And yet my thoughts persist, getting stronger.
I clench my fists, hoping she doesn’t notice. I feel like I’ve been sucker-punched and I’m still recovering.
“I meant to send it to my friend, Paula. I guess I got my Ps mixed up.”
“Was the date going that badly?” I ask.
She smiles tightly, looking at me for a moment. But then she quickly looks away. She seems embarrassed. But all I want to do is hold her and tell her she never has to be embarrassed, not with me.
But then the beast inside of me would take over, if I touched her, bending her over my knee as I finger her from behind, hard, with three years’ worth of lust burning through me.
I’d pump my hand until her young soaked slit started making wet noises for me until the cream was covering her thighs—
There I go again. I can’t stop.
After a pause, she says, “He was okay. A bit rude, but okay. I guess it’s more me than him.”
“Why do you say that?”
She laughs, massaging her face as though she’s expecting to wake from a dream.
“Care to share the joke?” I ask.
“This is just so surreal. You’re Asher Alexander.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, last time I checked.”
“Asher Alexander just came and rescued me from my date and now we’re walking through the city together and… I’m sorry, I’m blabbering. You must think I sound like an idiot.”
“No, this situation is crazy.”
“I still can’t get over how close you were, at exactly the right time,” she says, clearly stunned.
The word fate bounces around my head, but I push it down.
“We need to find an ATM,” she says a moment later. “I think there’s one near the bus stop.”
“An ATM?”
“Duh. So I can pay you.”
“Duh?” I laugh, taking a step forward, but stopping myself before I crush her youthful soft body with my forty-two year old rock hard one. “Did you just duh me?”
Her cheeks glow as she stares up at me. The snow has settled in her hair, making it glisten, making her shine. My whole body strains with the need to lean down and kiss her, but somehow I manage to stop myself. Maybe it’s knowing the way she’d react, looking at me like I’m crazy.
“You don’t need to pay me,” I go on. “As for the bus stop, you should’ve said so. My car’s not far. I can give you a ride.”
“Don’t you have things to do? You said you were getting printer paper. It must’ve been serious if you were picking it up at seven PM.”
“I’m working on a draft for my new book and I like hard copies. But it can wait. After all, it’s not every day a man gets to save a damsel in distress.”
“Is that what I am, a damsel?”
She laughs, sliding her gaze away, as if staring at me too long is uncomfortable for her somehow. Maybe she can sense the hunger inside me threatening to bubble up over all the intense ways I want to claim every inch of her.
“Do you feel like a damsel?” I reply.
“No, but I do sort of feel saved. Are you sure you don’t mind giving me a ride?”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, just let me text my friend. She’s out with her boyfriend a few blocks over, waiting for my text. It’ll be good to let her know she doesn’t have to be on call anymore.”
I wait as she sends the text, trying not to let my anger show when I see the state of her phone. Or the fact that she has to get the bus. Or, when she gives me her address, the idea of her living in such a rundown neighborhood.
These are not my concerns, and she’d think I was crazy if I tried to make them mine.
For now, all I can, and should, focus on is not unleashing all my pent-up desires as I lead her toward my car.
CHAPTER THREE
Autumn
I sneak glances at him as he drives us through the city. He’s even more handsome up close, the light dusting of silver on his jaw tempting me to reach over and smooth my hand across his face. He holds the steering wheel tightly, making me wonder what his muscles would feel like under his coat. If they’d be taut and hard yet smooth.
Laying my forehead against the window, I force myself to watch the city pass by instead.
“So how are your studies going?” he asks. “You were in your first year when I showed you all around the Lincoln Memorial, right?”
“Yeah. It was our introduction to the class. It was a big deal, the college getting the famous Professor Asher Alexander. You already know this, but you’re a legend as far as historians are concerned.”
I can hear how much like a fangirl I sound, but I can’t help it. It’s probably better he thinks I’m just a fangirl and not a freak who’s spent the last three years imagining all the steamy things he could do to me… and the life we could share after, the laughter and the—