Turned out, I made it to class on time and was able to focus during the lecture, so I figured I was prepared for the exam on Friday. When Jesse Colbert, another psych major who took a bunch of classes with me, lingered in the seat beside me while I gathered up my stuff, I tried not to act like a total goober.
He was a tall guy, around my age, with hair as dark as polished obsidian. Good looking. Nice. Great cheekbones. Really cute and always had an easy smile on his face. Awesome hands. I had a thing for male hands for some reason and his hands—rough, masculine, long-fingered. I liked them.
Pulling my thoughts away from my weird semi-fetish, I forced what I hoped wasn’t a creepy smile. “Hey.”
Grabbing his books, he sent a slight grin in my direction. “We still on for tomorrow night?”
Standing, I shoved the massive text into my bag. “Yep. It’s a date…” My brain winced, backpedaling away from that comment. “I mean, not a date date. Like going out and stuff. Dinner. Whatever.” Feeling my cheeks burn, I focused on the corner of his shoulder. “Study date, but without any real dating stuff.”
Oh my God, I needed to shut up, because this was why I never got a date date. Oh Lord, now my face was really burning, because I was standing in front of Jesse thinking about why I was still a virgin. I wish my brain had an off switch.
He watched me through the whole ridiculous ramble, and when I finally clamped my mouth shut, he chuckled. “Yeah, I know, Josie. See you tomorrow at six?”
“Yeah. Six. In the evening, right?” Shoot me in the head. Please? “Of course. Perfect.”
He hesitated, and then with his grin lifting up the corners of his lips, he wheeled around. Sighing, I mentally listed the ways I was the Queen of All Dorks as I headed out the door. I made a pit stop in the restroom, mostly so I could put off calling my grandparents for a few more minutes. I wasn’t ready to hear what I already knew, and I hated that, because it made me a coward. But I washed my hands twice, worked a tiny brush through my wind-tousled hair, reapplied my lip-gloss, and then moseyed out into the hall. Classes had already started up and I headed to the closest stairwell, letting the door swing shut behind me. Thoughts once again focused on my mom and calling Granny. I needed to get this over with. I tugged my bag around and reached in for my phone.
I have no idea how what happened next went down.
Only a few steps from the second-floor landing, a cold blast of air whipped up from the floor below, shooting right through me, strong enough to startle me. I reached out to grip the railing as my bag slipped off my shoulder, hit the step by my foot, and then bounced its way down to the landing.
What in the world?
For several seconds, I stared at my bag and then I looked over my shoulder. I had no clue what I expected to see standing there— maybe Casper the pervy ghost or something? A little wigged out, I turned around and almost fell backward out of shock.
A guy stood in front of me. Well, he wasn’t standing. He was bending down to pick up my bag. But how in the world did he get there? I hadn’t heard anyone walk up the stairs, and there was no way anyone could get up them that fast in the first place…unless he’d sprouted wings and flown up the stairs, but I didn’t think that was likely.
I could only see half of him, and even from that, I could tell he was tall. I wasn’t a small girl, coming in close to five foot nine, but this guy would make me feel…dainty standing next to him.
A deep-brown henley stretched taut over broad shoulders and extremely well-defined upper arms. Blond hair was pulled back at the nape of his neck by a brown leather band. Shorter strands had slipped free, obscuring his face as long fingers wrapped around the strap of my bag.
Oh my, my—he had beautiful hands.
His skin was golden, all the way up to where the sleeves were pushed up his forearms. I’d never seen a complexion like that. It wasn’t tanned, but something else. My breath floated up my throat, and then stopped as he straightened.
Holy Hottie-McHotters!
A curved, almost-stubborn chin was paired with a cut, strong jaw. The upper lip was only slightly thinner than his bottom one and those loose strands of hair now caressed broad, high, golden cheekbones.
Then I saw his eyes.
I jerked back, lost my balance, and my ass plopped down on the step behind me. Maybe later I’d be embarrassed, but at that moment, all I could do was stare at him.
He had to be the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen, and that was no joke. I couldn’t even think of anyone on TV, in the magazines, or in movies who looked like him. His male beauty was delicate and yet hard at the same time, rough and smooth, a total conundrum of splendor, but his eyes…
They were the strangest color—a tawny amber. There was no way they could be natural. But damn, he worked those contacts, paired with surprisingly dark lashes and brows a shade or two darker than his hair.
I suddenly wondered if it was possible to have a visual orgasm, because I think I might have just experienced that, except he… this unreal, beautiful man was staring at me with honey-colored eyes that kept getting wider.
And the way he was staring at me was not good—almost like he couldn’t believe what he was looking at—as if I had grown an extra head. While I knew I wasn’t going to be winning Miss USA anytime soon with the hip span I had going on, I had no idea why he was looking at me like he suddenly wanted to vomit.
Or hit something.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, and my bag slipped out of his fingers and landed once more with a heavy thud.
If I hadn’t already been sitting on my ass, I would’ve fallen on it again. His voice… I slowly shook my head, wanting him to speak again, because it was the deepest, smoothest voice I’d ever heard, with a slight accent I couldn’t place.
I needed to say something, but all I could do was sit there and stare at him in open wonder. And think about the fact that the only makeup I was wearing was lip-gloss, and I was the kind of girl who needed at least some blush, mascara…and an entire painted face.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
My mouth dried as I continued to stare at him like my brain had shorted out, which was possible. It felt like I’d lost some brain cells, maybe a few synapses, and maybe a few other important things…stuff.
He shot forward, moving as quickly as the striking rattlesnake I’d seen once by the lake back home—so fast that I had no way to move. One hand landed on the railing by my head, and the other two steps above me, and he was right there, in my face, breathing the same oxygen as I was. The wide stairwell with its red-washed walls constricted and the space seemed much smaller than before.
Our gazes locked, and…and as crazy as it sounded, his eyes… They looked as if there were some kind of light behind the pupils. “Are your initials J.B.?”
Way in the back of my head, I realized that was a weirdly on-point question. “How do you know that? We haven’t met. I’m sure of that, because I would’ve remembered that.” There I went again, rambling like an idiot. “I mean, I’m good with faces.”
Especially extraordinarily gorgeous faces—yeah, I remembered those.
Thick lashes lowered, covering those eyes briefly as he muttered, “Shit.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Your name?”
Part of me wanted to ask him what the hell his name was, but I was caught off-guard and I answered. “Josie. Josie Bethel.”
His gaze flew back to mine and for a long moment he didn’t speak. A sense of hyperawareness rushed over my skin, forming tiny little bumps. Tension poured into the air like kegs of it had been tapped open above us. My pulse picked up as I drew in a shallow breath. A muscle spasmed along his jaw and his lips parted as he said, “What in the fuck are you?”