Chapter 15
15
Sun shone around the break in the drapes. Tovah rubbed her eyes and rolled over. The bed was empty but for herself and was that a piece of cheese under her hip? She lifted up and pulled it out. Yep, sure enough.
She wasn’t even going to ask how or when that had happened.
Every inch of her body was sore, and her muscles screamed for a hot bath and expensive massage. Zach had proven every bit as insatiable as he’d claimed. The problem had been when she’d tried to match him or even surprise him. She had gone way out of her comfort zone and surprisingly liked it.
Though in all honesty, she probably wouldn’t do half the things they’d tried with anyone else. No, with Zach what he put out into the world was what one got. No subterfuge or games. With someone else, she wouldn’t be as sure of motivation. At least with him she knew upfront it was only sex mixed with friendship.
She rose from the bed and slunk into the bathroom. What she really wanted was a shower. And some tea. A big cup of steaming chamomile.
Where was Zach?
Did he have an appointment he hadn’t mentioned? Of course, he probably did. Just because their classes were done didn’t mean that he was finished with the semester. He still had to grade papers and see students for their advisement. Then there was the little fact he didn’t owe her an explanation of his whereabouts.
Yes, indeed. She needed to remember that.
Feeling better to take a shower at Rose’s house, she hurried and got dressed.
A note would have been nice. That or waking her to tell her where he’d gone. At least he hadn’t kicked her out and told her to go home after they’d finished round…whatever it was.
Halfway across the yards, a car pulled around slowly circling the cul-du-sac. With the sun reflecting off the windshield, Tovah couldn’t make out the driver.
They pulled back around and exited the neighborhood. Probably someone looking for a through street and had decided to use the area to turn around. Still, they had driven very slowly.
Then again, she’d heard real estate agents often stalked neighborhoods looking for potential clients or doing property comparisons. Someone driving at a crawl down the street didn’t have to mean anything sinister.
Even so, that part of her brain where guilt usually dwelled, raised its hand and tried to gain her attention.
Not going to happen this time. She had nothing to feel guilty about. Even if Zach never took her to bed again, she’d had the night he promised. And heaven above, she had the aches and pains to prove it.
She opened the door to Rose’s and tried to be quiet as she stepped through the house.
“Did you have a nice night, dear?”
Tovah winced. She was not going to hash it out with her grandma. Nope.
Deciding to act as if it was any other night or function, she’d attended. “Yes, and yours?”
“I fell asleep before they revealed the murderer.” Rose rolled her eyes. “Now, I’ll have to run through the program to figure out where I left off.”
“I’m going to take a shower and soak in the tub for a bit.” Tovah pointed toward the bathroom before she stalled. “Did you have breakfast yet?”
Rose cackled and clapped her hands. “Zach came over this morning to check on me before he left.”
Flames licked Tovah from head to toe, igniting her in embarrassment. She swore under her breath. Then, “I’m glad he checked on you.”
“Said he wanted to let you sleep in.”
The sound that came out of her could best be described as a cartoon character under duress. “I’m going to go take that shower now.”
Tovah exited the room to Rose’s crack of laughter. The fact her grandma knew she’d had sex was an uncomfortable place to be. Even so, it didn’t put a damper on the memory of what had transpired.
She started the water, adjusting the temperature to as hot as humanly possible. Every achy muscle and spot of tension eased out of her as she stepped into the spray.
Oh, yeah. Just the recipe for the morning after the sexual-Olympic tryouts. If she didn’t make the team, it was going to be a sad day indeed.
After washing, Tovah got out and dried her feet, then went to the soaking tub across the room. Once again, she made the water as hot as she could stand, but this time she dropped a bath bomb into the mix then got into the bubbles and foam that went all the way up to her neck.
God, that felt good. All the muscles between her legs screamed when she moved. It had been a long damn time since she’d gotten such a workout. Like…never.
Yes, there had been lovers, but none of them were ever so single-minded or determined to blow her mind. Not that they had done anything out of the ordinary in terms of general sexual experiences. Only in terms of her experiences.
