by Sara Rider
He picked up her suitcase and started walking toward the elevator. “I bet you’ll get there first.”
Nora laughed. “Not working at Shadow Creek College.”
She hadn’t realized how derisive she sounded until she saw the look of pity on his face. “You really miss your old life, don’t you?”
The elevator opened and they stepped inside. “A little. But there are things I don’t miss, too.” The sinking feeling in her stomach dropped another league deeper. Had he heard what Robin said? She’d have to confront that fact sooner than later, but for now, she just wanted to close out the world and be with him.
He pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. The doors closed, and they were the only ones inside. She hated being trapped in tight spaces with complete strangers’ arms and hips rubbing against her. Whenever possible, she took the stairs, but fourteen flights was a little too high for her not-so-athletic legs.
“So,” he said in a low voice, flicking her hair behind her ear to expose her neck. He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to the sensitive spot behind her ear. “You never told me you had a boyfriend.”
Her knees started to buckle as he trailed his mouth along her neck, but her stomach was tense with nerves. “You’re more than a friend, Eli.”
“Don’t you think jumping to that label is a little forward?” His lips moved to her jaw. “After all, we’ve never actually made love as boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Every molecule in her body heated up like she was a beaker held over a flame. She turned to him and pressed her hand against his heart. “I guess we’ll have to remedy that. Good thing there’s room for two in the king bed.”
She rose up on her toes to kiss him, but the elevator dinged. She jumped back as the doors opened and a man dressed in running shorts and a T-shirt dripping with sweat stepped inside, dividing her and Eli like a fence. A smelly, wet, disgusting fence. His earphones were blasting so loud, she could hear every beat of the bad nineties rock music he was listening to.
Nora glanced at Eli. He pinched his nose and made a face. It was everything she could do not to laugh.
The elevator dinged a few seconds later, and the man stepped out, giving her the chance to breathe freely again.
She practically leapt toward Eli. “Where were we again?”
“Rushing to the hotel room so you can freshen up and catch the last of the sessions at the convention center while I figure out where to buy a toothbrush. And some new underwear. At least, that’s what we were supposed to be talking about.”
She pouted, and he responded by kissing the tip of her nose.
“Don’t worry. There will be plenty of time to for me to show you exactly what the word boyfriend means to me later tonight.”
The blare of the alarm clock was so loud the next morning that Nora woke with a start.
“Turn that damn thing off and go back to sleep,” Eli grumbled. He curled his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him.
“I can’t. I have to get ready for my talk.”
He lifted his head to look at the time flashing in florescent blue lights. “It’s six-fifteen. Your talk’s not for another three hours.”
“I know, but—”
He reached across her and slammed on the snooze button. “There. We’ve got ten minutes until it goes off again. More than enough time for what I’ve got planned for you.”
He climbed on top of her and kissed his way down her sternum. Her tummy. He spread her knees wide and settled between them, pressing his lips to her hipbone.
The backup alarm on her phone went off with an obnoxious melody.
He groaned.
“Front desk should be calling any second now, too.” As if on cue, a ring sounded from the phone on the nightstand.
Eli rolled off her with a sigh and got out of bed to answer the call. He grunted something at the front desk person and hung up.
“If we hurry, we might have time to grab a real breakfast in the restaurant.”
He narrowed his eyes into a glare. “Not a chance, Princess. Only continental breakfast for you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And what about you? What are you going to eat?”
He grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her legs off the bed, spreading them wide once more until she was bared to him. “You.”
Nora was gone by the time Eli had come out of the shower. After he’d brought her to a rapid, screaming orgasm with his tongue, he’d insisted she practice her talk once more rather than letting her return the favor. He knew her nerves were the reason she’d gotten up at such an ungodly early hour.
She’d killed it, unsurprisingly. Well, maybe a little surprisingly considering he’d been sitting naked on the bed watching her practice with the world’s biggest hard-on.
It wasn’t just her intelligence he found so sexy. It was the meticulous determination she brought to everything she did that blew his mind. Even if she was panicking on the inside, on the outside she was powerful and completely in control. He admired the hell out of her for that. His feelings for her were so primal and raw, there was no way he could keep denying them. And when she’d called him her boyfriend last night, it set off something powerful inside him. He’d waited so long for her to admit she felt the same way, but now he wondered if it was too late.
He’d overheard her supervisor mention something about a job offer. He’d finally made Nora his, and now she was going to leave him. How much time had he wasted being angry at her instead of understanding her fear and frustration?
Too much. But he wasn’t going to waste any more.
He quickly dressed in yesterday’s clothes and searched for the conference program online. Twenty minutes later, he stepped into the convention center, armed with a bran muffin and an extra-large coffee from the continental breakfast. No one stopped him as he headed to the conference room. With his jeans and sport blazer, he blended in with the crowd of attendees, and he’d been a mischievous enough kid to know how to sneak into places using nothing but confidence and bluster.
