by Melissa Blue
Wade tossed a bone in Porter's general direction. It hit the floor, and since Porter was fussy, his friend picked the food up.
Shaking his head, Wade asked, “Why did you listen to it?”
His friend blinked, looking surprised at the question. “You don't talk about work.”
“Because when I do your eyes start to glaze over.”
Porter glanced away but Wade caught the tense expression—shame. They could talk gaming for hours. Life for eons. The significance of finding water on Mars. The engineering involved to get on Mars. But how reading the Principia changed Wade's view on life at seven...It was like giving his friend a verbal lobotomy.
Porter rolled his shoulders. “You get drunk at every battle bot tournament I take you to.”
Wade grinned at the truth. Grown men stood around filled with fervor over oil being spilled like blood. Yeah, he needed to get drunk to keeping from mocking them. “Well there's nerd and then there's nerd.”
A mechanical whooshing sound filled his apartment. Porter's gaze went to Wade's phone in the middle of the table. “What is that noise?”
“Ringtone. Long story,” he mumbled then answered the call with, “What do you want, Ms. Lake?”
“Do you ever say a cordial greeting when you answer your phone?” Amusement filled her voice.
“Nope.”
“Answer your door.” She hung up without saying goodbye.
Exactly what he'd do. He smiled.
Porter leaned back in the kitchen chair, his brows up. “Sophie?”
His smile when he talked to her had given him away. “Shut up.”
The knock at his door came next. He let her in without speaking to her first and she breezed in unaware of the fly ointment she was stepping into.
She began without preamble, “I need you to go through this questionnaire. I know you hate them and I've filled out every one so far, but they have questions I can't answer for you.”
Her step slowed when she finally passed by him and saw Porter. “You have company. You should have said.”
Wade gestured to Porter. “I have company.”
She glared at him. He put out his hand for the stack of papers she held.
She gave his friend a PR smile. “I'm sure you remember me. I'm Sophie Lake, his publicist.”
Porter, the bastard, puffed up his chest. “I thought you looked familiar, but it's hard to tell when Wade's not plastered against you.”
She flushed. “The engineer, right?”
“Right.” His friend's gaze swung to him.
Wade could only shrug. He'd stopped asking how she knew what she knew about two weeks ago. At this point he assumed she had better files on him than the Department of Defense. And the DoD had known about the one time he helped Porter reassemble a car in a classroom.
“I think I'm going to go,” Porter said, his tone filled with wariness.
“No,” she said in a bright rebuttal. “You should stay. My visit is short and will be uneventful.”
Wade met his friend's stare and shook his head. Not that he didn't want Porter there—okay, he didn't want Porter to report anything that happened back to the girls.
Message received, the other man moved toward the door. “Maybe another time, but it's good to see you.”
She angled her body to stare at Wade then Porter. “So it's just Wade who is impolite. Noted. I'm dying to meet Grady, officially. I assume they are cut from the same cloth.”
Porter laughed and even Wade had join in. Nothing about him and Grady were the same.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Wade answered.
Porter said his goodbyes. That left them alone. Wade took the stack of paperwork to the table. He gave them a quick scan then frowned at Sophie.
He gave himself another second to find words that wouldn't cut when they landed. “What's my favorite color? The answer to that question is vital to understanding the universe?”
She set aside Porter's plate, doing her best to appear unperturbed at the bite in his tone. “Some of the places I've booked like to give their guests gifts.”
“What do I read in my free time? My favorite song? Do I still consider Pluto a planet?” He pushed the pages away from him. “I'm not answering that.”
Sophie pursed her lips then reached over for his plate and stacked it on top of Porter's. “Do I have your permission to make them up?”
He crossed his arms. “It makes no sense to show any sentimentality—”
“Oh, God.” She put up her hand as though to stall him. “Don't do the whole Pluto speech again.”
She'd asked him his opinion a week ago and regretted it ever since. “Arguing facts is wasteful,” he said.
He waited and as the silence intensified, she dumped any leftovers from their plates onto the pile of bones. With that done, she stacked the plates. She was fussier than Porter and that was saying something.
Wade asked, “Would you like to wash the dishes too while you're at it?”
She shoved them to the middle of the table and didn't bother with a glare. This was why he'd sent Porter away. They never had an uneventful exchange. It was sex without a heady release, and he didn't understand why she didn't give in already.
Sophie licked her bottom lip, and tried again, her voice much smoother. “Your favorite color is a fact. What color is it?”
He swallowed the sigh. “My favorite color is subjective. I can change it tomorrow.”
Her nostrils flared. “You are the most...interesting person I've ever met.”
Since he'd heard this similar comment before, in that exact I-want-to-murder-you tone, he waited for the but.
“But you can be tedious.”
A fact he couldn't, wouldn't argue against. “You know that and still you came to my house in hopes I would fill out a form stating my favorite color?” Wade shook his head, knowing the answer.
Sophie found all kinds of excuses to see him—all work-related. All things that could have been handled over the phone or email. He may not understand why she wouldn't give in, but that didn't mean he couldn't see the pattern of her actions. And he let her make the excuses without pointing out the obvious. He wanted to see her too.
