He starts to unbutton my shirt. I let him. I sit in the empty classroom with the dusk light spilling through the blinds and I let him push my bra straps off my shoulders. I let him put those gorgeous hands on me again.”

Jarod’s only response was a low hiss.

“My nipples are already hard, even before he touches them. I tip my head back and just as he pinches down on my nipple, hard, he leans over and takes my mouth.”

Low curses and the soft, damp rhythm of flesh on flesh came through in place of words. Nora shimmied out of her own panties and leaned back again.

“His tongue is in my mouth and I suck it. He kissed me. God, how he kissed me! I know what his mouth tastes like. I want more. I need more.”

“What do you want? What do you need, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“I want to know what he tastes like everywhere, James. His fingers, his earlobes, that spot just under his jaw where he missed shaving.” She had him. His frayed breath scorched her ear. Slipping two slow fingers inside her own slick heat, Nora let her eyes drift closed. “I want to suck his cock. I want to bite his thigh when he comes.”

“Holy shit,” he breathed, “who are you and what have you done with my Nora?”

“My fantasies don’t belong to you, James.”

“I started all of this.”

“But only he can finish it. He can get me out of that chair and lead me to his desk. He can push me onto my back, climb up over me and he can…”

“You want to be fucked with so little preliminary? So little foreplay?”

“I don’t need foreplay. He makes me burn.”

Arrogance darkened his growl. “I make you burn.”

“Don’t you want to know how slowly he slides his cock into me, how I stay so still? I’m afraid that after so long without sex he’ll hurt me. But he doesn’t. It’s a slow stretch, a feeling of being full to bursting, but…”

“But you still want more. Sweet hell.”

She could hear the friction increase as he worked himself faster. “You’re turned on right now, aren’t you, James?”

“Nora.” His snarl was a warning. Her fingers drummed on her clit, keeping time with his strokes. She panted, near frenzy as she pictured him, no longer faceless, seconds away from coming for her. A tease tumbled from her lips on a giggle.

“It’s okay, James, you’re a normal, healthy, functioning male. You’re supposed to respond like this when a woman talks dirty.”

“Screw supposed to, sweetheart, tell me about being on your back, full of my cock. Keep. Going.” The command held so much of the rasp of James and so much of the familiar lilt of Jarod that Nora jackknifed to the edge of an orgasm, hovering.

“Jarod…” She let his name roll from her tongue, gave it all of the sweetness and all of the sting built up inside of her. She wasn’t broken. She had power and it was a heady, addictive feeling. She said it again, wielding that power. “Jarod, make me come.”

His breathing was jagged and irregular, a steam train, full force ahead. “You want my cock inside you sweetheart? Take it all.”

“He doesn’t hold back. We’ve played too many games already for that. He’s hard and fast and I’m carried away. All I can feel is Jarod’s body pressed into me, all I can taste is the salt of his skin, all I can hear is…”

“Mine. You can feel my body pressed over yours, you can feel my cock slamming into you.”

She shuddered, climbed, twisted the sheet under her in a skyrocketing frenzy. “Jarod, don’t stop.” James’s voice. Jarod’s face. It had been right all along.

“I won’t. Your legs are open wide for me. I wanted to be sweet. I wanted to be slow for you but you’re too much. Too tight. Too hot. Too wet. I can hear your body sucking me in, letting me go.”

“Mmm, gonna…”

“Yes. Yes.”

He went primal, monosyllables and gasps for air and a long, shuddering roar that hauled Nora hard into a spiral of pleasure so profound she could only throw back her head and ride it out, clinging to the safest thing she knew in the vast and volatile space. The right name.

“Jarod, oh, Jarod.”

As she crashed back down, she knew only a sense of sharp, primitive satisfaction at the still-choppy breaths that burst from the phone.

After a minute he spoke. “Nora.”

Her heart twisted at the soft vulnerability that edged out James’s rough influence. Was this what she had sounded like to him afterward—afraid? Timid? Exposed?

“That was my fantasy. Too bad real life never lives up, right?”

“What if it could? Would you want it, Nora?”

Her eyes slid closed and she gathered the tattered edges of her plan. “Yes, Jarod. I want it. You know my fantasies and I know your name. What are you going to do about it?”

She pulled the phone from her ear and disconnected.   

