Derek tapped his finger on the table, his dark blue eyes studying her again.
Her heartbeat spiked, and she broke eye contact. She wasn’t used to attractive guys staring at her, unless they were five foot four and fantasized about dating an Amazon. “So can I go there now? Do I need a key?”
Derek stood, pulled out a cell phone from his pocket, and glanced at the screen. “Give me five minutes. I’ll walk you over.”
He’s going too?
Elena jumped up and jerked on her backpack, accidentally knocking into Derek’s arm. With her chest.
Not the first time her boobs had collided with an unsuspecting object, just the most embarrassing.
She froze then carefully eased back an inch, only to find that the air between them had changed the way it did before a lightning storm—positive and negative molecules separating, creating the urgency to rush back together. She glared at the empty space between them, as if it, like the liquid anomalies, had betrayed her.
Slowly, Elena scanned up Derek’s broad chest and shoulders, beyond the firm jaw, tangling momentarily with his full lips, and landing on his eyes. He was glaring down, his beautiful gaze almost threatening, as though he sensed the crackling and blamed it on her.
And maybe it was her fault. She didn’t know what came from her and what didn’t. Or why strange things kept happening today.
“You don’t have to go with me,” she said. “I can find it. There’s no need to put you out.”
Of course he’d want to go. It was his lab. But she didn’t need a witness. Bad enough her classmates had been around for the incident this afternoon. She’d cleaned it up quickly without anyone noticing, but privacy, a safe place to figure things out—that was what she needed.
Derek’s jaw hardened. “Either I go with you or you can forget about the lab.”
She didn’t like his tone, but how many people had access to a private lab? It was a strange coincidence her neighbor happened to, but Elena wasn’t going to question her good fortune.
Maybe she should have.
Click here for more of Fates Divided
Books by Jules Barnard
Contemporary Romance
The Blue Series
Deep Blue (Book 1)
Blue Crush (Book 2)
True Blue (Book 3)
Blue Streak: A Blue Series Novella (Book 4)
New Blue (Book 5)
Romantic Fantasy
The Halven Rising Series
Fates Divided (Book 1)
Fates Entwined (Book 2)
Fates Fulfilled (Book 3)
About the Author
Jules began her publishing career in 2014 with Deep Blue, the first book in the contemporary Blue Series, hitting bestseller lists on Amazon, iBooks, and All Romance. In 2015, she launched Fates Divided, the first of a romantic fantasy series Library Journal calls “…an exciting new fantasy adventure.” Whether she’s writing about beautiful Lake Tahoe, or a Fae world embedded in a college campus, Jules spins suspenseful stories filled with realistic characters who have heart and humor.
When Jules isn’t in her sweatpants writing and rewarding herself with chocolate, she spends her time with her husband and two children in their small hometown on the California coast. She credits herself with the ability to read while running on the treadmill or burning dinner.
For more information: Visit Jules’s website
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New Blue (Blue Series Book 5) Page 31
