The Beauty Series (21 page)

“I doubt it, considering there’s just the one bedroom beside hers. Though I suppose we could always make you sleep on the couch.”

“Can’t blame her. I have the worst intentions where you are concerned.” He grew serious. “It can wait until after the summer semester, right?”

“Yes, of course. The drive is too long to make in a weekend trip anyway. We’ll spend a few days there. Plus, if you don’t mind, we should take your car. I don’t think mine has that many miles left in it.”

“I don’t like you driving that thing.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s fine.”

He frowned.

She turned away to hide her smile, secretly pleased at his protectiveness. In a minute, he was right behind her, bending her over the barstool.

“Did you just roll your eyes at me, young lady?”

“What are you going to about it?” she taunted him.

“Something wicked. That’s what you were hoping for, wasn’t it?”

Yes.
But she protested feebly, “We just did that.”

He pressed down on the small of her back. His fingers played along the inside of her thighs, roaming higher. “If I’m going to be without you for three weeks, I’ll need something to tide me over. So let’s see. At least once a day, usually. And I won’t see you for…far too many days. Think we can make it all up now?”

She huffed a laugh, but her eyes widened when he didn’t laugh too. He couldn’t be serious.

“I agree,” he said conversationally. “That many times in a single day seems excessive. Five ought to do it.”

Even five times was a lot…she’d get chafed. Wouldn’t she? Unless she was very, very wet. “You wouldn’t really.”

He bent to her ear, whispering, “Watch me.”

Two weeks until the end of semester

T
ears streamed down
Erin’s face by the time Cary Grant kissed Deborah Kerr in monochrome, finally discovering why she hadn’t met him that fateful night at the Empire State Building.

“If anything had to happen to either of us…why did it have to be
you
?” Cary Grant said in heartbreaking tenor on the television. She watched the emotional exchange in unabashed tears.

Late night TV sans cable didn’t leave many options, but when she’d seen
An Affair to Remember
in the listings, it had resonated with her. The lovers had been apart for six months, whereas she hadn’t seen Blake in seven days. So, okay, maybe she was being overly dramatic. But even though they’d seen each other on the sly over the semester, she longed for a time when their relationship could be public.

And permanent.

“If you can paint…I can walk. The world can turn upside down…if…”

The music played, and Erin used another tissue to blow her nose. God. What a movie.
The world can turn upside down.
Yes, she knew something about that. Everyone did, if they’d ever been in love. It turned the world upside down and sideways—and only Blake looked right to her. Only he stood beside her.

She couldn’t continue down this line of thought. It would make her too sad, and she was already weepy from the movie. She surveyed her snack food leftovers with dismay. A big mess. She could clean other people’s houses, no problem, but her tiny apartment always seemed to fill up with junk. With a press of the remote, the TV flicked off, plunging the room into darkness. Problem solved.

A scratching from the door told her someone was here. She’d never given Blake a key, but her heart still fluttered as if it might be him. In the dark, she rolled her eyes at herself. She had it bad for him.

Courtney slipped inside the apartment and locked the door. She had crept halfway to her bedroom when Erin spoke.

“Had a good night?”

Courtney squeaked. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

“Couldn’t sleep. I was just watching a movie.”

“Oh, well.” Courtney stood there awkwardly.

Erin narrowed her eyes suspiciously. What the hell had gotten into her roommate? Her stance looked faintly guilty, like a teenager caught out for the night, even though neither girl had kept tabs on the other. Wait a second…

“You got back together with Derek, didn’t you?”

With an embarrassed sound, Courtney flopped onto the couch beside her. “Yes. Okay. Is that so bad?”

“Yes,” Erin replied. “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, you can do what you want. No one can judge you for your choices, least of all me.”

“But you don’t approve.”

Well… no, she didn’t. Derek was a bit of a douchebag. He didn’t appreciate Courtney; he just called her when he was bored. “I just think you can do better, that’s all. You’re gorgeous, you’re smart.”

“He’s a good catch,” she said defensively.

