He drops into the chair behind his desk. “Close the door.”
I do as he asks, trying not to think about all the things I’d rather do behind closed doors than interrogate him about my missing assignment.
When I turn back, he’s looking out the window, absently dragging his thumb along his lower lip. That quickly, I’m launched into a vivid memory of those lips. The way they felt against mine. The way I’d sought them out again. The way they’d sought mine…
I take the seat opposite him. “So what is this about?”
“I’m dropping you from the class.”
My heart falls to my stomach. “Excuse me?”
“You missed an important class, and you already have a zero for the summary that was due Friday.”
My jaw falls open, but he’s speaking again before I can.
“And even if you hadn’t turned it in late, it was…” He picks up a pen and starts clicking it rapidly. “Subpar.”
I launch upright. “Bullshit.”
“You’re not a lit major, Kara. It’s clear in the way you craft your thoughts. You’re better suited to sticking with a seminar in your major. I’m sure your GPA is stellar. There’s no point in taking a hit this late in the game.”
I circle the desk. My skin feels like it’s on fire, for entirely different reasons than the last time we were this close. He spins in his chair to face me.
“You’re lying.” I shove my finger at him accusingly. “Besides that, I’ve been waiting to take this class for three years. You can’t just pull me out of it for no good reason.”
He clicks his pen a dozen more times before I tear it out of his hand and throw it across the room. He closes his eyes briefly like he might be reaching for his Zen place after my little outburst.
“This isn’t going to work,” he utters quietly. “You know all the reasons why. I don’t need to spell them out for you.”
“You’ve been patronizing me for ten minutes. Why stop now?”
“Kara… This has to stop before we both do things we regret.”
“Like what?”
His eyes darken, transforming my spike of anger into something equally intense. Something that might land me in the second circle of hell if I weren’t already bound for worse. I take in a calming breath, cross my arms, and lean my hip against the edge of his desk.
“You’re attracted to me,” I say.
“Obviously.” The retort is low and clipped.
“Fine.” I suck in a long breath. For some reason, I didn’t anticipate his reply. The word itself, sure, but not his bluntness. “I’m attracted to you too. And that’s not exactly…normal for me.”
He frowns.
“I’m not immune to attraction,” I say. “But it’s easy for me to ignore it most of the time. This physical pull between us is stronger than anything I’ve ever felt with anyone else, but it’s more than that. There’s something special about you that I can’t figure out. Even though it’s dangerous and driving both of us a little crazy right now, I can’t let it go until I know what that is.”
For a long time, he simply breathes and stares, like he’s deciding what to do with me. I brace myself for him to insist we keep our distance again. But hopefully he’s figured out that’s just not going to work on me.
“I know I’m different,” he finally says.
The small admission stuns me. I’m afraid to say anything that will keep him from sharing more, so I stay quiet and wait.
“I just don’t know why. And until you started shoving your way into my personal space the way you have been, I was content not to know.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Who said I was afraid?”
I unfold my arms and slowly glide my fingertips across the back of his hand. I expect him to recoil from my touch, but he doesn’t, which makes me bolder still.
“I’m different too, Maximus. Even if I couldn’t read the fear in your eyes when you pulled away from me the other night, I could feel it.” When he tenses, I decide to let him into my world a little more, even though I know I shouldn’t. “Humans…” Bad start. “Human beings give off vibrations. It’s like the way people read body language or smell pheromones and inherently know something about someone else. The way I feel it is more like a vibration. Which can be kind of overwhelming when I’m around a lot of people. Or around people with really powerful emotions.” I lick my lips, worried I’ve said too much. “People like you.”
“You sound crazy. You know that, right?”
I resist the urge to throw something at him.
“Well, if you went around telling people you could twist metal like a bendy straw, they might call you crazy too. How about we establish a judgment-free zone here, all things considered?”
He sighs. “Fine. I don’t know. Saying any of this out loud makes it seem…”
“Real?”
“Maybe. I shouldn’t be able to do the things I do.”
“And I shouldn’t be able to feel the things I feel. But here we are.”
“So what do we do now? Dedicate office hours to reveling in our shared weirdness? That doesn’t feel too constructive to me.”
I tilt my head. “I was thinking dinner.”
His eyes widen slightly. “If we so much as think about sharing a meal in public together—”
“The paparazzi will have a field day with it and your face will get splashed on trashy magazines far and wide. I know. This is my normal, remember? I have ways to get around these things.”
He eyes me warily.
I lean over him to grab another pen and scribble an address on the top margin of my ungraded assignment.
“Meet me here at six. I’ll work out dinner.”
His eyes light up, bringing me a new frisson of excitement. “Hmm. A woman with a plan.”
“Maybe.” I kick up the corner of my mouth. “Okay, probably. Just wear comfortable clothes.”
I’m ready to leave, but he grabs my hand, keeping me from moving farther away from him. Our gazes lock.
“Are you sure about this?”
I lift my brows. “About dinner?”
“No.”
