Moonlight and Shadows (16 page)

“Of course,” Lila said, then on an
uncharacteristic whim added, “Class dismissed.”

Those who had been listening looked
momentarily confused. Those who had been sleeping with their eyes
open burst from the room with amazing speed.

Lila turned away from the podium and sank
into one of the chairs lined up behind the table at the front of
the classroom.
Wuthering Heights
in Greek mythology class?
She was losing it. Worse, it had taken far too long for one of her
budding intellectuals to catch her mistake. She had no idea what in
the world the rest of them had been thinking. She did know,
however, exactly what she’d been thinking, and it had had very
little to do with either
Wuthering Heights
or Greek
mythology.

She’d had a long day. Make that three long
days and three very short nights. She rested her head in her hands,
then slowly let it slide to the desk and the cradle of her
arms.

She’d been run out of her own house. Jack
still had his key and he’d been using it every evening, requiring
her to spend a good portion of her nights imposing on her parents,
or going to the library, or eating out by herself until the fast
food joints shut down and he left her home for his.

She knew she’d made a complete and utter
fool of herself. She just wasn’t sure when. Had going to bed with
him and having such a glorious morning been the foolish thing? Or
had bolting out the door been her folly? A little of both, she’d
decided, or, rather, a lot of both. At least she hadn’t compounded
her mistake by writing him another letter. Of course, silence could
be considered pretty foolish too.

She heard someone enter the room, and she
peeked up just enough to check her watch. It seemed early for the
next class, but then, she couldn’t tell by her watch, the darn
thing. To save herself any possible embarrassment, she decided to
go hide out in her office.

Muffling a sigh, she lifted her head and
cast a casual, uninterested glance at the other person in the room.
The look she got in return was anything but casual or uninterested.
Hazel eyes swept over her with an intensity she remembered all too
well, sending a thrill down to her toes and a flush across her
cheeks.

She’d made love with him, this man with the
sexily disheveled appearance of someone who might not be getting
enough sleep either. His white shirt was rumpled and open at the
collar, revealing a tender triangle of skin dusted with silky hair.
She remembered the taste of him there. She remembered the warm,
solid beat of his pulse beneath her lips, the life of him.

Her gaze drifted down to his sawdust- and
plaster-dusted jeans. Was it her imagination, or were his jeans
riding a little lower on his hips? Had he lost weight? She had,
even with her lousy eating habits. Five pounds in three days. Four
days, if she counted Sunday.

She looked back up at his face, knowing she
should say something, but all she came up with were memories of the
time she’d spent in his arms, tangled in his sheets and wrapped in
the heat of his lovemaking.

She knew what fantasies lay behind the
banked fire in his eyes, because he’d told her in whispers. He’d
told her with his touch. She knew how it felt to be held by him in
the most intimate embrace, how the muscles in his arms flexed, how
the tautness of his abdomen felt against the softness of hers. She
knew the sound of him in love. She knew the scent of him. The very
essence of him was imprinted on her memory with indelible
delicacy.

She wanted to cry.

Jack didn’t feel like crying, but he saw on
her face all the signs of an imminent flood of tears.

“I missed you after you left,” he said, his
voice husky and low. She blinked twice, and he immediately realized
he’d said the wrong thing.

“Christina apologized for using her key
unannounced,” he said as a second attempt. It was a bit of a lie,
but he was just a man trying to do his best. “I should have changed
the locks years ago.”

Missed again, he thought, watching a pink
flush spread across her face like a mask.

“I guess school is keeping you pretty busy .
. . even at night.” Subtlety wasn’t his strong point, but he was
still trying.

She brushed her cheek, automatically
extending the movement to tuck a straying curl behind her ear, then
began organizing books, notes, and pencils. “No, not really,” she
said, forgetting to politely lie. “Not yet anyway. The semester
isn’t even a week old.”

That was not what Jack had wanted to hear,
not even close. She was telling him something, probably the same
thing she’d tried to tell him by leaving on Sunday, and he was just
being too damned stubborn to accept it.