“I know,” Erin agreed, knowing there was no way to win this fight. If she trashed Derek, she’d push her friend away.

With a flurry of plastic wrappers, Courtney dug around in the mess on the coffee table until she found the popcorn. “I know how he comes off. And maybe I could do better, but…”

“But?”

“But not everyone can find someone who’s perfect. A soldier, a professor. He’s kind to you, he’s crazy about you. You basically hit the boyfriend jackpot.”

A slow smile spread across her face. “Yeah. I did, didn’t I?” Abruptly her smile faded. “Oh man, now I really want to see him.”

“Girl, you have it bad.”

Erin groaned, turning her face into the lumpy throw pillow.

One week until the end of semester

Blake stretched and
blinked watery eyes at his laptop screen, blinding in the dark room. In the days since he and Erin had cut contact, he had written twenty pages of a grant. The kind of grant he would write if he were to join the university as a full time faculty member. He thought it was pretty good too. He was excited to share it with Erin. That would have to wait until the semester was over, and he could see her again.

Fuck, he missed her. Already his concerns about their relationship had dwindled low, but this separation had squashed any lingering doubts.

Once, he had needed her. He’d leaned on her strength and followed her light. Now, he knew that he could live without her. It was dry and boring and cold, but he could do it. He just didn’t want to. His desire for her had been cleansed of desperation and depression. Now there was only love, pure and resplendent. And currently, without her presence, hollow.

Shutting the laptop screen, he forced himself to return to bed. The sheets were rumpled and cool against his bare skin. He’d gotten into the habit of sleeping naked with Erin. He continued doing it, even if the velvety cotton and faint lingering scent of her left him hard. Again.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. It was already three a.m. He’d have to wake up in a few hours to head to campus. She would be in class, completely untouchable. Why had he agreed to this separation again? No, he’d proposed it. Idiot. Something about being careful in the homestretch. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t think with his dick throbbing and full. Jesus.

He slid a hand to his heavy erection, gingerly rubbing the sensitive flesh. He should take care of this. No big deal. It hadn’t been, before Erin. Now his dick protested the callused palm, which suddenly felt like sandpaper. His dick wanted the soft, smooth lushness of Erin’s body, but too damn bad.

Just get it over with.

Shuttling a hand up and down, he let his eyes fall shut. He imagined that, instead of a dark room, sunlight streamed through. Instead of tangled sheets, a damp towel lay slack around his hips. And instead of an empty house, Erin had arrived to clean his house that day months ago.

He would never really know if he had secretly, subconsciously planned for her to find him, naked and touching himself. He would never know if she had gone to his room looking for him, instead of working downstairs as she normally did, because she wanted it too. But he had been utterly exposed that day, and when he’d realized she had seen him climaxing and calling her name, he’d been mortified—and beyond aroused.

Of course, then he’d been more worried about scaring her off. But now, alone and wearing nothing but fantasies, he allowed himself to imagine it differently. He hadn’t climaxed, but instead had noticed her while he’d still been fucking his fist. She hadn’t run away; no, she’d come closer with a wicked tilt of her lips. She’d knelt between his legs on the bed and taken over with her hands, her mouth.

When he tried to protest, she shook her head and pressed his hands to the bed.
Stay still
. He shuddered but obeyed, suffering in ecstasy while she teased him. In reality, his own hand delivered a swift and biting caress to his pulsing dick, but in his fantasy, it was her hot mouth, her nimble hands, and most of all, the knowing glint in her eyes that pushed him over, sending warm ejaculate across the plane of his stomach.

As he caught his breath in the aftermath, the splatter from his climax cooled into a decidedly unsexy substance. He sighed and retreated to the restroom to wipe his body clean. He was going to have long, hard days until he could see her again. And when he did? Well, tying her to the bed was looking better and better. Days and months and years of pleasure. Forever of it.

Three days until the Faculty Ball

T
he hallways changed
in the minutes before class started. Stragglers who had been chatting after their last class cleared out. Latecomers rushed to find their rooms before the ancient bell rang. This building held mostly graduate courses. There was, of course, no official penalty for tardiness to class, but showing respect was part of the game.

