Chapter Seventeen
Most Deserving
L iam saw the first yawn of the night. Unsurprisingly, it came out of Anna’s mouth. But it was infectious enough to cause Tess to imitate her. It had been a long day. Starting even before there was any sunlight, followed by activity after activity throughout the morning, afternoon, and evening. They were all understandably a little wiped out.
“Tomorrow, beach, lazy, sun,” Avril said, looking between the rest of them.
“I’m fine with that,” Tess said. “We can do some of the island activities the day after.”
No one spoke against the plan, least of all Liam, who, while not intending to be lazy tomorrow, had a few beach-related activities to anticipate. With their plans cemented by verbal agreement, Anna, Avril, and Tess began preparing to return to their bure.
However, all three of them jabbed his side with knowing glances as he helped clean up the deck. They’d be going soon, and then it’d just be him and Victoria. What might come of that?
Honestly, he didn’t know. Other than the promise that she’d sleep nude, what would happen once it was just the two of them, alone, isolated, one man and one woman? He wasn’t too tired yet but couldn’t speak for Victoria. Maybe she was just as ready to slip into a luxurious king-sized bed as the others were.
When it was just the two of them in the suite, putting away the towels in the bathroom closet, Liam kissed Anna goodnight. When he, Avril, and Tess found a moment alone, he didn’t worry about trying to add further separation. After kissing each of them individually, they pushed themselves into his sides, where they each claimed a cheek to kiss.
Both had some parting advice to give him.
“Don’t stay up too late,” Tess whispered.
“Believe it or not, but she likes dirty talk. Don’t ask how I learned that.”
Soon enough, he and Victoria were waving goodbye to the other three members of their group, watching them leave tracks in the sand. Once they were about halfway back to their bure, Liam glanced toward the woman with nowhere to return to tonight. He found her already doing the same to him.
“When are you taking your clothes off?” he asked, unable to deduce any clever way of asking for what he wanted. And he wanted it more than just about anything. Right now, preferably. The serenity granted by the stars was gone. He was back to feeling consumed with desire.
“When I get ready for bed, obviously,” Victoria said. “Are you in a rush for that?”
“Depends,” he said. “If we don’t go straight to bed, what’ll we do instead?”
“ I was thinking about dipping my toes in the ocean before getting into bed, then reading a book for a little while.”
“Then I was thinking about joining you, then reading one of the chess books I brought along.”
As hoped, Victoria offered him a look of subtle surprise. “You’ve purchased chess books?”
“Of course,” he said. “Our deal is still in effect, isn’t it? Even though I’ve finally gotten to see you fully topless.”
His ploy to see her blush completely failed. Instead, the buxom professor seemed intrigued. He supposed he’d settle for that.
“Which books?”
“A couple by Bobby Fischer,” he said, “as well as Jeremy Silman’s How to Reassess your Chess. ”
Intrigue slowly flowed into approbation. Then, a hint of something he liked seeing. “You want to beat me that badly?”
Meeting her piercing eyes, Liam didn’t hold back. “I want to win against you every time we play. Enough that you’ll eventually run out of old pictures and be forced to send me new ones.”
Victoria held the silence for a few seconds, then broke their stare. She started heading for the deck’s stairs, the beach, and the softly murmuring tide at the end of it. When he didn’t immediately follow, she looked over her shoulder, the moon’s illumination cascading down her lustrous hair, and gestured for him to follow with a single finger.
“For that to happen, you’ll have to win quite a lot.”
Liam grinned and started after her. “I’ll have at least a dozen wins before summer break starts. Then three to four times that before it’s over.”
“I’ll be impressed if you win half as many times in that time frame,” Victoria said, watching the waves curl and crash only a dozen paces ahead.
“That’s what I’m aiming for,” he said, which attracted her attention. “To impress you.”
She stayed quiet until they reached the soft, wet sand. She strode a few steps farther, then waited for the salt water to cool her feet and tickle her ankles. Standing right beside her, Liam looked out into a nearly endless expanse. How many hundreds of miles away was the next island? Were they looking eastward, just as he looked westward, and their vision met somewhere in the middle of that vast range of ocean?
Victoria’s cool words drew him back to the present. “You’ll get your chance to impress me, Liam,” she said, almost whispering. “I’ll promise at least that much.”
Bubbling with pride, Liam couldn’t help but break into a wide smile. He searched for the right way to keep the conversation flowing in the right direction, which led him to circle back to a thought he’d had all the way back in the hot spring.
“So, do you keep a chess set in your classroom?”
Victoria blinked. “At Bellmore?”
He nodded. The next encroaching tide flowed in, washing a few feet past them.
“No, I don’t keep one in my classroom. Why?”
“Well, you should. I’m going to want to play some matches with you before or after class. It’s one of the two things I’m most excited about doing in your classroom.”
Hinting suspicion, Victoria eyed him. “And the second thing?”
“You’ll find out in four months,” Liam said.
Victoria rolled her eyes and returned her focus to the beach. “I hope studying will continue to be important to you. Bellmore’s curriculum is tasking, and—”
“You don’t give extra credit?” Liam asked. He couldn’t resist grinning as Victoria’s expression flattened.
“I do not,” she said, lifting her chin. “But I’ve provided slight boosts to students who showed me throughout the whole semester that they deserve that bit of help. My office hours are always posted, both on my door and online. Not understanding or struggling is not the same as not caring.”
Liam kept grinning. “I’ll strive to be one of those deserving students, then. The most deserving student.”
“I’ve seen your grades,” Victoria remarked dryly. “You shouldn’t need to invest that much time visiting during my office hours.”
“Maybe not, but I’ll want to.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be on the other side of campus, visiting Professor Williams during hers?”
Liam didn’t flinch. “Do you two plan them out to be at the same time? That would really suck.”
“We often do, yes. It allows us to leave at around the same time, in case we want to go out to eat or head to the gym.”
“That’ll make things a bit more challenging, but I’ll still be the student who visits you the most.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s a promise,” Liam said, chin held high.
Glimmers of amusement appeared within the woman standing next to him. The way she ever so slightly shook her head, the way one corner of her lips rose. The way she kept chatting with him, alone at night on one of the most romantic beaches in the world, and how she eventually suggested they had back inside their suite. Their suite.