THURSDAY 

All vitals normal

I don’t care to record more

He never called back  

He was avoiding her. Nora pulled the last of the student lab coats from the bin and shoved them into the laundry hamper. Thursday morning she’d awoken to an e-mail. No, an e-note. That short thing didn’t qualify as an e-mail. 

Nora, be in touch soon ~J 

J? James or Jarod, which one was avoiding her? Did “be in touch” mean he’d call, e-mail, see her in person, send smoke signals, do interpretive dance, what? She had no answers and a million questions. They all boiled down to one thought. Were they over before they’d begun?

She’d tossed the ball into his court and he didn’t seem as if he wanted to play. All her bluster blew away like the snow-peppered wind tugging at her hair. Arctic air stung her cheeks as she lugged the basket across the quad. Her eyes darted to Jarod’s classroom. He normally taught Intro to Lit at this time but the shades were pulled and no light shone in the dark window. He’d been a no-show this morning and for lunch, too. She’d nursed that pathetically cold cup of coffee for nearly an hour before leaving the café. The waitress had only brought two creamers. An undergrad had delivered a thick sealed manila envelope with her name just after lunch. Jarod had returned her cassette tape, her damaged book and included a new copy, but there was no note.

The cassette tape that held her priceless interviews was a piece of cold, hard plastic that filled her with no satisfaction. She’d be able to finish her dissertation on time but she’d lost something far more valuable. She’d lost a chance. Fine, he’d made his choice. She should count herself lucky and move on. The prickly eyes that blurred the Commons Building steps weren’t from the ache in her chest. They were from the biting snow and cold wind. Her hands shook and her throat was tight—all from the weather. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

Her footsteps echoed down the empty basement stairwell, ringing off the hallway tile like muffled gunshots. Wash the double load of freaking lab coats that no one else is apparently capable of washing. Then go crawl into bed and have a good cry fest. Then she could move on. She’d just avoid the Literary Arts Building for the next hundred years or so. Piece of cake.

She fumbled with her keys, pushed the laundry room door open with her hip and flipped the light switch on. Someone had swept, which was great. They’d emptied the trash and pulled the blind, preparing for the winter break. She dumped the lab coats in, starting the machines with barely a thought. Same old routine.

The vaguely damp smell of detergent and fabric softener blew through the air ducts with a noisy rattle. No one used this old room anymore, which was why Nora liked it. It only had two dented washers and dryers and the students didn’t have keys, so she was normally alone to do her grunt work. She used the time to do her research, read or grade papers. Today she sat with her head in her hands and pretended her heart wasn’t breaking.

The lights flicked off with a loud snap. Nora bolted upright on the chair. A silhouette in the doorway hammered her heart. “Hey! I’m sitting right here, asshole!”

The silhouette stepped into the laundry room and closed the door. In the darkness, the flip of the lock thunked with ominous tones. Nora grabbed for her knapsack on the metal table. A buttered toffee voice reached through the gloom.

“It’s all right. Relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m just a voice in the dark, remember? You have all the control here.”

A galloping pulse beat under the knot in her throat. She forced it down. “Jarod?”

“Shh.” A scuff of denim brushing denim grew closer. The brisk scent of late autumn spice wrapped around her. Shaking knees pushed her to a stand and she reached for him. “No. Put your hands down. You told me your fantasy. I need to know if real life lives up to your expectations.”

“I didn’t expect to see you again. I thought…”

“What? That I would be able to stay away after you said you wanted to bite my thigh when I came?” The dark figure moved closer, the molten cream of his words seducing her in darkness. He stepped behind her and an erotic chill raced down her spine. Warm, moist breath feathered the hair at her nape. “No man would be able to resist that line, resist you.”

The dark was unsettling, but it threw her right into the fantasy James had pressed her to finish—the voice in the dark. Nora sucked back a short, sharp laugh. She felt for the table in front of her, marveling at how he could see his way in the near-pitch black. Softer than a whisper, his fingertips skimmed up her arm, across her shoulder and up her neck. A shiver bloomed in her bones. “Jarod?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” His laugh rumbled, low and throaty. The slow warmth of his hand cupping her throat closed her eyes and she sighed at the endearment. This was too surreal.

“What are you doing?”

He nuzzled her hair from behind, pressing tightly to her back. A firm ridge nestled into her ass and her breath froze in her lungs. He was already hard. Blood sped through her body, zinging with nervous anticipation, pooling to a hot ache deep in her pussy.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No!”