At least, it was for most of the professors. Blake didn’t seem to play the same game. He never seemed to mind when folks rushed in late or had to leave early for something. She’d almost never seen him annoyed, not at the class and not at her, something that was a huge relief after worrying for so long.

Her old boyfriend, Doug, hadn’t been an angry person, but he’d always had an offhand criticism. She’d been young and stupid enough to accept them, to
change
for him, thinking she wasn’t good enough. She’d subconsciously expected the same from Blake, who was so far above her.

After weeks,
months
of being with him, she had begun to relax. He wasn’t going to cheat on her. He wasn’t going to tell her she wasn’t good enough. He already knew her mom cleaned houses, and he was fine with it. He hadn’t been prejudiced—no, that had been her. Internalizing the hurt and betrayal her mother had received, distrusting those with more money, more power. But she wasn’t her mother, and Blake would never hurt her.

The reminder of her mother formed an uneasy knot in her stomach. It had been a while since her mom had called. Not an unheard of amount of time, but unease niggled at her. And the last time they’d spoken, her mother had seemed distant on the phone. She’d mentioned being in pain, something about her knees bothering her. Was it worse than she’d let on? Erin stepped into an alcove and hit the speed dial. It rang five times before going to voicemail.

“Hey, Mom, it’s me. Just calling to check in and see how you’re feeling. You’re okay, right? Call me back.”

Frowning, she slipped the phone into her bag. She’d have to try again later.

Slipping into the classroom, she waved to her friend Bailey as she made her way to the back of the room. The two of them were always the quietest ones during class discussions. She refrained from speaking too much so as to avoid giving away anything about her and Blake. Sometimes she would contribute under her breath. Bailey would hear and respond just as softly. Once, she’d worried he had a crush on her, but he never asked her out or made a move at all, which relieved her.

“How was it?” she asked, referring to the visit from his mother this past weekend. He’d mentioned it in the past few classes with typical young bachelor dread.

“Great. She declared my house a pig sty and decided to stay at a hotel.”

She snorted. “Well, what can she expect with three roommates?”

“Exactly what I said. Though I might have made it worse before she showed up.”

“Bailey!”

“I couldn’t have survived, Erin. She’s planning on staying in town until the final scores come back. That’s almost a week.”

“Three days,” she corrected grimly. Three more days until she and Blake were together again. “Then we’re both free.”

He gave her a curious look. “Do you know where you’re going yet? What you’re going to do?”

“I have a few applications out,” she admitted. It felt strange to confide in Bailey and not Blake, but maybe it was better this way. She had applied to places near Blake’s house, and she didn’t want to imply promises she couldn’t keep regarding moving in with him.

“Cross your fingers for me,” she said. “What about you? Any plans?”

“Actually I was thinking of doing a tour of Europe. Find myself or something like that, before I have to decide which major I actually want to use.”

“That sounds awesome. Both the traveling and the double major. I didn’t know you’d done that. What are they?”

He blushed. “I got the idea from Ayn Rand. To learn about physics and philosophy. The physical world and metaphysical one. Combined, it’s everything there is to know.”

She grinned. “That sounds ambitious.”

“Yes, well, now that I have the degrees, I’m sure the enlightenment is coming any day.” He rolled his eyes in a sweet, self-deprecating way. “I’ll just hold my breath.”

Her attention was snagged as Blake entered the room. He looked fresh and happy. She tore her gaze away to refocus on Bailey.

He was looking at her strangely. “Don’t let him slip away.”

She blinked, her smile faltering. “Who?”

“You know who.” His gaze flicked to the front of the room, where Blake fielded a question from two animated students.

“How did you—?”

He shrugged, his smile wry. “I would have made a move myself, but it was clear you were taken.”

Her breath caught. “Bailey…”

“It’s okay, Erin. Just…hang onto it, that’s all. If he makes you happy. That’s all there is. Being happy.”