by N J Adel
“Halloween? Why on Halloween?”
“Oh, Forest Grove throws the meanest Halloween parties every year. The best in all Oregon and Washington combined. I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” she paused. “Okay, hubs is on the other line. I got to go. Knock ‘em dead today.”
“I will.” I ended the call and went to find my blow dryer when I saw some discoloration on my neck. Did Alec do that?
Studying the little marks on my neck, I guessed it was from those little bites. Perfect. A hickie on my first day at school.
I removed the towel to check for any more bruises. It was a routine check for me years ago until I stopped examining my body. What had been the point of finding if I had new bruises or trying to hide or heal them? I’d have gotten more anyway.
Some yellowish spots were on my hips and butt. They were definitely from Alec’s pressure. Evidence I didn’t dream our quick adventure.
I smiled, ready for whatever other adventures this fresh start had for me.
CHAPTER 7
BELLE
The day was bright and beautiful as I drove to the campus. I grabbed my bag and hurried to get to Professor Pattison’s office, the Psychology Head of Department. He was Katrina’s acquaintance; the one who gave me the job. He knew all about Declan and was so supportive that he promised me a co-teacher for the first half of the semester until I regained my speed and found a TA.
I hadn’t had the chance to meet my co-teacher yet because he was on a leave. But today, Professor Pattison was introducing us.
Once inside the building, I was transported to a world I’d missed for a whole year. A place full of hustling and bustling young people eager to learn…and have nonstop sex.
Grinning from ear to ear, I walked down the hallway and turned the corner till the very end where I found Professor Pattison’s office.
“Professor Ferro.” He greeted me with a firm handshake.
I might have returned the shake with a little too much enthusiasm. Being here, hearing that designation with my last name, not Declan’s, made me so elated. By the look on his face and the way he withdrew his hand, I’d say I was too elated for my own good. Tone it down, Belle. You don’t want to come off as a nutcase.
“Just in time.” He gestured for me to take a seat. When I did, he adjusted his brown suit jacket and sat behind his desk, a formal smile on his clean-shaved face. I was surprised when Katrina told me he was around fifty-years-old. He looked too much younger to be even forty. His dark blond hair didn’t have a hint of a single gray one or a receding line. He had sharp, blue eyes, a healthy tan, a fit, tall body…I didn’t get it. Should I ask him what his secret was or was that too much?
“I’ve just sent for Professor Asher, your co-teacher for the next few months,” he said. “You will have to work together on a schedule and the rest of the arrangement. I decided it would be best to leave it to both of you because I’d like you to work at your own pace at first.
“I’m sure you’ll find cooperating with Professor Asher to be an easy task. He is one of our finest, been working here for ten years, which means he knows everyone and can help you with anything you need around campus. Can I get you anything until he arrives?”
“Thank you. I’ve already had my coffee,” I said. “I…can’t thank you enough, though, for giving me this chance to work with you. I can’t wait to start.”
“It’s our pleasure to have you, Professor.”
Someone knocked on the door. Must be my new colleague. I hoped he wasn’t a snob or a sleaze. Those were the worst in Academia.
My gaze shifted to the door as it opened. A man carrying a black briefcase that matched his suit took one step inside the office. Then his gaze fell on me, and he stopped in his tracks, his hand tightening around the knob.
Hello sexy, suave and sophisticated.
I always had a thing for professor glasses, and young me thought Declan was sexy as hell with them on. Now, I hated everything Declan, but I still associated the glasses with sexiness in my subconscious.
And this man… He rocked them.
Didn’t Professor Pattison say my co-teacher had been working here for ten years? That would make him in his forties, thirty-five, at least.
Well, that one looked much younger than that, even with the glasses. Maybe even younger than I was. How was that possible? What was it with the men here looking younger than they were supposed to be? There must be something in the water in Oregon.
Note to self: consider Botox, you wrinkly hag.
But it wasn’t only the glasses or the slim fit suit on that body of an athlete, not a college professor, that held me in place, unable to move my eyes away from his face.
He had something else. Something…almost mesmerizing.
A rare masculinity that radiated from him in waves, pulling me to him against my will. His face too beautiful to be real. Even his scent warm and sensual in the strangest way.
I didn’t like that.
I didn’t like his charms having that crazy effect on me. I’d just seen the man, and I was already fantasizing about doing nasty things I should never be doing to a colleague at a workplace, especially a prestigious university such as here.
“Come in, Joshua,” Professor Pattison said.
Yes, come in, Josh-ooh-wah! Get inside. Break that awkward stare I can’t bring myself to break. Please?
Why wasn’t he moving? Why wasn’t he looking away?
And…was that a good stare or a bad stare? Like ‘you’re so gorgeous I fell in love with you from first sight’ stare? Or ‘I hate your guts for no reason. I’m going to make your life a living hell then murder you in your sleep’ stare?”
My heart was racing, my head spinning, but somehow, I was calm. There was something extraordinary about this man. Even if he was picturing how to snap my neck in his head, I felt soothed by his existence.
