by Ginny Glass
Nora climbed into her car and shook, both from cold and confusion. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked the hot, salty sting away. The rose spun in her fingers. An ironic snort burst from her lips. She almost envied physicist Ernest Rutherford. All he had to do was split the atom. She had to decide between James and Jarod.
The lotion bottle hit the wall and rebounded with impressive force. The plastic split along the side, leaving behind a cherry-almond scent and a splatter pattern worthy of a crime scene. It was a damned crime—an atrocity that, despite an hour’s worth of fantasizing and the usual man props, Jarod was unable to arouse anything but his own temper. In fact, the moaning and groaning streaming from his flat screen turned him off rather than on.
He jammed the power button, silencing Moan-a and Her Ménage, and paced the floor of his living room, the hardwood cool under his bare feet. He raked a hand through his damp hair. Damn her. Damn Nora for doing this to him. He refused to pick up the phone, even though he knew satisfaction was only eleven digits away.
Better than the worthless five digits you’ve been using. Call her.
He refused. He fought the urge. He fought the memory of her climaxing throatily into his ear, fought the way the sound meshed and merged with the real taste of her—a taste he now knew firsthand. He winced. Poor choice of words.
Nora didn’t want him. She’d made that clear when she’d brushed him off to go have her little play date with “James.” Jarod’s pride rankled to know that while she’d been with him, her pretty head had been filled with thoughts of someone else. He was jealous, he could admit it.
Except, yeah. He was James, and the gut-deep resentment that twisted in him was partly his own fault. Okay, more than partly, mostly. He’d given in to the sexual thrill of being with her in the silence and solitude of a phone connection. In person she stirred tenderness and romantic thoughts. On the phone his mind and body leaped straight to sex. Jarod got the slow simmer of brewing possibility. James got the raging boil of unbridled lust. He’d cooked his own damn goose.
Tonight had been fantastic. They’d flirted and talked, touched those sensual touches that bridged the gap between friends and more. He wanted more. He should’ve come clean with her tonight. Confession was good for the soul, right? Unless it blew up in your face, then it was bad. She would have either slapped him senseless and never seen him again, or she would have been writhing in his bed with the right name on her lips.
It was the former he was afraid of and the latter that tortured him. Nora had quickly become not just a disembodied voice on the phone, not even just a piece of ass he was after. What he was doing with her, the way he was confusing her, was wrong.
But it felt so very good.
He itched, no, he ached to call her. He couldn’t get it up—who knew if he could even sleep without the sweet wringing lethargy that set in after one of their amazing shared climaxes? She’d worried about him thinking she was some kind of a slut and he’d assured her he didn’t. Far from it. He thought of her as a goddess, a gift, a mystery he would love to spend hours unraveling, in and out of bed.
Though she had fallen asleep after their last session, the line had stayed live. The even cadence of her breathing through the tinny speaker of his phone lulled him to sleep. He’d wondered as his own exhaustion claimed him what it would be like to wake up next to Nora MacGregor. What was it like to hold her close and smell the spiced apple of her damp, sated skin? What would his name, his real name, sound like on her lips in the throes of orgasm?
Jarod scowled at the lotion mess smearing the floor and swiped his cell phone as he stormed into his bedroom. He didn’t turn on the light. He wanted the dark because that was James—dark and demanding and bold, not the play-it-safe nice guy who got left in the cold. After ripping back the comforter, he sprawled out and thumbed through the cell’s address book, hovering over Nora’s number.
He could call her and take her halfway. He could stay on the line just long enough to scratch his own itch and then hang up. He could call her and revel in the dishonest debauchery that satisfied his body but left his heart unfulfilled. He could tell her the truth and then beg to come to her place and spend a few consecutive days naked, making it up to her.
He could be told to go to hell, with directions and a map.
Groaning, Jarod sat up and lobbed his cell phone at the far end of the mattress, watching irritably as it bounced once, twice before landing on the floor at the foot of his bed. He flopped back and gritted his teeth. He was an intelligent thirty-nine-year-old man. How in the hell had he screwed this up so badly?
After a few rough scrubs of long fingers over tired eyes, he swung resignedly up out of bed and went back to the living room and the corpse of his lotion bottle. That mess was easier to clean up.
“Godda—”
This was a waste of time. She flung the obviously malfunctioning Bullet on the nightstand. It hit her phone and she dove to catch them both, nearly toppling off the bed. Her stomach plummeted as she read the screen. No new calls.
Nora’s head pounded and she ached, unsatisfied. She shoved the metallic egg under the pillow and stomped into the bathroom. She swallowed two Tylenol, snapping the bathtub faucet to high. Apple blossom steam filled the air as she tossed in a handful of bath salts with a frustrated flick. James hadn’t called. Her present was just a shiny lump that gave her useless, auto-reaction goose bumps and nothing else. It wasn’t the battery-aided vibrations she needed. It was his voice. Damn him.
