by Kira Blakely
Her face took an excited look, but that excitement was short-lived. “That would be great, but I have no idea how to do that, nor do I have the funds to commission it.”
“Well the good thing is I’m between things to work on, and I have both time and money. I am at your service.” He offered her a little bow. She laughed, and he straightened and grinned at her.
She said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I am.” He was. “I’d like to, in fact. It might be harder than it sounds, and I can’t promise it will be perfect right out of the gate, but I could create the program and get the algorithms created, too. It would be a crude thing, and it would need work, but just the start up program could be enough to sway your grant board, especially if they know it cost you nothing.”
“Yes, but to create a better version…I mean how long would that take, and how much would it cost?”
“Again, I am happy do that for free.”
Her eyes swept along his body. “Nothing is free. Ever. You know that, too.’
Jackson did know that. He said, “No, but I could always write it off as a tax deduction.”
She gave a reluctant smile. “You’re just using me for a tax break?”
“Yup.”
“Wow.”
He laughed. “I know, right? Also, I am bored as hell. I mean it. I am so bored I’d just about offer to do anything just to have something to do.”
She bounced on her toes a little. “I see.”
“You probably don’t. I have a feeling if you ever finish your research and get that cure, you will be right on to the next thing with no waiting.”
Hope looked around. “Hey, instead of standing around out here, you want to come up?”
“If you don’t mind.” His dick throbbed again, painfully that time, as she moved past him, and he caught a glimpse of the way the tight little running shorts gripped her firm and high ass.
He followed her up the stairs, eyes still locked on her bottom. Her ass moved in an enticing way, and his prick stiffened yet again. At the rate he was going, he would come before she ever managed to open the door of her place.
Thankfully, she did open the door and they stepped into a small and neat apartment. She said, “I know it’s tiny. Even the furniture’s kind of small and uncomfortable, but take a seat if you like.”
He managed to lever himself and his hard dick onto the sofa – not an easy feat. She said, “You want soda or a bottled water?”
“Bottled water would be great.” Especially if it was cold. He could always dump it over his head if nothing else.
She fetched him a bottle of water and said, “Let me just change, okay?”
“Sure.”
She headed through the narrow hallway, and he heard a door open then close and then the unmistakable sound of running water. He grabbed his dick and gave it a hard squeeze, hoping to keep himself from popping an even larger erection as he realized that she was in the shower and probably under a spray of steamy, hot water and rich lather that would cling to her satiny skin like a lover’s greedy touch.
“Argh!”
He stood and fast paced, trying to fill his mind with images of mathematical equations and programming code.
No dice.
The water ran on, and he was ready to take himself into hand if things did not get any better and soon. The forceful shaking seemed to have finally put his libido in check, thank God. By the time she finally emerged about ten minutes later, dressed in worn jeans and a loose shirt, he was back in control of himself.
She said, “So tell me about this program and what all you will need for it.”
She sat down on the sofa, and he could smell the good, clean aroma of soap and shampoo on her skin and hair. He cleared his throat. “Well, I would need some test data to feed through it just to make sure it would actually work.”
“I couldn’t give you anything that would be considered …well, you know.”
He said, “Yes, I know. I just need some data, but it can’t be something you just make up, or it will mess up the program later.”
“I think I can do that.” She turned toward him a little. “I really appreciate this. I would even offer to buy you dinner, but I ate lunch about an hour ago, and–”
“Then how about I take you to dinner? Say tomorrow night?” he said, interrupting her.
He could see she was hesitant. Finally, she nodded, then said, “That sounds great.”
“Good. It’s a date.” He relaxed a little. “What is the best time for you?”
She chewed at her bottom lip. “Seven?”
It would not be soon enough. The temptation to kiss her was nearly overwhelming. The flames of passion between them were undeniable and he knew it, but he did not want to offer something as big as he had offered and then kiss her. She might take that to mean he was just doing it so she would sleep with him. “That works for me.”
She said, “Me, too. I have to get to the lab here pretty soon anyway. I could get some of the old data, the stuff we have already gone through and all that and burn it all into a file for you when you need it.”
“That would be great. I came up with an idea of how it would work best, but the data would give me a better idea of what all the program needs to do. You would have to explain to me what the data means and so forth, and then you would have to go through the first part of the program with me just to make sure that the program is reading it properly.”
“I can do that.” She paused. “You have no idea how helpful this really is. I have a great staff, and having to have so many people tied up checking through all that stuff instead of working on other things has always been a problem.”
He was glad she was willing to take his help, and he was hoping the program he had decided to write for her really would help her research.
Not just because he wanted to sleep with her – though God knew that he damn sure wanted her – but because he wanted to impress her, too.
