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She tossed the paper on his desk. “Oh my God, you really don’t have a filter.”
He smiled, something different flaring in his eyes, something that made her feel more flustered than those words on the page. “Sorry. It’s all right, though. Seriously. You already saw me with a hard-on. Now we’re even. But this is good information. I thought this one may be too geared toward the male side—a fantasy that’d appeal to me but not necessarily to a woman. You’re telling me I’m wrong.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. You’re like . . .”
She could feel her nipples pushing against her bra, their presence obvious against her T-shirt, and fought the urge to clamp her hands over them, to hid her traitor body. She stood. “Okay, so I’m leaving now.”
“No, no, come on, wait,” he said, standing. He grabbed her hand before she could escape, and the touch radiated up her arm, trapping her breath in the back of her throat. “You can help. I’ve
got a stack of these. I need to know which ones to test next week and which ones to trash. Or maybe you can offer suggestions? I promise to keep my eyes to myself. And I swear, if you help me, I’m yours for whatever you want. I can take a shift in the sleep lab for you or something.”
She stared at him. He was kidding, right? He had to be kidding.
“You want me to read through fantasies and tell you which ones turn me on?” His hand was so warm against her cold one. And she’d said the words turn me on to him. Out loud. She might just die. “Can’t you ask your friend who’s in this department to do that?”
“She’s a lesbian, so her fantasies don’t quite line up with these. I need a straight girl’s opinion. Wait—are you straight?”
She blinked. Were they actually having this conversation? “I—yes. But this is beyond embarrassing.”
“Why? Because you get turned on by fantasy stuff? It’s not embarrassing. It’s human. You’d be shocked by how many people struggle to tap into that part of themselves. That kind of responsiveness is a good thing.”
Responsiveness. Donovan West was talking about her sexual responsiveness. Hello, alternate universe. “Donovan, I don’t know . . .”
He let go of her hand and opened a drawer. “Here. I have an idea. I’ll give you some headphones and a thumb drive with the ones I’ve already recorded. You can take them back to your lab and listen to them while you do data entry. Then you can just tell me which ones you recommend when you’re done. You won’t have to feel self-conscious sitting with me. Plus, I need to record some more tonight, and I can’t do that if someone’s in here with me.”
He held out the earbuds and a blue thumb drive. She eyed them like they would bite her, but on those files would be Donovan’s voice in her ear, saying those explicit things, things she’d never had a guy whisper to her. Things she’d only imagined in the private quiet of her room when she gave her mind leave to go to those secret places. The temptation was a hot, pulsing thing low in her belly.
She needed to say no. Make some excuse. Stop this lie she’d started.
She took the items. “Okay.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Yeah?”
“I’m not making any promises, but I’ll let you know if I’ve listened to any before I leave tonight.”
His grin was like a physical touch to her skin. “That would be amazing. I’ll owe you big-time, Mari.”
She got caught up in that smile like a fly in a web and wanted to linger, wanted to stay there all night and listen to him talk about his research, what made him passionate, what else made him smile like that. But if she stayed, she’d only risk embarrassing herself further, or worse—get herself in trouble. Because the thing blooming inside her with him looking at her like that, like her opinion mattered, was intoxicating and potent. She wanted to cling to it, to wrap herself up in that feeling and jump into the unknown without thinking about the consequences. Something she could never do.
She lived her life carefully, always making sure to stay between the lines on the road. No alcohol. No drugs. And definitely no risky behavior with boys. She’d learned from her mother that one foot off the path, one chased whim, could lead to chaos. She knew enough about her mom’s disorder to know that those genes probably lingered in her, too, and this pulsing desire to flirt with Donovan, to push this charade further, could be a dangerous one.
She probably shouldn’t listen to the tapes at all, shouldn’t open that door. Things were safe right now, calm. She needed them to stay that way.
But Marin couldn’t bring herself to hand the flash drive back. Not yet. She didn’t want to do anything to erase that smile off of Donovan’s face.
So she mumbled a quick good-bye and headed down the hall with the thumb drive tucked in her pocket and the soda in her hand. She’d only told Donovan she’d try. She had an out. She needed to take it and focus on her job. Get those little numbers entered into the computer, get lost in the monotony, and forget about the sexy TA down the hall.
But it wasn’t more than twenty minutes after she stepped back into Professor Roberts’s lab that the temptation proved too great. Maybe she’d just listen to one, show Donovan a good faith effort, and be done. She cued up the recordings, and Donovan’s voice filtered into her head.
“I spot you first across the bar. You look beautiful, and I know you’ve come here with someone else. I can see him getting you a drink. But I can feel your eyes on me, taste your desire, and I know that tonight, it’s going to be my hands on you, my body moving over yours, and my name on your lips . . .”
Marin didn’t get another lick of work done that night.
2
Then