To hell with subtlety, he decided.

“Why haven’t you returned my phone
calls?”

Before she had time to answer, a movement at
the door caught his eye, and he silently cursed. His timing really
needed work. Students were coming in for the next class, right in
the middle of his big scene.

“I’ve been busy,” she said in a shaky voice,
not meeting his gaze and forgetting she’d forgotten to lie before.
She rose from the chair, scraping the legs back with a
disconcerting screech, and picked up her books.

“You just said you weren’t.” He strode over
to her and took the books out of her arms. She let him have them
despite a brief nervous glance. “Have you had lunch?”

She paused to let a student pass in front of
her and absently checked her watch. She gave it a shake. “Yes.
Hours ago.”

“How about dinner?” Jack asked, weaving
through the crowd to keep up with her.

“I . . . uh—”

“Hey, Dr. Singer!” an exuberant masculine
voice interrupted. “You teaching this class?”

Jack eyed the much younger man elbowing his
way to a very flustered Lila. Muscle beach, he thought. The kid was
rippling with them, and most of them were exposed. His torn T-shirt
didn’t quite meet his jeans, which were so skin-tight Jack was sure
he was going to hurt himself. He could only hope, considering the
definitely appreciative gleam in the kid’s sinfully blue eyes.

Jack would never have touted himself as an
expert on women, but he knew enough about them to guess how most of
them would react to the black-haired Italian stallion headed in
Lila’s direction. The kid looked like a hothouse model, with the
kind of face that made young girls swoon and older women wonder how
much they could get away with. In fact, the boy had unfailingly
captured the rapt attention of every woman in the classroom—except
for Lila.

On the other hand, Jack did know about men,
being one himself, and he knew exactly what was going on behind
those young blue eyes as they roamed over the good doctor’s body.
Sex, and the cocky assurance that he could back up any promises he
cared to make. This kid made Trey Farris look like a monk.

“Oh, hello, Ace,” Lila said. “No, I’m afraid
I’m not teaching this class.”

Ace?
Jack almost groaned.

“Too bad,” Ace drawled, giving it everything
he had. “We sure had a good time last semester.”

Jack saw her quizzical look, the furrowing
of her brow. “Didn’t you flunk my class last semester?” she
asked.

“Sure.” A wide grin split the boy’s
classically handsome face. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have
fun.” With a wink and a swagger of lean hips in those tight jeans,
Ace turned down one of the aisles of desks.

“I don’t get it,” she murmured, finally
deigning to look at Jack. “He even came to my study group. I’ve
never had anyone who came to study group fail my class.”

Jack got it, and he started to tell her, his
voice slightly strained due to the tightness of his jaw. “I think
it was a concentration problem. With him concentrating too much on
getting into your—”

“Dr. Singer! Hey! This is great!”

They both turned in the direction of the
door and the well-groomed young man entering the room. Frat boy,
Jack thought with a silent, resigned sigh, taking in the expensive
cut and cloth of the boy’s suit and tie. Probably class president,
or head of the Young Republicans Club. His blond hair was styled
short and correct, and he had the look of somebody who was up and
coming.

“Hello, Porter,” she answered.

Porter?
“Do you know all of your
students by name?” Jack asked, not bothering to mask his
irritation.

“Only the ones who drop by my office a lot,
or those who are active in class discussion.”

Why in the hell, Jack wondered, had he come
to the university that day? To rub salt in his own wound? He’d had
her in his bed for all of a morning and half of an afternoon and
she’d taken a powder on him. What did he think he was going to
prove in this den of overstimulated hormones?

“Are you teaching this class?” Porter
asked.

“No,” Lila repeated. “I just finished the
last one.”

“Are you going to be in your office later?”
Porter directed the question to Lila, but his attention flickered
over to Jack for a quick sizing-up moment.

“No,” Jack said.

“Yes,” Lila said at the same time.

They turned to look at each other, one face
upturned and flushed, the other stoically determined.

Jack knew it was time to back off, but he
had too much at stake, too much ego, too much future, too much of
his heart.

