by Cate Corvin
My mouth didn’t get the common-sense memo. “I’d love that. When?”
“Let’s see. I just saw Gabriel over there talking to Mrs. Clarke. He always ends up pulling the new student tours, so I’ll let him get it out of the way and meet you back here. Your new boss leaves at eight, so… fifteen after. Give Mrs. Clarke a chance to get out of here so we can have the place to ourselves.” He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and bit down, released it with a coy smile.
My heart kicked into a quivering tempo that seemed to hover in my throat. Staying at work after-hours to meet with a prof… I hadn’t read every line of fine print, but there was a stipulation against seeming impropriety in the scholarship contract. Did this qualify?
Rhett seemed to read the hesitance in my face. “No one’s going to be upset that you found a mentor so soon, Jane. We want our students to feel at home. In fact, it would be remiss of me to not help you learn your role here.”
I found myself nodding, the weight of the decision swept away by other, trifling things, like how dark his lashes were, the way his cheeks had hollowed out, the curve of his lower lip. How many times had I watched his lips as he spoke, while secretly doodling Jane Harlow in my notebook?
“I’ll be here,” I said, my voice barely audible. He reached out as his smile faded into something darker, brushed his thumb over the point of my chin for a second that was burned into my mind for eternity, and turned away.
I released a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding, watching the flex of his broad muscles under the shirt.
When I was younger, I would’ve sworn before under oath (if the embarrassment didn’t kill me first) that Rhett Harlow could never be more gorgeous than he was with tousled hair and a red pen in hand, marking up papers as his brow furrowed in concentration.
I’d been very wrong.
Rhett left me to gather my thoughts in silence, and after a minute, when I was sure my face was no longer on fire, I made my way back to Mrs. Clarke and Professor Spears.
He glanced at me when I handed the book to Mrs. Clarke, who peered at me over the rim of her glasses. “I hope you won’t be so slow to retrieve a single book every time, or there’s no point in having an assistant librarian,” she said waspishly.
Wonderful. Classes hadn’t even started, and most of the staff already hated me.
“Let’s finish the tour, Jane,” Professor Spears said. I promised Mrs. Clarke I’d be back in an hour and walked out with Spears’ hand nestled in the small of my back again. Without the cardigan blocking the cut-out design, he was touching me skin to skin, raising goosebumps on my arms. Strange how a man so cold could have hands so warm.
He was just as chilly through the rest of the tour, leading me down hallways, through multiple wings, pointing out brass plaques that declared which each section of Bourdillon was. Several times I felt his arm brush against mine, and felt those vivid blue eyes looking me over when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I wondered what he thought, if he regretted choosing my name from the list, my essay from the pile. If he didn’t find me worth such a prestigious scholarship.
I turned my back on those thoughts as he led me back to the library for the job orientation. There was no point dwelling on those insecurities. They’d chosen me, now they were stuck with me.
Spears held open the glass door. “I’ll see you soon. If you need anything, come to me.”
He didn’t sound welcoming in the slightest, but despite the coldness of his tone, he touched my back again, fingertips against the ridges of my spine.
“Yes, sir,” I said automatically, falling right back into the student-authority mindset of my youth.
For the first time, he smiled. It was breathtaking, sun breaking through clouds, ice thawing in spring. Superman about to carry Lois Lane off into the sunset sky.
Then he closed the door in my face.
I didn’t get time to ponder why he’d finally shown me a real human emotion before he left. Mrs. Clarke immediately put me to work shelving, carting books across the library, and giving me an enormous list of books to be weeded this semester. A few times, I hid in a corner and took a big whiff of a book just for the sheer joy of the smell. Libraries just felt like home to me.
I was exhausted by the end of the day, but had two bright spots to make up for it. First off, Mrs. Clarke had decided somewhere between three o’clock and five o’ clock that I was a bonafide trustworthy human being and entrusted me with locking up for the night, even though she told me not to get used to the privilege.
And Rhett had said he’d be here.
I took my time with tidying everything, choosing a small closet to use as my own personal space for my cardigan, coat, and bag, and filling out several delivery slips for other departments that Mrs. Clarke had left in a messy pile. When that was done, I looked around.
The main room was only a fraction of Bourdillon’s library; there were the rear sections, the archival light-and-humidity-controlled chambers, and several floors beneath us filled with older books that had been cycled out over time for preservation.
It was one of my most treasured dreams come true.
The clock flipped to eight, and I dragged out the remaining fifteen minutes as slowly as I could. Unlike the modern convenience of the high-speed computer system and elegant lighting that had been installed at the circulation desk, the main doors were still locked with an old-fashioned brass key. I had a feeling that more secure deadbolts flipped into place as soon as the key locked the door, but there was a strange sense of import to it all the same.
I stared at the key Mrs. Clarke had left me, and the remaining minutes crawled by like sludge. It felt like a small eternity to consider how much of a bad idea it was to stay. I was just about to pull my raincoat on and walk out when one of the Tiffany doors rattled and opened.
Chapter Two
Rhett Harlow stepped in and shut the door behind him. He held a bottle of wine under one arm and cradled two wine glasses.
