I sigh at the room, at the rare books left carelessly on the floor and the Victorian documents moldering among photocopies and a sleepy cat, and I feel a librarian itch that’s not so pleasant. None of these things will last if they’re not properly taken care of, and between organizing, cataloging, and—now, I can see—preservation efforts, I don’t think I’m going to have any time at all for the books in the hallway.
Or anything else.
I leave the books and the cat and finally walk through a glassed-in conservatory to the back of the house, where a jewel-green lawn studded with wildflowers leads down to the shallow River Wye. Even in the rain, the colorful stones under the water seem to sparkle and flash, and I think of Oliver’s eyes. Green and blue and brown.
And after I remember his eyes, it’s impossible not to remember his hand sowing fire along my backside, his lips on my mouth and my neck and my breasts.
His lips lower down.
The sounds he made as he came.
With an abrupt turn, I leave the river and trudge back to the house through the rain.
Soon there will be too much work to do to think of Oliver Markham and his every-color eyes.
I spend the weekend busily, if not entirely happily. I walk the mile or so to Bakewell and enjoy my first Bakewell tart—or pudding, as I am briskly informed it’s called here. I visit Haddon Hall and enjoy the massive blooming roses with the fat bees doddering around them, and then I have tea at Chatsworth with only myself and a book. I walk the rambling paths around the vales of the Peak District, challenging in the kind of way that makes you grateful to have a drink at the end of the day but easy enough to walk in a dress like the ones I usually wear.
The cat has been left with plenty of food, but I treat her to bits and pieces of chicken from the sandwiches I get in town, and she sleeps on my lap in the evening as I read in the snug.
I absolutely, positively don’t think of Oliver.
Not whenever I catch a glimpse of the river that reminds me of his eyes. Not when I peel off my damp clothes and remember how it felt to be undressed by him. Not in bed, where my curious fingers explore my secret soreness and try to mimic the feel of a haughty man’s mouth.
Not at all, not at all, not at all, until finally on Sunday night, I kick off my covers and climb out of bed. It’s late—close to eleven—but I don’t care. I’m sick of masturbating in an old man’s guest room. Sick of remembering Oliver’s cool, cultivated voice. Sick of pretending I’m too sophisticated to care that the man I coaxed into bed is also mysterious, English, and handsome beyond belief.
It’s like Oliver was some kind of vampire, and now I’m bitten. Now I’m doomed to crave his touch for eternity.
Ugh. And now he’s turning me into the kind of girl who makes stupid metaphors!
I’m stopping this shit right now. I’m going to put so many things inside my brain that there won’t even be room for Oliver Markham and his perfect body.
Dad said Professor Graeme wouldn’t get in until tomorrow morning at the earliest, so I don’t bother to change out of my camisole and sleep shorts. Instead, I walk downstairs huffing to myself, doing a little dance across the cold flagstone floors until I get to the study and its many cozy rugs. That cat comes with me, oblivious to the cold floors, walks up to a pile of yellowing newsprint and kneads it pointlessly for a minute, and then lies down.
I walk around the room, hugging my arms around myself to ward off the clammy night chill. I poke at some of the stacks with my toes, trying to get a feel for what the professor’s research seems to encompass. I know he probably won’t want me to start on anything in earnest until he arrives, but I can at least start sorting some of it and making lists of things to do and archival materials to order. But I have to be doing something. I have to keep my thoughts occupied. Otherwise Oliver will creep into them again, and I can’t have that.
The thing is that I’ve never had any trouble achieving something I’ve set my mind to. Honor roll, valedictorian, grad school of my choice—everything has boiled down to research and focus and discipline. I’m excellent at those things. I’m an excellent student.
So it was easy to promise myself that I’d be the perfect virgin. I’d be honest but not too honest, enthusiastic but not needy. I’d be able to shelve away the experience like a book and be able to revisit it with fond, wise memories. There was no reason to think I wouldn’t be excellent at this either. But I’m not.
The thought makes me shuffle papers and books around a little harder than I should, sending dust clouding up into the air and stacks slumping sideways, much to the irritation of the cat, who looks at me over her shoulder and flicks her tail in a very deliberately unimpressed way.
“Oh sure,” I tell her. “It’s so easy to judge a girl when all you have to do is nap and eat.”
Another tail flick. I glare at her.
“You know, this wouldn’t be such a mess if your owner would clean up after himself,” I grumble. “Why would anyone keep an office in this state? Or their research?”
“Because I like it that way,” a cold voice says from behind me.
And I spin around to see the furious face of Oliver Markham.
Chapter Six
Oliver
It was a hard trip home.
Literally.
I spent my time on the train with crossed legs and gritted teeth, and then it took some artful draping of my jacket over my arm to cover my, ah, situation as I climbed onto the late bus from Matlock. And it isn’t until right now, at my front door—tired and frustrated, a heavy bag full of photocopies and clothes slung over my shoulder—that I remember.
That I fucking remember.
The girl. Michael Lynch’s girl.
Shit.