She jerked off her clothes and sank in the too-hot water, hissing as her skin tingled. Relax, she needed to relax or she’d never get to sleep. Sliding back into the water, she used her foot to turn off the faucet. Damn James. He’d turned her into some sort of orgasm-crazed monster.
And damn Jarod Reed for being the man slowly replacing her faceless Romeo. The low ache returned with throbbing force at just the thought of Jarod pressing against her in the sharp chill of the night air, his green eyes on fire, his mouth sending hot desire charging through her. He’d wanted her tonight. She’d wanted him. He’d been tense with promise. She’d wanted to step back into his arms and take him up on his decadent offer.
“Find a dark street and fog up the car windows…”
It got her going instantly. Her nipples tightened and she pressed her knees together in the heated water of her bath. How was it that the sweetly seductive professor sparked the same reaction as James? James was her hardcore liberator, the man who made her feel as if sex and synapses were vastly disconnected, despite her theories. Jarod was, on the surface, a man she would compare schedules with to decide if they could steal a few sweet moments before her Advanced Chem class.
James was fantasy sex. Jarod was practical magic. She wanted both, but the choice wasn’t as simple as it should be. She was greedy after those frigid years for what James gave her—complete freedom to let go of her inhibitions and just be. What would gentle Jarod think of a woman who got off on the phone with a stranger, who had left him standing in a soft fall of snow to rush home and do it again? What would he think if he knew the raunchy, naughty thoughts she had about him while listening to another man?
Water lapped at the curve of her breast as she sank lower. She’d hurt him. She’d basically rejected his attention and wounded his masculine pride. Shame settled bitterly. She needed to apologize. But how? She didn’t even have Jarod’s number, that’s how new they were to one another. She couldn’t even call him and apologize—or explain.
Toeing open the stopper on the tub, Nora slid down and let the water drain around her. With each inch that flowed out, she felt her limbs grow heavier until she lay naked against the bare, chilly porcelain, tears stinging her already damp lashes.
Jarod’s phone woke him from a deep sleep, an exhausted sprawl he’d fallen into when he finally succumbed to frustrated fatigue. He jerked up from the pillow and fumbled toward the foot of the bed—the last-known whereabouts of his cell phone. He hung haphazardly off the edge of the mattr
ess as he answered.
“Hello?”
Nothing but raspy breathing on the other end. Jarod pulled the phone away from his ear and squinted at the screen. Private number. Annoyance spiked.
“Look, is this some kind of joke?” His voice rasped, cracked and gruff. He cleared his throat. “This is not funny. I was asleep, you little shit.”
Jarod punched the disconnect. If he wanted to hear someone pant into the phone, he’d call Nora and put himself out of his misery. He buried his head under the comforter with a moan.
Cold shock descended like an ocean wave, crashing with a deafening roar. Her knees buckled and her back slid down the kitchen wall.
Jarod?
James?
Jarod was James?
She’d caved under guilt, called the head of Campus Security and told a fib. The older man had commiserated over a mix-up with computer files and supplied Jarod’s phone number. Nora had screwed up her courage and dialed as soon as the clock ticked to seven on the dot Sunday morning.
She’d expected a possible cold shoulder. She’d expected tense silence. She had not expected that gruff, husky, just-out-of-bed voice that flooded her panties with erotic warmth. Jarod was James? Oh God.
Numbed shock faded, replaced by blistering anger. Jarod was James, the lying son of a bitch. He knew. He’d known the whole time. He’d played her like a hot tip on a race pony. Did he laugh at her? Was he chuckling under his breath at the frigid little phone nympho he’d thawed with a few whispered eroticisms? Did he sit across from her over burgers and coffee, wondering what sexual twist he could titillate her with next?
A teardrop hit her thigh. She swiped a vicious hand across her wet cheeks. No, she was not going to cry over that asshole. He was cruel and petty and…God, it hurt. How could he do this to her? Was everything a lie? The notes, the sweet kisses, the conversations, were they lies? Her watery gaze fell to the lone rose in a cheap bud vase on her kitchen table. Was that a lie?
She needed to move, to do something. There was no way she could concentrate on her paper today. There was no way she could calmly and logically write about sex and the modern educated woman. What a joke. He’d made a fool of her and she’d allowed it.
Determination fueled her and she spent hours cleaning her tiny apartment from ceiling to floor, including weeding through her closet and drawers, a task she despised. Her brain bounced in her skull, tumbling from one emotion to the next. Lysol, bleach and Pine-Sol worked to leave her apartment sparkling, but Nora still felt tarnished.
