Could Sarah convince a younger, attractive, intelligent man to fall for her in just one date? The thought worried Lauren slightly, the unfairness of it all looming darkly over her thoughts, but the thoughts she knew Sarah would be having right now included only excited nervousness and a willingness to accept the challenge.
Tonight, she would see how well Sarah’s personality could fair against the strength and persistence of Dean’s. Tonight, Lauren would forget herself for a few hours and play out the scene as only Sarah could. Tonight, she wasn’t Lauren pretending to be like Sarah. Tonight, there was no denying it. She was Sarah.
***
As Lauren opened the dormitory door and allowed him his first peek at her, his eyes had outlined the contours of her body hungrily, taking in the perfect fit of her three quarter length top with a deep V-neck and the black leather skirt that sat modestly above her knees. The black pumps had completed the outfit well, and it was obvious the extra two inches of height they gave her were accentuating the shapeliness of her bare legs, sparking pleasant surprise in Dean’s expression.
“You look fantastic,” he said, his gaze still set on her legs below the leather skirt. A satisfied sigh escaped Lauren’s throat as she grinned back at him, pleased that her and Libby’s efforts had proven worthwhile.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Lauren said as she took in his jeans and plaid shirt covering the white tee beneath it. His hair had been gelled to give it style. Casual, yet it was enough to make him stand out. The blue of his shirt brought out his eyes, and Lauren told him so.
“I’ve had women tell me they’re jealous of my eyelashes.” Dean chuckled as Lauren grabbed her purse, a small gold buckled clutch also borrowed from Libby to match her outfit, and turned back to him.
“Those women are right. I am jealous of your eyelashes,” she quipped, reaching out to run her fingertip gently across the edge of his eyelid. She heard his breath catch in his throat, and a wave of satisfaction flooded through her.
“The last thing you need to be is jealous of anyone else, Sarah. My God, have you seen yourself in the mirror? You’re stunning.” He reached out and touched her hand gently, still brushing lightly against his face, and their eyes met as the heat of his skin registered in her brain. She bit her lip in an attempt to steady her pulse, then pushed past him gently, allowing her hips and shoulders to brush against him as she passed.
Stay cool, Sarah, Lauren silently chanted.
“Let’s check out this band you’re so fond of, shall we?”
Chapter Fifteen
Lauren was perched atop a vibrant red vinyl stool in the corner of the dimly lit pub on campus, sipping a Cosmopolitan. Her eyes could have been fixed anywhere around her—the bright strobe lights of the stage, the long-haired members of the band that crooned huskily into microphones and played their instruments with passion and talent, or even at the laughing and mostly intoxicated crowd of college students around that sashayed and pushed their way from dance floor to bar and back again. Instead, she was watching one person. Dean sat with his stool pushed around to the other side of the table so they could talk over the loud music and boisterous commotion around them.
“You’re telling me, you didn’t always want to be a writer?” he was saying incredulously. “Unless you’re going to tell me you wanted to be a model, I don’t see how someone so talented and so beautiful could ever want to do something else.” Lauren leaned closer to him, her chin resting on the back of her hand. She’d had barely anything to drink since they left the dorm room, but already she was comfortable with Dean and quite taken by his insistent flattery and compliments.
“You’re too kind.” She smiled. “But it is true, it wasn’t until about ten years ago that I decided I needed to write. Before that, I was convinced I wanted to be a veterinarian, like my Dad was.”
“So what happened to change your mind?” Dean was leaning forward, his elbows on the table in front of him. The condensation from his half finished bottle of beer dripped slowly onto the cork coaster below it.
“My favorite dog had to be put down when I was fifteen. It crushed me.” She took a sip from the glass in front of her.
“Well, as sorry as I am to hear that, Sarah, the rest of the world thanks you for making the choice to write. You’ve got far too much talent and creative energy to let it go to waste.” Dean stared tentatively at her hand resting on the table. When she realized what he was probably debating, she casually slid her hand back off the table onto her lap.
“I don’t know about that. The sales of my first book weren’t stellar, by any means.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she immediately regretted them. She struggled to remain composed and not give away the shock she felt at having slipped up. Sarah’s storyline included nothing about being a published author, and Lauren had meant to keep it that way. Unfortunately, the boundaries between their lives had blurred momentarily. She would have to be more careful.
“You have a published book? You didn’t tell me that.” His excitement made her smile. She was thankful for the dim lights as she tried to hide her dismay, while searching for an answer to solve this unexpected turn of events.
“You didn’t ask.”
“Tell me about it. What’s it called?” Dean had dug into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his cell. He must have had the intention of recording the title to search it out later.
Lauren decided to play it coyly. “I’m not telling you, Dean.” If she told him about it, he would see that she wasn’t at all who she said she was and the whole scenario would come crashing down around her.
Dean set his phone down. “Why not? Come on. Did you write under a pen name?”
“Of course. And I did it so that persistent, attractive men such as yourself can’t seek it out due to blatant nosiness.” She beamed at him, hoping her playfulness would steer him away from the topic at hand.
“Ever the mysterious one, huh?” Dean retorted.
“You’re persistent, I’m mysterious. Not the greatest combination, I suppose.”
