In the Midnight Hour

by Kimberly Raye

  “Quite a good topic. My personal field of interest is in sociology and its effect on sexual development.”

  “I know. That’s how I came up with the topic. I’ve even done a notebook full of research already. But this…” She stared down at the paper. “I can’t do this.”

  “I’ve already approved it.”

  Panic twisted at her gut and forced the air from her lungs. “But it’s not mine.”

  He shoved the glasses back on and glared at her. “Your little joke has backfired, Miss Parrish. You thought to make light of this class on Friday, and insult my intelligence by turning in that paper topic. But I’m calling your bluff. That’s the topic you turned in, the topic I approved, and that’s what you will write about. Unless you prefer I give you your F now.” He reached for his grade book.

  “An F?” Her mouth dropped open. “But—but I have to pass this class. I need the credit to graduate.”

  He snapped the book shut and shoved it into his briefcase. “Then I suggest you get to work.”

  “But…” She stared at the sheet of paper and tried to swallow past her heart, which had jammed into her throat.

  Fifty Steps to Ultimate Sexual Fulfillment.

  The words were scribbled in her handwriting, with her name on the header. But they weren’t her words. She didn’t know one step on the way to sexual fulfillment, much less fifty.

  Okay, so maybe one, she amended, the dream rushing full-force through her brain. But one dream, even one as good as the one she’d had, wasn’t enough to write a twenty-page-minimum term paper, complete with a bibliography of sources. And where would a person even start to get sources for something like this? Playboy? Penthouse? The boys’ locker room?

  “Surely you can see there’s been some mistake? I would never… I mean, I couldn’t…” She searched for words to describe the turmoil rushing through her. “I can’t do a paper on this.”

  “You can and you will, Miss Parrish.”

  Her gaze went from the dreaded topic to Professor Guidry, who looked about as reasonable as the IRS rep who’d visited one of her tax lectures last semester.

  Not that he looked like the fifty-something auditor. No thinning hair or paunchy middle. Guidry was tall, at least six-two, and not a day over thirty. One of the youngest professors at USL, she’d read in some article the campus newspaper had done on him. But he looked forty, with his glasses and navy tie, and acted fifty, with the chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder.

  If he loosened up, lost the glasses and the anal look that forever carved his features, he wouldn’t be so bad. He had classic Creole coloring and a head full of thick black hair that would have curled around his ears if given the chance. As it was, Guidry slicked back every strand with some atrocious hair gel. No hair fell forward into his nearly black eyes to clutter his thinking, or to give even a touch of softness to his stern face.

  Okay, so it would take more than contact lenses and a new hairdo. Guidry needed a makeover from the inside out, starting with a new heart to replace the one he had. Or didn’t have.

  “Sir.” Her lips trembled as she fought back the tears blurring her vision. “Please. I just can’t do this topic.”

  Her pleading met with a black glare. “You should have thought about that before you tried to make light of this course and this assignment. You know, I expected more from a mature woman like yourself, Miss Parrish. You’re a senior, not to mention you’re an older senior, by university standards, and you’ve got several years on most of the freshmen in this class. I am severely disappointed. I don’t care for practical jokes, particularly when they’re directed at my life’s work.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You did, and how you must deal with the repercussions. This is the topic you submitted, this is the one I approved. End of discussion, Miss Parrish. Good day.”

  He shoved his clipboard and lecture notes into his briefcase and left her staring after him, her head spinning and her hands trembling around the paper.

  Fifty Steps to Ultimate Sexual Fulfillment.

  What did a twenty-six-year-old virgin know about sexual fulfillment? Sure, she’d kissed a few guys, and she’d nearly married one, but Raymond had always acted the perfect gentleman. Other than chaste kisses, a little hand-holding, and a few lustful stares, he’d been content to wait for the honeymoon to start planting seeds for his family. Their family.

  The realization of what Ronnie had been about to get herself into had hit her as she’d stood so virginal and proper at the altar nearly eight years ago.