She was just setting up her PowerPoint when he snuck into the room. He slipped into the back row and slunk low in his chair. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think she needed his moral support the way he’d desperately needed hers yesterday at the remembrance ceremony. She was a professional in her element. He just wanted to be there to witness her kick ass.
“Thank you for that wonderful introduction,” Nora said in that same confident, direct voice she’d rehearsed a million times over the last twenty-four hours. Polymer chemistry hadn’t been his favorite subject, and he couldn’t honestly say that listening to Nora’s talk changed his opinion any, but he was riveted by her. Hell, he’d sit through a million more of these talks if it meant being with her.
By the time she’d reached her acknowledgement slide, it had occurred to Eli that this was the life his mom had wanted for him. She’d been so damn excited when got accepted into his Master’s program that she threw a party. She’d been convinced he would one day become a professor and that she’d be able to call at least one of her kids “Doctor.” Instead, he’d panicked just a few short months into grad school and told his Mom he was thinking of dropping out. The classes were so much harder than he’d been expecting. He’d had to study his ass off every night even though he’d coasted through undergrad.
He’d probably never completely forgive himself for his mom’s death, but he was finally ready to accept that he deserved to be proud of what he had accomplished. Watching Nora deliver a talk that was, frankly, dry as dust helped him realize he would never have cut it in this world. Instead, he’d built a good life for himself. He had a good job. A home. Friends. Nora. At least hoped she’d be part of his life in the long-term. His mom would have liked her.
He stayed to listen to the talk after Nora’s before sneaking out again. She’d gotten a few questions from the audience, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. There was always at least one long-winded douchebag who insisted on repeati
ng the one tangentially related fact he’d heard about the topic and asked “Have you considered that?” as if he weren’t talking to an expert on the subject. Nora handled it with grace and her wicked intelligence. He doubted it was the first time she’d dealt with that kind of obnoxious prick, but it was sexy as hell watching her put him in his place.
Eli spent the rest of the day listening to talks related to the chemistry of brewing. It was a pretty big conference and there were more than enough sessions to keep him busy and out of Nora’s hair. He promised her he would prove he could fit into her world, and that meant not distracting her from the networking and learning she’d come to do. But by the end of the day, he was aching to see her again.
He made his way back to the hotel room and tucked his plastic keycard into the slot. Nora was already there, running a big fluffy powder brush down her nose. He’d never been the type to care whether a woman wore makeup or not—but there was something weirdly adorable about watching her in this moment. Something intimate.
She turned when the heavy door shut behind him and smiled brightly enough to burn away the clouds for hundreds of miles. “Hey!”
“How’d your talk go?”
The corners of her lips twisted down, pulling her face into a sad frown. “It was terrible.”
“What?”
She sighed. “I stumbled over every word, completely botched my methods slide, and there were exactly three people in the audience. One was sleeping, one was on this phone the entire time, and the last one was the moderator.”
“That’s not true—”
“Aha!” She walked over and jabbed her index finger into his chest. “You were there!”
He circled his hands around her waist and dropped his forehead to hers. “You thought I’d miss it?”
“You hate conferences.”
“Yeah, but I don’t hate you. In fact, I don’t hate you so much, I’d sit through a thousand conferences if it meant more chances to test out the bounce factor on these hotel beds.”
He could tell she was trying not to smile, but the corners of her mouth lifted, dueling with the serious expression tightening in her cheeks. “I don’t hate you, either. Enough to put up with your awful taste in music, especially if you do that thing with your tongue that you did this morning.”
He pulled her body closer until her hips were flush against his. “Well, good thing I don’t hate you so much that I want to wake up every morning with you.”
She tipped her head upward, brushing her lips against his chin. “And I don’t hate you at all. To be honest, you’re the best thing that’s happened to me since moving to Shadow Creek.”
His hands stilled against her body. He didn’t know how much to read into her casually delivered comment. He wanted to believe it was a declaration of the feelings she’d been so hesitant to express. He wanted to carry her to the bed and show her just how grateful he was for her, too, but he kissed her sweetly on the forehead instead. “And I don’t hate you enough to be on time for dinner. We should probably get going.”
She sucked in a breath. “There’s something I should warn you about. Robin’s probably going to use this dinner to try to convince me to apply for a job with a start-up company she just founded.”
He didn’t move, but his stomach felt like he’d taken a direct hit from a battering ram.
“I’m not interested,” she added quickly. “I just wanted you to be prepared.”
His stomach unclenched enough to breathe again, but that nervous feeling still lingered.
She finished refreshing her makeup while he looked up directions to the restaurant where they were meeting Robin. It was cold, but the rain had faded to a drizzle so they decided to walk. She held his hand the entire way. It was probably silly, but he’d waited so long for her to finally be comfortable with this kind of display of affection. He couldn’t go back to stolen touches shrouded in denial.