“I disagree,” Dean replied. “You and I seem to get along quite well, if I do say so myself.”
She reached for her drink, stirring it with the straw mindlessly as she spoke. “Getting along and being a good combination isn’t necessarily the same thing.”
“No,” Dean agreed, “but it only takes the flicker of a flame to set off an explosion of fireworks.” He reached across the table for her hand, his touch electric as he halted her from the stirring motion. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it between us, Sarah. We’ve got something here.”
The smoldering look he cast in her direction made Lauren fight to take a breath. The sound around them, the bustling movements, everything faded into the background as she identified the determination and intensity in his stare.
“What is it you feel?” The question toppled from her lips without thinking, her voice sounding smaller to her own ears. She couldn’t take her eyes from him.
Dean’s teeth shone brightly as he smiled, reaching up with his other hand to push aside the bottle of beer he hadn’t touched in over half an hour. “I feel strength and weakness at the same time. Simultaneous calm and frenzy. You’re a tidal wave of creativity that, in the moment it’s unleashed, overwhelms everything in its wake, yet, at the same time you hold the veil over yourself so tightly that the true mystery in your words is maintained. You’re complex from within, that much I can ascertain, yet so easy to want, to desire, Sarah. I don’t think you fully comprehend the allure you possess.”
“I…” She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but her cell phone suddenly started to buzz on the table between them and she grabbed it hastily, tearing her hand from Dean’s grasp and her eyes from his intense stare. For the second time that day, Michael’s name glowed across the caller display screen in front of her. “I have to take this.” She looked up at Dean apologetically.
“I’ll get us each another drink. These are warm by now.”
Dean eased himself off the pub stool and plucked the bottle and glass from their table. Lauren couldn’t read his expression as he disappeared into the crowd pushing up against the bar. She scrambled to answer the cell phone before it went to voice mail.
“Hello? Michael?”
“Hey, Lauren. Whoa, where are you? It sounds like some party.” The edge in his voice quickly put her on the defensive.
“There was a live band at the pub on campus, so I thought I would check it out, that’s all.”
“I guess that’s not code for actually working on your novel, huh?”
Immediately, Lauren was annoyed. For the past few weeks, all she had done was sit tirelessly at her desk in front of a glowing computer screen and type, scratching notes in the notebook about storylines, plot points, and point of views. Every day, she dialed Michael’s cell phone, but only rarely did he pick up. For the most part, she had to await his call back. Now, the one and only time she had permitted herself to go anywhere but the class room or her dorm room, Michael was being catty about it.
“I’ve worked really hard since I got here, Michael. I deserve a break, too. We can’t all work all the time.” She knew he would take that as a dig in his direction, and she meant it that way. He may choose to work all day every day, but she wasn’t going to.
She heard him sigh over the loud music and the crowds of people. “I’m not fighting about this now, Lauren. Who’s with you?”
Lauren looked around her. “No one,” she replied. “I’m alone.” She justified her answer by realizing that, by technicality, it was true. Dean wasn’t there, he was at the bar. If Michael could be difficult, so could she.
“All right, call me later then.”
“Why, so I can talk to your voice mail?” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and she certainly had not meant to blurt it out in such a condescending tone.
“Then don’t call, Lauren,” Michael answered bluntly and the line went dead. He had hung up on her. She pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it in disbelief.
“Everything okay?”
She turned to see Dean appear at the table. He was empty-handed. “Were you listening?” she asked.
Dean held up his hands in surrender. “I swear, I wasn’t. It’s your expression, you look like you’ve seen a ghost or something. Are you okay?”
Lauren shook her head in an attempt to make light of the call. “Yeah, of course. I thought you were getting drinks?”
“I will be in that line forever. If you really want another, I’ll go wait to get it, but I was thinking, maybe we could get out of here, go for a walk or something?” He phrased it as a question, giving Lauren an out if she wanted it.
Lauren glanced over the crowd and at the stage, where the musicians were gearing up to do a second set of songs. It was obvious from the rowdiness and spilled alcohol that the night was just getting started for most of the patrons. The phone call had put a damper on her mood and made her yearn for a little solitude.
“If I told you that I think I should just head home, would I ruin your night?” She bit her lip, then seeing his expression of uncertainty, she added, “I had a really great night, Dean, I swear.” She held up her phone as a way of explanation, “I just have a few things I didn’t realize had to be dealt with tonight.”
Dean leaned against the table and flashed a smile. “It’s fine, Sarah. You don’t have to explain yourself. I had a great night, too, though.”
Lauren arched an eyebrow at him speculatively. “You know I just had a conversation with someone and it didn’t go as planned, yet I don’t have to explain myself? Perhaps the combination of you and I isn’t such a bad idea after all.” She chuckled and slid to the floor. She heard her cell ding with an incoming text alert, but she chose to tuck it into the borrowed clutch and turn to Dean. He looked down at the bag in her hand containing the cell phone. He had heard the text alert as well.
“Are you going to ignore that?”
“It can wait.”
He nodded. “If you say it can, then it can. Come on, I’ll walk you home.” He held out a crooked arm in waiting. Lauren giggled, shaking her head in amusement as she slid her hand around his arm, holding onto the muscled bicep beneath his plaid shirt.
