Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice (27 page)

His mouth tightened. "What's the matter?"

   She pointed upward, and when his eyes followed her finger, she smiled mischievously. "No mistletoe. I guess I'll have to improvise."

   She slid her hands up to his shoulders and linked them behind his neck. He seemed frozen in place. Standing on tiptoe, she brushed her lips lightly against his.

   For one frightening moment, she thought he wouldn't respond, but then he reached for her. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt his arms slip around her. On pure instinct, she arched against him, and a surge of electricity seemed to pass through her as their lips met again.

   She had forgotten how powerful her physical reaction was to him. Moving closer until she could feel the sensuous pressure of his body against hers, she sighed as his tongue teased her lips apart, fulfilling the aching desire that had been building in her since she read his book, since the last time she was in his arms.

   She'd known that once he touched her she wouldn't be able to resist the temptation he offered, regardless of the difficulties between them. She had lost none of her dangerous susceptibility to him. She shivered at the pleasure of his touch.

   She wanted more and knew it was insane, even thinking of how she wanted him to touch her. Her office was a far cry from a deserted beach late at night, and she couldn't allow herself the same loss of control she had then. It was crazy enough to kiss him here where anyone walking down the hall could see, even if the building was pretty much emptied out for the day. She gathered hold of herself, forcing back the feelings he was arousing and pulling away a little from his kiss.

   He rested his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged. "So much for my plans to show some self-control."

   Her hands were still on his shoulders, feeling the strength of him. "Don't apologize. I liked it."

   "So did I." His mouth captured hers again.

   One more kiss couldn't hurt, not when it felt so good. Not now, when she finally had the answer to her question about whether he still wanted her. But would he still feel that way in a month, when he knew her better? She couldn't let it go too far. Not yet. Touching her finger to his lips, she said, "We're a combustible combination. It doesn't take intent on either of our parts for our hindbrains to take over and try to get on with the business of perpetuating the species."

   "Spoken like a true biologist," he said, but with a faint smile. "Maybe we should go to dinner before my hindbrain gets me into any more trouble."

   She buttoned her coat. At least that way she kept her hands off him. "I thought we'd walk, if that's okay. There's a nice little restaurant just across from campus."

   The sun was beginning to set, turning the autumn leaves into brighter hues of yellow and red, as they started down the tree-lined avenue that ran between the college and town. The crisp air was a blessing, cooling the heat on Cassie's cheeks. She pointed out several campus landmarks as they walked and then led him off the road to a split-rail fence with a small pond beyond it.

   She rested her hands on the fence. "This is the duck pond. I come here a lot. It isn't the ocean, but it's the closest we have." Several mallards flocked toward her, quacking loudly. She took a small plastic bag of bread from her coat pocket. "They know I'm an easy touch." She handed Calder a piece of bread and began to shred the other, tossing the pieces to the ducks, who grabbed them eagerly.

   She noticed Calder was still holding his bread, his eyes on her rather than the ducks. "You don't like feeding ducks?" she asked.

   "I'm watching how you do it."

   She paused, bread crumb in hand. "Don't tell me you've never fed ducks before."

   "Okay, I won't tell you. Just remember how limited my education is."

   "That overrated place up in Boston doesn't have ducks?" she teased. A large duck stuck his head through the fence, honking loudly. "Believe me, there's no wrong way to feed ducks."

   He broke off some bread and tossed it to the duck that was farthest away. "In my family, there would have been a wrong way to feed ducks." He said it with light irony.

   "Not these ducks. They'll be happy with anything you give them." Cassie dusted the last of the crumbs from her hands.

   Calder bent down and held a piece of bread through the fence. A mallard promptly grabbed it from his hand. He smiled as he tore off another bread crumb.

   Cassie watched him as he carefully fed the quacking mob. When his bread was gone, he straightened and looked at her. His gaze left her awash with feelings.

   He paused, as if weighing his options. "I owe you an apology. I planned to tell you about my book before it came out. I didn't want you taken by surprise."

   On impulse, she put her hand over his where it rested on a fence post, the warmth of it a sharp contrast to the cool autumn air. "Don't worry. It was a shock, but I'm used to discovering everything I know about you is wrong." She looked down at their hands. "I'm getting good at it."

   "I knew the book itself would be a surprise, but I didn't realize anything in it would be." He sounded puzzled.

   A smile touched her lips. "Calder, until recently I had no idea you ever gave me a second thought. I was stunned."

   "You didn't
know? H
ow could you not know?"

   She turned and looked out across the pond, wishing for some of his skill with words, at least written words. "Men like you don't look at women like me, much less want one. And besides, I thought you didn't particularly like me."