Hope was not easily impressed. She did not care about his having money or about his car, and if she saw his house she would not bat an eye since she had already grown up out in the neighborhoods he had just moved into.
What would impress her was helping others. It was what she wanted to do with her life. Jackson had to admit that it sounded good to him, too. He had been lucky enough to land on his feet, and in a pile of money to boot, so giving back – even if it was just to impress Hope –couldn’t be a bad thing.
He said, “Okay, so I will pick you up at seven.”
Now that that was settled, he felt awkward, like a teen boy asking out the prom queen. That was weird, usually he was confident and smooth. They both stood up and stared at each other.
He moved forward. He wanted to kiss her. Long and hard and deep kissing – kisses that would leave her wriggling and gasping and ready for whatever would come next.
Instead, he landed a gentle graze on her lips and backed away. “I’ll let you get to the lab then.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her voice was husky with promise. He left quickly before his erection could give him away.
6
HOPE STARED AT THE CLOSED door and then she fell onto the couch, fanning herself wildly with one hand.
“It’s a good thing he left, or I would have stripped him right out of those clothes and ravished him.”
She laughed and stood again. She was bemused by the whole thing, and she could not quite put it all together. Jackson had not seemed like a guy who was interested in helping other people, not unless there was something in it for him, but he had seemed eager to write that program and not at all eager to sleep with her.
Well, that last part sucked. He had asked her to dinner though. Had he asked her to dinner just so they could talk about that program more and she could give him the data he needed to get started? Or had he asked her to dinner because he really wanted to see her?
She sighed and went to get her keys and bag, then set out walking across the campus.<
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The afternoon was leaning toward evening. The trees lining the sidewalks were in full bloom, and a light breeze had sprung up. It was still warm, but there was a cold front coming in later in the week, and she made a mental note to start wearing a jacket when she left the apartment even if she did not need it just then, because evenings tended to get cooler fast.
Students – post and undergrad – filled the sidewalks and the green spaces. A football game was being played in one long square of grass, and a group of young women from a nearby sorority were walking through the small, arched doorways that led to the tennis courts and the gymnasium.
The hum of activity and the solemn air of the students studying below the large trees always made her smile. Being able to live on campus while she worked had been a bonus, and not just because she got to live rent free, but because she could always remember why she did not want to sell out when she saw so many other people all striving to learn great things.
She was no fool, of course. A lot of them were not there to take up fields like hers or because they hoped to give something back to the world. Many were there in the hopes of getting the same life Clara had.
And Jackson.
That made uncertainty well up.
Jackson was rich – filthy stinking rich. The kind of rich that bought private planes and even more private islands.
Granted, he was not Dawson rich, but rich enough that she felt a sudden sense of fear. She was not sure why he had asked her out to dinner, but she was sure that she was not the kind of girl he would date for long. She had no money and no need to make it either. As far as she was concerned, she wanted to do research for the rest of her life, and if that meant living in what amounted to poverty and on campuses, college or otherwise, then so be it.
The last thing she wanted was a giant fancy house like the one she had grown up in. The memory of that house – and that quickly approaching monthly dinner – pressed down on her like a huge and suffocating weight.
She could tell anyone who asked exactly what that house looked like. It was ten thousand square feet of polished perfection. The glossy interiors were frequently refreshed by interior designers. The imposing façade that was a conglomeration of styles that Hope hated – and she and Clara secretly referred to the odd little turret-styled tower in the front as the potato chip can of shame – had been designed to make it clear that the people within were successful with a capital S.
She loved what she did, whether it came with trappings or not, and she was usually able to blow off her stepfather’s slings and arrows, but as she walked onward she began to wonder if Jackson would also see her as less than a success story.
He was self-made and he had worked his ass off to get where he was. That she knew. She did not know him well yet, but she could see that he was a hard worker and that he was given to a love of financial gain.
The last thing she needed in her life was a man just like her stepfather.
She had to break that dinner date.
7
JACKSON PACED THROUGH the large rooms of his house. Buying it had been a bad idea, if he was being honest. He had bought it because he had needed a safe investment, according to the people who handled his money, and a big house came with enough bills and tax credits to make buying one that size attractive.
To boot, there was the fact that he now lived in a place he had never imagined that he might.
Ashton had sold his house, and Jackson knew he had felt a lot of relief when he had done it, too. Like Jackson, the big fancy stuff did not suit him.
The rooms were mostly empty, the hardwood and marble floors glowing and so empty that his footsteps echoed loudly. Every step just reminded him that he was alone there, and that he did not want to be.
“That is sort of a lousy reason to try to date someone though.”
The words stopped him in his tracks, and he frowned. Was that why he was suddenly so taken by Hope? Had he somehow gotten too lonely, and was he just grabbing at her as a lifeline?
