by Lucia Jordan
“Of course. You are hard to impress though. You blew me off for the last bite of tarte.”
Sandra, amused, exclaimed, “You said you did not want it!”
“I lied.”
“You ate the last of…whatever that was…”
“Yes and I think that was the thing that rolled up into my chest somewhere around noon and lodged there. I need some good nutritious food and a long walk to sort myself out, care to join me?”
Sandra opened her mouth to say she had a ton of work to do but instead, “That would be lovely,” popped out of her mouth. So much for being strong around him, she thought ruefully.
The walk turned out to be just what she needed too. They headed over to the lake, a long walking trail surrounded it, branching into smaller trails, and after consuming light salads and coffee they took off on a slow that took them around the circumference of the lake.
The glittering sheet of water lay under the fading sky, the multitude of ducks and geese that lived there paraded past or swam across the water in sedate little groups. Other walkers swung past or ran by and small kids tossed breadcrumbs at the fowl.
“This is the lake you sail on I take it?”
“Yes. It is twelve miles long and four wide so it is a really large lake. There is a lot of breezes due to the mountains there and…” she paused, aware that it sounded like she was giving him a lesson. “I never asked if you sail.”
“I do not. I can’t swim so I tend to stay out of the water.”
Sandra’s mouth fell open. “You can’t swim?”
“Don’t look so shocked, a lot of people don’t or can’t you know.”
“I know but…but do you not care what you are missing?”
“What am I missing?”
“Um, okay on the hottest summer days, when the heat is bearing down and the air is sticky from humidity the waters close over your body like a cooling silk sheet, underwater it is peaceful and still. That is what it is like to swim.” Her face burned. “I guess I am better at reading words than creating them.”
“No, if I were not so terrified of the water you would have made me want to learn to swim.”
“Why are you afraid of it?”
“I tried to learn to swim as a little kid, my big brother got the bright idea that if he just tossed me in I would sink or paddle. I sunk like a stone. He had to come get me out. Scared the hell out of him since he was babysitting me. I had to promise not to tell our folks and since it scared the both of us so badly I did no try again until I was in high school.”
“What happened then?”
He laughed. “I was a horny teenaged dumbass. There was this gorgeous girl that I fell crazy in love with and wanted to impress very badly. She went to the rival high school and I met her because she was a cheerleader and I played football and for almost a year, I literally stalked her all over the city.
“She worked at waterpark that summer and I decided that was where I needed to be. Since there was another equally asinine guy competing for her affection I tried to impress her by doing a header off the tallest diving board, figuring I would work out how to swim once I got down there.”
“I don’t mean to laugh,” Sandra sputtered through her giggles.
“Oh no—go ahead. It is funny.”
“I take it you did not learn to swim that day?”
“Nope, she had to come get me out of the water in fact.”
“Whatever happened to her?”
“I married her.”
Sandra’s heart gave an empathetic squeeze. “You said you miss her.”
“I do. It is hard not to miss someone you spent so much of your life with.” He changed the subject. “Would you be willing to teach me how to sail?”
“Yes, if you really want to learn and if you promise to invest in a very good life jacket.”
“Deal,” he said promptly. “I will even sign a waiver saying that if I do manage to drown myself it will not be your fault at all.”
“Oh good, that would really help keep my insurance costs down if you did drown.” Sandra was amazed at how easy it was to be glib, to be witty when she talked to him. Most conversations that she had were dull, plodding things but Connor had a way of bringing her out of her shell that she liked as much as she marveled at it.
“I aim to help when possible.”
Giggles sounded from behind them. Two very attractive young women hurried to catch up to them. One of them, a nubile blonde with her lithe body on clear display in a pair of tight leggings and a thin tank top exclaimed, “Hi Connor!”
“Hello,” he said.
“I loved your discussion in class today,” she simpered.
Sandra wanted to claw her eyes out. Connor seemed clueless but Sandra knew what was going on, the young woman was obviously hitting on him acting as if she was not even there!
Reason kicked in. For all his student knew they were just two people who worked together out for a walk. And really, was that not all it was? She had no claim on Connor after all.
Connor sensed Sandra’s growing aggravation and his own grew as well. Hiding his irritation at the interruption below a smile and pleasant words, he attempted to send the woman on her way but she slowed her pace, her friend bookended them and soon they were a foursome walking around the lake.
He was not a fool. He knew when he was being hit on. He also knew that the appearance of the two women had upset Sandra and tossed a wrench into what had been a perfectly good time up until that moment. What he did not know was how to get rid of her.
The last thing on earth that he needed was a student that had a crush on him. He sure as hell did not need a student who had a crush on him following him around as he was trying to talk to Sandra.
He knew he had behaved like an asshole at the conference, he also knew that Sandra was not the kind of woman to tolerate too much shit out of someone. He knew exactly what would happen, she would ignore him whenever possible, be icily polite when she could not ignore him and excise him from her life as neatly as if she were a surgeon and he was a bothersome boil.
