Souls of Fire (8 page)

Yes, it was my own fault that I found myself in this predicament! I should have just let him know I was awake, and he could have set me down to go back to my own ― safe ― room. But I had been weak … and foolish to want to hold on to something I knew could ultimately lead nowhere.

And now I found myself lying next to the most beautiful man I had ever seen … and he was half naked and alone with me.

I was sorely tempted to touch him, to run my fingers slowly over his smooth magnificent chest, over his seemingly soft skin and tight muscles. He had the most perfect chest I had ever seen. Once again, I felt terribly inadequate in light of his overwhelming looks.

Tearing my eyes away from his body, and curling my fingers into a fist to keep them from reaching out to him, I managed to get myself back under control.

“I was beginning to think you’d sleep until morning,” he said, flashing a benevolent smile at me when I looked up at his face. A smile I didn’t trust farther than I could throw him. That said it all!

Why was he acting so friendly all of a sudden, I wondered? What was he up to? His suddenly welcoming manner toward me, the gentleness in his tone, his nearness to me on the bed, and his bare chest … it all spelled ‘seduction’.

And to cap it all off, he had created a romantic atmosphere in lighting a fire in the hearth. All that was missing, I mused, was a Barry White CD in the player and a bottle of rich red wine.

I was at a loss of what to reply. Meeting his inquiring gaze, I smiled uncertainly and wondered how to get out of this increasingly intense tête-à-tête.

Gazing absent-mindedly at the flames in the fireplace while casting about for something to say, I suddenly flashed back to the image in my dream.

Looking quickly around me, I noticed ― with no minor amount of foreboding and bewilderment ― that I was staring at the exact same room. My dream had caught up with me. The only difference from the image in my dream was that I wasn’t naked. And that was exactly how I intended to stay.

Without replying to Aaron’s statement, and thinking only of what it would ultimately cost me to give in to desire and spend the night with this gorgeous but insensitive excuse for a human being, I leaped to my feet and ran for the door, only to find it locked.

Groaning inwardly, and feeling like a complete idiot now that I had found my escape route obstructed, my cheeks grew hotter by the second.

Realizing what a spectacle I’d made of myself in front of the suave Professor Chambers, running away like a frightened rabbit, while he lay on the bed completely unruffled with a mocking smile on his lips, I hoped the earth beneath my feet would open up and swallow me whole.

Such a nice turn of phrase,
I thought to myself,
and so utterly useless, since it doesn’t actually work!

Swallowing the bit of pride I still had, I pulled my gaze off the floor and addressed him in the steadiest voice I could muster.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you could unlock the door for me,” I said, proud of myself that the steadiness in my voice sounded extremely convincing.

When Aaron Chambers didn’t react and simply stared at me with the same amused smile he had worn for the last minute, I added:

“Please.”

I
t was that last word that did it.  It was the desperate, pleading note on which her appeal ended, the way her voice finally broke with emotion. It was the vulnerability she showed, a moment of weakness, when she had seemed so strong before.

That tiny glimpse of genuine emotion, and the pitiable way in which she stood before him and so desperately tried to hide it, had him off the bed in a confusing mixture of pity, respect, and longing.

Aaron didn’t know what he was doing, or why he suddenly had felt the urge to leap off the bed and go to her.

He had thought she wanted to seduce him, thought she had played the damsel in distress so that he would bring her to his room and sleep with her. Now, it seemed, she hadn’t wanted any of it.

She evidently felt so distressed by the mere thought of being with him, that she had made a fool of herself in front of him, just to get away from him quickly.

He had thought she wanted him and that he was going to reject her, now he was the one being rejected. Reminding himself that this was what he had wanted, that he hadn’t wanted to spend the night with her anyway, he tried not to let the rebuff get to him.

But the truth was: he wanted her.

If he hadn’t wanted her before, he wanted her now.

Now that she had rejected him.

Now that she stood before him, emotionally raw and vulnerable.

It made him ache to touch her. It made him yearn for her admiration. He wanted her to want him.

The desire he had felt earlier was nothing to the way he felt now. He was barely in control, holding back with extreme difficulty. He was sure his fiery gaze was burning holes into the girl’s skin from the heat it radiated as he looked down at her.

As Aaron lifted his hand to touch her face, her gaze met his. The broken word she had spoken last hovered in the thick silence between them and was mirrored in her eyes as they flowed over, teardrops rolling slowly and silently down her cheeks.

Aaron couldn’t do it. He couldn’t play games with her, and he would not be able to look at himself in the mirror again if he tried to seduce her now, if he forced himself on her now, when she was standing before him with tears in her eyes, every fiber of her being begging him to let her go.

He had wanted her to
beg
, but this wasn’t what he’d had in mind!

Quietly Aaron cleared his throat, desperately trying to find his voice again, and at the same time trying not to let on how strongly her tears had unsettled him.

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” he said coldly, wanting to infuriate her with his blasé manner, so that she wouldn’t notice the inner turmoil he felt.

Moving her away from the door in a rather rough way, he took the key out of his pocket, unlocked the door and opened it for her. Holding his arm out in a mockingly courteous manner, he dismissed her, ignoring the hurt look in her eyes all the while.