***
Shadows crept in lengthy stretches of darkness across the campus as Lauren and Dean strolled slowly toward the dormitory. Safety lights were placed sporadically across the campus grounds, but the moonlight seemed to be the main source of light tonight. The night was cool, but neither of them seemed to notice. Once again, he had effortlessly eased them into a conversation about the perks of having actually enjoyed studying poetry in high school.
“I mean, it’s not like it’s easy for a guy to go around saying he quite enjoys the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, but I’m telling you, you get the right girl listening to you go on about the right poem, and suddenly the nerdy literature buff becomes the stud. It’s not a bad deal, really.”
Lauren laughed, brushing a lock of hair behind her shoulder. “I love Edgar Allan Poe. The man was a literary genius. Perhaps eccentric, but a genius nonetheless.”
“Wow, a Poe fan, I never would have guessed.”
Lauren cocked an eyebrow as they neared the building. She punched her entry code into the door, heard the click of the lock opening, and Dean pulled open the door for her. “Seriously? What did you take me for then? A fan of Hemingway? Something more modern?” She turned and awaited his response.
Instead of answering, he gave her a mischievous grin and leaned toward her. They were at the bottom of the stairs leading to the upper levels of the dormitory. One path would lead to the stairs, the other to the elevator. He put his hand against the wall beside her head, holding Lauren in place. She could feel the coolness of the wall behind her as he spoke, his voice low and husky.
“That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the most beautiful.” His grin widened as his eyes searched Lauren’s face for permission to draw closer. “And you are beautiful, Sarah.”
Poe. He had recited Poe to her in undoubtedly the most seductive voice she’d ever heard. Lauren could hear her heart pounding, blood rushing past her ears in waves. “Dean…” she managed to choke out, but the words came a moment too late. In an instant, his lips had found hers and were gently taking over the conversation. She felt his fingertips brush the bare skin of her forearm as she stood there, unable and not wanting to move away. His touch combined with the heat and intensity of his kiss caused Lauren to gasp quietly, just enough to make him pull away, once again searching her face for answers.
“You okay?” he whispered. Lauren’s face was flushed, she could feel it. The harsh fluorescent lighting of the stairwell didn’t help either, but she couldn’t seem to focus. Her mind was spinning in a thousand different directions. Finally, she nodded.
“I’m good.” A half smile formed on her lips as she stared up at him.
“Let’s get you home.” His voice was different now, deeper, and quieter. He reached down for her hand and led her toward the staircase. Lauren’s room was only on the second floor, so in the time they waited for the elevator, they could have already been at her door. Stairs, however, were trickier with pumps on, and Lauren used Dean’s hand to steady herself. Perhaps it wasn’t the pumps causing her mild case of dizziness, but it was easier for her to blame the shoes than to acknowledge their kiss in the stairwell.
An awkward tension fell between them. Lauren knew it was her fault. She’d said next to nothing since his lips left hers. At the foot of her dorm door, they stopped. Lauren didn’t see anyone in the hall, so she pretended to fidget with her keys to find the right one in hopes that Dean would speak first.
“I had a great time, Sarah,” he said. It could have been his expression of uncertainty, but suddenly Dean he seemed younger than Lauren initially thought.
“Me too, Dean. Thank you for being so persistent in inviti
ng me out.”
Dean chuckled, shrugging. “I guess sometimes persistence truly can pay off. Thank you for allowing me to take you out.” Lauren unlocked her dorm door and took a step toward the threshold. Dean reached out and gently placed his hand on her side to stop her. She tilted her head up to meet his gaze, and his eyes had that look again, the smoldering intensity threatening to come undone. That look made Lauren wonder what it would be like to unleash that intensity and let it run wild with her own.
“Dean.” Her voice was as low as a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ll see you in class on Monday, okay?” She held his gaze, and instantly wondered if he could see through her transparent words. His fingers remained on her side for a moment longer, then she watched as he reluctantly took a step away.
“Of course. You have a good night.” His smile was warm but he appeared defeated. Lauren felt a pang of guilt at rejecting him.
“You too, Dean.” She backed into the dorm room and dug into the clutch for her cell.
Lauren closed the door with a gentle click and, even though she wasn’t sure why, she dialed Michael’s cell number. Even if he didn’t want her to call, she had to lessen her guilt. The call didn’t ring but went straight to his voice mail.
Michael had turned his phone off.
A moment later, Lauren saw the text that had chimed in earlier at the bar. In bold letters was the short text from Libby.
Be brave, Sarah. He’s worth it.
She wasn’t sure when she made the decision, before or after slipping out of the pumps that pinched her feet and made it difficult to walk, or when she turned off her own cell phone. Either way, she pushed her thoughts and worries into the deepest depths of her mind as she realized selfishly, in that moment, that no one else mattered to her.
Before she knew it, she was pulling open the door and barreling into the hallway. Evidently, Dean had been of the same unsettled mindset. She crashed into his chest outside her door. She looked up at him, into his yearning eyes, and said the only thing she wanted to say in that moment.
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