Loving Lindsey (An American Dream Love Story Book 2)

by Josephine Parker

  “What?” he asked again.

  “Come on,” she said, and pulled him up another flight. As they reached the landing of the third floor, she fell back against a door and coyly dangled a set of keys in her hand.

  He blinked as the surprise set in. “No…” he said.

  “Uh huh,” she said with a tentative smile.

  “You live here?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What? When—?” he began, but she turned and pushed him gently against the door, then curled her hand around the back of his neck, kissing him again.

  He felt his body flush in response, even as he let out a small laugh. Of course she lived here. Who else would go to Rick’s? She pressed her hands flat against his chest, pushing him against the door of her apartment. While she kissed him, she worked her small hand behind his back. As he heard her key turn in the lock, his body ignited.

  The two tumbled through the open door, and Zach barely caught them both before they landed in a mass on the floor. They took only a beat to steady themselves before pulling at each other’s clothes. Her hands undid the buttons of his shirt, then slid across his chest, her fingers sliding softly against his nipples. He grasped at the shoulders of her dress and slowly pulled it down her arms and torso until it fell in a pile at her feet. His hands slid across the lace of her bra as he looked at her, then he curled his thumbs through the straps and pulled the bra away from her skin, revealing her perfect breasts and nipples. Breath escaped him as he stroked one nipple with the pad of his thumb. “My God, you are soft,” he murmured as he took her breast in his mouth.

  The scent of her skin was so clean and velvety he wanted to melt right into her. He bent down and curled his hand around the back of her thighs, then lifted her up in one smooth motion so she straddled his waist. Her tiny torso perched there, her taunt, glistening nipples shining in the dark just in front of his lips. As he licked her, she curled her long legs around him and arched her back, making their bodies meet as a slow rhythm built between them.

  She threw her arms tightly around his neck as the tempo of their movements grew, and she whispered something so quietly into his ear, he could barely make it out. It sounded like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening’. His hands gripped her hungrily as her words sank in. He felt the same, and he pushed himself as close to her as he could with his pants still on. He needed this. He wanted this.

  As if she could sense what he was thinking, she pulled back. “Take those off,” she said, tugging at his waist.

  He picked her up gently and placed her beside him, then stood, pulling at his belt. He grinned. “I’m so glad I met you.”

  “Me too,” she breathed, her eyes gliding down over his body.

  “I’m going to do wonderful things to you,” he said as his pants dropped to the ground, exposing the long, strong muscles of his legs and a towering erection.

  He watched as her eyes took him in. “Me first,” she said, dropping to her knees.

  She looked up at the glistening, solid length of him before glancing up and meeting his eyes. His breath caught in his throat as she held him by the back of his thighs, then began to caress him gently with her lips and tongue. Her mouth was wet and warm and each stroke sent a current through his chest, cleansing his mind until it felt blissfully empty. He forgot the lab, and the Charles, Dean Cruz, and the Delta Project. All he thought about was this amazing woman and her tongue, her beautiful skin, and her smile.

  He felt his heart swell as his head fell forward and he saw her before him. He reached down to pull her up to take her to the bed when his eyes adjusted slowly to the room. Along each wall and corner were rows of stacked, beige moving boxes. He raised his head and blinked, pulling away from her.

  She looked up at him. “What is it?”

  He frowned. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  Chapter 7: Lindsey

  Lindsey trailed soft, light kisses up his torso and onto his open mouth. “What?” she teased as she stood on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You don’t want me to leave?”

  Before he could answer, she slid her tongue just inside his lips. His arms tensed, and with two giant hands, he swung her around so he pressed against her from behind, the soft palm of his right hand pulling her back against him. She felt a spark flare within her as his lips began to caress the back of her neck.

  “You can’t leave,” he murmured against the back of her ear. “Not when things are just getting interesting.”

  Lindsey felt herself fill with a pleasant, wanting liquid. “I’m not,” she sputtered, warmth filling her spine. “I’m not moving out. I’m just moving in.”

  He spun her back around, his beautiful face glowing at her words. He lifted her like she was nothing and carried her to the sofa. He laid her down and looked at her, his eyes trailing from her mouth to her breasts, then to her delicate lace panties. She wondered if he could sense how wet she was. She hoped that he could.

  He lunged forward, laying the length of his body against hers, his skin so warm and solid that her legs spread instinctively beneath him, allowing him to sink even closer.

  Her muscles tensed and swelled in anticipation. Maybe this day wasn’t a total bust after all, she thought absently. Of all the things she had longed to experience in her life, a hook-up with a beautiful stranger wasn’t on the list. But now, cradled in this man’s arms, his lips and groin pressing against her, she decided this was one new thing she was happy to experience. She heard these one night stands could go from hot to awkward fast, but the way he touched her felt like…well, like love. Maybe she was crazy, but she allowed herself to sink into the moment, the dream of her new life expanding.

  She took his handsome face in both of her hands and pulled away to look into his eyes. They were filled with anticipation and longing, but with none of the doubt she would have expected from a man she’d just met. She caressed the strong, golden line of his jaw and smiled. He smiled back and took her hand, kissing the palm as he stared into her eyes. He massaged her breast lightly, then trailed his fingertips down the curve of her belly and beneath her panties, stroking the moist hair between her legs until her thighs began to tremble.