  Her future had flashed before her eyes as the minister had read the sacred vows that would forever tie her to Raymond Cormier, a man she didn’t love even though he was one of her father’s most devout supporters. Ronnie had opened her mouth to say “I do” and instead had blurted out, “No.”

  Forever was … well, it was forever.

  She’d already spent her entire life being the dutiful daughter, learning to cook, playing piano, and always acting the little lady—so sweet and proper and demure. She wasn’t about to spend till-death-do-us-part being the dutiful wife—making dinner instead of money, having babies instead of a career.

  Women could do more, be more, want more, and Ronnie did. She wanted a career, and that meant she had to ace this class.

  She took a deep breath. You can do this. You’ve beaten the odds, hung in for eight long, money-scarce years. Just toughen up and do it.

  Straightening her shoulders, Ronnie marched from the lecture hall, down the corridor—and straight into Mr. Jailhouse Rock, only he’d changed into Mr. Heartbreak Hotel.

  “Uh, excuse me,” she said, grasping at the books that threatened to tumble from her arms. Here’s your chance. If you’re going to write that paper, you’d better start gaining a little experience with the opposite sex.

  Ronnie pasted on her best smile and pushed her chest up and out. “Fancy meeting you again.”

  “What?” He didn’t even glance at her chest.

  “I’ve seen you before. At the intersection, and the library.” She tried batting her eyelashes. “You looked at me.”

  “Did I?” he asked, shifting from one foot to the other, as if anxious to get away.

  “So, do you go to school here? Are you a Ragin’ Cajun?”

  “A what?”

  “A football player.”

  “Football?” His head jerked up. “Uh, yeah. I play a little ball. Here. Yeah, right here.”

  “I knew you were a jock.” And a cute one, and probably very experienced. The cute ones usually were. “I’m an accounting major.” She expected a response. Instead, he shifted again and stared past her.

  Get out while the getting is good. Delta’s favorite saying raced through her mind. This was useless, futile. She’d spent the past eight years learning about cost accounting and tax credits instead of cultivating her womanly skills.

  She’d buried them beneath her ambition. Too deep to dig them up now—

  No. She could do this. She was a doer.

  She ignored the nerves beating at her senses. Stay calm and say something.… “You have really great eyes.”

  “Uh, contacts. Gotta go.”

  “Maybe we could have coffee.”

  “Never touch the stuff when I’m in training.”

  “But football season’s over—”

  “Later.” He darted past her and disappeared around the corner. No backwards glance. No “Nice talking to you.” Nothing except the frantic slide of boots on the walkway as he practically tripped over his feet to get away from her.

  Fifty Steps to Ultimate Sexual Fulfillment.

  She was in trouble. Big, big trouble.

  Ronnie’s weekdays usually passed in a hustling blur, but not today. The hours crawled by slower than molasses on ice cream. Monday was lecture day in her other two classes. So she spent the next couple of hours taking notes in a freezing lecture hall and watching the clock. Then the two Landrys of Landry & Landry were out of the office
for a meeting and the phones were unusually slow. The campus library was practically a morgue.

  Ronnie spent the entire day going over and over in her mind what had happened that morning with Guidry and her failed attempt at bagging herself a date for some measley coffee.

  By the time she walked into her apartment building just after eleven that night, she had a major headache and an upset stomach.

  “Ronnie. Oh, thank God you’re here.” Mr. Weatherby, the old man who lived down the hall, rushed toward her, a fluffy orange cat in his arms. “Pringles is sick and I have to run to the all-night animal hospital to pick up some medication for her. Can you look after her until I get back?”

  Just what she needed to top off her day. The cat from hell.

  Was someone Upstairs trying to tell her something?

  That maybe her father had been right and she should have stuck to making babies and keeping house instead of a career?

  The cat made a sick mewing noise and Mr. Weatherby stroked the feline’s head. “There, there, sweetheart. Daddy knows it hurts but he’s going to get you some medicine to make it all better. You can stay with Aunt Ronnie in the meantime.” He stared hopefully.