And then he’d left her.
A smile curled her mouth. He wanted her to sleep.
He’d checked on Rose.
Warmth filled her for more than the fact she sat in a tub of hot water.
Zach was a good man. An honest man. She had to keep telling herself that this meant nothing to him. It was a convenient liaison. She intrigued him because she didn’t fall all over him the moment they met. That she wasn’t one of the fan club crowd.
A knock sounded on the bathroom door. “Tovah? Are you all right? You didn’t drown in there, did you?”
Tovah smiled. “No, Grandma. I’m fine.”
She sat up with a worried shake. “What are you doing walking around on that leg? You should be resting.”
“I’m fine to walk around. I’m supposed to go short distances.”
“I’ll be out in a minute. Let me dry off.”
Tovah stood and grabbed a towel off the heated rack, then hurried and dried off as best she could before stepping out of the tub.
A quick change of clothes and she was out of the bathroom and on the hunt to find Rose.
The old woman was wily. She’d already left the hallway and was now…Where the hell was she?
Tovah went in search and found her in the backyard walking around the sad excuse for a winter garden.
A few dried stalks stood up in the beds, defying the cold to shake their collective brown and withered leaves at the sun.
“It’s a shambles,” Rose said as she shook her head. “One broken leg and I have to look at this until spring. It’s enough to make an avid gardener weep.”
She might not be able to do anything about what was currently in the ground, but Tovah did have some idea of how to brighten her grandma’s day.
“What would you like for lunch?” If she was going to do this, it was going to be a surprise.
“Oh, I can make some tuna fish. Don’t go out of your way.”
“Too bad. I already am.” Tovah put her arm around her grandma’s shoulder and steered her back into the house. “I have to leave for a bit, but I’ll be back in about an hour or so. Will you be all right for that long?”
Rose looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Child, I’ve been taking care of myself for over seventy years. I think I can handle a few hours until you return.” A mischievous twinkle came into her eyes. “Are you going to see Zach?”
The thought hadn’t even entered her mind.
“Since I have no idea where he’s gone, that would be a resounding no.” Not to mention, she had no business going up to the school that day. Doing so would be stalkerish in the worst sense of the word.
“Take him lunch,” Rose urged.
“If he wants to see me when he’s done with whatever he’s doing today, he knows where to find me. I’m not going to chase him.”
Rose lowered herself into the recliner with a small wince.
Tovah hurried forward, unsure what to do to help. “Do you need your pain meds?”
“No. Damn leg gives me a twinge every now and then. I’ll be fine.” She patted Tovah’s hand. “Go do whatever you were going to do. I’m going to watch Netflix until I drift off into a nap. Maybe I can figure out who the murderer is.”
Tovah kissed her grandma and then went to get her keys.
One winter garden coming up.
Zach sat in his office, grading tests and looking over essays. Honestly, his mind wasn’t on his work. All his concentration was on the hot redhead he’d left all warm and satisfied in his bed.
Hopefully, she’d be up to a repeat performance later that night. If not…he’d have to use all his powers of persuasion to bring her around to his way of thinking.
He’d left the tests from Tovah’s class to be graded by Victoria. The instructions were to give the students full marks for the essay question if they at least attempted a serious answer. That gave a very wide range of what the student could write about. Not a problem. He wasn’t an English professor. He only wanted to know if his students had taken the class curriculum seriously.
The reason he didn’t grade the papers was that no one could claim favoritism. All the matching and true and false questions were cut and dry. But if he never touched the tests, then there was no reason to find fault with his relationship.
Was it a relationship?
Tough question.
Hookups were easy to come by. They were also relatively transient in his life. Tovah represented stability and permanence—two things he didn’t think he deserved. Not yet. Because no matter how hard he’d worked on himself, he still felt as if the goal posts regularly moved out of his reach.
Ah, fuck it. He was better off not dreaming of things that weren’t going to happen or that were most likely going to turn to shit.