  “I could do this all day,” he said.

  “Okay,” Lindsey whispered, her voice begging. In response, his hand slid across her in a slick, rapid motion. She felt herself swell at the thought that he would soon be inside of her. She felt his body tense too, and thought he must be thinking the same thing, until his hand slowed to a stop. He went suddenly still and she realized his eyes were fixed on something across the room. She craned her head to see what he was looking at. She looked across the boxes to the bank of monitors and CPUs she had arranged on the kitchen counter. His body went stiff.

  “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

  He jumped up from the couch in a shot and began to look around. He turned in circles, his eyes wide.

  Lindsey got up onto her knees, pulling a pillow across her naked chest. “You’re freaking me out,” she whispered.

  She watched as he charged across the room to the kitchen where her moving receipt was still laying on the counter, every muscle tightening in his beautiful body as he read it.

  He turned toward her, the paper crumpled into his fist. “What the hell is this?”

  “Um, my moving receipt. Why?”

  He took several long breaths then glared at her, a question in his eyes. His muscles tensed before speaking. “You’re good,” he said, shaking his head and reaching across the floor to pick up his scattered clothes. “You almost had me.”

  Lindsey’s mouth went slack. “What?”

  He turned toward her, his eyes flashing. “You hacked me,” he said. “And I actually thought that…that—never mind,” he said, shoving his legs into his pants.

  Lindsey felt her mouth go dry. “What?” she asked. “I—”

  “I’m so stupid,” he spat, shaking his head. “Of course, you did.” He grabbed his shirt and shoes, hi
s face growing red. “You found out where I lived, moved in, then,” his palm slid over his face in one slow, regretful motion, “seduced me.” He swung toward her. “Right? Right! Admit it.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t deny it,” he said. “You hackers and your stupid games. But you,” he continued, now pointing at her, “you, Viper, you take things to a whole new level, right? It’s not enough to hack me. You had to screw with my head, too.”

  Lindsey felt a trickle of light begin to seep into her brain. How could he know her moniker was Viper? Only—oh no. “Wait,” she began, her voice trembling. “You can’t be…” She could barely get the words out. “You're Professor Wheeler?”

  He stood and looked at her flatly, the veins in his arms and neck bulging.

  “Hah!” he spat. “Like you didn’t know that. You waited at that bar. You brought me here!”

  “Hold on a minute,” Lindsey said, standing with the pillow clutched to her body. “You brought me here, not the other way around.”

  “Nice try,” he said. “Like we just happened to live in the same building.”

  Lindsey tried to calm her heart rate. She felt her whole life begin to swirl down a dark and irreversible drain as she spoke. “Campus housing put me here,” she said slowly. “They said the dorms were full, they—”

  “Save it.” Zach said as he jerked her front door open. “You’re out. Don’t you step a foot near my lab.”

  The door slammed with a bang and Lindsey fell back onto the sofa, listening to Zach’s heavy footsteps storm down the stairwell. A moment later, she heard the door to the unit just below hers open and slam fatally shut.

  Tears sprung to her eyes. How had this happened? She hadn’t even started the program and it was over? Her mind spun through his words, over and over until the doom sunk in. Her dream was over. She curled up around her pillow and sobbed.

  She should have just stayed in her mom’s basement, safe in a virtual word. That’s where she always belonged anyway.

  Chapter 8: Zach

  Zach felt the back of his hair dry quickly in the summer sun as he stomped across campus. He had paced most of the night before hitting the Charles at dawn. Three lengths of the river up and back tore at the muscles in his arms and back, but did nothing to calm his mind. A permanent groove had dug itself between his clenched eyebrows. He ran his hand through the last damp pieces of his hair and then trailed his palm down roughly over his face before hobbling up the lobby stairs of the dean’s office.

  This job is aging me, he thought. But who cares? I should retire anyway. Go into the private sector. Drink myself silly on a beach. Anything but enduring the constant failure of his project and now his fresh, aching personal failure. He didn’t know how he could have been more careful. He was on the verge of paranoia already, but for one night, he let himself go to meet a woman, to touch her skin, to feel a connection—but that was false, just like everything about Lindsey Monahan.

  He pulled out his phone and checked the clock. In fifteen minutes he would have to explain to Dean Cruz that the new addition to his team was a disaster. Words tumbled through his brain, none of them forming into any kind of explanation he wanted to give. He certainly couldn’t explain that he and his new student almost…well, almost had the hottest sex he had had in years. Unbidden, he felt a stirring below his belly. The taste of her skin remained sweet on his tongue. He began to sink back into the luscious memory of the early evening when he heard a tinny voice.

  “Professor, you’re early.”

  Zach turned and saw Dean Cruz make her way up the steps, followed by a freshman carrying a stack of bags like a pack mule. She stopped a step below Zach and looked him up and down, her eyes lingering in all the wrong places.

  “On the water again, I see?” she said. “My, you must have cultivated amazing endurance.”