Professor Pattison cleared his throat. “Come meet the department’s newest addition. Professor Isabella Ferro is going to be teaching here with us.”
Joshua’s head snapped toward him. It was a few moments before he finally left the doorknob, closed the door and walked to the seat before me.
I was going to extend my hand for a proper greeting—not because I wanted to feel his wedding-band-free hand around mine or anything like that—but he wasn’t even looking at me when he unbuttoned his jacket and sat. He set his briefcase on his lap, a deep grimace on his face, ignoring me completely.
“As I was saying, Professor Ferro will be teaching General Psychology and Abnormal Psychology this semester,” Professor Pattison said.
“That’s what I teach.” Joshua’s voice was deep and low, the kind that hit you right in the core and silenced you to listen.
“That’s why I chose you to be her co-teacher for the first—”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
I cocked a brow, and then I looked at the Head of Department.
He fiddled with his tie, giving me another managerial smile. “Why would you say—”
“You really think I can work with her?” Joshua interrupted again.
Okay. Professor sexy, suave and sophisticated was officially a dickhead. At first, I thought this might be a payroll issue. Sharing classes could mean a deduction sometimes, which wasn’t the case here. Professor Pattison assured me of that, and since that dickhead had just been informed, I thought that was his problem.
But then he spoke again, and apparently, the issue was that I had a vagina.
I couldn’t remain silent anymore. “I’m right here, sitting across from you. I can hear everything you say.”
“Good.”
I gaped at him in disbelief. “Excuse you? If you have a problem with me in particular, Professor, say it. Do you even know me to not want to work with me?” Glaring at him, I grabbed my bag. “You know what? Forget it.” I jumped to my feet. “Thank you so much, Professor Pattison, but I do not need a co-teacher. I’m fully capable of running my classes by myself.”
“Nobody doubts that.” My boss rose from his seat. “Could you please give us a minute, Professor?”
Fuming, I just stared at him.
He ushered me to the door, apologized on behalf of that asshole and asked me to wait outside.
I dropped on the couch in the waiting area, taking it at my bag handle, shooting a death glare at dickhead Asher before Pattison closed the door.
What a way to start. One moment I thought the day was getting even better; how lucky I was that my co-teacher turned out to be pure hotness behind professor glasses. The next he crapped on my first day at work with his misogynist shit.
He takes one look at me, sees I’m a woman and decides I’m not good enough?
Men were pigs. All of them. I made the right decision when I swore them off for all eternity. Relationships with them…not their bodies. Those I could still use to my benefit. Last night was enough proof just sex was an outstanding arrangement. I’d be an idiot to give that up after years of—
The door opened, and the asshole burst out. “Let’s go.”
My face contorted in utter disgust. Who the hell did he think he was? He didn’t even look at me, and he was already one stride away from leaving the office? “What the…”
“We have class in thirty minutes.”
“If you think for one second that I will—”
“Look, I’m sorry.”
That took me by surprise. I didn’t expect a man like him to apologize, not this fast, not ever. I felt…betrayed. I wasn’t ready to drop this feud yet. “Do not interrupt me, even if it is for an apology.”
He twisted and stalked toward me, his gaze penetrating me now, unwavering like in those first seconds he’d laid his eyes on me. Was he going to give me more of his crap? I stood to level the confrontation. Bring it, asshole.
“Of course.” He murdered my hopes at a decent verbal fight where I could blow all that steam stuffed in me. “I’d like you to know that was not my best behavior in there.”
Are you shitting me right now? Where the fuck did that civil act come from? And what the fuck were those eyes made of? I’d never seen that color in my life. Grayish violet blue, like cold steel being shoved in a furnace.
Do not distract me with your beauty and sudden politeness. Return to the douchebag facade and let me have my payback, slashing you with my words. “You think?”
“Please accept my apology, and let’s move on.”
Fuck you. I folded my arms across my chest, my bag dangling down to my thighs. “And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll keep on trying to apologize until you do, Professor Ferro.” He gestured at the hallway. “Shall we?”
Fuck you one more time. How could I retort after this? The son of a bitch won with his eighteenth-century gentleman’s talk, and all I was fighting now was a smile.
Professor Pattison emerged. “What’s it going to be, Professor Ferro? As much as I’d love for the two of you to work together, the decision remains yours.”
CHAPTER 8
JOSHUA
It had never failed to amaze me how she looked exactly the same, moved the same, spoke the same.
Every time.
The spitting image of my beloved Rena. My destiny. My eternal dream.
Even her smell, the one that haunted me and made my mouth water with her every move, and the rhythm of her pulse that echoed through my dead chest.
The heart that soon would stop beating like mine.
I walked by her side down the hallway, holding my fake breath. No more risks. I’d done enough damage for one day.
Despite her approval of Pattison’s arrangement, she must be wondering why I acted the way I did in his office. With that glimpse of fire in her spirit she showed me, I had no doubt she would demand an explanation. I would have to come up with a convincing lie for now. She wouldn’t be able to swallow the truth without a slow introduction.