Bits of conversations blurred in her mind, blending, weaving, mixing until her head pounded. Logic said walk away—no, run away—as fast as she could, with her tail tucked between her legs. Legs she’d spread for a seductive voice on the phone. Legs that trembled in anticipation as she wondered if Jarod was going to kiss her on the pathway. Legs that had deliberately brushed his last night beneath the table.
The rose mocked her. She snatched it from the vase and threw it in the trash. Hot tears leaked over her lashes and she succumbed, curling into a knot of humiliated shame. She should have known. There had been enough signs. Jarod taught English Literature, studied the Romantic Classics, of course he would know all about James Joyce’s letters. That right there should have been her first flaming clue upside the head. Of course she’d gotten turned on when he growled at that student. That was the same voice that dirty-talked her to orgasm at night. Why hadn’t she recognized it then?
The truth turned her tears bitter. She didn’t recognize the signs because she didn’t want to. She’d felt desired and pretty and wanted by two men. Two men who didn’t exist. The sweet-natured Jarod who had delighted her heart was a cruel liar. Spicy, wicked James was nothing but a figment of his twisted imagination. She’d been suckered. The linoleum under her cheek was scented with cool pine but she smelled only deceit.
Jarod-as-James was right all along. She was never broken. But she was now. At least her heart was.
MONDAY 7:45 a.m.
Will request extension and collect new interviews.
I hate this damn paper.
Called off sick from work.
I can’t face him.
Jarod paced, the sharp morning air knifing through his jacket and stinging his eyes. Where is she? If he waited in the parking lot much longer, he was going to be late for his first Monday morning class. Nora hadn’t answered her phone yesterday. He’d called four different times before finally giving up around midnight. He’d left her a voicemail, as Jarod, but she hadn’t returned his call. She didn’t answer when he called at James’s allotted time either.
Damn his pinched ego. Why had he told her he was busy Sunday? He’d done nothing but sit around the house feeling sorry for himself.
Ankar Salih whipped his pretentious little sports car into his assigned slot and climbed from the vehicle with a bounce. He nodded politely toward Jarod then clicked his automatic lock. Jarod didn’t think twice before he sprung.
“Dr. Salih!” He sprinted across the gravel. “I’m looking for Nora MacGregor. What time does she usually come in?”
Small dark eyes squinted as a frown tugged his mouth. “Why?”
“We went to dinner Saturday and I couldn’t reach her yesterday. I thought I’d try to catch her before her first class.”
There was no policy forbidding faculty from dating but a strong wave of displeasure rippled from the science professor’s body. Salih’s upper lip thinned and Jarod had to concentrate to understand his thick accent. “Ms. MacGregor is ill and isn’t working for a few days.”
Jarod sighed. It was early for flu season but maybe she was one of the first. “I don’t suppose you have her address. Maybe I’ll take her some chicken soup.”
Dr. Salih shifted his briefcase, staring hard into Jarod’s face. “Professor Reed, she requested that I tell anyone who asked after her that she was ill.” Jarod started to speak, but the older man held up a hand. “I’ve been married for thirty-one years. I know when a woman is lying. I suggest you examine your relationship with Ms. MacGregor and see if perhaps you are the real reason for her absence. Excuse me, I have students waiting.”
The gusting wind didn’t carry half the chill of those snipped words. They sank into Jarod’s belly like pushpins, each one a bloodless sting. His eyes slid shut as Dr. Salih walked away.
Oh shit.
Nora knew. She figured out he was James and was so furious she couldn’t stand to be on the same campus as him.
No, wait, that wasn’t right. Nora had too much grit to curl into a ball and hide from the world. When he’d sent her the Bullet at her office, she’d scorched the airwaves with her anger. Her vehemence had nearly stabbed into his eardrum. If she knew he was James, she’d come after him in full blazing fury, those whiskey eyes snapping fire and that delicious mouth thinned into a tight line. She’d hand him his balls in a test tube. She didn’t know. So why was she hiding from him?
Jarod groaned, mortified, and his hand shot through his hair. The goodbye beside her car. The kiss that had nearly exploded. You fucking idiot. He knew she was the careful type, insisting on public lunches and keeping a restrained distance between them. Blinded by the simple flirtations over dinner, the brush of her leg against this knee, he’d let his desire for her almost overwhelm him. He’d felt her up in the parking lot. He’d moved too fast.
A few loud, hot curses vented into the frosty air as he mentally kicked himself. At the tantalizing flavor of Nora’s kiss, James had taken control of his body. Their fledgling relationship had been following pre-set societal norms—coffee, lunch, a sweet kiss, a few more light kisses, then dinner with a longer goodnight kiss. Then he’d screwed up by shoving his hand down her dress.
Jarod hurried across the quad to the Literary Arts Building. The remembered satin of her warm skin taunted him, mocked him. He had a sinking feeling he’d better hold tight to that memory, because it might be the closest he was ever going to get to her now. Unless he could grovel and apologize enough thro
ugh cyberspace.