“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Cade thumps his pen over my desk. His knee finds mine and warms it. A sizzle of electricity shakes through me at his rather innocent touch, and my body begs for what it never got that night with him, completion.
“Well, I’ve been all over campus,” I offer a cheesy grin with the lie. “I guess you’re not a very good stalker after all.” Good God! Why don’t I just come out and draw him a map to my dorm room? What was I thinking sending him a formal invite to stalk me? It’s practically a challenge, and everyone knows the people of the penis are wary to let a challenge slip by. That way, when Piper opens the door to our room and finds her brother with nothing but a Valentine over his privates, she can stab a knife through both of our coital-loving hearts.
He leans in, those powerfully persuasive velvet eyes pin themselves to mine, and my insides implode with oven-hot heat. “I know where you’ll be every Monday and Wednesday. My lecture is on Thursday, so I know where you’ll be then, too. Still looking like an amateur to you?”
A tiny giggle works its way up my throat, but I swallow it right back down. “So, you’ve got me during my waking hours, but how about all those lonely nights?” Again? WTF!
“That’s easy.” He leans back with that cocky grin fading to black. “My place.”
My entire body catches fire. “No unicorns in your neck of the woods yet, huh?”
The professor steps in, a tall gray-haired gentleman, and rambles about the rain as he gets settled.
“No unicorns.” Cade swallows hard, dipping his gaze to my cleavage and back. I’ve always loved a low-cut V-neck, but only because I can’t stand that strangling feeling a higher neckline affords. The trade off, of course, being that you get ogled ten times more than should ever be allowed. But something about his gaze warms me, and I don’t mind so much the ogling for once. “How about you?” His thick, deep voice strums over me like the rattle of a steel drum straight down to my achy-breaky bones. “Any unicorns pointing their horns your way?”
I make a face. “I see what your horny self did there. Let’s say I’ve got one or two roaming the vicinity.” Mostly I’m a liar, but since I’m new to both sleeping with my roommate’s brother and the art of bending the truth, I decide to cut myself a little slack.
His knee softly grazes over mine once again. “If you want, we can hit dinner tonight.”
“Sounds too much like a date,” I say, pulling out my notebook, my fingers trembling as if I were about to wire a bomb. Everything about Cade James feels like an explosive waiting to go off in my face.
“Swing by whenever—after eight would be perfect. As soon as you knock, I’ll put Buddy in his room. I still owe you from the other night.” He taps his fingers over mine, and my right hand burns in his wake. “I’d hate to leave the impression that I’m nothing but a taker.”
The professor starts his dissertation on the merits of advertising in this golden age of technology, but I can’t understand a word that follows that sentence. All I can focus on is the fact Cade’s knee is still solidly welded to mine, and my entire body is wracked with wanting from that simple, heated touch.
All I can think about the entire livelong day is the fact Cade James is out to disprove the fact he’s nothing but a taker.
Evening rolls around, and I shower and shave in all the right places, lotion and potion up until I’m one in the same with a field full of strawberries just this side of heaven. Piper comes in with that silly grin she falls asleep with nightly after her “special time” with Owen. I don’t know why that girl hasn’t taken up residency in his apartment yet. I wouldn’t blame her in the least for wanting to wake up with that big boulder of a man ready and willing to gift her all of his rock-hard attention—not that I believe in shacking up. That’s just not the way I was raised, but I do believe in true love, and I know for a Bible-thumping fact that both Owen and Piper are a forever kind of deal. Now, I don’t necessarily believe in what I’m doing either, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m just headed over to pay a visit to the down-and-dirty James so he can make good on that favor he owes me.
“Look at you!” Piper’s eyes round out with what I’m hoping is a lot more awe and a lot less horror as she takes me in from head to foot. I’ve tucked myself into a short white sweater dress with my thigh-high creamy boots rising to meet the hemline. “Where the hell do you think you’re going dressed like that?”
“None of your business.” I pull on my snow-white wool coat that hugs my curves like a second skin and quickly dab on a little more nude color to my lips. I was about to go for my traditional gloss, but I have no intention of gifting him sticky kisses. Lord knows I’m about to take a generous bite of that city boy’s big apple. No need to scare him off with suction cups for lips.