Robin was already waiting for them in the darkly lit Italian place. They barely had time to finish greeting each other before she and Nora launched into a conversation about their research, which continued right through until their meals were delivered a short time later. The excitement and passion seemed to explode out of Nora like fireworks—sparkling and dazzling as each new idea took shape. He’d noticed Nora had run through her routine of checking her silverware for spots and agonizing over the menu, but she didn’t seem insecure about it like she did on their first date. She was comfortable in her skin around Robin.
For the first time, he realized that maybe Nora’s insecurities weren’t really about herself as much as it was about being in a place where people didn’t understand her. But she had people in Shadow Creek who knew her now, he reminded himself. People who love her.
Fuck, he loved her.
He leaned back in his seat and took a sip of his water. The ice cubes rattled in the glass from the slight tremble in his hand. He loved Nora and he had no idea how she would react if he told her.
Robin leaned forward, swirling her glass of burgundy-colored wine against the table. “Have you considered using a TEM?”
Nora tilted her head downward and began fidgeting with the cloth napkin on her lap. “We don’t have access to a TEM at Shadow Creek College.”
“We do at P-Tech.”
“I really appreciate the opportunity, Robin, but I’m not ready to give up academia quite yet.”
Eli’s heart stumbled against his ribs. She’d warned him this conversation was coming, but he wasn’t really prepared for it. Still, it wasn’t his place to say anything, so he forked a mouthful of rigatoni Bolognese into his mouth.
“You’re not ready to give up the freedom of a having a research program under your control,” Robin said. “But I bet you’d be happy to give up the teaching. The grading. Hours spent in department meetings where nothing is ever accomplished.”
Nora shrugged. “Sure, but it’s part of the job. If I worked in private sector, I’d lose all control over my research.”
“P-Tech isn’t just about producing solar devices. It’s about innovation. The position would involve developing your own research agenda. As long as it’s in the field of solar cell technology, you would have all the freedom in the world. And access to all the equipment in the lab you could ever want. We need someone with your abilities and vision.”
Nora straightened in her seat. “That’s sounds amazing, but—”
Robin cut her off with a wave of the hand. “Just think about it, okay? But not for too long. We’re starting interviews for the position next week and there’s only so many strings I can pull with the board to get you in.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it,” Nora said at the same time she reached beneath the table and squeezed Eli’s knee.
He knew she was trying to reassure him she’d only said that to appease Robin, but it didn’t help. Because it wasn’t him she needed to reassure. It was herself.
18
“I think I’m going to have to stage an intervention about your taste in music soon,” Nora said as soon as Eli settled on a radio station.
“If loving Diana Ross is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” He kicked up the volume a few notches, which Nora readjusted immediately. They’d been listening to NPR for most of the drive back to Shadow Creek and he didn’t think he could handle one more informative public interest piece delivered in a slow, soporific voice. “This is one of my mom’s favorite songs.”
“And you’ve never been even a little curious about any of the new music that’s been created in the last three decades?”
He laughed. “Your taste in music shouldn’t be influenced by what’s popular. It should be based on how it makes you feel.”
“That’s sweet. And a little insufferable. But mostly sweet. We didn’t listen to music a lot in my house because my dad didn’t like background noise, but I think that’s because my mom only listened to Andean flute music and Nepalese folk songs.”
“You never hung out at CD stores or went to con
certs?” He couldn’t imagine growing up in a quiet home. One of his mom’s favorite things was to turn on their old, clunky stereo on Saturday mornings and dance around the kitchen while she made breakfast for Julia and him. She’d been a strict parent, but she’d always made sure they had fun in their lives.
She glanced over at him with a wry smile. “I may or may not have gone through an unfortunate boy-band craze in my tween years, but I’m not telling you any more about that.”
The image of a nerdy, pre-teen Nora sleeping in an oversized Backstreet Boys concert T-shirt and plastering her walls with cut-out pictures from Tiger Beat was almost enough to distract him from thoughts of his mom. But there was a thread of an idea that had been niggling at him since the remembrance ceremony.
“What do you think about a scholarship fund?”
“What do you mean?”
His heart beat fast as he tried to come up with the words to explain what he meant. Ones that wouldn’t make it sound silly or pathetic. “I was thinking I could set up a scholarship at my old college in my mom’s name. It could be for kids from single-parent families who need the financial help. I’ve got a little bit of money I could put toward it.”
She was silent as she overtook a big semi-trailer on the highway. A huge spray of water hit the windshield and her fingers tightened on the wheel. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she finally said.
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “One thing to consider is that you’ll need to donate more than a little bit of money if you want the scholarship to be an annual thing instead of a one-off. Most scholarships need a major endowment so that they can use the interest to fund the award year after year.”
His excitement deflated, leaving him feeling like a foolish child too stupid to understand the realities of adult life. He had a decent amount of savings, but nowhere near enough for what he was thinking. “Yeah, I guess it was a dumb idea.”