This Is Love - Chapter 4
Monday - Penny
There was a strange pressure building inside of my chest. It felt like I was about to cry. Why was I falling apart here? I had everything I wanted in this man. But what he had just done to me. The way he had made me feel. Now everything felt more real.
I quickly sat up and pulled my legs in, hugging them close. The tightness in my chest was growing. It felt like I was drowning. I took a deep breath to try to calm myself. What is wrong with me?
Professor Hunter sat up and cupped my chin in his hand. "Penny, what's wrong?" His brow was furrowed.
"Nothing." I blinked to try and remove the tears that were trying to fall. I hugged my legs tighter.
He rubbed the side of my chin with his thumb and didn't say a word. He looked truly concerned.
"It's just. For some reason, this whole time, it's seemed like I made this all up. Like it's this fantasy and you're not real. And I'm afraid that I'm going to wake up from this amazing dream and you're going to be gone. That you're just going to disappear."
"I've told you that I'm not going anywhere. There's no reason to be upset about that. Please don't cry." He wiped away one of the tears that had fallen down my cheek.
"But what we just did. I know you said you were going to be gentle. But I expected it to be like the other times. This whole day just seemed different. More intimate. I don't know. I didn't expect to feel so...so..."
"No one's ever made love to you."
I felt embarrassed. He didn't even ask it like it was a question. He just knew. Why had I opened my mouth? "Well, I thought so. But no, not like...not like that." I was so pathetic.
"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He rubbed another tear off my cheek. "How many partners have you been with?"
Sexual partners? What the hell is this conversation? "One." I felt so inadequate. If I wasn't uncomfortable before, I definitely was now.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me down on top of him. I expected him to say something, but he just held me against his chest. I listened to his steady heartbeat.
I had a feeling that I didn't want to know the answer to my next question, but I couldn't resist asking anyway. "And how many partners have you been with?"
He sighed. "A little more than that."
"How many more?"
"Penny, I don't want to you to think poorly of me."
"More than five?"
He sighed again.
"More than ten?"
"I spent a large portion of my college years fairly drunk."
"More than fifteen?"
"We should probably stop playing this game."
"Professor Hunter, you're a slut!"
He laughed. "You seem to enjoy all my experience."
I cringed. I didn't like to picture him with other women.
"And what about your one, Penny?"
"What about him?" I didn't want to talk about Austin. Not at all, ever. But especially not here in Professor Hunter's bed. I slid off of him onto my side and rested my head in my hand.
"One is rather intimate. Is he someone I should be worried about?"
I laughed. "No."
"So you no longer speak to him?"
Did he somehow know that I had seen him this semester? "No. I doubt that I'll ever talk to him again. He's an immature asshole."
"And why is that?"
"Why do you want to know?" I didn't want to be talking about this.
"Because I don't want to make the same mistakes with you that he did."
I sighed. I wanted this conversation to be over. "There isn't much to tell. We dated last semester. He didn't speak to me all summer. He made me feel worthless."
"So you broke up with him?"
"You can't really break up with someone who you never officially went out with."
He took my hand in his. "Penny Taylor, I promise not to make you feel worthless. And I'll try not to act like an asshole." He smiled. His fingers intertwined with mine.
"I don't know, Professor Hunter. From what I've found out about you, it seems like I'm just going to end up as another notch on your bedpost."
He laughed. "That's not who I am anymore."
"I thought it was impossible for people to change?"
"I came here for a change. And I think I'm better off because of it." He pulled me toward him so that my head was resting on his chest again. I let my leg cross over him.
I felt so safe in his arms. I knew why I had gotten so upset tonight. Because I wasn't just fucking my professor. I was in deep. I loved him. I'm in love with my Comm professor. I breathed in his sweet scent. This moment could last forever and it wouldn't be long enough.
***
“Penny. Penny.” He was lightly tapping the side of my face. “Penny, wake up. Please wake up.”
I felt my smile stretch to meet his palm.
I remembered. I remembered pieces at least. All the dreams I had been having, they weren’t dreams at all.
They were memories. Memories of us. The book I had written confirmed it.
While I was reading, I could so clearly picture the scenes unfolding. I remembered. I think.