“The lady in the office said you were
finished teaching for the day,” he said to Lila half under his
breath, trying to keep the frat boy out of the conversation.

“I am,” she said, her own voice soft, her
eyes wide and unsure. “But I usually keep office hours on Wednesday
afternoons.”

“I’d like to come by and see you,” Porter
interjected.

Jack sighed again. What was the younger
generation coming to? Didn’t anybody respect their elders anymore?
Or have enough sense to know when they were trespassing? Or was he
the one out of line? Looking into Lila’s eyes, he couldn’t tell
whose side she was on. But he knew he hadn’t walked out of a job on
a half-million-dollar house just to get shot down.

“I submitted that political science paper
for publication, like you suggested,” Porter said, breaking the
moment of silence. “I thought we could get together and talk about
it some more.”

“Sure,” Lila tore her gaze away from Jack to
address her student. Jack felt the effort it cost her, and though
it didn’t make sense, his confidence rebounded. Maybe her only
problem was confusion. Lord knew, he was confused.

“I guess I can go back to work,” he said,
reaching out to cup her chin in his palm. He turned her until her
eyes locked onto his and he had her undivided attention. “I get off
at five and I’ll be at your house by six.” He gently tilted her
face upward and whispered as his mouth descended to hers, “Be
there, Lila.”

She could have moved. She had time, and she
knew what he was going to do long seconds before their lips met,
long seconds before hers parted for the sweet invasion of his
tongue. She didn’t move, though, and in an instant she was swept
back to Sunday morning, to the warmth and strength of his embrace,
to the secret enticements of his mouth.

Had anyone ever kissed her with such
passion, with such need? she wondered. With such cataclysmic
results?

A shockwave of desire ripped through her,
and her body automatically responded. Of its own accord, her
fingers threaded through the hair at the nape of his neck, holding
him to her. Her breasts yearned to be crushed against his chest.
Her hips longed for the molding caress of his hands. Within the
magical web of his kiss, she wanted more, always more, even though
she knew they should stop.

“Neanderthal, man.” She heard the
unsolicited opinion from afar.

“I think it’s romantic,” a female voice
responded.

Lila herself thought the heated kiss was
crazy, and wild, and wonderful, and unorthodox, and was probably
going to be a major source of embarrassment later. It could be
dangerous to enjoy kissing Jack so much, especially if her
department head found out.

Her mouth stilled. Her hand dropped
away.

Jack understood her withdrawal and released
her. But he did it slowly, kissing the corner of her mouth, then
her cheek, before whispering in her ear, “Six o’clock.”

Lila watched him leave, once again
blissfully unaware of the students staring at her, until a quiet
voice of indeterminate gender spoke from the back of the room.

“Sex education? Is this sex education? I
didn’t think they had sex education in college. And live models?
I’m not sure I should be here.”

Finally, she found the presence of mind to
be embarrassed and hurried from the room.

* * *

Fifteen minutes to six. She’d changed her
mind and her outfit eight times since she’d gotten home. She’d
settled on staying put, and on a white blouse with a high collar,
an ebony and gold brooch closing the neck, and a black split skirt
with buff-leather-trimmed pockets and a buff-colored leather belt.
Her boots matched the belt and trim. She felt her decisions on the
outfit were pretty solid. Staying home to meet him, though, was
still a long shot.

But they had to talk. That much was obvious
even to her cowardly heart. She was a mature, grown woman, capable
of reason. As a step in the right direction, she’d started a couple
of lists of topics, good and bad. There had been little else to do
during the past three nights of blanket twisting and pillow
bashing. She hadn’t intended to share her list of problems,
excuses, and apologies—always an apology—but he was coming, and she
doubted if he wanted to talk about two-by-fours and paint
chips.

She looked at the kitchen clock again. Ten
minutes to six. It was run now or hold her ground.

* * *

Five minutes to six. Jack pulled up in her
driveway and was eternally grateful to see her car parked behind
the house. In his experience, women didn’t respond well to
ultimatums. Not that he’d given many, or even cared to.