She was a not used to loving and her cool exterior masked a passionate nature that he wanted to know better. He knew there were unplumbed depths to her, depths that no other man had ever bothered to try to seek out. Sandra was not a woman who dated a lot, he knew the sexual encounter that they had shared at the conference was not something she typically did, neither was the little scene they had shared in her office.
She had spoken at dinner of knowing that something was missing, and he knew what it was. She needed a man who was not afraid to take her by her hair and kiss her hard, so hard that her lips felt bruised afterwards. She needed someone who would love and respect her but still put her on her knees and stuff his cock down her throat until she could barely breathe.
He had wanted to do that very thing there in her office but he had known it was a little too soon, for both of them. The emotions she brought up in him were frightening as well as exciting, they were emotions he had not felt for many a year and he did not want to fuck it up by moving too fast.
A hand touched his arm and he looked down. The young woman had her hand, topped with ridiculously long nails painted in an extraordinary fashion and tipped with glitter of all things, near his forearm and was squeezing him with a familiarity that made him uncomfortable and angry all at once.
“You really should come to the book party tonight!” She was saying. He opened his mouth to demur but before he could get much of anything out Sandra broke free from the ragged little formation, pointed into the distance and exclaimed, “Oh look Connor! There is your mother!”
Connor, torn between laughter and, bewilderment, disentangled himself, muttered something almost unintelligible, and hauled ass up the steep hill behind Sandra. The advantage to that was the fact that he got to admire the flex and rise of her ass cheeks.
They made it to the top of the incline before she paused. The woman that Sandra had pointed to was already getting into her car
, Connor did not dare look back to see if the student he had just narrowly escaped from was watching—he had the sinking feeling that she was and that she knew that she had been lied to.
“Thank you for saving me.”
“No problem.” She knew she was angry with the wrong person and that she had no reason to be angry but she was, anyway.
“I did not invite her Sandra.”
His quiet words eradicated her anger. He had not invited her and she knew it. He was sorry too that what occurred had cut off the conversation they both had been enjoying but it had not been his fault.
The two of them fell back into step as they walked through the campus. His residency had come with a small white framed house not far from the one that Sandra lived in and he could not help but notice how bucolic the scenery was.
Tall trees shaded the streets, neat houses that kept the faculty and their families on the campus sat on perfectly cropped lawns. Some had gaily striped furniture still out on their front porches but most were bare in preparation for the impending winter.
The sun shone down benignly and warmly, giving a lustrous sheen to the setting. Some students strolled the streets and a few blocks up where the dorm housing began hordes of people were gathered.
It must have been an interesting and lonely way to grow up. Looking at Sandra’s expressive face as she walked he knew he had fallen for her. He did not want to but he had anyway.
Holding out his arm so she could place her hand on his elbow he asked, “Could I walk you home?”
Run right now, Sandra’s inner voice said. Run like hell.
Desire Book 3: Love’s Trust
She did not run. Her flesh tingled beneath his fingers and a giddy sensation filled her. “Nobody has ever walked me home.”
He bowed. He stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and bowed over her hand in a gallant and unexpected gesture that made her heart melt so rapidly she actually looked down to see if it had dripped out onto her shoes. “Well, if you had some books I would carry them for you too.”
Was that her giggling like a teenager? Sandra stifled those chortles and took a few steps forward. Connor walked alongside her, his long lean legs eating up the distance but never moving so fast that she had to hurry. He had a dangerous, prowling grace that made her stutter and her senses light up.
“Have you ever lived away from this campus?”
Sandra had heard that question before, ‘Not really. I know I have lived an entirely too insulated life but…but I am comfortable here.”
“Is that enough for you?”
The question ate into the heart of something she had been struggling with for a long time. “Why?”
He stopped and turned her to face him, “What if you met someone who could not live here, who would not live here. Would you leave?”
“That is a tough one. Luckily I do not have to answer that.”
She was right and Connor knew it. He had known her for a very short time, he was here for a year and there were no guarantees that what they had right now would last even that long. It was a moot point.
Or was it? He loved his home in Maine. It sat on a high cliff above the ever-changing sea. The house had been built at the turn of the century and he had fallen in love with its soaring stone walls, long sloping lawn and tall beveled windows despite the fact that it had spent over twenty years in a long decay.
He had spent years renovating it. The old swimming pool, close to a hundred years old, had been remodeled to look exactly as it had when the first inhabitants of the house had lived there. He had the tennis courts restored and the vegetable and herb gardens grew as profusely as they had in years past. The scent of basil and roses mingled with lavender and vine ripened tomatoes, all of it interspersed with the tangy salt air that rode in on the waves that crashed against the black granite rocks below.
It was his dream home, and he only lacked one thing—a woman to share it with. Gina had never seen that house, the one they had lived in in Portland had been sold after her death as he had been unable to bear the grief that had come from the memories that surrounded him there.