  “Dean,” Zach said, sweeping one arm toward the new administrative building. “After you.”

  “Door,” she commanded the freshman. “Bags inside my office, if you will.”

  Zach threw a glance at the poor kid carrying her stuff. Those bags weighed more than he did. Zach darted ahead of him and opened the door. The freshman peeked out from behind the top package and grinned. “Thanks, dude.”

  Dean Cruz swept in through the open door, her perfume trailing behind her. Even on a Saturday, she wore a quarter inch of cosmetics and a tight fitting suit. He exhaled, trying to get the stench out of his nose before going in to strike a balance between keeping his self-respect and kissing her behind. I can’t believe this is my life, he thought. Remember, the greater good, Zach. Remember what The Delta Program could do for people.

  As they entered her office, the precariously carried bags toppled over and hit the floor with a thud. The dean squeezed her eyes shut, then peeled them open to glare at the freshman. “You may go,” she said.

  The freshman stood, looking somewhat stunned, his mouth gaping open.

  “What?” she asked in exasperation.

  “The class…” he blurted in a hurried cascade of words, “the class…you said I could audit…I need you to sign that form.”

  Dean Cruz looked flatly at the boy and exhaled deeply to make her displeasure clear. “Come back tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do.”

  The boy had turned beet red by then and his shoulders had dropped into a defeated curve. He nodded and walked out, closing the door softly behind him.

  “Finally,” the dean said, pulling her chair out and pretending to tuck an already shellacked piece of hair behind one ear, “we are alone.”

  He nodded and shoved his hands into his pants pockets, then removed them just as quickly, feeling like he was about to be dressed down like that freshman.

  Dean Cruz tapped her red lacquered nails together and stared at him with a look of regret on her face. A long, uncomfortable moment flew through the room. “When I first brought you into this school, I expected great things from you,” she said. “Innovations, accolades.”

  He felt his brow stiffen again and tried to relax his face. “Actually, President Sanders brought me in, if you’ll remember.”

  “True, but I approved your funding,” she said. “And I still do.”

  “And I appreciate it.”

  “You do? Then where is my demo program?”

  Zach paused. “We are close. We’ve made advancements three semesters in a row.”

  “Yes, but with no work product. The art programs produce art. The biology program, working samples, the architecture program just completed an entire building, for God’s sake. How can I keep justifying throwing piles of cash at your very expensive program without something, anything, to show for it?”

  “The Delta Program is…we are creating a language no one has ever created before. It takes time. I…” He shifted in his chair. “I appreciate your continued faith in the project.”

  “Faith? Faith wasn’t our deal. You promised results. Results. That was our deal.”

  Zach felt a muscle tighten in his chest. “We’ll get there.”

  A small, patronizing whine escaped her. “That’s what you said last year. What do you have to offer this semester?” she leaned forward, eyeing him directly. “Professor, I know you have worked hard, and no one can accuse you of not being ambitious, but let’s just level with each other. You’re stuck, right?”

  “What? No,” He said, re-crossing his legs as nonchalantly as he could. “We’re not stuck, we just need a little more time.”

  Dean Cruz leaned back, and undid the top button of her blazer. “You ask a lot of me, Zach,” she said, her eyes trailing down his torso. “And every time you do, I provide, do I not?”

  Zach grimaced and felt his skin curdle. “You do.”

  “Like those new servers, and late admission for your new coder. I gave you those things, didn’t I?”

  Breath caught in his chest as his night with Lindsey came rushing back to his mind. He could almost feel the tenderness of her skin under the tips of his fingers. Th
e longing and the betrayal swam side by side through his mind.

  “I gave you those things, and now you need to give something to me,” the dean continued. “I need a demo program by the end of this semester, or I’m pulling your funding.”

  Zach sat up. “What? What does that mean?”

  “Funding for your lab will be gone. Zero. Nada,” she said, making a cutting motion with her fingers.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Deadly serious. I’ve waited long enough.”

  “I know you expect—”

  “Results,” she said, cutting him off. “My God, this conversation is becoming redundant. You know how I hate that, Zach.”

  He opened his mouth, but she raised a hand. “And please, don’t waste my time telling me for the tenth time that the technology you need doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t, create it. Am I clear?”

  “You can’t—”

  “I can.” She gave him a sad smile. “I don’t want to, so please, don’t force my hand.”

  He sat back, the room spinning. They were too close to fail now.

  “I can see I’ve surprised you,” she continued. “Which surprises me, honestly, because I thought you were more intuitive than that.”

  Zach’s brain swam with loose code and algorithms that flew adrift, none of them connecting, none of them useful. He had five months to create his own Rosetta Stone to decode them and translate them into one master program. He only knew one coder that could do that—Lindsey Monahan.

  His head fell into his hands. He remembered his final words to her, “You’re out. Don’t you step a foot near my lab.” Regret flooded through him. Regret that he kicked her out, and at the vision of her wide brown eyes looking back at him sadly as he slammed her door and walked away.

  She was the only coder he knew that could make his program work, but was it her code that he needed…or her?

  Chapter 9: Lindsey