Chapter 11
That…was unexpected.
Ramona swears she’s still blushing when she wakes up the next morning, skin tingling like she can somehow feel him between her legs instead of a vibrating slip of silicone.
Unexpected, satisfying, and a little reckless—the perfect combination.
Maybe it’ll be the end of her crush, she thinks as she showers, unable to stop picturing Nick all hot and bothered, reading her messages with a mountain of papers in front of him.
Maybe she’s cured, she hopes as she blends her smoothie.
She even rereads their thread in the harsh light of day, and it’s not tame, exactly, but it’s hardly explicit.
It’s possible that all he did before her last text was return to grading.
Still, just because it’s warmer than usual for early October and not because of what he texted her, she shaves her legs, slicks them with lotion, and puts on a skirt that hits mid-thigh.
Something she would have worn without a second thought in the Before, and she finds that she still likes the way it looks.
She drives to class, humming along to Arlie J’s Grammy-winning album.
She’s determined not to feel embarrassed—until Nick shows up a few minutes late, and her heart drops all the way to the floor.
He looks, in a word, wrecked. His shirt is half-untucked, but not in that stylish way everyone was doing a couple years ago, and she’s stared at him long enough this quarter to know that he always tucks his shirts.
He even missed a button toward the bottom.
There’s a thick line of tension in his jaw that makes her wonder if he was lying awake all night clenching it, the way she does sometimes when she’s overwhelmed with anxiety.
Lavender circles beneath his eyes, hair askew and still damp from a shower—it might be adorable if she weren’t so concerned.
Worst of all: he doesn’t make eye contact, and all the confidence she had when she put on that skirt evaporates.
Shit.
Ramona may have severe doubts about her general life skills, but she knows how to make men crave her. She always feels in complete control of the situation until they kiss, fuck, turn it physical. Never mind the fact that the hookup is often more disappointing than the fantasy.
But Nick isn’t like her past boyfriends. He isn’t a boyfriend, first of all, and he isn’t a star-fucker. They usually have that kind of desperation written all over them.
In fact, what’s written all over him is more akin to regret.
“Sorry about that,” Nick says, the strap of his messenger bag getting tangled as he struggles to remove it, the poor guy. “Got stuck in traffic. Let’s start with chapter three, shall we?”
Trevor raises his hand. “We finished that last class.”
Nick blinks a few times. “Right. Guess I’m a little fuzzy this morning. I’ll just hand back your assignments and we’ll see if anyone has any questions…”
When he passes them out, there’s a sticky note on top of hers.
SEE ME AFTER CLASS, it says in bold red pen.
Oh fuck. He’s going to really kick her out this time. He’s going to ask her to drop the class because the texting made it weird, and it’s too late to switch into something new, so she’ll be behind on credits and won’t be able to graduate on time…
And just when she was starting to like it.
When Nick dismisses them, she uses the bathroom first, trying to delay the inevitable. Then, once she’s smoothed her skirt and ensured there’s nothing in her teeth, she heads to face her doom. Gives his office door what she hopes is a confident, assured knock.
He opens the door a split second later, his hair somehow looking more rumpled than it did in class, like he’s been raking his hands through it. His glasses are crooked, and she can’t quite interpret his creased-brow expression. Almost…hesitant.
“Do your other students get to see this office as much as I do?” Ramona asks, trying to keep it casual, propping a shoulder blade against the door once she closes it. “I’m starting to think I’m getting preferential treatment. Which is the opposite of what you assured me I’d be getting.”
“Office hours are three days a week,” he says. “I always make myself available to students.”
“Right. Right. That’s good of you. Very…professorial.”
Babbling isn’t like her.
“I think that’s exactly the word they used on ,” he says, his mouth quirking in the smallest smile, and fuck, that’s cute.
They remain at the door, quiet for a few moments while she twists her fingers in the ends of her hair, his eyes tracking her movements.
“I googled you,” he confesses, as though to defuse the tension in the room.
Now it’s her turn to break, almost laughing, because it’s not at all what she expected to hear. “Oh yeah? Find anything good?”
“You’re not mad?”
“I figured you would have already. At least I know you didn’t sell anything personal to the media. Mall breakdown, Shrek mask, burrito…”
He draws back, mouth falling open. “You have to know that I would never,” he starts, and she holds up a hand.