Whether or not Sandra would be the woman to share that house with him was still an unanswered question but what if, at the end of the school year, he remained enthralled by her and she was unwilling to leave the campus?
That was a worrisome thought and no matter how much he tried to shove it aside, it stayed. It was also on Sandra’s mind. The thought of leaving the campus, of removing herself from the only thing she had ever known terrified her. Other universities had offered her scholarships but she had chosen to stay and after graduation she had received job offers elsewhere and had not wanted to take them, she had needed to be where she was.
Connor kissed her again, and it was just as sweet as the last kiss he had given her. A student on a bicycle wolf-whistled as he went past and Sandra laughed a bit self-consciously as she pulled away.
“See you tomorrow?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sandra replied.
That was just what Connor was afraid of.
**
Autumn turned to winter. Storms down from Canada, bringing gusting wind and sheets of snow that covered the campus. For the first few days the place looked like a wonderland then the snow melted or piled up on the gutters, turned dirty and black. The skeletal tree limbs were encased in crystal shards of ice that also lost their charm long before Christmas break began.
Christmas break was the reason behind the argument between Sandra and Connor, or at least that was the cause of disagreement on the top of things. Connor wanted to go home for the holidays, and for her to accompany him. Sandra had never spent Christmas away from the campus, and resisted his pleas for her to go to Maine. Even when her father announced that he had been invited to spend the holidays when an equally dry peer at some academic retreat she kept on putting up her decorations and planning dinner at her own tiny home.
Frustrated by her refusals Connor decided to go to Maine without her. He showed up on her doorstep, a long gilt wrapped package in his hands and a cap pulled down low over her face. With his heavy leather coat and gloves he looked like a modern pirate somehow swept into a snowy afternoon.
Sandra opened the door, her dark hair highlighted by the gorgeous red sweater she wore. Her blue jeans clung to her legs and the soft swell of her hips. Connor’s eyes went to the generous curves of her bosom and then up to her face. She wore a lip-gloss that matched her sweater; it accented her pale skin and the chocolate hue of her eyes. Desire pulsed into him though he tried to tamp it down.
They had not shared a bed in almost two weeks, between the hectic schedule that exams created and the argument that had come up between them sex had faltered and died. He thrust the package at her clumsily, not wanting to get into a conversation that would see them bitter and angry over the holiday.
“I thought I would bring this by for you.”
Sandra’s heart ached. She wanted to try to fix things between them. It was such a small argument and silly but, it was a harbinger of a larger issue that would arise sooner rather later and she knew it.
Connor’s attentions had grown and she had fallen completely and totally in love with him. He would leave her soon, as spring turned to summer. Only two things could happen: he would walk away and her heart would be broken or he would ask her to go with him and she would have to say no, and her heart would be broken.
It was far better to stop it now, while the pain would still be bearable. If she let him go now she could spend Christmas break dealing with that pain, learning to hide it so that when he came back she could resist him.
Not that resisting him would ever be easy. Her eyes were helplessly pulled to his body. She had the sudden yearning to taste that leather, to bend over and lick the snowflakes from his shoulder. She wanted to feel his hard thigh pressed between hers, wanted to grind her aching center down that hard muscular length until she came.
“Hello,” His voice broke her from her reve
rie and her face flamed.
“Sorry. I have a gift for you too, would you like to come in?”
He paused so long she was sure he was going to say no but eventually he said, “Yes,” and she opened the door wider to allow him to come in.
“It smells nice in here.”
“I’m baking,” Sandra winced at the inane statement, it was obvious that she was baking—the spicy scents hanging in the air were proof enough of that. She added, “Pie and cookies. Do you like mincemeat?”
“Not the traditional.”
Sandra laughed, her even teeth showing between her full lips. “I have never tried the traditional I am afraid. I use the jarred filling.”
“Oh what a tragedy!” Connor’s eyes danced. The anger between them had not evaporated but it had lost its strength right there as they spoke. “I have to admit, I am not fond of the whole mutton in sugary pie concept.”
“Some jarred fillings have meat but not the one I use. The meat thing always was weird for me as well.” Sandra admitted. “That pie is ready for cutting and I just made coffee.”
Connor did not need a second invitation; he followed her to the kitchen. That she had been busy was clear—pots soaked in the sink, bowls still containing the ends of cookie mix, and pie fillings were neatly stacked upon the counter. The strong smell of coffee hung over the air, making him sniff appreciatively.
Sandra sat him down at the table, poured him a cup, cut him a generous wedge of pie, and then joined him with her own, saying, “I hope you will excuse the mess.”
“I like it. I hate houses that never look lived in.” He took a healthy bite of his pie and followed it up with coffee. “This is really good.”
“Thank you. How is the new book going?”
“It is going really well. I expect to get a lot of work done over the holidays, which is good because I am about to have a nicotine withdrawal induced stroke.”
Sandra knew that Connor permitted himself one cigarette a week when he was not writing and two a week when he was. “Have you tried the e-cigarettes?”
“I think they are a little like masturbation.”
