Chapter 19 #2
Walking ahead of me and up the stairs, she heads toward her office.
Her perfectly shaped ass clings to the skirt that flows just below her knees, the deep burgundy color matching the heels of her shoes.
She stays quiet as we reach the hall, a few students lingering and looking at posting on the bulletin boards, but none of them are waiting to speak with her.
“What made you want to be a professor?” I ask, looking at the laptop and then around to the few things displayed along the walls that lead to the suite of offices at the end of the hall.
Unlocking her office door, she flips the lights on.
I follow, unaffected by the silence as I wait for her to answer.
She drops her notebook on the oak desk, squaring off her stance.
With her hands on her hips, she looks at me, and I take a step closer, placing her laptop and bag down around her.
When I perch my ass on the corner edge of the desk, she doesn’t budge.
“It was the polar opposite of what my family did,” she admits. “But then I got passionate about it, dug in, worked really fucking hard to get here.” She shakes her head with a sarcastic smile when she looks around her office space. “I never thought I’d be here right now. But . . .”
“But?” I dip my head to find those green eyes of hers.
She lets out a long exhale. “It’s what I’m supposed to do,” she says, staring at me like she’s trying to work something out.
“But so much has happened since the last time I taught a science lab or gave a lecture.” She glances around the room, where boxes are still packed with framed certificates not hung up.
White boards behind her display scribbled shapes with letters and numbers that were on the screen in her class.
“And I thought maybe it’s just having a routine or feeling a bit rusty working through a syllabus I haven’t seen in ages.
” More quietly, she adds, “It feels all wrong now.”
“I know a little something about that.” I sniff a laugh to myself. “And now that you know things you didn’t before, your life looks completely different somehow, but you’re supposed to be the same, do the same that you’ve always done.”
She smiles at me, softening slightly. “So you’ve been there then?”
“Been there and in it now,” I say on a sigh.
I realize that this is partly why I wanted to come and see her.
I wanted to talk to her. Shit. I tilt my head back for a moment, realizing this is already more for me.
I’m not the kind of person to overshare, not the man that’ll tell anyone much about anything.
But this woman has a way of making it okay to do it.
Like she’ll allow the weight of what I’m navigating to land easy.
“My dad,” I share, clearing my throat, “left for a job.” I shake my head.
“He hadn’t been making jewelry for a long while—he relied on me to do most of it,” I say with a smile.
“Always told me I was more talented, but he was really fucking good. I think he just lost some inspiration.” I look up at her, eyes already on me, waiting.
“Sometimes he’d stop after a job and buy materials for me for upcoming pieces—precious gems that could be bought directly from mines or collectors.
” Running my hand behind my neck, I pinch at the base to relieve some of the tension that thinking about this brings.
“I just assumed he was traveling to a few spots, but then a couple weeks went by without hearing from him. I didn’t talk to him every day, but a couple times a week was normal for us. ”
I swallow the bitter taste of knowing now that my father had been dead, and I wasn’t even looking for him.
“He always came back, and he’d tell me about where he’d been.
Until very recently, I thought I knew everything there was to know about him.
” I hurriedly blink back the blur of my eyes watering.
Her eyebrows pinch as she lets the quiet linger, listening without interjecting.
“It took my father dying for me to realize that the family legacies that had become my entire existence look different without him in my life, so much so, that it made me question why I would want to do something that couldn’t be talked about or shared, with almost everyone,” I say cautiously, as if I’m disappointing him for even thinking about it.
When I finally look up from toying with the leather cuff on my wrist, she’s looking at where my fingers run along the worn edges, and I realize I’m doing the same thing she does. Nervous energy working its way out, maybe.
She lets out a laugh, tilting her head, fingers grazing along her wrist, where she had been wearing my other leather cuff. “You said that my family’s job was your last. Seems like you’re already making changes for what you want.”
I don’t tell her that I don’t know if that choice feels right either, or if I’ve just lived so long doing what I was told I should do that I don’t know how it’s supposed to feel when I’m doing something my own way.