“I know. I know.” Because despite having known him only a few weeks, she’s certain of this. “And I googled you too.”
“I haven’t been to any awards shows or galas. I’m sure it was very disappointing.”
She shakes her head, stepping closer. In this tight space, the scent of him is heady and earthy, his breaths a little uneven. Already she feels the power racing through her veins like a familiar old friend. The ability she’s always had to turn men nervous and stammering.
After all, she knows from last night—he wants her, even if he’s trying to convince himself that he doesn’t.
Maybe it’s exactly what they both need.
“Your official UCLA page. There was this photo of you, with your hair…” She reaches up, eyes locked with his while she rearranges the auburn strands. His sharp inhale shudders through her own lungs. “There. More like that.”
—
Nick’s half holding his breath, half-certain this is a dream.
That out-of-control feeling from last night is back, only a million times stronger with Ramona this close to him.
Her perfume or her shampoo or her natural scent is so magnetic that he wouldn’t be able to recite Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development even if he tried.
This conversation should have already ended, but he hasn’t been able to find the right words.
When he woke up this morning after a tortured night of sleep, during which he dreamed that their message thread was beamed out in an all-campus bulletin, he was determined to break this off.
Now his brain feels more like neuron soup than a functioning organ.
“Wilder,” he says. An admonition. A warning. Thank god her hands are out of his hair. “We need to talk about last night.”
Ramona nods, putting more space between them.
With that little skirt—to show off those gorgeous legs—he wasn’t sure he’d have the willpower to do what he needed to.
Maybe she sees how urgent his concern is, because she seems to dial it back.
Even if she still looks like she could eat him alive and ask him to say thank you afterward.
“You’re right. You were being kind to me, picking me up and giving me a ride back to my car, and then we were texting, and I guess I just…read into something that wasn’t there.” A resigned puff of breath. “I’m sorry.”
Nick waits a long moment before speaking again. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he says, because while she may have initiated it, he was a more-than-willing participant. “I take full responsibility. That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Oh.” Her voice turns chilly. “Right. We barely know each other.”
“That’s not—” He breaks off, rubs a hand down his face. Unshaven again, not his preferred state, and maybe it’s a metaphor for this whole sordid thing. “If anyone saw those messages, I could lose a lot.”
“Your tenure. Shit, I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. Really. We were both a little tipsy, and—”
“I don’t drink.”
This settles over him like a shock of ice water. She sent all those messages while stone-cold sober? He’d just assumed she couldn’t possibly…like him.
He has to muffle an internal groan. Even his thoughts sound so fucking high school.
“What?” she prompts. “You look like you’re trying to figure out who the hell allowed Trevor to take this class.”
“I guess I don’t understand why you’d—I mean—”
It’s not the question he should ask, and it shouldn’t change anything. Frankly, he shouldn’t be asking questions at all—he should be showing her the door.
But the way she’s looking at him, her determined eyes and secret stashes of freckles—another cluster of them above her left knee—makes him so fucking weak.
At his words, her lovely mouth kicks upward. Like she senses the shift between them, and now that he’s shown his hand, she’s going to take him for all he’s worth.
“Because you’re sweet.” She moves closer, lifting her hand to where his shirt is half-tucked. Tugs on it until the hem is freed, stealing the breath from his chest. “And you’re sexy, in this way that seems purely unintentional. And I think I make you flustered.”
She…finds him sexy. Oh, his prefrontal cortex is absolutely fucked.
“You don’t,” he lies.
“No?” Another step closer, that dark floral scent trapping him in place. Her palm settles over his heartbeat, and he exhales into her touch. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. “Then why is your heart racing?”
“Runs in my family. I should probably get that checked out.”
She brings her hand to his cheek. Scrapes his stubble with black-painted fingernails. Christ, even that simple movement feels unreasonably good. “And your face is hot.”
“Thermostat’s broken.”
“Then we should probably bring that up with building services.” She bites back a smile, a clear sign that she’s loving this.
Everything he felt last night comes racing back—the thrill of being wanted this way after so long, like he’s backed up against the edge of a cliff. While being on fire.
His eyes dip to the mouth that’s always ready with a comeback. “Wilder,” he says again, but this time, it’s a surrender.