He runs his thumb up and down my wrist. The gesture is gentle and sweet, and I have to restrain myself from crawling into his lap and dedicating the next hour to re-exploring his mouth, his touch, everything…
“You’re determined to figure me out. Has it ever occurred to you that you might not like what you find?”
“It hasn’t.” Not a single time.
“Shouldn’t that worry you?”
I shake my head. “If I only wanted to see the best of you, I wouldn’t be here.”
“But what if—”
“I can handle it, Maximus.” Also not a lie. I show him as much with the steady surety of my eyes as our gazes tangle once more. “I can handle you.”
All of you.
I’m not sure when I’ve yearned for a challenge more. I hope he sees that truth in my eyes, but I’m not sure. Because this time, when I pull away, he lets me go.
Chapter Twelve
Maximus
“This is…wow.”
I’m not looking at Kara as I declare it, but her soft hum tells me she’s heard me. “Well, it doesn’t seem as overwhelming from up here. That’s for sure.”
I don’t miss the bleak notes in her reply as we look out over the trendy sprawl of Los Feliz and Hollywood. The downtown skyline, several miles away, is drenched in the hues of a sultry September sunset. From up here, the huge buildings look like miniatures constructed on a movie’s special-effects set.
After a quiet moment, she steps across the packed dirt of the Griffith Park Firebreak Trail to stand a little closer to me. She’s near enough to touch, serving up temptation I don’t try to ignore. For once, it feels right to give in. To pull her close and tuck her against my side. It feels even more right as she settles there, splaying her touch affectionately across my stomach. I wrap my hand around her shoulder and stretch my fingers in, gently fin
gering the wisps of hair that have escaped her cute ponytail.
Everything about the moment is more connective than seductive, if a little heavy with the anticipation I’ve been holding on to all day about meeting her here. But now we’re just…together. As if we’ve been this way for a lot longer than eight days.
She leans her cheek against my shoulder. “I had a hunch you’d like it.”
“A ‘hunch,’ eh?”
I utter every syllable with deliberate intention. Maybe her gifts are more intuitive than psychic, but I haven’t forgotten what she confessed this morning in my office. The vibrations she feels. The way she feels them from me. The way I overwhelm her. I still can’t unpack everything that I’m experiencing in return.
“This trail is usually a little lighter with foot traffic,” she goes on, sidestepping my comment. “People opt for the easier route rather than trying to plow straight up the side of the hill on this one.”
“I don’t mind the tougher way,” I assure her with a chuckle. While her answering laugh spreads warmth that rivals the sunset, I add, “But you had a hunch about that too, didn’t you?”
Kara tilts her head up, tossing me a soft smile. “Some things about you are easier to understand than others.”
“Meaning what?” I’m only half kidding. I manage to keep my tone light before realizing the effort is useless. The emotions percolating under the surface have likely already given me away. My energy. My enchantment with her. My sheer and happy surprise that she’s chosen dirt and trees over some stiff, stuffy restaurant.
Sure enough, Kara words her reply with obvious care. “Your propensity for physicality isn’t exactly a well-kept secret.” She swallows before gliding her touch up to my chest. “Not that I’m complaining.”
At once, there’s a fresh glow in my blood. “Kara Valari,” I tease in a low rumble. “Are you flirting with me?”
Her head darts back up when she laughs. Her velvety browns are sprinkled with gold flecks. Her lower lip disappears beneath her teeth. All too quickly, she interrupts my fascination with the move by answering me. “Do you…want me to be?”
With gruff scuffs in the dirt, I turn to fully face her. “Can’t you tell?”
Again, with intimacy that feels so natural, I move one hand to grip her hip. I’m so goddamned tempted to roam that palm farther down, not that she’s helped the matter by dressing in a pair of denim shorts that would make Daisy Duke blush. I’m grateful when Kara keeps her own touch planted at the center of my chest, a small anchor helping me control my physical lust.
But no force on this earth can stop what’s going on with the rest of me.
It’s happening all over again. The awakening to her. The awareness of her. That burst of fire and light and color, racing between her blood and mine, as brilliant as the gilded sunlight all around us…
Sunlight that’s suddenly alive with swirling stars.
I keep the quixotic impression to myself. It’s a thought, not a feeling, so it should be safe from her. The early twilight breeze turns into a full gust and pries feathery tufts away from the nearby fescue bushes, and Kara giggles as the little buggers cling to us.
“You’ve got stars in your hair, Professor.”
“So do you, Miss Valari.” I can’t help the smile that brims as I flick one away from her eyebrow. “And here. And…here.”
But once I finish thumbing one off her bottom lip, I don’t move my touch.
I revel in the snag of her breath. Then the flicker of the sunlight and the need in her gaze. While pressing my thumb to the corner of her mouth, I stretch my fingers across her cheek.
“Stars,” I repeat, letting my feelings match my words. I know she gets it. I know she feels me. She’s getting off on my adrenaline and my wonder, and I accept the flow of hers in return. It’s like we’re becoming junkies for each other—and for the first time, I don’t resist being higher than a kite.
“You think they’re guiding us somewhere?” she asks in a whisper as warm as the wind.
I mold my body closer to hers. “If the destination’s heaven, I’m halfway there.”