The little quiver of anticipation became a quiver of nerves when he smiled. “I wasn’t sure if you’d wait for me.”
“I said I’d be here,” I said, lowering my jacket to the back of the leather computer chair.
Rhett paused and flipped a few switches, casting half the library in darkness, and beckoned me with a jerk of his head. Feeling like I was in some weird dream where up was down and left was right, I followed him past the Natural History section, towards a corner that was conveniently shelved in so it couldn’t be seen from the main library or the balcony overhead that area. It was effectively a blind spot.
Misgivings gnawed at me as Rhett laid out the wine glasses on a lacquered table. He didn’t seem to share my apprehension at all as he uncorked the wine, poured it, and handed me a glass. My fingers brushed his when I took it and a shiver ran down my spine, one that had nothing to do with fear of being caught after hours with a professor.
He caught my gaze and held it. “You don’t need to worry,” Rhett said gently. My emotions must’ve been far more transparent than I believed. “Students and mentors stay late all the time.”
Maybe it was the fact that he’d given me the tools to become one of the top English students in my high school, or that he’d always treated me with utmost respect. No matter what it was, I trusted Rhett Harlow implicitly.
I took the wine and sat in a chair, forcing my limbs to loosen. This was Bourdillon. Nobody here had the time to play dumb jokes on people, not even the scholarship students. Everyone was too caught up in their own world of academia and prestige to care for that kind of crap.
“I really appreciate the welcome wagon,” I said, watching Rhett pour his own glass. “It’s hard, you know? Going from community college to this. I figure I’ll make all kinds of social faux pas tomorrow.”
Rhett let out a low laugh. “Everyone does, don’t worry. Even the students who grew up around this.”
“Did you?”
Rhett sat in the chair across
from me and leaned forward, raising his glass. His smile slipped a little, revealing that darker expression I’d caught a glimpse of earlier. “Oh, my first year in Bourdillon was an absolute clusterfuck. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you, Jane. I knew when I was tutoring you that you’d go on to make something great of yourself.”
My lungs felt numb. Yeah, maybe I could’ve… then life hit the fan like it always does.
“Bourdillon is lucky to call you one of its students,” he continued, those pale eyes fixed on my face with a hungry bent. “So, here’s to you, Jane. You’ve come far, just like I knew you would.”
I raised the glass and drank when he did, the sweet alcohol burning its way down my esophagus. “Thanks, Rhett.”
“I’m curious, though.” He took another swallow. “Why the SCS? You were going to go to Northeast, right?”
I didn’t bat an eye at the acronym for Second-Chance Scholarship. Once you were past the gate, everyone dropped the longer title. “I did go to Northeast, for almost three years. My mom got lung cancer in my junior year and…”
A painful lump rose in my throat. Those had been hard days. From everything to nothing, but the worst of all was fearing I’d lose Mom before her time.
“Her insurance wasn’t great. We couldn’t afford both chemo and my schoolbooks and dorm fees, so I came home to work when she had to quit her job. I only found out about the SCS because we were looking into moving near Mulholland for the Petersen cancer treatment center here. Mom pointed out how close Bourdillon is to Mulholland, I saw the application, and… the rest is history.”
Mulholland was a nearby town not quite big enough to be called a city, but it housed one of the country’s most advanced cancer therapy clinics. The move out here hadn’t just been for my education.
“I’m glad it all worked out for you two,” Rhett said. I could detect nothing but perfect sincerity in his voice.
I almost immediately wanted to kick myself. Why would Rhett be insincere? He was literally the guy most girls wanted to drag home kicking and screaming to meet their parents.
Except he’s convinced you to stay after-hours alone with him and booze, knowing there’s clauses to the contract, an acid voice whispered in the back of my mind.
Rhett wasn’t that kind of guy.
“So where do you live now?” He grabbed the bottle and poured more wine in my glass. I’d somehow downed the entire thing in sips without realizing. My mouth tasted like wood and berries, the tang coating my lips and heating my stomach.
“We rent a little cottage between Bourdillon and Mulholland, about a mile or so away.” It was a half an hour walk for me, but we called taxis to take Mom to her appointments. “There’s a lot of those around here.”
“Yeah, lots of woodsmen. They’re usually pretty happy to rent out their places off-season, but some just move on altogether.” Rhett looked at me over the rim of his glass and leaned in closer. “There’s a lot of privacy around here. Some parts of the woods, you could walk for days and never see another soul.”
I believed that. Bourdillon University was ensconced in a rainy, heavily-forested little valley nestled in the northern Appalachians. Some of the footpaths I’d found behind the cottage seemed to lead off to nowhere at all.
“Which one are you renting?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but something about the question felt… leading. I looked down at my wine as glass clinked against wood. Rhett reached out, his long fingers sliding over the back of my hand and sending trembles through my nerves.
“Hey. Sorry, Jane, that was a really creepy question. You don’t have to answer. I’m just excited to see you again.” It was impossible not to feel like my chest had been hollowed out into empty air when he smiled like that. “I knew you’d go places. I didn’t expect you to fall right into my lap.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. I raised the glass, breaking the contact between our hands, and drank more wine while I sorted through my swirling thoughts. Now there was a sentence fourteen-year-old Jane would’ve paid cold, hard cash to hear.
