Spiral of Bliss 01 Arouse (10 page)

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

“You.”

My stomach tightened. I tried to smile.

“Not much to talk about there,” I said.

“Not true.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and studied me, those penetrating eyes seeming to look right into my soul. “What’s your key, Olivia?”

“My key?”

“An old friend once told me that everyone has a key to unlocking their secrets. What’s yours?”

“Um… I’m pretty sure I don’t have a key.”

“I’m pretty sure you do.”

“Well, if everyone has one,” I said, “what’s yours?”

“Ah.” A twinkle flashed in his eyes. “You have to discover that yourself.”

“Then you have to do the same with me.”

“Challenge accepted.”

My anxiety ratcheted up a few notches at the idea that he would probe for information about me. I was well-protected with several layers of scar tissue, but that night of the museum lecture I’d realized how difficult it would be for me to withstand Professor Dean West. And now I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to.

“String figures and medieval knights,” I said softly.

He lifted an eyebrow in question.

“The keys to unlocking you.” My heart beat faster as something indefinable crossed his expression.

I knew I was right. I just didn’t know how those keys worked.

We looked at each other for a minute across the expanse of the sofa. I trailed my gaze to his mouth, remembering the warm touch of his lips against mine, the gentle way he held my face. Never had I been kissed with such heat and thoroughness. I wanted him to kiss me like that again.

Dean moved closer to me, lifting a hand to my hair with a restraint that gave me the chance to retreat if I chose to. I didn’t move. The air simmered with heat as he tugged at my ponytail and released it from the band. My hair sifted over my shoulders, and he speared his fingers into the strands, combing out the tangles. A breath caught in my throat.

“I wanted to touch you the minute I saw you,” he said, his gaze on my lips.

“I… I wanted that too,” I whispered.

He rested his hand against the side of my face and leaned in to kiss me. The touch of his mouth sent a wave of heat into my blood. I grasped the front of his shirt and melted into the kiss, opening my mouth under his and letting him inside. Hot and damp, our tongues slid together, his breath warm and chocolaty.

A moan escaped me, urgent and filled with growing need. Tentatively, I forced my fists to unclench from his shirt and spread over the expanse of his chest. His hard muscles shifted beneath my hands as I slowly traced the lines up the length of his torso. He was all heat and lean, tensile strength, coiled with a power that I instinctively knew was both safe and protective.

He moved over me, his arms bracing on the sofa cushion beneath me as he angled his mouth more firmly over mine. Arousal flared in my belly as I felt the muscular weight of him moving on top of me, my breasts pressing to his chest. My nipples tightened, a response that jolted a shock of pleasure to my core.

Dean’s kiss grew harder, more possessive. Trembles vibrated through me. I sank against the sofa and gripped his back. After a moment of hesitation, my heart pounding, I slipped my hands beneath his shirt and over his naked skin. His smooth muscles flexed and pulled beneath my palms. He stroked his tongue over my lower lip. My sex throbbed.

“Ah, Liv…” His voice was hoarse as he eased back to look at me. He trailed his hand over the side of my neck down to my chest.

I drew in a breath when he cupped my breast, brushing his thumb over my hard nipple. Even through the cotton of my shirt and bra, I could feel the warmth of his hand. He shifted on top of me, nudging his knee between my legs. My skirt slid up my thighs.

I was falling, sinking into a whirlpool of sensations. Everything about him filled me—his fresh, clean scent, the taste of his chocolate-laced breath, the touch of his hands and scrape of his whiskers.

My mind fogged with pleasure and swirls of color that concealed any darkness. I arched my hips, seeking relief from the ache pulsing in my sex. He smoothed his hand up my bare leg, stroking the tender flesh of my inner thigh before brushing the cotton of my panties.

I moaned, pushing upward, heat spooling through me. His mouth came down on mine again the same instant he increased the pressure of his finger, sliding it against the damp crevice of my sex.

I gripped the sides of his head suddenly and wrenched away. I stared at him, our breathing hard. His eyes were hot with lust for
me
. Twin currents of energy—fear and desire—lanced into my heart. My face flamed.

“Olivia?” Dean cupped my cheek. Beneath the lust, confusion sparked in his expression. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I’m sorry,” I gasped, burning with shame and unfulfilled need.

Dean levered himself off me, his shoulders cording with tension. “No, it’s me. I went too fast.”

“No, it’s not that. I…”
God in heaven.
Words stuck in my throat. Explanations tangled in my brain.

Dean tugged my skirt back down my legs and sat up. He dragged his hands over his face and through his hair, expelling his breath on a heavy sigh.

I stared at him, wanting to touch the strong lines of his profile, smooth my hand over his neck. I fought the ache threatening to break open my chest.

“Dean.” My voice was thin and ragged.

He held up a hand. “Just… give me a minute, Liv.”

Silence filled the space between us, broken only by the sound of our breathing. He pushed to his feet and went into the bathroom.

Embarrassed and not wanting to prolong the awkwardness for either of us, I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my bag, and hurried out the door. The street was bordered by several other apartment buildings, so there were at least three bus stops.

Cold air whipped against my face. Buttoning my jacket, I walked a few blocks to a stop farther away and prayed a bus would arrive soon.

“Liv!”

I tensed as Dean hurried toward me, his jaw tight with frustration. His jacket was open, his hair messy. He came to a stop and glowered at me.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.” I hunched into my jacket against the chill.

Dean swore, pulling a hand down his face again before he visibly tried to regain control of his emotions. “If you want to go home, I’ll take you.”

“I do want to go home.”

“Then come on.” He turned and stalked toward the apartment building.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and followed him to the underground parking garage. Tears stung my eyes. I badly wanted to explain, but I didn’t know where to start. And Dean’s irritation felt like a forbidding wall I couldn’t breach.