And there wasn't an urgency, a fever to wanting to see her. He could think about things other than Sophie. She wasn't a fixation, an obsession. His...emotional response to her wasn't part of his sickness. His...infatuation with her was the most normal he'd felt in a year.
Maybe that's why she fought it. Sophie always felt normal and didn't recognize her inner conflict was a gift.
She shifted in the chair next to him as the silence stretched. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach. Just go through the paperwork and answer anything I left blank.” She glanced around his place. “You have a lot of black here. You love the night sky and that's black. So we'll go with that without you mentioning any caveats that the sky only looks black because science.”
He opened his mouth to argue and she talked over him. “And I know you don't think Pluto is a planet. I'll pull the answer for that question out of my ass.”
Wade did his best not to smile. “Because I'm tedious.”
She chuckled softly. “The fact I want you to fill out this paperwork probably makes me the same. So I understand and I'll try to be patient with you.”
“Probably?” he mouthed.
Something light hit his temple. A black hair band fell into his lap. Don't look up. Focus on the papers. Because if her hair was wild, rumpled, he'd lose whatever hold he had. She could not win. The last thing he wanted to stroke was her ego, there were too many other things he wanted to touch first.
Wade tossed the band in the general direction of the table and kept skimming the questions on the papers, stopping every now and again to answer one. Much too soon, he hit the last page and had to look at her.
The day they'd been together her hair had gone through some kind of kinetic process. The strands had started off loosely curled but the more
she'd sweated and came, the more they coiled. She'd let him play with the curls without complaint. He'd wrapped them around his fingers a little amazed at the simple transformation.
God. She'd come to his home with a stupid packet of questions armed with those curls. There was only so much a man could take. For close to two weeks he'd ignored the throbbing in his cock whenever she so much as breathed in his direction. She wanted to stand on her principles. He'd decided let her drown in them. She'd give. She'd have to. The chemistry when they simply shared the same air couldn't be ignored.
But she had. There were times she had to inhale deeply, but every time she straightened her spine and ignored the electricity. He fucking hated her for it. Despised her every time he had to close his hand around his cock and jerk himself into a semblance of sanity. He hated her for making him irrational with a laugh, a smile. Hated her for the fact a simple taste of her could reduce him to a caveman. He could forgive her if she let him touch her again.
Maybe.
Their eyes met and she held her breath—like fucking always.
Once again, he somehow managed to rein in the impulse to touch her. He pushed the papers over to her. “That's all I'm answering.”
Because it was Sophie, she flipped through his replies and made small changes to his answers. He clenched his jaw.
“I can make this work. Thanks,” she murmured. Her eyes were wide and her mouth parted as she tried to breathe normally.
Jesus Christ. Just end it, he tried to telegraph, and he didn't even fucking believe in telepathy.
She straightened her spine. “Are you ready for the lecture at Cal State?”
He could be honest and admit he wasn't thinking. His brain, once again, had stopped working. But before he could process the action, he'd caressed her bottom lip with his thumb. She didn't protest, only closed her eyes like his touch was everything she'd needed. It only made sense to let his mouth follow his digit.
He'd lost count of how many times they'd kissed the day she'd lived in his bed. He should have kept track, because practice made perfect. His mouth on hers was perfection. Every tense muscle he'd harbored loosened at the soft caress, the tease of tongue, but they coiled again at her relieved sounding moan.
This was right. His mouth. Her mouth. Their breath tangling. She hadn't asked for this intimacy so he'd stolen it. He was an unrepentant thief. And he'd keep on stealing the taste of her mouth, her breath if she let him. He cupped her face, needing the kiss to be deeper, longer.
Sophie jerked back. The sight of her wide eyes dug into his gut. “We—”
“See you for the next event,” he interrupted whatever she planned to say.
He knew the words. Had practically heard them on repeat in his head whenever she pulled away when they stood close.
Once again he wanted a woman he couldn't have. How pathetic. He pushed out of the kitchen chair, bringing an abrupt end to whatever conversation she planned to have to remind him of “proper behavior.”
He strode to the living room and blindly searched for something to watch on the TV so he wouldn't have to look at her again. He'd take no as an answer, but he knew all the things that would make her scream yes. Replayed them whenever alone.
The papers rustled, her heels clacked against the floor and finally his door opened and closed.
He gripped the remote and considered throwing it against the wall. He was alone. Again. He should be used to it by now. Despite his friends, his brother, he'd always been alone.
He'd shove it down. All of the ugly thoughts and emotions. Every frustrated feeling she left behind and he'd be fine until he had to see her again.
Four days, and she'd fuck up his world again. It would feel like a short forever.
CHAPTER
-8=2-x
Wade peeked into the forum hall four days later. Thirty minutes until he had to stroll through those doors into that room and sound like he had a PhD in Astrophysics and Cosmology. Panic skittered over his nerves and transformed into moisture along his palms.
He paced away from the entrance. His brother continued to play on his phone, looking much too relaxed on the hard concrete bench. Grady had finished instructing his last class for the day and decided to see his brother perform like a circus animal.
