Maybe it’s exactly what they both need.
“Your official UCLA page. There was this photo of you, with your hair…” She reaches up, eyes locked with his while she rearranges the auburn strands. His sharp inhale shudders through her own lungs. “There. More like that.”
—
Nick’s half holding his breath,half-certain this is a dream. That out-of-control feeling from last night is back, only a million times stronger with Ramona this close to him. Her perfume or her shampoo or her natural scent is so magnetic that he wouldn’t be able to recite Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development even if he tried.
This conversation should have already ended, but he hasn’t been able to find the right words. When he woke up this morning after a tortured night of sleep, during which he dreamed that their message thread was beamed out in an all-campus bulletin, he was determined to break this off. Now his brain feels more like neuron soup than a functioning organ.
“Wilder,” he says. An admonition. A warning. Thank god her hands are out of his hair. “We need to talk about last night.”
Ramona nods, putting more space between them. With that little skirt—to show off those gorgeous legs—he wasn’t sure he’d have the willpower to do what he needed to. Maybe she sees how urgent his concern is, because she seems to dial it back. Even if she still looks like she could eat him alive and ask him to say thank you afterward.
“You’re right. You were being kind to me, picking me up and giving me a ride back to my car, and then we were texting, and I guess I just…read into something that wasn’t there.” A resigned puff of breath. “I’m sorry.”
Nick waits a long moment before speaking again. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he says, because while she may have initiated it, he was a more-than-willing participant. “I take full responsibility. That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Oh.” Her voice turns chilly. “Right. We barely know each other.”
“That’s not—” He breaks off, rubs a hand down his face. Unshaven again, not his preferred state, and maybe it’s a metaphor for this whole sordid thing. “If anyone saw those messages, I could lose a lot.”
“Your tenure. Shit, I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. Really. We were both a little tipsy, and—”
“I don’t drink.”
This settles over him like a shock of ice water. She sent all those messages while stone-cold sober? He’d just assumed she couldn’t possibly…like him.
He has to muffle an internal groan. Even his thoughts sound so fucking high school.
“What?” she prompts. “You look like you’re trying to figure out who the hell allowed Trevor to take this class.”
“I guess I don’t understand why you’d—I mean—”
It’s not the question he should ask, and it shouldn’t change anything. Frankly, he shouldn’t be asking questions at all—he should be showing her the door.
But the way she’s looking at him, her determined eyes and secret stashes of freckles—another cluster of them above her left knee—makes him so fucking weak.
At his words, her lovely mouth kicks upward. Like she senses the shift between them, and now that he’s shown his hand, she’s going to take him for all he’s worth.
“Because you’re sweet.” She moves closer, lifting her hand to where his shirt is half-tucked. Tugs on it until the hem is freed, stealing the breath from his chest. “And you’re sexy, in this way that seems purely unintentional. And I think I make you flustered.”
She…finds him sexy. Oh, his prefrontal cortex is absolutely fucked.
“You don’t,” he lies.
“No?” Another step closer, that dark floral scent trapping him in place. Her palm settles over his heartbeat, and he exhales into her touch.Thump, thump. Thump, thump.“Then why is your heart racing?”
“Runs in my family. I should probably get that checked out.”
She brings her hand to his cheek. Scrapes his stubble with black-painted fingernails.Christ, even that simple movement feels unreasonably good. “And your face is hot.”
“Thermostat’s broken.”
“Then we should probably bring that up with building services.” She bites back a smile, a clear sign that she’s loving this.
Everything he felt last night comes racing back—the thrill of being wanted this way after so long, like he’s backed up against the edge of a cliff. While being on fire.
