Eight years of college and she’d never been late to a class. Where was the justice in the world? Surely she’d gained a few brownie points. She helped old people cross the street. She loved animals and cried during long-distance commercials. She was a good person. Fair. Considerate.
“We’re waiting, Miss Parrish.”
She took a deep breath, pushing aside her self-pity, and walked to the front of the classroom. Okay, so Guidry was overreacting a little. But she had come late to his class, and so he had a right. She would simply do what he asked, as payback for disrupting him, and then she could get on with her day.
No problem.
Every eye riveted on her as she picked up the plastic model, mentally reciting the specifics. This was easy. She knew the required anatomy better than the forty-something ice cream flavors in the campus sweets shop. So Guidry thought she took his class for granted? Well, she would show him she didn’t take any course for granted. She studied and prepared her buns off for each of them—
The thought stalled as she glanced down at the full-scale likeness of a man’s penis, and every anatomical fact she new flew south for the winter.
She didn’t see well-shaped, industrial-designed plastic. She saw strong, throbbing flesh jutting from a thatch of sand-colored hair as a vision from last night blazed in her mind.
“Don’t be shy.” Guidry’s voice pushed past the sudden ringing in her ears. He stood off to the side of the room, clipboard in hand, pen poised ready to mark a dozen demerits at the slightest mistake. “Please project your answers so we can all benefit from your expertise.”
“I…” She swallowed, her fingers trailing down the cold plastic that felt more like warm, pulsing flesh with each stroke.
What was happening to her? She’d stared at models before and never felt any reaction.
Not now, she vowed. Just get a grip.
“Um, the penis,” she tried to swallow the apple-sized lump in her throat, “consists of two parallel cylindrical bodies. They are the, uh, corpora cavernosa and the …” The answer stalled on the tip of her tongue as her fingers swept down the model in a directive motion that she felt along the length of her spine.
Impossible!
Even as her mind fought against the sensation, her body flushed hot, then cold. Her knees started to tremble and her nipples tightened.
“We’re waiting, Miss Parrish.”
Concentrate. She took a deep, calming breath.
A bad move. Very bad.
She didn’t smell the usual chalk and disinfectant. Instead, her senses reeled under the intoxicating mingling of leather and aroused male, tinged with apples and a faint crispness. The same scent she’d whiffed the night before.
As if!
She was losing it. She was finally cracking up under all the pressure of school and making ends meet. It was bound to happen. No one, even someone as determined as she, could give one hundred percent all the time and not risk their mental health.
Now she was having a full-blown breakdown. Right here, right now, in front of a classroom of her peers and the critical Professor Mark Guidry.
No. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. She’d worked too long, too hard …
Long and hard weren’t exactly the adjectives she should be thinking of right now, she decided, her gaze going to the object in her hands.
Plastic, she told herself. It wasn’t a real man’s penis. Certainly not his penis …
Concentrate. She took another deep breath and cleared her throat.
“The parallel body is the corpus spongiosum. The urethra passes here.” She pointed to a specific area, but she didn’t see the anatomically correct model of manhood. No, in her mind she was back in her bed, staring at the six feet plus of hunky naked male standing not two feet away.
Her gaze traveled from his jutting strength, upward over a funnel of sandy hair, then a rippled belly, to a broad chest. Her attention fingered on one dark male nipple peeking trough the forest of silky hair. She drank in the sight of strong shoulders, a tanned throat, her study halting when she reached the most sensual pair of lips she’d ever seen.
Lips that had closed greedily over her own nipple.
She swatted away a trickle of sweat.
“And the root area here,” she said with a shaky voice, continuing her description, “is attached to the pubic bone by the, um … that would be the … the crura, I think….”
The words died, her left brain completely giving up as her mind’s eye riveted on a pair of deep Caribbean eyes. They glittered a vivid aqua, like the sea on a hot summer day. Mesmerizing. Inviting. Promising relief from the heat burning her up from the inside out.
Sweat beaded on her upper lip and she gasped for a breath of air. It was so hot in the lecture hall. Stifling. She couldn’t breathe, much less remember whatever it was she was supposed to be doing.
Labeling. That was it. Wasn’t it?
“This,” she trailed her finger along the head of the plastic model, and felt the touch on the insides of her own thighs. His touch, his fingertips sweeping upward, toward the part of her that ached and burned and … “This is the …” The correct scientific name dissolved on her tongue and she did the unthinkable in Guidry’s class. She blushed, from the tips of her toes to the end of each and every hair on her head.
“I know what it is.” She searched for the right answer, her grip tightening. “It’s the—I mean, well, I think it’s the—”
“Enough!” The loud command startled her from her erotic memories of last night and yanked her back to the present. She jumped. The model slipped from her hand and crashed to the table. Pieces scattered and sailed over the edge.
“Unbelievable!” Professor Guidry rushed toward her, scooping up parts of the model while gesturing wildly for her to return to her seat. “You have managed to turn a scientific lesson into a peep show!”
He blew out a disgusted breath and began fitting pieces back together as if it were his own penis Ronnie had just demolished.