“Good. It’s not a classroom but I can improvise.” The sultry promise slithered across her skin in tendrils of want. His hands slid down her shoulders, over her breasts, past her ribs. “No blouse buttons so—” the hem of her sweater inched up, “—I’m improvising.”

“Jarod,” she said, gaining momentary sanity, “the door…”

“Locked.”

“Anyone with a key co—”

“Shh. Some ingenious person put an Out of Order sign on the door—” a liquid velvet tongue glided across her nape, “—the lights are off—” he pushed the sweater higher, over her bra, “—and if anyone does come down here, they’re just going to hear you screaming my name while I fuck you.”

Instant, blinding lust surged through her. Soft wool covered her face and she lifted her arms, helping him undress her. The rhythmic swish of the washers echoed her churning need when his hands covered her breasts. He pinched the tips through her bra. Instinctively her hips arched back, pressing against his strained zipper. A low humming moan brushed her skin, and his lips fell to the curve of her neck. “I’m going to make you feel so good, sweetheart.”

This was her fantasy and Nora took an active role, turning and reaching for him. Her fingers found the crisp cotton of his dress shirt and slid up—up over his throat, over his chin, to his lips. He bit at her fingertips, sucked two into his mouth. He dropped his hands to her hips and hauled her against him. Nora gasped at the hard cock barely restrained by his jeans.

“Jaro—”

He pressed two fingers over her lips. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. She could see the faint outline of his face, the aquiline nose, the wedge of his jaw. The weak light filtering in shadowed the small dip above his upper lip.

The glow in those wickedly verdant eyes was like a beacon, even in the dimness. She opened her mouth and drew his fingertips in, rolled her tongue over the pads before closing her lips together in a long, deep draw. He hissed into the softly droning humidity of the laundry room. She pulled back and let his fingers loose with a wet pop.

“In the dark, there’s a voice.” Nora dragged Jarod’s damp fingers down her neck, tipping her chin back and closing her eyes, giving life to her fantasy. “And the voice says, ‘Nora, tell me what makes you feel good.’”

He was silent, but his hips still brushed hers, his erection still grazed her belly. She could feel the rapid rise and fall of the plane of his stomach under the starched fabric of his shirt. She heard his thick swallow, thrilled as he started making slow, soft circles with his thumb at her raging pulse point. “You make me feel good, Jarod.”

“I’ve just started, sweetheart,” he growled. “Tell me what you want.”

She wanted to crawl under his skin. She wanted to claw at his back. She wanted him inside of her three seconds ago. She wanted him. His lips parted hers, the strong flavor of mint and male stealing every thought. He kissed her more desperately than he had by her car. Even though the mouth on hers was the same, the depth of the man was different—James, her faceless lover, her sexual Spartacus, was in reality Jarod, the man who’d courted her like a fair maiden in some long-lost chivalric tale. One claimed her body, the other her heart. Both were him.

Warm palms slid up her back, unhooked her bra and tossed the scrap of lace away. His thumbs glided across her taut nipples. It wasn’t enough. She wanted skin on skin. She reached for him, blind with need and sightless in the dark. Trembling fingers opened the buttons on his shirt.

“You, too. Off.”

Nora stabbed her tongue into his mouth, sank her hands into his hair, rubbed her breasts across his chest. Sparse, crisp hairs rasped on her hardened nipples and she sucked in a sharp breath. His hands roamed her waist, cupped her ass, lifted her against the hard ridge of his erection. His groan started an answering flame low in her stomach. She buried her face in his neck, reveling in the heady newness of physical lust, safe in the familiar scent of Jarod.

His voice flowed over her in a rich, succulent whisper. “Every phone conversation we had, every time you came, I wanted to be there.” He fisted her red plaid skirt, dragging it over her thighs until the moist air licked at moister flesh. “I wanted to suck your fingers clean and make your next orgasm one that I had given you with my own hands. I want to taste you everywhere, Nora.”

Nora had never felt so hungry, so desperate. She wanted to drive him as crazy as he had driven her, time and time again. No other lover had made her this rabid, made her want to devour him in every way possible. She tore at whatever she could reach, ripping open his jeans, yanking at the soft boxer briefs. Thick, hard cock filled her hand and he thrust into her palm. She dropped to the tile and opened her mouth.

Silken skin stretched tight over rigid flesh and she swirled her tongue across the broad head. The thick length grew as she stroked and sucked, taking him as deep as she could. Harsh, gasping breaths raged above her and his hands fisted in her hair. A strangled cry split the air. “Nora, sweetheart, oh damn.”