  Ronnie sighed, dropped her book bag at the door, and held out her arms. “Oh, all right.”

  “Thank you so much, dear.” Mr. Weatherby beamed. “I should be back within the hour.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Ronnie had settled down on her bed, the almost full bottle of champagne from last night cradled in her lap. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and she was a doer, after all. No sense moaning and groaning. Just do it. She tilted the bottle to her lips.

  The alcohol burned down her throat and she pursed her lips. Another long swig, then another. The third drink wasn’t nearly as bad as the first. And on the fourth, a tingling warmth stole through her. The bittersweetness fingered on her tongue and she sighed.

  “I’m in deep doo-doo, Pringles.” She stroked the ailing cat and took another drink of champagne. She was a doer, but even doers deserved to wallow once in a while. “I should just go ahead and let Guidry fail me. My life is over anyway. There’s no way I can write that ridiculous paper.”

  Ridiculous. Crazy. Insane. Yes, she had to have been insane when she wrote down that silly topic, and she had written it. It was her handwriting, all right. She’d analyzed the paper over and over during her boring shift at the library. The trouble was, she couldn’t remember writing anything so ludicrous. She’d finished writing up her nice, sane, rational topic on kids, then fallen asleep and had the dream—

  That was it. It had to be. That had been the night she’d had the somewhat erotic dream—okay, very erotic. Somehow, someway, she’d transferred what she’d been feeling to her paper topic. She’d written the ridiculous topic in the heat of the moment.

  Temporary insanity. Unfortunately the defense wouldn’t work with Guidry. He was dead set on punishing her. Nailing her to the wall.

  “What am I going to do?” She downed another long swallow of champagne and hiccupped. “I need a fresh, authentic paper with fresh and authentic sources. I need …”

  A man, some experience of her own, then she’d know more than one step toward sexual fulfillment. As it was, she’d be turning in a paragraph.

  “Why me?” she cried, the word ending on another hiccup. The cat half-purred, half-moaned and Ronnie stroked the animal’s orange fur. “I’m a good person. I give to the Salvation Army at Christmas, I brake for animals, I baby-sit the Hades twins every time Suzanne asks.” She hiccupped again. “I hold the door open for people. Why, just the other day I let this kid cut the line in front of me at the grocery store and he even had more items than me.” Another hiccup. “I don’t deserve this. Do I, Pringles?”

  The cat gave another half-purr, half-moan and rested her head on Ronnie’s knee.

  “I’m a good smartian.” She licked her lips and tried the word again. “Sa-ma-ri-tan. Yeah, that’s what I am. This stuff shouldn’t happen to me.” She leaned over and gazed into Pringles’s glittering eyes. “What do you think, Pringles? You think Aunt Ronnie deserves all of this?”

  The cat batted a paw at Ronnie’s face. Claws scratched across her cheek and she jerked back. “Thanks a lot, Pringles. Just wait until you’re feeling better. You can go beg at Suzanne’s door for a saucer of milk, because my carton is closed to you, mister—Oops.” The champagne bottle slipped from her fingers. Golden liquid spilled out over the hardwood floor while the bottle clattered and rolled beneath the bed. She threw up her hands. “What else could happen?”

  “The damned thing could get stuck,” she muttered two minutes later as she crawled beneath the bed, her arm stretching for the bottle, which had rolled several feet deep. “That’s what else could happen.”

  The cat half-purred, half-moaned again, obviously upset at being pushed off Ronnie’s lap so she could chase a champagne bottle. A soft thud echoed and Ronnie peered over her shoulder to see four carrot-red paws poised on the floor near her leg. Pringles ducked her head and green eyes gleamed in the darkness.

  “Hold your horses. I’m almost done,” she grumbled to the cat as she stretched her arm. Her fingertips brushed smooth glass. “Almost… Ouch!”

  Claws sizzled across her bare leg; Ronnie jumped and her head banged against the bedframe. Wood creaked, paper rustled, and something gave way above her.

