“Remember what?”
“This could have been easier.”
And with that, I turn around and storm off.
I make it as far as the elevator before I remember that I kicked off my shoes before I curled up in his chair and I never put them back on.
I almost abandon them there to die like fallen soldiers.
They’re only my favorites, after all. A small price to pay.
Except they are my favorites. And I paid nearly two hundred dollars for them. On sale. And I’ll never find another pair that cheap again.
So I turn back around and stomp back to his office.
Thank God the door is still open and I don’t have to go through the indignity of knocking.
His office is huge. Of course.
It’s befitting of a tenure-track professor of his status.
I’d noticed it earlier, but now that I’m extra grumpy, it’s even more irritating.
I march back in and stop in front of his desk.
He’s sitting there now, in the chair I was in not that long ago. He takes up the entire chair, dwarfing it like the behemoth he is.
I give him my best gunslinger-showdown glare. “I need my shoes.”
“What shoes?” he asks, clearly as annoyed to see me again as I am to be here.
Instead of answering, I walk around to the other side of his desk.
As I round his desk, he swivels his chair to face me, his hands resting on either arm of the chair, his legs spread wide so he takes up as much space as possible.
My shoes are right there beside him, practically behind his knee. But now, he’s in the way.
Like, really in my way.
And he’s just glaring at me. Like I’m the problem here. Like I’m the one being a jerk.
Sure, I could just ask him to hand me my shoes.
I should just ask him.
Obviously, that’s the reasonable thing to do.
But I’m tired of being reasonable and I’m tired of him jerking my chain and being a pain in my patootie.
So I do the unreasonable thing.
The profoundly unreasonable thing. I walk over to him, brace one hand on his chair arm right beside his own hand and I lean down. Slowly. Until we’re eye to eye. Until I’m practically crawling into his lap. And then I bend and pick up my shoes.
This close to him, I catch his super faint piney scent. I can almost feel the heat coming off his body.
I straighten slowly, my gaze searching his. His pupils are so huge his gray eyes look almost black. But he’s not meeting my eyes. Instead, his gaze is fixed firmly on my mouth. I have to fight the urge to lick my lips. I bite down on my lower lip, because it keeps me from doing something really stupid. Like kissing him.
Because, dear God, I want to kiss him. But I don’t move, because what I actually want is for him to kiss me. For him to want me.