“I realize not everyone is comfortable with the human body, but it is perfectly natural for us to examine it.” He bit out the words to a host of snickers and giggles. “To study it just as we would any other scientific phenomenon.” He ducked behind the podium to retrieve the head, which had rolled beneath a nearby projector.
Ronnie took the opportunity to hightail it back to her desk while he tried to fish the piece out from under the metal projector cart.
“That was priceless,” the girl next to Ronnie declared as she slid into her seat. “I’ve never seen Iron Ball lose his cool.”
Ronnie gave a halfhearted smile. Neither had she. Iron Ball Guidry was the poster boy for uptight scientific professionals, from his pristine white lab coat to his creased slacks and spit-polished loafers with the little tassles.
“What do you suppose sex is like with Iron Ball Guidry?” the woman to her left whispered to a friend directly in front of her.
“Are you kidding?” the second woman asked over her shoulder. “Like going to the gynecologist, only not half as exciting. ‘Please lie down on the table, miss.’” The girl did her best Guidry imitation. “‘Now spread your legs. A little wider, please, I don’t have bifocals, you know. Okay, now tilt your pelvis. Yes, just like that. Now I’m going to insert my Superman into your Wonder Woman and you’re going to feel the first level of stimulation. This is called the preorgasmic phase.’”
Ronnie felt the giggle rise to her lips, then her gaze hooked on Professor Guidry, who was still crawling on the floor, gathering plastic parts, and the sound died in her throat. He looked so shaken at her having shattered the model.
He deserved it. He’d deliberately tried to embarrass her, and all because she’d been unintentionally late to his class.
Even so, the laughter wouldn’t come. Not when she’d just earned herself a demerit the size of Texas. Could he actually fail her for breaking his precious penis?
Luckily the class ended, and Ronnie didn’t have time to
worry over the answer. She bolted from her seat and joined the crowd heading for the doorway.
“Just a minute,” came the sharp voice from behind the podium. Guidry got to his feet, brushing at invisible dust bunnies and smoothing his lab coat. “Paper topics, people. On my desk before you leave or I’ll assume you don’t plan on writing a term paper and will grade you appropriately.”
“For the record, Miss Parrish,” Guidry said when she reached the podium and handed him her neatly folded paper, “I will not tolerate tardiness in this course. I am well aware of the rumors around campus. Everyone feels that human sexuality is something inborn. An easy A. Well, this course is as scientific, as educational as any other course at this university, and I’ll have my students treat it as such. I have no misgivings about failing someone, especially after the sort of juvenile behavior I witnessed today.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I really am.”
He wasn’t the least moved by the apology. “Furthermore, I expect full participation and effort from every student. I hope you’ve put a lot of thought into your term paper topic. The paper will count for sixty percent of the overall course grade, and after your recent performance, you will need every percentage point to pass this course.”
“I really am sorry, Professor. I would never make light of your course. I didn’t mean to be late. You see, I work two jobs and—”
“I worked two jobs during college and graduate school, Miss Parrish, as do a lot of students, and we all live to tell about it, I assure you. I suggest you get your priorities straight. Exhaustion is not an acceptable excuse.”
“Maybe not, but it’s the truth.”
“Nor is there an acceptable excuse for your childish babbling and blushing today.”
“I didn’t mean to babble or blush. It’s just that …”
“Yes?”
“Well, I…” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t tell a stranger, even if he did happen to be the resident expert on human sexuality, about her dream.
Her classmates’ speculations on the professor’s love life echoed through her head. As stuffy and uptight as Guidry was, he probably didn’t even have dreams.
Wet dreams, came the deep, sultry voice in her head.
Those either. She could kiss goodbye any chance of the professor understanding how she felt.
Felt? She shouldn’t be feeling anything. It had just been a dream, for heaven’s sake! A few hours of harmless fun quickly forgotten once she opened her eyes. A few fantasies were fine, as long as she kept them in proper perspective and out of her real life.
On that note, she gathered up her book bag and marched to her next class. She managed to shove the images of last night away for safekeeping while she went through the motions of a typical, busy day. She sat through lectures, studied, reported for receptionist duty at Landry & Landry, then spent eight hours shelving books at the library.
It was when she was on her way home that her dream man pushed his way back into her mind, haunting her on the short walk, a sort of foreplay for the night ahead. When Ronnie reached her apartment, she wasted little time in getting ready for bed. She was tired, in desperate need of sleep, but most of all, she was ready for a little more harmless fun. With a shiver of anticipation, she crawled beneath the sheets, closed her eyes, and waited for the enticing dream.
One that never came.
Chapter Three
This must be her.
He stared through the windshield of his ’59 T-Bird bright and early Saturday morning and watched the same woman he’d nearly bumped into yesterday descend the steps of the townhouse. She matched the description the guy at the antique store had given him. Not to mention this was the right address.
It was her.
Now all he had to do was sit back and watch, learn her routine. Then he could make his move.