“Are you being forced into this?” Her elegant neck stretched as she threw me a look from the corner of her eye.
I couldn’t keep my stare away from the two veins bulging next to her throat, summoning all my willpower not to remind myself of her sweet taste.
She suddenly stopped and twisted at me. “Why do you keep staring at me like that? I don’t like it.”
I blinked, dragging my gaze away from her. “I’m not being forced.”
She shook her head and resumed walking. “Then why did you change your mind all of a sudden? You don’t expect me to believe you spent two minutes with Pattison and came out a changed man for no good reason.”
“Damien Pattison is a very persuasive man. He put everything into perspective for me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And why did you say you didn’t want to work with me in the first place? You don’t even know me.”
“I do,” I murmured.
She stopped again. “What did you just say?”
“I do know you,” I said firmly. “You’re Belle…from the Beauty and the Beast case?”
Her face blanched, her long, black lashes fluttering. “How did you know about that?”
“The news.”
Her chest rose with a deep breath, and flashes of all the things I’d once done with those breasts raced in my mind. “I didn’t think my life had been a gossip material in Oregon, too.”
“It must have been so hard for you that you had to move.”
“You have no idea.” She sighed. “Could you please not…share this piece of information?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” The rhythm of her heartbeat quickened as she clutched her bag. “But what has that got to do with anything? I mean… Wait a minute. I know what this is about.” Her brows shot up, and her stance changed from vulnerable to fierce in a split-second. “You think he’s innocent. You empathize with the man that ruined my life.”
She went on and on with her accusations. In no time, the conversation turned into a women’s right argument and I was, apparently, mansplaining her.
I didn’t interrupt because it seemed to have irritated her earlier…and because I thought the redness crossing her cheeks when she was angered was utterly cute.
“I know your kind, Professor,” she said it as a warning.
“My kind?”
“A charming man like you, staff and students must be swooning over you all the time, practically throwing themselves at you. You think you’re entitled to anything with any woman, and they have no right to open their mouths.”
“These are very serious accusations, Professor Ferro. If I didn’t know you were projecting, I’d be gravely offended.”
She scowled and continued down the hallway until we reached my office. Damn, even her scowl was cute.
We stood at my door, and I rearranged my lies—half-truths. I was a quick and skilled liar, out of necessity and long experience. My expansive studies in Psychology helped as well. “Your assumptions about me are completely wrong, by the way. The reason I didn’t want to spend a lot of time working with you is that your face is too much of a trigger for me.”
“Trigger?”
“You remind me of someone, Professor. A woman who suffered like you. I was supposed to save her, but I couldn’t.” That part was true. Had my heart been still beating, it would have been ripped to shreds just at the memory.
Her big eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, yet her lips parted in the most attractive way. I wished I could have closed the distance between us and crushed my mouth into hers. “Now I feel like an asshole,” she whispered.
“I beg your pardon?”
She did that thing with her thumbnail, a press on top that seemed painful but wasn’t, followed by the run of her hand through her hair, Rena did every time she was embarrassed or nervous. “I did make assumptions way too quickly, and I misjudged you. I can’t apologize enough…” She swore under her breath.
Rena didn’t swear at all, but this one… I found it intriguing. There was a fierce glow to Isabella, a life force that I hadn’t seen in
a long time. Something I’d long missed.
“You don’t need to apologize. I deserved it,” I said. “Besides, you think I’m charming.”
Her struggle to hide her smile was adorable. She was adorable. Isabella.
My Isabella.
Her heart strutted. “If I am that much of a trigger, you really shouldn’t be around me.” She played with her hair again. It moved off her neck, and I could see what she’d carefully hidden with makeup.
A surge of fury blazed inside me, and I yearned to tear someone’s flesh, gulp on their blood until they were dry. Wrath was the enemy of any vampire. The only thing that tampered with my control and threatened to expose me.
When did that happen, Isabella? How?
“Are you all right?” she asked, concern lacing her voice.
“Perfectly. As for your question, I’m going to see you here every day anyway. Might as well replace negative memories with positive ones with you.”
This time, she smiled. A full grin with teeth. Hell, I’d missed that beauty so much. “You have a point. Good thing I don’t need saving. Not anymore.”
Oh, you’re so innocent, my sweet Isabella. You have no clue what you’ve gotten yourself into.
But have no fear. I’m here to protect you, and I won’t let anyone take you from me ever again.
CHAPTER 9
BELLE
I audited as Joshua started the first General Psychology lecture of the semester. I could feel the college sexual energy swirling around the auditorium. It was packed with students, mostly females, and I wondered if Psychology had become a popular major in the past year I had been forced out of Academia.
Or was it the Psychology teacher that was popular?
The answer came when I noticed several of the students were staring at Joshua, hypnotized. Flirtatious smiles. Cute lash batting. Girlfriend snickers.
Yeah, it was definitely the teacher.
I had always been fascinated by the way we communicated with pheromones. Our first instinct toward the opposite sex was to size them up for mating or procreation, sending them a message of our appraisal through body odor.