Power washed over her, mimicked the rustling machines with the steamy intensity. All the teases through the phone lines crashed into this moment. She used her lips, her tongue, her hands to give back to him what he had given her—pleasure she’d never imagined. The pulse in his cock entranced her and she ran a stiffened tongue along the jerking beat. His thighs tensed and a tortured groan vibrated off the concrete block walls.

She cupped his balls and his grip tightened her hair, stopping her. A strangled laugh burst from him. “Whoa. That bite-my-thigh-while-I-come thing, I want a rain check on that. Right now I want something else.”

She practically crawled up him, linked her arms around his neck. Their mouths met with a wet, hot, near-violent fervor. He hauled her to the folding table. One brush of his hand sent her backpack crashing to the floor. The metal was cool and hard under her ass, but Nora was boiling, consumed with the need to possess him and be possessed by him.

Jarod caught a bare nipple between his teeth, tugging gently before sucking it to a hard, stinging point. Desire coiled deep inside her. Her head fell back with a sob. The slow trek of his hands up her thighs surged an electric current straight to her clit. With a finger hooked on each side of her panties, Jarod tugged the damp fabric down her legs. Hot frayed breath misted over her tingling breasts.

“Every time I talked dirty to you, every time you came for me, I wondered what you tasted like. Spread your legs for me, sweetheart. Let me taste you.”

Authority and lust poured from him. The command parted her thighs. He ringed her ankles in his strong, slender fingers and pushed until her heels rested on the table.

She’d bought her knee-high black boots on a whim, after one of James’s phone calls. They had made her feel just like he had then, just like he was making her feel now—sexy, powerful. Nora’s eyes closed and she let him spread her knees wider, shove her skirt to her belly. “I love these boots, this skirt, just like a naughty schoolgirl uniform.”

“Have a schoolgirl fantasy, do you?”

“Later, another time, oh the games we will play, sweetheart.”

The promise drove her nearer to madness. A quake started in her belly, a furious need to submit to his instruction. His touch parted the slick folds of her pussy. Those long maestro fingers danced over her clit, like playing a piano. Her body vibrated to his tune. He delved deep inside her and sighed, “So soft, so wet for me.”

He feathered his mouth down the slope of her thigh, inching closer to her drenched center. A whimper pealed from her lips. “Wait, I wasn’t kidding. No one has ev—”

He licked her once, his tongue flat and soft. Back arched, Nora gasped. His rough velvet tongue traced each inch of her pussy, fueling the ache deep inside. Her hands shot into his hair as he stroked one broad lick all the way up to the hard nub of her clit. He skimmed with his even white teeth over the hard knot. She jerked. He did it again. And again until her hips bucked. The sweet seal of his mouth kissed, suckled and nipped. The simmering hunger snarling in her blood crouched, poised to leap over that peak. He pulled away.

The wolfish grin shone bright even in the dimness and his sin-rich chuckle spiraled through her. “Not yet.”

An indignant cry died on her lips as he crawled onto the table, braced over her. Denim slid down his hips as he reached in his back pocket. The tip of his cock trailed along her thigh. Greedily she reached, needing him inside, wanting him to fill her emptiness. Foil crinkled and the warm air split with a sharp tear. He wasn’t an idle man, her professor, because as he rolled the condom on, he leaned down and sucked her stiff nipple with a voracious force.

“Now,” she panted.

Jarod stopped. One hand wrapped around his cock, the other bracing himself over her, he looked straight into her eyes. “Tell me what you want.”

“You.” Nora ran her hands under his opened shirt, around his waist, pulling, urging him closer. His heart pounded under his ribs. He brushed her mouth with a whisper-soft kiss.

“Who am I, Nora? Tell me who I am.”

She knew who he was, but he needed to hear her say it. The surprising vulnerability wedged a sweet softness into her heart. Nibbling on his lip, she smiled into his kiss.

“Jarod, my Jarod, my naughty professor.”

A sigh of relief carried his mouth to hers. A hard, bruising kiss warmed her tongue. He leaned to the left and grabbed the edge of the window shade. The ancient stained vinyl clattered to the ground and yellowy light from the quad sliced across them. Patterns of golden glow caressed his mussed hair, his pale eyes, the leanly muscled torso levered between her legs. The sculpted lines of his cheeks rose with his grin.

