by Caro Carson
As she crossed the sunbaked asphalt of Athos Avenue, the facts were chilling. Every single time she’d thought their connection was romantic, he’d backed away and given her space. She couldn’t walk in there again, like a puppy begging for his attention. It was going to be so obvious: look at my knees!
Good grief, she’d even shaved her legs.
Feeling foolish, she waited by the lamppost for the signal to cross Athos Avenue again, back the other way.
“Dr. Dee? Hey, hi. Wait up.” Bridget Murphy’s voice carried outdoors as well as it did from a stage. She held a bag from the Mexican cantina. “Are you coming to Murphy’s?”
Delphinia couldn’t think of any other reason she’d be standing in front of the pub. “I was considering grading some papers here, instead of going into the office.”
“We don’t open until four during spring break.”
Thank goodness. It had been insanity to think Connor would want to see her new clothes and her stupid, unromantic knees. “In that case, I’ll just—”
“So when I saw you, I thought I’d better come get you. I’ll take you in around back.”
“But if it’s not open—”
“Connor won’t care if you sit at a table and do paperwork.” She started walking, talking over her shoulder as if it were a given that Delphinia would follow. “This is like my second home, you know. It’s all cool.”
Like most MU students, Bridget wore a lanyard full of keys and her student ID. One of the keys unlocked the employee door. They walked up the single step and into the hallway that was crowded with boxes.
No one was there.
Delphinia let out the breath she’d been holding. The main part of the pub was empty, too. All the chairs were turned upside down on the tables.
“You want to be by the window again?” Bridget walked over to the table and pulled the chairs off it like she owned the place. “There you go. What do you want to drink?”
She headed to the bar, got out two glasses and filled them with ice. She did it with the kind of nonchalant grace that came with repetition, just like Connor did it.
“Do you work here?” Delphinia asked.
“My parents told me to study instead of work, but I end up here all the time, anyway. They ought to know by now that the only person who ever gets me to study is Connor. When Uncle Murphy owned it, Connor used to read everything out loud to me, even stuff like biology. If I have to sit down and read by myself, I won’t make five minutes, I get so bored.” Bridget closed the ice bin with a flourish. “Want a Coke?”
Delphinia decided to stay, if only because leaving would have been more difficult in the face of Bridget’s enthusiastic hospitality. She could sit here and grade papers for a couple of hours, then leave before four, before Connor arrived. That sounded safe.
She was halfway into her third essay, eyes glazing over at the same old thesis, when she glanced up to see Connor McClaine, every gorgeous, Greek-god inch of him, heading straight for the bar. He was mostly naked.
Her red pen slipped out of her hand.
His skin glistened with sweat. His hair was soaked, black rather than brown, and he was breathing hard, like he’d just come in from a run—a run in the sun, for his muscular legs were tan, bared by his athletic shorts. His chest and back were visible, too, all kinds of interesting—no, sexy was the correct word—all kinds of sexy lines on display, thanks to the extra-roomy armholes in his loose-fitting tank top.
Bridget was bending down to scrounge through a refrigerator behind the bar, oblivious to his presence, but Delphinia was riveted. Connor moved with an animal grace—never had a line from A Mate with Destiny been more accurate—yet he didn’t have that lone-wolf aura today. He was relaxed, his guard completely down, as he twisted open a water bottle and took a swig, while simultaneously walking up behind Bridget and kicking her in the butt.
“Ow! Dweeb.”
“What are you stealing now?” He chugged half the bottle.
“Where’d the olives go? The ones with the blue cheese stuffed in them?”
“They’ll reappear when you get out the blue cheese and the olives and stuff some more of them. Funny how that works.”
“As if.”
“I’m serious, Briddy. No olive-stuffing fairy came to replace the ones you ate yesterday. You need to make more.”
Delphinia listened with only half an ear. She was too consumed with using her eyes. His tattoo was fully revealed. The black swirl was the bottom flourish of a Celtic design. Geometric curves, twined into intricate knots, formed a capital letter M. It covered most of his upper arm, moving in a fascinating way with the bunching of his muscles as he lifted the water bottle for a drink.
“Be nice,” Bridget said. “Dr. Dee is here.”
That beautiful male body went still for a fraction of a second, and then Connor spun around to stare at her.
“She just wanted to hang out and grade some papers.” Bridget returned to her fridge-scrounging.
Even his smoky topaz eyes could not keep Delphinia’s attention on his face. Her gaze slid over his shoulder to the stylistic letter M, but she managed to murmur a mundane response. “I didn’t know you were closed.”
“Yes, we’re closed.”
That startled her into looking away from his body. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“No—no, stay. You’re welcome to stay. I’m just going to go shower and get some clothes on. Not that I’m not dressed right now. I’m just going to go get dressed.” He looked down at himself. “In something different.”
As he frowned at his running shoes, it hit her: he sounded almost flummoxed.
Fascinating. The idea that a man like Connor could be knocked off balance for even a second by a woman like her—well, that was intoxicating. Impossible, but intoxicating.
He looked up. Their eyes met.
It’s not impossible.