The side of my face felt wet, like I was crying tears of joy. I slowly opened my eyes. They felt heavy. It was as if my eyelids weighed a pound each. Ouch, my head. I lifted my hand and felt more wetness everywhere. Rain. Oh, I do love the rain. I remember now. I remember!
“Penny.”
Rain was falling down on my face. I blinked as the man in front of me came into focus. It wasn’t James. It was…Tyler? The dirty blonde hair. His crystal clear blue eyes. Who else could it be? “Tyler?” My voice came out hoarse.
“Oh, thank God.” It looked like he was crying. But maybe it was just the rain on his face. He leaned down and hugged me.
The side of his neck felt hot against my cheek.
My heart started racing. This was Tyler.
The Tyler. The one I turned down to be with James?
His arms felt nice around me. I took a deep breath and smiled.
He smelled like grass and sunshine, even though it was raining.
My head ached, like memories were trying to escape. Memories of him and me.
“Everything’s okay, Penny. I’ve got you.”
I was about to ask where we were, but when I looked up at Tyler I saw blood dripping down the side of his chin. There were splotches of it on his shirt. He was completely soaked from the rain, but it didn’t wash away the blood.
“You’re bleeding.” I reached up and lightly touched the side of his jaw.
He flinched.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m fine,” he used a soothing voice like he would with a child. “The police are on their way. You’re safe.”
I realized I was cradled in his arms. Like he was holding my body together, lest I fall apart and wash away in the rain.
Safe from what? There was a light flickering above us.
And sirens wailing in the distance. It did not look like we were in a good part of town.
There was a man standing next to a cab talking animatedly on his cell phone.
He kept pointing to the left. I tilted my head and saw a body lying in a pile of black trash bags on the side of a curb.
It came back in a rush. The man claiming to be my father-in-law’s friend.
My memories were colliding. Scarlett was afraid of snakes.
And I didn’t just learn that from the zoo the other day.
I knew it. I remembered! I remembered her before I was in the hospital!
My sweet, baby girl. And she called them snapes instead of snakes.
Like Professor Snape from Harry Potter. That man lying unconscious in the pile of garbage had looked just like Professor Snape.
He had said I was supposed to die. That I was supposed to fix his life, not ruin it.
“Dr. Nelson.” My voice sounded weird. “Is that Dr. Nelson?”
“Don’t worry,” Tyler said. “He’s unconscious and the police are on the way. Sayem called them.” He nodded toward the cab driver.
“What happened? How’d we get here?” I shifted in his arms, but didn’t push him away. Him being close to me was so comforting.
“I was on a run and saw that bastard shoving you into his car. I couldn’t catch up but luckily I hailed down the world’s best taxi driver.
He broke all sorts of traffic laws tailing Dr. Nelson.
Probably got caught by at least 10 traffic cameras.
Think James could help him get out of a few tickets? ” He smiled.
I was pretty sure he was making a joke about James, but I didn’t laugh. “And you…knocked him out?” I asked. He saved me.
“I took him by surprise. I never would have let him hurt you.”
I stared up at him. He was literally my knight in shining armor.
The sharp angles of his jaw were worthy of a romance book cover.
And his hair was wet from the rain but somehow still looked good.
He was wearing a t-shirt and the rain made it cling sexily to the muscles in his chest. It felt like my heart was beating faster than humanly possible.
I was aware of his hands on my body. His warm breath invading my air supply in a good way. “You saved me.”
He pushed my hair out of my face. And I had the overwhelming sense that I wanted him to kiss me. I remembered the pages I had read about him from my book. I had liked him all those years ago. I knew that I had.
So how had I wound up here? With his arms wrapped around me in the most loving way, yet he had a wife and I had a husband? How cruel fate could be. How had the universe not seen that Tyler Stevens was my perfect match? After all, I did fit perfectly in his arms. “What happened to us?”
He looked down at me with his beautiful blue eyes. “Everything that was supposed to.”
“I feel closer to you than I do to James. Why is that? He’s cold and ill-tempered and you’re…warm. I feel safe in your arms instead of scared. And someone just tried to kill me.”