A knock on his office door startled him back to his current project and out of his head. Yeah, he’d been daydreaming again.
“Enter.”
Victoria held a stack of papers in her arms. “Um, I finished.”
“Thank you. How did they do?”
“Pretty middle of the road. Lots of Bs. A couple As. One perfect score. And then there was this.” She laid the test paper on his desk. The grade was nothing to complain about. Solid B.
“I don’t see anything wrong here.” At the uncomfortable expression on Victoria’s face, he turned to the essay portion.
…know exactly how to give head that will blow your mind as I blow your cock…
Zach glanced up. “Sorry you had to read that.” He shook his head, uncomfortable not for himself but for Victoria. “I can probably guess whose paper this is without even looking at the name.”
Concern filled Victoria’s eyes, eclipsing the discomfort. “Has she been giving you trouble all semester?”
“Here and there. Nothing I haven’t been able to divert. This is downright harassment, though.” Not that the other hadn’t been. This, however, was on a test and as such was going to become part of her academic record. “Thank you for grading the tests. I appreciate it.”
Victoria studied the offending paper as if it was going to spread disease over the campus, like some horny co-ed plague. “What are you going to do about it? Ah, about her?”
“Now that the semester is over, I don’t have to deal with her anymore. If I see her pop up on the roster for one of my classes in the spring, I’ll have her moved.”
She didn’t appear to like that answer, and for Zach’s part, he was sorry for that.
“Look, Victoria, if you’re going to be a professor yourself, you’ll have to deal with the fact students sometimes develop crushes on you.”
An abrupt laugh exploded from her. “Me?” She shook her head in denial. “Oh, no. I don’t think so.”
Zach frowned at her vehemence. Victoria might not have been his type, but she wasn’t bad looking. She had a nice, comfortable, homey quality about her. She was church picnics and homegrown vegetables. Sundays in the park with kids and an accountant husband.
He studied her for a moment. Her face was made up of interesting angles and her eyes were as deep and dark as the ocean. “Why not you?”
“Because.” She shook her head again.
Instead of explaining it to her, he moved on. “Anyhow, when it happens, know that as long as you conduct yourself professionally and keep a firm distance from them personally, then the semester will be over and with luck they’ll move on.”
“So, you’d never date a student?”
Zach canted his head and smiled at her. “Not while they’re a student.”
Victoria swallowed and turned away. Red crept up her neck. She’d moved to the door when she frowned and turned on him. “Would you date her?” She pointed at the paper.
He shook his head. “Not even if someone paid me.”
Victoria let out a sigh and then was gone back through the door.
What an odd and unsettling conversation. Almost as much as what Eloisa had written on the paper. A bit desperate for attention, no doubt. Problem was that under different circumstances he probably would have already fucked Eloisa stupid.
She was young, gorgeous, and had a mouth made for giving head. Those lips of hers had no doubt made quite a few men very happy. However, there was a fine line between showing an interest and being aggressive about it. Eloisa was the type of woman who once fucked would turn into a stalker. That vibe was so strong on her, it was a right turn-off from the first look. The word no didn’t seem to be one she recognized.
Now, Tovah. Well, she was so independent and smart. God damn, she made him hot and achy thinking about her. Every luscious inch of her deserved to be worshipped on a daily basis.
Her ex was about as stupid as they came. How had he let such a hidden gem get away from him? Well, no mind. His loss was Zach’s gain.
He picked up his phone and looked at the screen. No text from her. See, that was what he loved about her. She wasn’t going to hound him
A spike took that moment to hit him straight in the chest.
Love?
An acute sense of panic filled him at the thought.
No. Only a figure of speech.
Tovah was a great girl. Awesome fuck. Good sport. That was all.
Nothing more.
Once he’d had her a few times, his ardor would no doubt cool. His eye would start wandering, and he’d find himself fucking someone else.
No big deal.
Just like always.
Yeah. The way he liked it.
Why then, did the thought depress him all of a sudden?