That was an unfair and probably useless endeavor. Hell, he knew all about what could and would go wrong when people were together just so they would not have to be alone.
His shoulders went rigid as he finally walked into the large den that he had been using as a living room. He took a seat in a comfortable recliner and stared blankly at the television screen.
His mom and dad had truly taught him a lot of things. They had taught him that a good education could give you a good job, and that drugs could keep you from ever being able to leave the neighborhood you hated.
They had taught him that it was easier to stay with someone they did not love or particularly want than it was to leave and start over.
His head bowed as he tried to press back the memories of all the angry words and the hours-long rants, often fueled by some kind of amphetamine. The hatred and the blame had always battered against his ears. He had learned to hide at night, to lock himself into his room and pray that that night would not be one haunted by hallucinations that would cause some crazy shit to happen.
He had had to huddle under a mattress while his parents, feeding off each other and a new report that stated there was a tornado warning, hid out with him, sure that at any minute they would all be whirled away into some insane version of Oz.
There’d been times one or both of them had hallucinated that they were on fire. There had been times when they had been suicidal. Talking them down from whatever it was they were on had always fallen to him, and they would eventually pop some pill that would let them come off that unnatural high and sleep so they could get up in the morning and do the respectable thing – go to work and act like a normal family.
They had been anything but normal.
His folks were clean now, and still together. Not because they loved each other, although they would never admit that, and maybe they did not even know that they had no love between them, but because it was easier than being alone.
They said they had been through too much together to divorce. Jackson thought that was a shitty reason to keep a thing going, but he never said so.
He didn’t talk about all the years they had been addicts either. It was like they had buried those memories forever and wanted nothing to do with them anymore. Jackson wished it was that easy for him, but he had those memories implanted in his brain, and he had that horror to thank for all the things he had now.
In a way, their addiction had given him something to escape from, and he had managed to do so. He had found video games and books. He had done well in school, and he had stayed far away from the drugs and the lure of easy money and everything else so readily available where he had grown up.
Even as a kid, he had known that if it all came tumbling down, neither of them would want him. They would both try to force him off on the other. So, he had prepared by being as self- reliant as possible. He had learned to cook, to wash his clothes, and to take care of himself. He had learned to earn money and keep it.
He had learned how to do everything but love.
8
HOPE LOOKED UP FROM A SLIDE to see that it was a quarter after six. Her stomach was filled with butterflies, and her mind raced through every possible excuse she could make not to go out with Jackson even as she admitted that calling it off now was a lousy thing to do.
She had been putting off that phone call all day, even though she knew she should not do that. She had buried herself in the work she could manage to get done, and now, at the end of the day, she was really considering just hiding out there in the lab.
“For what? Forever? Or just until he figures out you were a coward and ditched him at the last minute without a word, rather than make a phone call?’
The question was soft even though the part of the lab that she was in was unoccupied by everyone but her. It was a conundrum she did not want to be a part of. Jackson was hot, and he was nicer than she would have guessed. He had a well-deserved rep for being a player, but what if he had grown up and changed
like he seemed to have?
There was still the sticky issue of him being a super-rich guy with a lot of ambition, and she was always going to be a struggling researcher trying her best to save humanity. It was a noble thing, and while there might be money at the end of it all, most of what money the cure she would, maybe, one day create would be eaten up by the grant boards and the pharmaceutical companies.
She sighed. There were two options: call it off or head across campus and make that date.
Torn between badly wanting to go and badly wanting to cancel, Hope finally finished up and headed for her apartment, running as was her habit.
The air was cold and crisp, and the trees were beginning to look brighter every day. Usually, she reveled in such things, but right then she did not even notice. Her feet kicked up a litany of reasons to go, and a litany of reasons not to go.
By the time she reached her apartment, it was six thirty, and she knew he would already be on his way. It was a long drive through heavy traffic, and he would have left his house a few minutes before to be on time.
That made her feel better. She could not cancel now. She dashed inside and showered fast. After she dried off, she rubbed a sweet-smelling lotion into her skin and then headed into her bedroom to dress.
Once in the bedroom, she waffled again. Should she go sexy and seductive? Wear something guaranteed to light up his senses on the chance he was interested in her? Go low-key so as to avoid being embarrassed if he was interested in nothing more than writing a program?
Frustrated, she dug into the back of the closet to pull out her one good little black dress. She had bought it for some party at her parents’ house, and it was suitable for either seduction or a fancy dinner.
It was a strapless thing with a sweetheart neckline that made the most of her slim shoulders and toned arms. It clung to the curves of her chest and hips, and it belled out slightly near her thighs, ending in a bubbled hem that made it float and skim over her legs.