Wade wiped at the sweat leaking from his forehead. “This is the last time I let a woman with incredible legs talk me into anything.”
His brother glanced up, amusement clear in his smile. “So you're blaming her now?”
“Yup.”
His brother snorted. “Ten minutes ago you told me no one could make you do anything.”
Wade paced to where his brother sat and smacked him in the back of the head. “Shut up.”
Grady laughed. “I don't know why you're nervous. You've taught classes before, and will again because of the observatory. This looks no different.”
“I'm not nervous.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and wiped the sweat off inside them. “I'm annoyed I've been snowed into doing all this.”
“Go over your lecture notes.”
He'd given them to Sophie and she'd promised to print them out after looking at his chicken scratch, but where the hell was she? He needed time to mentally prepare. He should make sure the presentation he'd loaded onto his laptop worked. Wade didn't do talks like this, because his temper and patience was too short. He hated the blank stares then the feeling that followed—he was talking gibberish.
Why did he let Sophie convince him into making a fool of himself? Everyone would know. His breath shorted out as that fear spiked his pulse into overdrive. His knees lost their steadiness, and he had to plop down next to his brother as the world grayed, closing in around him.
“Shit,” Grady said. “Breathe.”
Wade covered his face. It was his own damn fault. He'd talked himself into a fucking frenzy. Though his palms remained damp, his skin suddenly felt encased in ice. A shiver shot down his spine. Logically he knew he was on the verge of a panic attack set off by stage fright of all fucking things. The only way to head it off was to calm the fuck down, but he was thirty minutes away from making an ass of himself in front of students and probably colleagues. They'd look at him and know his brain had failed him. Would again if he didn't stay on top of it.
No. They won't.
Just calm the fuck down.
His rib cage squeezed around his lungs and his breath rasped in, out. Grady's words dribbled in a garbled tone so he tried to focus on that instead of the way his heart pumped like a fucking race horse.
Then warm, soft hands covered his. “Wade.” Sophie's voice cut through the fog. “Look at me, sweetie.”
He jolted at the endearment, his hands dropping to his lap. “Sweetie?”
Her smile drew him in. “You can focus on that? Good.” She glanced at Grady. “Can you get him some water? There's some bottles behind the podium.” She met Wade's gaze again. Her hands were warm against his chilled skin. “And you keep looking at me all annoyed for calling you a pet name. I know you don't believe in them.”
She'd called him Sport once, in jest, and after they'd talked about it, she'd promised to never do it again. “You broke your vow,” he accused.
“I made it under duress,” she argued. “Usually I try to avoid the speeches you make when you're annoyed.”
She squatted in front of him and continued to hold his hands. “I believe aliens abduct people and probe them. The sun revolves around the earth. And dammit, Pluto is so a planet.” Her smile widened. “Your eye is twitching and the color is coming back into your cheeks.”
He ignored all that because pet names were for people who lacked imagination. “Sweetie?”
“And you're harping.” She closed her eyes and exhaled. Her hands were trembling against his.
He pulled his away. She rested on her haunches, the smile fading. He didn't want to have this talk, the one brewing in her gaze. He'd told her enough for it to be considered a warning. The details mattered. They made his sto
mach hurt to even think about saying them out loud. To her. Or anyone who wasn't there when he'd lost his fucking mind.
Grady came out of the door, his face lined with worry. Wade's discomfort must have shadowed his face. His brother asked for a moment alone. Sophie hesitated but eventually slipped into the forum hall.
They sat in the silence as Wade chugged the water. His throat had gone dry and the impulse to run or punch something continued to pump in his veins. The sweat collecting on his face edged toward flop at that point. He used the hem of his shirt to wipe it away.
Wade said, “The next time I see Eva, I'm going to apologize to her.” She suffered from panic attacks. Not often from what he knew but much more intense. He felt like shit as the adrenaline rush ebbed.
His brother nodded like he understood everything Wade hadn't said.
Grady noted, “Sophie stopped the attack from going into full swing.”
Right. His brother hadn't officially met her yet and what a way to introduce them. He glanced at the door where she'd disappeared. No telling what she thought of him. Asshole Wade flipped out over public speaking.
“Don't,” Grady said as though he could read Wade's thoughts.
Annoyed, he spit out, “What?”
“She didn't waver. I doubt she'll think less of you.”
Thinking less of him wasn't the problem. Today was a panic attack. Would next time be a spiral? Living through the experience if he had an episode—no one deserved that. Not even his brother, but Grady refused to drop him. His brother had learned how to be stubborn from the best.
“And if she finds out I'm bipolar?”
“She talked you into doing this lecture when you find the majority of people an unnecessary nuisance, and you let everyone know. Repeatedly. I think she can take whatever you throw at her.”
And that was the problem. Sophie was a bleeding heart. He didn't want her pity. He wanted her. He wanted her to see him and not his bipolar.
“Doesn't matter.” His tone was dismissive but his stomach knotted, ached. “She doesn't have sex with clients. We're not a couple.”
Grady's expression flattened. “Sometimes I swear you're dumber than a brick.”