When she had hurried out the door and Aaron was alone again at last, he dropped all pretenses and sank onto his bed, completely miserable. The hurt she had shown reprimanded him; her huge tear-filled eyes haunted him.

He felt dirty and ashamed.

What was wrong with him?

How could he have behaved in such a despicable manner? Even if he wasn’t interested in her as a person, and even if she were strong enough to deal with his rude behavior, there was no excuse for the way he had treated her throughout the evening!

He had behaved violently toward her, and he had mocked her. Oh God, he thought, as the memory came back to him vividly, he had shook and threatened her. She would probably have purple markings around her wrist tomorrow, where he had gripped her so tightly.

Seeing those beautiful eyes fill with tears had made him realize that she wasn’t what he had expected. She may have appeared to be strong, but she was fragile and insecure.

Having realized this, he felt like a monster. He had thought she could take it … he had been wrong! Now, as he tried to come up with a way to make it up to her, he realized there was none. There was no way in which he could explain himself, because there was no excuse! She would continue to despise him.

Dimly wondering why he even cared if she despised him, and finding no answer that suited him, he fell asleep on his bed, his jeans and shoes still covering his weary body.

I
couldn’t believe I had actually escaped. Well, not escaped in the sense of getting away under my own power, but I had managed to disgust him, so that he had let me go.

For a moment, I’d thought he might actually force himself on me. And though I hadn’t believed him to be the kind of man to do such a vile thing, the fierce, hungry look in his eyes when he had leaped off the bed and stood before me had sufficed to convince me otherwise.

As far as I was concerned, he had been within an inch of losing control.

After all, who could tell what another person was really like, I pondered. If rapists walked around with tags that read “RAPIST, BEWARE!” life certainly would be easier.

Until that day came, however, the utmost anyone could do was make an educated guess and hope to God to be right about the person one believed to be able to read.

Then again, there was trust, or faith, or whichever word fit the concept best. One could always have faith in someone being a good person.

Trust, or faith, however, was a concept that was beyond me just then. Trust had to be gained, earned; not simply handed out to whoever came along.

And faith is blind! Isn’t that how it goes?
I thought morosely.
Okay, Love is blind. But faith might just as well be.

Well, when it came to him, I was undoubtedly blind.

Even now, walking back to my own room mere minutes after having felt terrified that he might rape me, the shock had already worn off, and all I felt was hurt.

The feeling was so powerful that it clouded any other emotion. The disdainful tone in which he had dismissed me; as if I bored him to death the minute he discovered I didn’t want to jump his bones.

Against all the things I believed in, against all the values I held dear, I wanted him and felt hurt by his icy dismissal. Despite my fear that he might harm me, and despite his cruel indifferent behavior toward me, I ached for him. And that meant that I had to stay away from him!

If I was emotionally so far gone that, by all rights, I needed professional help, then the only thing standing between me and catastrophe was my resolve to keep out of his way. Easier said than done, I thought, when he was my professor, and I was required to go to the classes for which I had signed up.

I would have to go sooner or later. However, if I managed to elude him for at least a week, it might be all the time I needed to put things back into perspective and get over the attraction I still felt.

The class was held Tuesdays and Fridays at twelve thirty in the same auditorium. All I had to do was skip his class on Friday and play sick throughout the next week, starting with Tuesday, I mused.

Though it might be slightly embarrassing, I could easily excuse myself on the grounds of having menstrual cramps. It’s not like he had a good opinion of me anyway … that ship had sailed! And it’s not like anyone would ever check to see that I really had my period.

That would be the day!

Of course, playing ill would mean blowing off my other classes as well. Under normal circumstances, this train of thought would have made me feel slightly guilty. At the moment, however, I didn’t have a choice. I just couldn’t face him right now!

I spent the following days leading up to Tuesday in a state of nervousness hitherto unknown to me. I went to my other classes in a calm and collected state knowing he wouldn’t be there, and resurfaced as a nervous wreck, fearing to run into him at every possible turn.

In the cafeteria, I wolfed down my food so fast that the taste of it hardly registered on my mind. The little food I was able to eat, having had no real appetite since the night I had fled from Aaron Chambers’ room, had no worth to me other than being a necessity. I couldn’t enjoy it!

When I had attained the note excusing me from classes and didn’t need to visit the cafeteria, having stashed a large amount of food and water in my fridge, I thought my nervousness would finally let up and that my appetite would return.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Every night now, I was being plagued by the same forceful dream in which I was lying in his arms making love to him in front of the scorching flames of the crackling fire. I would wake up, bathed in cold sweat, with a longing so fierce it made it hard for me to breathe.

Every morning I would be haunted by the remnants of that dream. Where, before, I had been able to distinguish details of the room in my very first dream, now I felt only emotions.

The dreams held nothing more than a flow of all-consuming sensations that rolled over me in sweltering waves.

Waking from my dreams, I was left with a sense of loss so vast, that it tore a big, aching hole in my heart, leaving me broken and miserable for hours on end, unable to move, eat or drink, and growing weaker as time went by.

Things were not getting better; they were getting worse!

I was suffering terribly from not seeing him. With the little sanity I still had left, I realized I could not really be feeling this way about Aaron Chambers.

Wanting him ― desiring him ― despite his rude behavior toward me, was one thing. Feeling as though the man I loved had ripped out my heart and stepped on it, was quite another.