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"Professor Wiley will have to admit it this time. " Tully grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. "Want to come with me?"
"Cant. Im meeting Josh for a study group in Suzzallo. "
"That pretty much falls in the blows-chips category of dating, but to each his own. " Tully snagged her sunglasses off the dresser and headed out.
The campus was bathed in cool sunlight on this mid-May day. Every plant was in bloom and the grass was so thick and lush it looked like patches of green velvet tucked neatly between strips of cement. She strode confidently through campus to the building that housed KVTS. There, she paused just long enough to smooth her sprayed hair, then went into the quiet, utilitarian-looking hallway. To her left was a bulletin board thick with notices. Roommate wanted: pot smoker only was the first one that caught her eye. She noticed that all the phone-number tabs had been ripped off of it, while the ad next to it (Roommate wanted: Born-again Christian preferred) looked sadly intact.
Room 214 was shut. No slice of light ran along the floor beneath the door. Beside it, a piece of paper was tacked to the bulletin board.
SUMMER INTERNSHIP POSITIONS/DEPARTMENT
Tully felt a surge of disappointment, then anger. She yanked open the door and slipped into the dark auditorium where no one could see her, muttering, "Chad Wiley, you sorry-assed loser. You wouldnt know talent if it grabbed your tiny pecker and squeezed—"
"I imagine youre talking about me. "
She jumped at the sound of his voice.
He was not twenty feet away from her, standing in the shadows. His dark hair was even messier than usual; it hung in curly disarray to his shoulders.
He moved closer, his fingers trailing on the back of the chair to his right. "Ask me why you arent an evening news intern and Ill tell you. "
"I couldnt care less why. "
"Really?" He looked at her for another long minute, unsmiling, then walked away from her, down the aisle and up onto the stage.
She could either keep her pride or risk her future. By the time she made her decision and hurried after him, he was backstage.
"Okay . . . " The word seemed to catch on something in her throat. "Why?"
He stepped toward her. For the first time she noticed the lines on his face, the creases in his cheeks. The dim overhead lighting accentuated every flaw, every hollow and mark on his skin. "Whenever you come to class, I can tell youve chosen your clothes carefully and spent a lot of time on your hair and makeup. "
He was looking at her now, seeing her. And she could see him, too. Past the shaggy unkemptness to the sharp bone structure that had once made him so handsome. But it was his eyes that grabbed her; liquid brown and sad, they spoke to the empty places inside of her. "Yeah. So?"
"You know youre beautiful," he said.
No stammering, no desperation. He was cool and steady. Unlike the boys she met at frat parties or on campus or in the taverns playing pool, he wasnt half drunk and desperate for a feel.
"Im talented, too. "
"Maybe someday. "
The way he said it pissed her off. She was gathering her wits for a scathing comeback when he closed the distance between them. All she had time for was a bewildered, "What are—" before he kissed her.
At the touch of his lips, gentle yet firm, she felt something exquisite and tender blossom inside her; for no reason at all, she started to cry. He must have tasted her tears, because he drew back, frowned at her. "Are you a woman, Tully Hart, or a girl?"
She knew what he was asking. As hard as shed tried to conceal her innocence, hed sensed it, tasted it. "Woman," she lied, with only the barest wobble on the w. She knew now, after just one kiss, that whatever there was to know about sex, her pathetic rape in the woods had taught her none of it. Although she wasnt a virgin, she was something worse somehow, a reservoir of bad and painful memories, and yet, now, with him, for the first time she wanted more.
That was how shed felt with Pat that night, too.
No. This was different. She was a long way from that desperate, lonely girl who would have gone into any dark woods to be loved.
He kissed her again, murmuring, "Good. " This time the kiss went on and on, deepening into something that pulled at her insides and made her ache with need. By the time he began pressing his hips against hers, igniting a fire between her legs, shed forgotten all about being scared.
"You want more?" he whispered.
"Yes. "
He swept her into his arms and carried her to a broken-down sofa tucked against the shadowy back wall. There, he laid her down onto the bumpy, scratchy cushions and slowly, gently began to undress her. As if from far away, she felt her bra unsnap, her underpants peel off. And still his kiss went on and on, stoking this fire inside her.