She smooths her hands down the sides of her skirt, trying to harden herself for what she’s about to say. “Now what? You finished your last job . . . We’ve had a few private moments?—”
I smile at that, almost laughing, but move my palm across my mouth to cover it. “And that’s good enough for you? A few private moments?” I ask, rubbing my hands down the tops of my thighs. I need her closer.
She tips her chin up. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
Relief washes over me with those five words. I can work with that.
“’Cause that’s not fucking good enough for me.
” I reach for her, my hands gently wrapping behind her thighs and pulling her closer.
I need to make sure she really hears me when I say this.
I pinch the ends of the black silk tie hanging in a looped bow at the center of her blouse—the material soft and smooth.
Tugging on it, I urge her closer as I widen my legs and make space for her to stand between.
“I told you already, I’m here, because I choose to be.
” I search her eyes to make sure she’s hearing me now.
“I have no problem taking my time, Crowne. I can be a patient man,” I say honestly.
“I find that hard to believe,” she teases. Her bite back makes my lips and dick twitch.
“The things I’ve learned to do take an incredible amount of focus, attention to detail, time, patience .
. .” I drift off, getting lost in the way she’s looking at me, hearing me.
“If you knew the willpower it took to let you lead the other night.” I hum as I gently pull at the tied bow and watch the knot come undone. “Or the way I held back.”
She inches a fraction closer, her hips brushing against my inner thighs, on the cusp of either shoving me away or putting me out of my misery and kissing me.
“You may not have been the reason I came here, but you’re why I still am.” I swallow, knowing I’ve just laid all my cards out on the table for her again. “I know what I want, Crowne.”
Before she can say anything in response, there’s a double tap on the door.
She pulls back, just out of reach as she looks over my shoulder. I don’t turn around until I hear a man’s voice. “Everything okay here, Wyn?”
I recognize the country drawl. “Reed, hi.” Clearing her throat, she adds, “Of course, everything is fine. What did you need?”
This fucking guy.
I stand to my full height and turn around.
“Julian, right?” he asks, pointing at me. “Good to see you, again.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I stare back at him. Navy suit pants and white dress shirt. Loafers and glasses. He isn’t a bad-looking guy, and I’m not sure he’s a bad guy at all, but I don’t fucking like him. And she might have called him a friend, but I know what it looks like when someone wants more.
Wyn glances at me, looking surprised at the fact that I’m not going to say shit to him in response. If I blinked, I would have missed the way her lips twitch in amusement.
“Alright,” Reed says slowly, turning his attention back to Wyn. “We were going to discuss the lecture series I have planned for the incoming freshman. You said you wouldn’t mind giving me feedback and then perhaps we could swap?”
She stays quiet, looking at me again and keeping her attention there for a few beats as if she’s trying to work something out. “I—um— Actually, Reed. I can’t do that today.”
“I’m sorry, what?” he says with a disbelieving laugh. He looks at me, and I stare right back.
Asshole.
Out of my periphery, I watch her reach down, grabbing her oversize bag and moving around her desk to pluck things from it and then stop next to me. “I just can’t today. Something came up, and I need . . . I just need?—”
“To get out of here,” I finish for her. Her eyes meet mine in surprise, searching for how I would know that’s what she needs right now. I lean closer to her, taking the heavy bag from her hand, and say, “Ready, baby?”
I know calling her that threw her for a loop by how her mouth parts slightly, but she doesn’t seem to mind when she says, “Ready.”
Wyn walks past Reed, giving him a tight-lipped nod, who still looks like he’s missing what just happened.
I don’t smile or rub it in his face that she wants to get the hell out of here, and with me. But I’m happy to usher her away from whatever or whomever is making her feel stifled and anxious right now.
Once we make it to the parking lot, she pauses, looking at her car and then toward my truck. “I’ll worry about mine tomorrow. Mind driving?”
I shake my head, my lips tilting up into a smile when I ask, “Where are we going, Crowne?”
She exhales, “Just drive.”