He yanked open the door for me, then went around to the driver’s seat. Tense silence filled the air as he drove down University Avenue, his hands gripping the wheel. I thought he’d drop me off and leave, but he got out of the car to walk me to the front door.

I stopped on the doorstep and turned, keeping my gaze on the column of his throat. “I’m sorry.”

He let out a breath and lifted a hand to touch me, then dropped it to his side. “You don’t need to apologize. It’s my fault.”

“I’m not… I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m playing games,” I said.

The idea that he might think that of me was laughable. I was incapable of playing games with men. I didn’t know any of the rules.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

I fumbled to fit my key in the lock, my eyes stinging again. Dean waited until I was safely inside, but didn’t respond to my mumbled good-night. Still, I felt his gaze on me through the glass door before I turned to walk up the stairs to my apartment.

Old memories and nightmares blistered my sleep that night until finally I got up and spent hours staring blindly at the TV. A black, empty pit cracked open inside me. At dawn, I hauled myself over to my computer and opened my email to find a message from him.

Liv, I’m so damn sorry. Can I see you again?

No.
That was all I needed to say. I would never hear from him again.

N-o…
My hands trembled on the keyboard.
No, you can’t, Dean. You can’t see me again, and I shouldn’t want to see you…

I stared at the message, trashed it, and wrote:
You can come over tonight.

I hit the send button before I could think anymore. I sat there with my heart pounding until his response came four minutes later.
I’ll be there at seven.

I dressed and went to morning classes, worked an afternoon shift at Jitter Beans, then tried to study at the library before going home. I showered and changed into loose black pants and a T-shirt.

After clipping my hair back into a ponytail, I paced the living room until the bell rang five minutes before seven. I buzzed Dean in and left my apartment door partway open.

“Liv?” He knocked and pushed it open the rest of the way.

“Hi.” I ran my shaking hands over my thighs, unable to stop myself from drinking in the arresting sight of him in jeans and a rugby shirt that looked thick and soft. His hair was rumpled in the way I was beginning to love, the length brushing the top of his collar and curling over his ears.

He shut the door and shucked off his jacket, not looking anywhere but at me.

“Liv, I’m sorry,” he said.

I shook my head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was.” His eyes flashed with self-directed irritation. “I went too fast, and I scared you. I didn’t mean to.”

Oh, Sir Galahad…

My throat constricted. “I wasn’t… I don’t want you to think…”

I didn’t even know what to say, much less how to say it. As much as I had thought about being with a man like Dean West, I didn’t know if I could ever actually
do
it.

And I didn’t understand why he would even want me to.

Dean was successful, authoritative, experienced, sophisticated, assured.

I was not.

“Look, I…” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, slanting his gaze away from me. “I haven’t been with a woman in a while, Liv.”

“You haven’t?”

“Since before my grandfather got sick. I had to deal with him and his illness, and between that and my book it didn’t leave room for anything else. Or the desire, really.”

“Oh.”

“I’m telling you because you’re the first woman in a long time whom I like,” he said. “And I didn’t mean to act like a horny teenager on his first date, but I did and I’m sorry. I do have more control than that and can move more slowly.”

I almost smiled. Well, that was something. A sexually experienced professor who had been abstinent for a while, and now wanted… me. It would have been funny if it weren’t another glaring reason why we couldn’t possibly work.

Or could we?

A whisper in my mind, faint as the last ring of an echo.

I stared at Dean, the fathomless depths of his brown eyes, the lock of hair brushing his forehead. I remembered when he had pulled me close to him, and we fit together like the pieces of a puzzle.

I looked at his mouth and recalled how it had settled seamlessly against my lips. How his body had locked to mine, my curves yielding to the hard planes of his chest.

Maybe we could fit in other ways too, convex and concave, angles and hollows. His confidence might bolster my own. Certainly he could show me what true pleasure felt like. And I…

I’d have loved to believe I was a fair lady to his knight, but from what I could remember of the King Arthur tales, none of the women met with a desirable end.

No, I was just Olivia Winter. Still trying to find my way through. A woman who knew very well that knights didn’t exist but held out hope that good men outnumbered the bad. A woman who still believed in leaps of faith, as long as you trusted your instincts.

I gestured toward the sofa. Dean and I sat down next to each other. Anxiety clenched my stomach as I struggled for a way to tell him the truth.

“I’m sorry I freaked out last night,” I finally said. “It really wasn’t you.”

“What was it, then?” Dean asked.

“I…”
Just say it.

A crease formed between his eyebrows. “Liv, I shouldn’t have—”

“Dean, I’m a virgin.”

He blinked. “What?”

My heart felt like it was about to claw out of my chest.

“I… I’m a virgin,” I repeated. “I… I’ve never had intercourse before.”

“Oh.” Comprehension dawned in his expression. “So that’s why you…”

“I just… I don’t want you to think it was anything you did,” I said. “It wasn’t. Everything we did… I liked it. I wanted it.”

I wanted you.

“It’s weird, I know,” I continued. Sweat collected at the base of my throat. “I’m twenty-four.”

“It’s not weird,” Dean said.

Oh, with me, it definitely is.

“Well.” I let out a shaky breath. “I wanted you to know. When I… when I asked you about your girlfriends, I didn’t tell you that I haven’t had a serious boyfriend. Ever. I’ve dated some, but mostly I’ve just kept to myself.”

He frowned, as if he were trying to figure out what I wasn’t saying. I avoided looking into his eyes, tracing my gaze over his shoulders and arms. My pulse tripped at the way he sat—the wide masculine stance of his feet on the carpet, his hands linked loosely between his knees.