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I smiled despite his glare. “Apparently. Though actually, you did say you worked at a bar to support your siblings. You just didn’t name which one.”
“Right.” He nodded slowly, and his gaze followed my every move as I took another sip. While he tracked the bottle in my hand to my mouth, my stomach tangled into knots. I gulped nervously, and I swear his stare tried to follow the liquid down my throat. What was even more discerning, his attention returned to my lips when I lowered the bottle. If his eyes had been a tongue, he would’ve just licked me from my mouth and down my chin, over my throat to just between my breasts...and back up again.
“I can’t freaking believe you’re only two years older than me.”
The comment surprised me so much I spilled a little beer down my chin on my next sip. Moving quickly to wipe it away with the back of my hand, though he’d seen the entire thing, I cleared my throat. “Why? How old do I look?”
His lips tipped up in amusement. “Nineteen. But that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?” I glanced away, beyond antsy to be stuck under his direct perusal.
Leaning in close, he lowered his voice. “You act more like you’re fifty in class.”
I turned to study him. Periwinkle eyes gleaming with an emotion I couldn’t name, he just stared back, the challenge in his gaze commanding me to return fire and come up with some kind of retort.
“Wow,” I said, internally cringing because I could detect a catch in my voice when I’d tried so hard to make my tone sound as dry and unimpressed as his had. “You must charm all the ladies with that kind of flattery.”
He just chuckled. “Bet I get laid more than you do.” And now even his words dared me to duel with him.
With a roll of my eyes, I snorted and pulled my shoulders back, putting more space between us. “I wouldn’t say that’s anything to brag about.”
I couldn’t believe I’d answered him that way. I should’ve gotten affronted and called him out for being out-of-line with such an unprofessional comment to his teacher. In fact, I should still call him on it now. Yes. Yes, I think I would.
But as soon as I opened my mouth, another customer called him away. He continued to hold my gaze as he held up a hand to the other person. Then he smiled slightly at me. After he skimmed a quick gaze down my body, he turned and left to help someone else, leaving me bereft and heated in all the wrong places.
CHAPTER TEN
“You know," Clary said, "most psychologists agree that hostility is really just sublimated sexual attraction.” - Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
~NOEL~
I knew I was playing with fire. But I just didn’t care. Every time I had a free moment, I found myself wandering back to Aspen’s end of the bar.
Aspen. I loved her first name. It wasn’t at all what a staid, stuffy professor’s first name should be. It was unusual and unique, just like the effect she had on me. Why she did things to me no one else had ever done, I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to question it. I liked it.
Telling myself it was only to keep an eye on her because she ordered a new beer every time I returned, I almost convinced myself that sticking nearby was noble or some such shit. But being close to her just felt right, like that was where I belonged. Or maybe she’d put some kind of homing spell on me. I couldn’t move too far away before I was reeled back in.
Worse yet, she kept talking to me every time I engaged her in conversation. I had to keep going back. Had to.
“I can’t decide if you two are going to start strangling each other or making out right there on the bar,” Pick murmured to me the third time I was dragged away from her because of an irritatingly interfering customer.
I glanced up from the glass I was holding under a flowing beer tap. “What do you mean?”
I knew exactly what he meant. I just hoped it wasn’t quite as obvious to an outsider.
Pick lifted his eyebrows as if he couldn’t believe I had to ask. “You keep glaring at each other and saying things that look like you’re exchanging insults. But they’re the hottest damn insults I’ve ever seen two people dish out. Like every little ‘fuck you’ is just code for ‘fuck me’ instead.”
Shit, he was seeing exactly what I was feeling.
I glanced at her because I couldn’t help myself. She had turned slightly so she could glance out into the crowd and people watch. But even seeing her do that caused a shock of arousal to ripple through me.
“Yeah,” I murmured absently since Pick didn’t attend college and couldn’t know she was one of my teachers. “Maybe.”
Admitting it aloud didn’t simmer any of my lust, though. After verbalizing it, my brain seemed to accept what my body already knew, and I just wanted her more.
I slid the overflowing drink to the guy waiting with a lifted bill in my direction. “Keep the change,” he called.
“Thanks.” I didn’t even pay attention to which bill he’d handed me. I just opened the cash register and shoved it inside. My mind and body could only focus on one thing right now.