She got so quickly drunk on the taste of feminine power that, for once, she was the one to wink. “By the way, nice knees.”
He burst into laughter. “I’ll be back.” He gave Bridget another nudge as he walked away. “A little heads-up next time, Hurricane.”
Delphinia watched him until he disappeared around that corner.
“I’m going to run back to the cantina,” Bridget said. “They forgot my guacamole.”
A minute later, Delphinia heard the employee door open and close. She picked up her red pen and tapped it on her papers. There was no reason not to resume her work. Connor was gone.
Again.
She stopped tapping. She’d admired his bared body, winked at him, flirted with him, and he’d left, giving her space. He always left. It was a fact, a pattern, a scientific observation.
She didn’t want that space.
He did.
He wasn’t intoxicated by her presence, irresistibly drawn to her, dying of loneliness without her. The idea of destined lovers was only fiction. The reality was, the man was a bar owner, polite and charming to every woman who walked in the door, polite and charming to her. Nothing more.
Nobody had hurt her, but tears stung her eyes, anyway. She’d hurt herself by wanting something she couldn’t have, by falling in love with a man who—oh, dear God. She was falling in love with him.
She couldn’t fall apart here. She turned over her paper napkin and used her red pen to write a note. Thank you for everything. I had to run—Dr. D.
Delphinia reloaded her messenger bag, fastening the flap shut as she headed down the hallway toward the back door that would lock behind her and lock her out for good. She’d hurry back to the lamppost, back to the crosswalk, back to the campus and her house and her bathtub. She’d fill it up, slide down until she was under water, and then, then, she could cry where her tears couldn’t even fall.
Hurry, hurry, before the tears fall.
A man ap
peared out of nowhere, and she crashed into him—into Connor, shirtless, his skin warm everywhere her body touched his, her palm, her cheek, her chin, the tip of her nose. It all registered as one big, warm impact. Wham.
“Whoa.” He steadied her with a hand on her arm.
She couldn’t back away in the crowded hallway. Her hand fluttered around for a moment, but she couldn’t stand there with her hand in the air, so she set it on his arm. His skin was smooth, but the muscle it covered was as hard as marble.
“You scared me. I thought you left to take a shower.” If she sounded angry, it was better than bursting into tears—or nuzzling her face into the rounded muscle of his shoulder, just to feel that curving black ink against her cheek.
“I take quick showers.”
She registered the smell of soap and clean, dry skin. He was wearing jeans now. He had a brown T-shirt in his hand, sort of—his arm was halfway through one sleeve, like he’d been putting it on when she’d crashed into him.
“So...you’re already back?” she asked inanely. There was an open door behind him, a washer and dryer visible through it. “Or, you never left? Is there a shower in there?”
“The shower is in my apartment. I live on the top floor. The laundry room is down here, for the bar towels and aprons, and you weren’t leaving, were you?” His hand tightened on her arm.
“Bridget’s gone. I was alone.”
There was a beat of silence. She was holding his right arm, but she was looking at his left, at his tattoo, because if she looked into his eyes, he would be able to look into hers, and she was still on the verge of crying, because she’d fallen for a man who didn’t want to be this close to her.
“I can keep you company now,” he said. “No other guests to check on, for a change.”
Damn her broken radar. It sounded like he wanted her to stay, but she didn’t trust the instincts of her stupid little untrained inner wimpy puppy.
She needed to remember the facts. He always put space between them. She ought to let go of him now. She ought to go. She shifted her weight restlessly, and her hip bumped against his, because...
Because he wasn’t putting any space between them, not this time.
His voice was as warm as his skin. “I’m just guessing here, but if grading papers is anything like writing papers, then I know some people don’t like too much silence. Bridget can’t stand to be all alone at a table.”
Delphinia held on to his hard arm and kept her gaze on his bare chest. He’d lifted her from the sidewalk with this arm. He’d held her close against that chest. She could lean in so easily and take a taste of his golden skin, a sip where it dipped above his collarbone. Golden, amber, tawny... They’d laughed together under the chandelier.
She watched her own fingers reach for his tattoo and caress it lightly. The tattoo didn’t feel different from his un-inked skin. It was just a part of him.
“M for McClaine,” she said. “I like it.”
His spoke more quietly. “It won’t be as busy as a coffee shop, but if you want to keep grading your papers—”
“Connor.”
He fell silent.
She finally looked at his face, and the heat in his eyes matched everything she was feeling, too—didn’t it? She wanted to believe that her fantasy was real. The longing blurred her vision. Hope was painful.
If he didn’t want to kiss her, then she was about to make a huge mistake.
“Connor... I don’t want to grade papers.”
Chapter Sixteen
Connor didn’t move a muscle.
Rembrandt had been holding his right arm, but now she clutched his left, too, standing squarely in front of him. I don’t want to grade papers echoed in the air as she looked at him with brown eyes that held one hundred layers of complexity. Sexual awareness was clear within that tangle of emotions.
Hunger. Desire. More—it was the more that made him hesitate. She wasn’t looking at him as if she simply liked him, as if she admired his body and wanted to play. This look was different. He’d offered her a table and chair for grading papers, but she was looking at him as if he could offer to touch the moon and stars for her just as easily.