Lynch is an old acquaintance of mine. First my professor, when I spent a year studying abroad in America during my undergraduate degree, and then later a colleague and peer as we corresponded back and forth about various topics within our closely related fields. In one exchange, I made passing mention of needing an assistant simply to wade through all the material and make sense of it. It was a throwaway comment, bordering on a joke. Until Lynch wrote me back, offering up his librarian daughter for the cost of room and board.
He talked about the girl frequently—the fond asides of a proud father but not much more. To be honest, I forgot she existed until he mentioned her.
Zandy.
I pictured a girl looking like Michael—beanpole thin and bespectacled—poking around my research and asking all sorts of nosy questions about my methods, and I almost immediately said no. I enjoyed Michael’s correspondence and his company, but I took this damn sabbatical from teaching precisely so I wouldn’t have to talk to strangers. And that included any timid, mousy Lynch offspring inside my home. Inside my sanctuary.
But I owe Michael. He’s been a good friend all these years, even after Rosie happened, even after I took a break from teaching—and, well, I really do need the help, if I am being honest. What started as a small stack of research beside my laptop has now become a behemoth of paper and ink that is happily swallowing up the rest of my study. Walking inside it is starting to put me in a bad mood—fine, a worse mood—and even my cat, Beatrix, seems to be losing patience with the unstable stacks of books, which have the tendency to slide and collapse under her feet when she tries to climb them.
Michael deserves the favor, and I deserve the help.
So I said yes and steeled myself to the thought of the summer with a girl bound to be as awkward and fretful as her father. It’s only two months, and surely Michael would prepare his daughter for what a cold, miserable bastard I am. Surely she wouldn’t take it personally.
I’d made my peace with Zandy’s presence before I left for London, but now…
Now there’s been Amanda.
And there’s no peace left inside me. None at all.
In the moonless summer night, the lights inside the cottage burn a merry, welcoming yellow, although I can’t help but r
ather grimly think of what I’ll find inside. I repeatedly charge myself to be nice—or polite at the very least—and I remind myself that none of this is her fault. Not that I met a woman. Not that the woman let me play wicked games with her. Not that the woman let me deflower her and then somehow lulled me to sleep with soft curves and a faintly spicy smell.
It’s certainly not her fault that I can’t get this woman out of my head and that I’m strangely upset she left me that morning. Strangely bothered by the finality in her note.
We won’t see each other again.
Why does that sting so much?
At least my lingering hard-on has settled down. It’s a small comfort as I unlock the front door, unshoulder my bag, and step inside. I expect Beatrix to come whining for food as she usually does, but the front hall remains empty as I shut the door and shuck off my jacket.
She must be with the girl.
It’s late, near midnight, and the girl should be in bed. Given all the lights, however, I assume she’s in the snug or the kitchen, reading perhaps. Michael’s always said he’s a night owl himself, so perhaps it’s fair to assume Zandy is the same.
When I get to the snug, though, she’s not there. Nor is she in the kitchen. Maybe she went to bed and left the lights on for me?
But then I see it from the back hall off the kitchen—the light coming from under the study door. Suddenly all of the dread about this arrangement comes roaring back. All of the frustration about Amanda. And I hate that someone’s in my study while I’m not in there, touching my things without my permission.
I stalk to the study door, ready to kick it down and roar like a true Bluebeard, when I hear a low voice talking. A woman’s alto, with a hint of rasp around the edges. I wonder if she’s talking on the phone, but then I hear her pause to wait for a response, and Beatrix meows.
The girl is talking to the damn cat.
It shouldn’t be so irritating, really, this familiarity with my cat, but it is. She’s already in my study. She’s already touching things she shouldn’t be. And for my only companion to be drawn into this flagrant violation of hospitality? It’s infuriating.
I’m going to eviscerate her for this. I’m going to make her regret ever setting foot in my private space and making friends with my cat. I don’t care how ridiculous that sounds. It’s still forbidden!
I start to open the door. And freeze.
I’m not greeted with the sight of some scrawny, owlish bookworm. No, I’m greeted with a heart-shaped bottom that begs to be pulled over my lap. And a narrow waist and lush breasts and—bloody Nora—no bra. She’s only in a thin camisole and some very short sleeping shorts, moving on all fours at an angle away from me, her long dark hair spilling in luscious waves and breaking over her shoulders.
No, not scrawny at all. She’s a siren. She’s…she’s…
She turns as she chatters to the cat and I see her face for the first time. No lipstick, but I’d remember those plush, sinful lips anywhere.
The girl inside is not Michael Lynch’s daughter.
She can’t be.
Because she’s Amanda.
My Amanda.
“Why would anyone keep an office in this state? Or their research?”
My voice is harsh. “Because I like it that way.”
She spins with a gasp, dropping the book she was holding. I don’t trust myself to take another step inside, not sure if I’d take her over my knee or fuck her senseless. But I do know one thing. I thought I was furious before?
It’s nothing compared to now.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demand. “Are you stalking me?”