  “What the …?”

  She scrambled from under the bed, slapping at her face as if a dozen creepy crawlers had rained down on her. After a frantic look at her hands and legs, she took a deep calming breath. Okay, no spiders. At least not on her. But she’d definitely felt something. Retrieving a flashlight, she peered back under the bed.

  No spiders under there either. Just a mountain of what looked like letters. Letters? Raising the flashlight beam, she saw the spot beneath the bed where her head had hit. A piece of wood had slid to the side to reveal a now empty compartment. Curiosity chased away her fear and she crept back beneath the bed and gathered up the papers.

  A few minutes later, after sopping up the spilled champagne, she settled herself on the bed, her newfound treasures in hand. Her thigh burned where Pringles had scratched four nasty red welts, and she glared at the cat.

  “Bad, Pringles.”

  Pringles, now curled up on Ronnie’s pillow, didn’t so much as bat an eye. Obviously, the cat felt she’d done her duty in getting Ronnie back up on the bed with her.

  Ronnie picked up one of the letters and studied its yellowed edges.

  It was obviously very old. Carefully, she unfolded the ends and spread the sheets open. Her gaze snagged on the top corner of the first page and shock bolted through her.

  August 9, 1842.

  1842!

  It couldn’t be.

  She was no expert, but as she stared at the deteriorating edges, the fading script, her gut instinct told her she’d made a prize find. A letter over one hundred and fifty years old! Make that several letters, she decided as she set about opening each one. The dates spanned a sixteen-year period, from 1832 to 1848.

  But it wasn’t the dates that drew Ronnie’s attention. It was the salutation. The authors were all different, but the letters were written to the same man, about the same man.

  And what a man!

  Valentino had nothing on this guy. He was legendary. A lover of gigantic proportions, in technique and in stature, she quickly realized as she drank in the letters.

  Her face heated. Her body throbbed. Thankfully, she had to pause after the first few letters to hand Pringles over to Mr. Weatherby.

  Bolting the door behind them, she retrieved a cold soda and downed half the can before settling herself cross-legged on the bed. She took several deep breaths, then reached for another letter.

  … way you touched me last night. I’ve never known a man with such strong, shameless hands. And then when you kissed my… The letters went on and on in graphic detail, each one written by a different woman.

  Now here
was a guy who knew fifty steps to ultimate sexual fulfillment. He probably knew a hundred!

  She leaned back against the pillow, a letter clutched in her hand as she stared dreamily into space, doing her best to picture what this lover of all lovers would look like.

  Handsome, definitely. But black hair or brown? Green- or blue- or brown-eyed? Short or tall?

  Not that it mattered. She didn’t want him for his body. She wanted his experience. His expertise.

  “If I only had you here, my sweet Valentine,” she mused, using the salutation each letter started with, “this paper would be a piece of cake. My troubles would be over.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” a deep male voice grumbled beside her.

  Ronnie’s eyes snapped open and her gaze swiveled to the right. Shock bolted through her when she saw the man stretched out on the sheets not six inches away from her.

  Long, thick hair the color of summer wheat framed a chiseled face with high cheekbones and a sculpted nose. A sensuous mouth slanted at the corners in a sexy grin that said this man knew all her secrets. Bluer than blue eyes clashed with hers for a long moment and Ronnie felt her self-defenses stripped away, along with her clothing and her common sense. He didn’t just know all her secrets. He was her secret.

  The man from her dream.

  Her gaze dropped, drinking in tanned, tight, muscled flesh that went on and on and …

  Make that the very naked man from her dream.

  “What …” she swallowed, searching for words that couldn’t quite make it past the shock gripping her senses. “What—what are you doing in my bed?”

  Deep laughter sent a wave of shivers through her. “You’ve got that wrong, chérie.” He leaned toward her, closing the scant distance that separated them. “What, pray tell, are you doing in my bed?”

  Chapter Five

  So much for being hospitable, Val thought as he stared at the woman who’d fainted dead away—and just when things were starting to get interesting.