The words, warm and husky on my lips, feel perfect for the moment—until Kara steps away, nearly tripping over her own feet.
What the hell?
“Sun’s going to be down in just a few minutes,” she hurries to say. “Race me up to the observatory? We can keep talking over dinner.” She tilts her head and winks, an obvious play to lighten the suddenly weird air that’s fallen like a lead balloon between us.
I want to push her on the whiplash response, but my intuition already reins me back. Pressing her to reveal anything more than she wants, especially in the middle of this trail, is going to be an exercise in futility.
I’ll have to be sneakier about the whole thing. Smoother. A task completely outside my wheelhouse. That means I’ll have to ask myself the unaskable question.
What would Jesse do?
Unbelievably, the query becomes my lifeline as I follow her up the rest of the hill. The final part of the trail also proves to be one of its steepest, meaning Kara’s having to show off the flex of her glutes in all their well-honed glory—and those ruthlessly sexy shorts.
The only thing that saves me from rocking a full-blown hard-on once we get to the top is focusing on my conjecture of how Jesse would do this. It’s fate’s cruel joke on the pair of us. I’ve got the legs that work but the small-talk game that doesn’t. Jesse’s stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his days but can charm a nun out of her panties.
I’m pretty damn sure Kara Valari’s not wearing any panties.
Not that charming her out of them would be my intention here.
I just need to figure out how to get her to open up to me. Because for the first time, in the absence of my own fear, I’m starting to think she may have plenty of secrets of her own.
I sit back and survey what’s left of the decadent food spread we’ve demolished. “I can’t believe you arranged all this in a few hours. Okay, scratch that. I can’t believe you arranged all this, period.”
While her cute ponytail allows me to view every enticing inch of the blush staining her cheeks, I tamp the fiftieth urge to tug at the tight elastic tie and set her thick waves free. It’s not the only temptation I’ve been fighting the last hour.
“I’m really glad you’re having fun,” she says with a sweet smile that turns my throat into sandpaper and my senses into mush. But the good kind. A lot of the good kind. While our view from the small table she’s somehow set up on the terrace is even better than the view from the trail, I can’t take my eyes off the beauty in front of me.
“Fun?” I scoff. “Fun is a run on the beach or a Sunday matinee. But this is…”
Romantic. Meaningful. The best night I’ve had in a long time.
But I don’t say any of that.
Kara quirks a curious smile. “This is…what?”
Again, I think about speaking the truth of my soul out loud—but her reaction to when I did it the first time tonight, out on the trail, is still a lingering sting in my memory. Instead, I pop an olive into my mouth and gaze out at the skyline once more.
“This is fun on crack.”
Her melodic laughter draws my attention back to her.
“So how did you do this?”
Her answering smile is a little coquettish and a lot captivating. “Do what?”
“You know what,” I return. “This place is closed on Mondays. Jesse and I used to get so mad when we had a Monday off school because we had to find some other kind of fun. Those alternatives rarely beat the observatory.”
“Let’s just say I know a guy who knows a guy,” she answers with a coy smile. She reaches across the table and threads her fingers through mine. “So you and Jesse came here a lot?”
“You could say that. Free admission, air-conditioning, and kick-ass displays about space. To a couple of downtown kids who already knew more about the subject than our teachers, with moms who couldn’t af
ford to skip work, there were few things better.”
“That truly does sound like fun on crack.”
Her lighthearted jest gets her an answering hand squeeze.
“Even getting here was a blast. I’d load Jesse and his chair onto the number two bus, and then we’d transfer onto the Observatory Dash.” The memories have me smiling and shaking my head. “Some of the characters on that bus… I mean, damn…you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“I dare you to say that after an hour at one of my mother’s parties.”
“Is it that bad?” My tender tone is a response to the dark desolation in hers. “Life as a Valari?” I clarify. “I mean, the glamour has to be overstated a little, which is where you get the haters. But behind that huge exterior, there’s got to be the truth, right? The reality?”
Kara disconnects our grasp and rests back in her chair. Her eyes are as luminous as the moon rising against the dusky sky just above the observatory’s dome.
“Sorry. I’m prying.” I run a frustrated hand through my hair, worried I’m already screwing up an otherwise perfect night. “You probably get this all the time. People trying to get information out of you. Shit—”
“That’s not it.” Her expression is taut but sincere. “Honestly, it’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever been asked about my life by someone who might actually…care.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table. “I do care.” Probably too damn much. “If you want to talk about anything, I’m here. Whatever it is…”
She laughs weakly. “All the spectacle and the glory of my fabulous life, eh?”
“I said whatever it is.” I stress my sincerity by reaching for her again, stretching my fingertips out and lightly grazing her knuckles. I slide my touch across the top of her wrist. And then around it.
She sighs heavily. “My family is…complicated.”
“Most are.”
“It probably seems like every detail of our life is splashed across the media. Talk about false realities. Very little is as it seems. Beyond all that, we’re a study in contradictions. We’re really private, but we’re not. We’re close, but…we’re not.”
Blood of Zeus: Book One Page 9