Her face goes from confused to stung in an instant. Then to angry. “I think the real question is what are you doing here?” she asks. And then she reaches for one of the pokers still hanging by the disused fireplace. She waves it at me. “I’ll—I’ll call the police. And the professor. He’s supposed to be back any minute now. He just went out to the…the store…and if he comes back and finds an intruder, he’ll get the police for sure!” Her voice is warbling higher in her hysteria, and I’m so bemused by the poker situation and the way she’s talking about me like I’m in the third person and all the lies she’s telling and has told, that it takes me a moment to realize she doesn’t know I’m Professor Graeme.
She thinks I’m the intruder. She thinks I might hurt her.
Which—no. Never. I would never raise a hand against her.
Except if you’ve got her over your knee, a silky voice reminds me. Visions of her rump under my palm fill my head, and I know the voice is right.
“I fucking live here,” I say. “This is my fucking house. Now do you want to explain what the bloody hell you’re doing inside of it? After that little note? ‘We’ll never see each other again’? Did you steal my credit card information too?”
“You do not fucking live here. Professor Graeme does, and Professor Graeme is an old man. He’s friends with my father and has slippers and everything!”
Well, now I think she’s gone truly insane.
Except…
“Friends with your father,” I repeat. I stare at her. “Your father is Michael Lynch?”
The tip of the fire poker lowers the slightest amount. “Yes,” she answers, her eyes narrowing. It has the unfortunate—for me—effect of making her eyelashes sweep lower, long and sooty against her cheeks.
“Are you Zandy Lynch?”
The poker lowers a bit more. “Yes,” she says.
“You told me your name was Amanda.”
She drops the poker all the way down but still holds on to it, as if she’s ready to strike me at any moment. “It is Amanda. Zandy’s my nickname.”
“It’s still a lie.”
“It’s not,” she fires back. “And you said your name was Oliver Markham!”
I hesitate because she’s got a point. It’s not entirely a lie either, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “Oliver Markham Graeme,” I say. “Markham is a family name. I knew…I knew it would be enough for anyone to locate me, coupled with my birthday and picture, if that alleviates any retroactive safety concerns of yours.”
“Graeme,” she mumbles. “You’re Professor Graeme. But…but you’re not old at all.” Her cheeks go pink in the most tempting way, and then I notice—oh Christ—her nipples have pulled tight under the criminally thin fabric of her camisole.
Fuck. How dare she be so delicious now? When I’m so furious with her?
She drops the poker, and it bounces off a pile of books. “But you have slippers and everything,” she whispers.
Why is she so fixated on my damn slippers? And how does she know I even have them unless she’s been in my bedroom?
She’s been in my bedroom.
A desperate, lust-filled rage floods me anew. “Tell me one thing,” I demand. “Did you really not know? Did you really not know it was me?”
She shakes her head vehemently. “That was the whole plan,” she says, gesturing in front of her as if the plan is something she can trace the shape of. “That’s why it had to be London. It had to be a stranger. I wanted to get rid of it and then go on with my life.”
I study her. Years of fibbing and malingering students have given me a keen ability to detect the truth, and there’s nothing but honesty glowing from her blue eyes and flushed cheeks.
She didn’t know.
A realization comes, jagged with relief and something that’s too close to disappointment. “You should leave.”
“Right,” she says, smoothing down her hair. Her tits move under her camisole with mouthwatering heaviness. “I should go to bed, and then we’ll discuss this after we’ve had some sleep.”
“No,” I interrupt. “I mean you should leave. Go back home.”
I’m not prepared for the sudden hurt and unhappiness that floods her face. “Oliver,” she says.
“It’s Professor Graeme.”
“Professor,” she says. “Please.”
The proximity of th
ose two words together, coming out of a mouth like hers, lances heat right to my groin.
Professor, please.
Fuck.
“I really, really want this,” she continues. “Not just for the work, although it will be invaluable to have on my résumé, but to have a summer that’s somewhere new and different. If you send me home, I’ll just be bored and alone with nothing to do, and I promise to be good if you let me stay. I’ll be so, so good, Professor. Please.”
I have to swallow.
Remember again that I’m a man and not a monster. “It’s impossible, Zandy. Surely you see that. It’s wildly inappropriate for us to work together now.”
Her tongue peeps out to wet her lower lip. “I won’t be inappropriate,” she whispers. “I promise.”
Does she not understand? She is inappropriate without even trying. Her earnestness. Her extravagant body. Everything about Zandy Lynch is fiercely unseemly, and it makes me crave very unseemly things. I can’t have her in this house—her spiced and flowery scent in my nose, her dark hair catching the sunlight in my study—and not want to bend her over a desk. Not want her on her knees with her mouth open and those blue eyes trained up at me as she waits for the crumbs of my approval.
And I’ve vowed not to be that man anymore. Whatever happened in London be damned, I’ll control myself starting now.
I ignore the tear-shine in her eyes when I say, “You’ll leave tomorrow. We’ll make the arrangements in the morning.”
I mean to leave her there, with the finality of my decision hanging around her, but I have to stop. I don’t turn to look at her. I simply make sure she hears me. “I don’t like how you talk about your virginity like it’s a burden. Something you had to coax a stranger into doing away with. It was a gift to me.”
Misadventures with a Professor Page 5