“No more hiding. I want to see you. I want you to look at me when I fuck you, as I make you mine.”

Nora wanted to be his. Wicked carnal need wrapped her legs around his thighs. The rounded head of his cock nudged her. She held her breath.

“Slow, right?” he reassured her.

She arched her back as he pressed inside, thick, hard and stretching. Bit by bit, slow and sensual, the entry forced a groan deep in her throat. “Mmm, yes, so good, so full.”

“Want more?” he growled, his face stark with pleasure.

“All of you.”

“Yes!” A hiss sped from his lips and he thrust deep.

Her hips vaulted to his, her fingers digging into his skin. She never wanted to let him go. His eyes slid closed. God, he felt good. Nothing had ever felt better. Until the second stroke.

His voice came, the phantom edge that now had a hot, hard body attached to it. “‘My true love for you,’” he rasped.

The third stroke bordered on sheer heaven. “‘The love of my verses…’”

The fourth was perfection. “‘The love of my eyes for your strange luring eyes…’” He moved again. “‘…comes blowing over my soul like a wind of spices.’ Oh, Nora.”

Their hips slammed together, hands laced with one another’s, eyes locked. They rocked and delved and battled toward a shared goal, a precipice he pushed her up. Clamping down on his driving shaft, she invited him to fall over with her.

Mouths and hands and whispered endearments were the only things left between them. Nora lost track of the words, the kisses—nothing existed but Jarod moving deep inside her. She thanked God there was nothing flammable nearby. He picked up speed, and she wrapped her arms around him, her hips rolling with some primitive answer, some message she needed to convey with her body.

He leaned back, drove deeper and harder, rode higher against her. She looked into his eyes. He made her feel invincible, beautiful and more powerful than any biological equation could explain. Passion defied explanation. Jarod was her passion.

At the edge, the honed-fine razor’s edge, every nerve twanged with need. She raked her nails across his skin, sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, mewling in want.

“Tell me.” His voice shot through her.

“Talk to me.” Her tongue slicked across his. “Talk dirty to me.”

His primal thrust snapped her head back, and her lips parted in bliss. Each forceful plunge ricocheted up her spine.

“Your pussy feels so good, better than I ever dreamed. So hot, so tight for me. I can feel every sweet inch squeezing me. I want to make love to you slow and sweet, but now I need this. I need to fuck you hard. Take it, sweetheart, take me. Come for me. Come on my cock. Say my name.”

It started as a glimmer, a spark. Her clit drew tight, painfully rigid, and then something inside of her let go. A quake gripped her and she convulsed with white-hot release. Her nails bit into the smooth, rounded flesh of his ass. Her ears rang and her vision pinpointed until the only thing she could see was the fiery green of his wide eyes. His name was a scream ripped from her throat as she tightened around him.

A throbbing swell jerked inside her and he drove deep, drawing out her climax, letting her take him over the edge. He gave her the last of his fleeting control.

Jarod’s mouth fell open with a moan. “Fuck, Nora, yes!”

Oblivion cascaded. Her bones melted, the muscles around them settling to the hard table. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on his brow and he dropped a light kiss on her mouth, struggling for air. He didn’t resist when she pulled him down, but he kept his weight on his elbows. He buried his face in the curve of her neck. She stroked his hair, his nape, down his back. Contentment hummed in the hushed afterglow, the thudding of the washing machines slowing to a stop.

“I’m sorry, Nora.”

Her hand stilled. “Please don’t tell me you thought that was substandard.”

He jerked his head up, an irked twist to his full mouth. “That was so far above standard that you blew the grading curve for anyone else. I meant I’m sorry I misled you. I should have been honest and I wasn’t. I never meant for things to go that far. It just…James was an addict and you were his drug. I couldn’t stop.”

She had as much to be sorry for as he did. She’d thought she was juggling the attentions of two men. She’d never imagined that the one in front of her would be both—would be everything. “You don’t have to stop. Jarod with a bit of James is a pretty nice combination.”

The glow of lamplight cast a devious slant to his brow. “Want a new research assistant for your dissertation? I come highly recommended by an incredibly beautiful biologist.”

Nora giggled. “You’re hired. I can’t afford much in the way of salary. I may have to pay you in creative ways.”

Jarod growled and nipped at her jaw. “Start the dryer and then you can tell me all about it, sweetheart.”   