He wouldn’t try. He already knew he could not. She shouldn’t look at him like he could.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“No,” she whispered, and she kissed him.
It was a soft kiss, like the one she’d pressed on his cheek by her house in the night, that impossibly sweet kiss that he hadn’t known how to receive. Just hold still? Just feel the softness? He’d walked the mile back to his place in the dark, unsure how to think about it or where to store it in his memory: thank you, goodbye, first kiss, something new?
Now, that soft kiss was on his lips, and he knew how to receive this kiss and how to return it. Hers was a mouth to appreciate like whiskey. He savored the shape, the curve, the feel—until she slid her hands over his shoulders and looped her arms around his neck, as if she needed him to hold her up.
She was pulling him under. He was half-undressed, drowning in arousal. Conflicting sensations assaulted his senses. As she pressed herself into his body, the crisp material of her shirt abraded the skin of his stomach and chest, but that abrasion was an innocent, cotton caress. She hugged his neck hard, but the skin on the inner sides of her arms was impossibly soft. The slightest touch of her fingertips on his back, unintentional taps between his shoulder blades, clamored for his complete and undivided attention—which was impossible to give, because, with a nudge of her mouth against his, she opened their mouths and the sexual, intimate slide of her tongue blotted out every other sensation.
They could drown together if he brought her upstairs to his bed. She would look like a work of art, beauty and mystery, with her rich hair on his pillow. They would make love for hours.
Then, she would think she knew him so well. She’d say she was in love. She’d want to make it exclusive, to see him every day. Him: the business owner, the bartender, the body tattooed with an M for McClaine.
The M didn’t stand for McClaine. It stood for Murphy and it stood for Musketeer, for the only things that made his life worthwhile. Why would he honor McClaine?
McClaine was a dropout. An inmate who fought dirty to survive. A convicted felon until the day he died.
She thought McClaine could teach Victorian literature with her, because she didn’t know him at all.
He’d be her biggest mistake, an embarrassment she’d have to defend against everyone’s judgment, the weight she’d have to drag through a life that should be lovely, until the day she gave up and let him go, feeling guilty for failing to love him like she’d promised she would while they’d been in bed.
He’d never do that to her, but he’d memorize the feel and taste of her before he let her go. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her up the way she wanted him to. He let one hand enjoy the silk of her hair, let the other slide down the dip of her lower back, over the curve of her firm backside, a reverent touch, because she felt like a miracle in his arms.
Then he lifted his head, separating their mouths by those few, critical inches. “No.”
She pressed her forehead against his cheek, her arms still clinging to his neck, her breaths swift, soft, shallow.
He moved his hands to rest lightly on her waist, an innocent touch, friendly.
“No,” she repeated, as if it were an unfamiliar word she needed to repeat to get the pronunciation right.
“Delphinia...” But he breathed her in when he said her name. The smell of her hair and skin and crisp cotton shirt were more important than whatever he’d been about to say.
This time, she whispered. “I thought you liked me.”
He squeezed her waist, a reflex. “I do.”
She frowned at his emphatic tone, a little scrunching of her e
yebrows against his cheek.
“I do,” he repeated, more controlled. “But this would be a mistake for you.”
He dropped his hands and backed up, then started fumbling for the other sleeve in the T-shirt on his wrist.
She said nothing. He stopped with both wrists captured in his T-shirt and looked at her. Really looked.
Passion looked so good on her. Her color was high, her lips were full from the kisses he’d given her. No, damn it, she’d given him kisses. She’d started the kiss.
It made him angry, but not at her. He was angry with the universe for giving him fantastic chemistry with a woman who was fantastically wrong for him. He pulled his shirt on over his head, and he caught sight of that constant reminder, that badly drawn purple tattoo near his inner elbow. He bent his arm, hiding it instinctively.
“Why?” she asked.
He could give her an easier reason why. “For starters, you’re seeing someone. He moves in your circles. He’s probably a professor like you—he is, isn’t he? Of course he is. Your friends and family approve, even though he made you feel like a fool over bourbon.”
He was angry at the universe, but he was angry at her, too, for that one thing. “Why do you put up with that?”
“It wasn’t him. It was my parents.”
Her parents.
Connor scrambled to reframe the Norman Rockwell picture he’d drawn around Delphinia and her parents. A parent who made you feel like a fool? The universe wanted him to have even more in common with her, just to make it more painful to resist her.
“They love me,” she said. “They’re very proud of me.”
That much was different from his life, at least.
“They enjoy being very clever, but it can be a cutting sort of clever. Maybe they think I’m still their ten-year-old little bookworm, and their jokes will go over my head. I’m twenty-nine. They don’t.”
Connor nodded, for he couldn’t speak. He braced his hand against the wall, for he couldn’t touch her.
She tugged her shirt into place. “I’m moving out, very soon. I’m next on the list for a faculty apartment on campus. My parents keep listing the convenience of living on campus as one reason for me to live in Dumas House. That takes care of that much of the argument. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