His hands flexed around the steering wheel. He’d never been a patient man, which could have been part of the “problem,” his doctor had told him. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the deep breathing exercises to help him relax. Relaxation was the key. No stress. No pressure.
His eyes opened. Once he took care of things here, he would certainly feel less pressure and he could get on with fixing the “problem,” before it was too late. No way was he going to sit by and lose the one thing in the world that mattered to him the most. His woman.
He wasn’t about to let anything come between them, and that meant he had to eliminate the competition, so to speak. What was a man if he couldn’t fight for what was his? If he couldn’t show his woman that he and only he could keep her satisfied?
Eliminate. That was the ultimate goal.
But first he had to watch.
This Saturday played out like any other. Ronnie rolled out of bed at seven a.m. and hurried to the campus library to report for duty. She checked out books, helped several students and a few irate professors find specific titles, and shelved cartload after cartload of returned books.
What made today different, however, was that Ronnie, rather than counting the hours until quitting time, welcomed the work. She needed all the distractions she could get to keep her mind off the truth.
No dream.
She’d spent an endless Friday night tossing and turning, waiting, but nothing had happened. When she’d closed her eyes, she hadn’t met up with her dream man. Instead, she’d alternated between visions of Guidry marking a big fat F on her term paper and ripping the diploma from her hands, and her own funeral soon afterward. The tombstone appropriately read:
HERE LIES VERONICA PARRISH
SO VIRGINAL, PROPER AND SWEET.
SHE FAILED HUMAN SEXUALITY,
AND NOW SHE’S SIX FEET DEEP!
Being busy at the library helped. Unfortunately, it didn’t occupy her thoughts completely. Disappointment followed her around all day, dogging her like a hungry puppy.
Was she so repulsive she couldn’t get a man even in her own dreams?
She shook her head. Now where had that thought come from? She wasn’t repulsive. She was just… busy. Focused. Too fixated on her career to worry about fussing over makeup and clothes to help attract a man. She didn’t want to attract a man, to find herself chucking hard work and ambition for marriage and family. She’d come too far, sacrificed too much to land right back where she’d started and hear her father say, “If you had only listened to me.”
She’d made her choice, and she intended to see it through.
Still, she couldn’t help but glance at her reflection in an abstract painting as she pushed a load of books past the Arts section. She looked so… blah. With her hair pulled back, her face void of color, she was pale, washed out—
Her gaze shifted to the corner of the painting and she caught the reflection of Mr. Hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin’-love she’d seen at the crosswalk the day before. He’d changed his T-shirt and now the words Jailhouse Rock glittered in bright green neon—the guy definitely had a thing for Elvis.
Mr. Jailhouse sat at one of the library tables, a book in his hand, his attention fixed on her. She turned around, but by then he’d shifted and looked away, leaving her to wonder if she’d just imagined his attention.
Probably.
As homely as she looked—all those traditional years back in Covenant had taught her great camouflage techniques when it came to clothes and make-up—nobody in his right mind would pay her any attention, especially a semicute jock.
By the time Ronnie shelved the last book on her cart, she’d convinced herself she needed a little pampering. Not to catch a man, mind you. Just to boost her own ego and relax a little. Why, she’d been so worked up about Guidry and her grade that she’d been too uptight to even fall asleep, much less dream.
No more.
Tonight she would push everything from her mind—Guidry, graduation, work, the twins, whom she’d promised to watch tomorrow morning—everything. She refused to worry. It was Saturday night, time to kick back and let loose, and that’s exactly what Ronnie intended to do.
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br /> The minute she walked into her apartment, she peeled off her jeans and T-shirt and retrieved the bottle of champagne Danny had given her as a house-warming gift last year when she’d moved from the dorm into the efficiency. It wasn’t expensive stuff, but a year in her fruit bin had to have helped. Age was the key to good liquor, wasn’t it?
She grabbed a couple of candles, situated them around the tub, and lit the wicks. Soft light cast flickering shadows across the surface of the steaming water. Ronnie hit the lights, slipped out of her underwear, and slid into the water. Champagne, candles—by the time she finished her bath, she would feel clean and pretty and relaxed enough for a little sleep and a romantic interlude.
With a dream man.
A no-strings-attached figment of her imagination.
All the better.
She reached for the champagne bottle, took a huge swallow, and sputtered. The bitter liquid burned its way down her throat and she grimaced. Maybe she’d settle for just the bath and candles to do the stress-relieving trick.
Corking the bottle, she placed it on the floor by the tub, settled back down into the warm water, and closed her eyes.
Mmmmm, she could get used to this.
Val would never get used to this. To her and her seductive antics. Last night she’d spent eight long, endless hours rolling this way and that, lifting her full, luscious breasts just so, sighing a tad too often and too deeply, easing her leg ever so casually over to his side of the bed.
He refused to accept that she didn’t know he was there. She knew. Deep down, her subconscious knew, no matter that her conscious mind refused to acknowledge him. She sensed him, his presence, his incredible hunger, and she was responding to him.
Merde! Of all the rotten luck.
In the Midnight Hour Page 4