But now, so many years later, I was pretty sure Rhett was flirting with me… but why? What interest could a rich guy who was a professor possibly have in a scholarship student?
I was grateful for the numbness that slowly began to creep over my lips and shoulders as the wine took effect.
“No, it’s okay.” Honestly, I was overreacting. This was the guy who’d pushed me to go for library science in the first place. “We took the one down on Spruce Drive. It's kind of tucked away, off the beaten path, but Mom likes the quiet down there.”
“341,” he said, nodding. He was still leaning forward in his chair… and I almost choked on my sip when warm fingers brushed my knee. “You’re pretty much out in the boondocks.”
There was something much colder and harder in Rhett’s expression than I thought a conversation about a cottage really warranted. “I suppose, but as long as she’s happy, I’m happy.”
“Do you keep your doors locked?” His thumb slipped against the inside of my knee and pressed down into the flesh, holding me pinned in place. Amazing how one digit, two phalanges, could hold my entire being in an electrical stasis.
“Of course we do,” I breathed. Even with the shivers in my legs and the heat of his skin against mine, my stomach clenched into a tiny ball. I had the feeling I’d severely underestimated the purpose of Rhett’s need to talk to me. “Why do you need to know these things?”
Pale blue cut right through me. “Just looking out for you, Jane. When I was your tutor, you always forgot to lock the doors. I just walked right into your house.”
Forming coherent thoughts was much harder than it should’ve been. “I assure you I’ve developed better habits since I was a teen.”
Rhett smiled again, his thumb eased up, and the tension broke. He poured more wine in my glass, even though I was quite sure my lips were stained purple and I was well on my way to being drunk.
“We’ve had incidences around here of the wrong person ending up in the wrong cottage,” he said easily, sliding the now-empty wine bottle across the table. “We tend to be wary. I don’t want to get a call at 3 a.m. that there’s a stranger in your house.”
“Why would I be calling you?” I asked. I really should stop drinking. The entire tone of the conversation was off-kilter.
He slid his hand along the outer edges of my thighs. My body went stiff, like I’d been struck with a livewire, and his hands stopped at my hips. He pulled my small cell phone out of my pocket and handed it to me. “Unlock it.”
The tiny phone seemed much heavier than it ever had before. I stared down at the black screen, and Rhett’s fingers trailed back down over my thighs.
I put in my code and the screen lit up. He plucked it from my hands and stared down at it for a moment. Looking at the picture of Mom and I that I used as wallpaper? She was still wearing crazy-colored wigs after her chemo, her skin papery and limbs too thin, but we’d been grinning widely against the backdrop of the Liedsen Botanical Gardens back home.
He clicked a few more times, typed something, then placed it on the table. “There. Now you can call me at any time you want.”
Thank god for alcohol to settle my nerves, because I was this close to losing my shit. Rhett Harlow’s hands were on my thighs and his number was in my phone.
“Thank you.” My voice came out as a raspy squeak.
He pulled his hands all the way back down to my knees… and then pushed inwards, sliding the fabric of my dress over his hands. Heat flared low in my stomach, even as my spine straightened.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, his deep voice edging towards a growl. “Just do what I tell you and lock your doors. You have my number, Jane. Call me whenever you need.”
His palms rested against the inside of my knees like burning brands. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “Whenever?”
“Any time, day or night.” His palms glided forward an inch and my stomach flipped.
“For a
nything.” I felt the wild, irresistible urge to defuse the situation with absurdity, given how I felt like I’d taken the wrong door into the school and walked into a magical land instead. In no world should Rhett Harlow be giving me his number. “What if… I need help feeding the cat?”
“Call me.”
“I don’t actually have a cat. Taking out the trash?”
“Call.”
“Drying my hair?”
“Only if you’re naked.” His tongue darted out and ran over his lower lip, there and gone in a flash.
I exhaled slowly, feeling more than a little like I’d been punched in the gut. “Very funny joke, Rhett.”
“Who said I was joking?” He gently pushed against my thighs and they parted like my body was malleable putty in his hands. “I always thought you were smart as hell, Jane. Are these the actions of a flippant man?”
Now he wasn’t toying with those light touches and teases. He rubbed his way up my legs, thumbs gliding beneath until he came to the apex of my legs. His thumbs glided upwards over my soft inner thighs, finding the lacy edge of my panties and tracing that too-thin barrier.
“No,” I whispered. The entire world had gone crazy. That was the only explanation for this. Either that, or one of the books had been infected with a mold spore that had hijacked my brain while I was sniffing pages and I’d hallucinated this entire day.
Rhett was already leaning so far off his chair, it took him a second to slide to his knees in front of me, positioning himself between my open legs and pushing my skirt up over my hips.
His lips found the inside of my thigh. Sparks burst to life in me everywhere his mouth touched, the graze of teeth against sensitive skin making my legs quake. His thumb brushed over the lace crotch of my panties, which were already wet.
Somewhere between Rhett getting on his knees and running his thumb over my clit, I said fuck it to the universe. The odds were good this was never going to happen again. It was already a thousand times better than I ever could’ve imagined.