   "You thought I…" He was dumbfounded. "But I kept looking for excuses to be with you. I asked you out. I came to your lab."

   "I can be pretty oblivious sometimes. And you weren't talking much."

   "I assumed you knew."

   She finally looked at him again. "Neither of us ever said what we were feeling. You thought you didn't have to, and I was afraid to."

   He turned his hand over and entwined his fingers with hers. "What were you afraid to tell me?"

   This was it. He'd opened himself up to her in his book, and now it was her turn—if she dared. "That I was getting in too deep with you. That you were going away at the end of the summer and I was going to be hurt." It was strange. They'd been lovers, but she'd never held his hand before. It was intoxicating.

   "Is that why you backed off?"

   She nodded. The sound of laughter and footsteps came from behind them. She glanced toward the road and saw a group of students passing by. Reluctantly, she withdrew her hand from Calder's. "Sorry. I have to look professorial," she said in a stage whisper.

   He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "When you said at Christmas that Scott hurt Erin, were you talking about yourself, too?"

   "At some level, I suppose so." She felt oddly defensive in the face of his reaction.

   He glanced at the road, clearly frustrated by the presence of observers. "I never meant to hurt you."

   "I know. I never thought I
could
hurt you." She shivered as a chilly breeze whipped through her hair.

   His gaze softened. "You're cold. We should get to the restaurant."

   She didn't want any more misunderstandings. "Calder?"

   "Yes?"

   She held out her hand to him. "To hell with looking professorial."

   His look of happiness was all the reward she needed.

Calder picked up his wineglass and watched the candlelight reflect in the red wine for a moment before taking a sip. "You never said what made you change your mind about me."

   Cassie could hear the uncertainty behind his question. Hardly a surprise, after the things she'd said to him at Christmas. "A lot of things. You were so nice to me that day in Woods Hole. Then Scott let it slip that you were Stephen West, and I realized you couldn't possibly be the man I thought you were and have written those books."

   "What do you mean?"

   "I knew Stephen West was compassionate, insightful, and empathic. He wouldn't have disregarded my feelings. So I had to have made a mistake somewhere."

   "Thank you, though I doubt it's deserved." He set his wineglass down.

   She took a deep breath. "If I had any doubts, they would have gone away when I saw the MBL Annual Report."

   "Oh. You weren't supposed to find out about that."

   "Why not?"

   He shrugged. "I thought you'd feel like I was trying to buy you, when I really only did it because I wanted to."

   "See? Compassionate and empathic. Then I read your book, and suddenly it all started making sense. Including how I felt."

   "And that is?"

   Her breath seemed caught in her chest. "Among other things, we don't know each other that well yet. You have pretty high expectations of me. I don't know if I can live up to it."

   "I want you to be yourself. That's all I need."

   His comment left a silence she couldn't fill. "This talking part is hard," she complained lightheartedly, hoping to make a joke of it. "No wonder we never tried it before."

   "No, we found other ways of breaking the ice." His gaze warmed. "Which gives me an idea for the house."

   "The house?" She was finding looking into his eyes all too enjoyable.

"A hot tub," he replied.

   Cassie wondered if she had missed some part of the discussion. "Don't you think you're skipping a few steps here?" she asked.

   He gave her a perplexed look. "You don't think it's a good idea?"

   Cassie laughed. "Calder, you're being incomprehensible again." With a mischievous smile, she took a pen and pad of paper from her bag and pushed them toward him. "Try writing it down. I seem to do better understanding what you're thinking then."

   He laughed. Taking the pen, he looked thoughtful for a minute, and then began to write. She watched him in fascination as he wrote, then paused, and then wrote again. Finally he looked up and handed her the paper.

I imagine you know why I find the idea of you in the water to be sexy. When I move here, which I hope will be very soon, I think it would be nice to get a hot tub for our house here. I don't think we'd need one at Woods Hole. After all, in addition to all the other possibilities there, I have some longstanding fantasies about making love to you in your lab. Someday I'll explain all of them to you. And while I'm on the subject, let me mention that I wish we were alone right now, because I have a distinct interest in reacquainting myself with the softness of your skin and how sweetly you respond when I touch you.

   Her physical response to reading his note made it difficult to answer coherently. "Well, now I know where your mind is, but I still have some questions about this 'our house' scenario. I have an apartment.
You, presumably
, will have a one-semester non-renewable appointment here. I don't see how you get 'our house' out of the equation."

   He looked at her seriously. "I'm not coming here for the job. I'm coming because this is where you are. The job is a good way to learn about your world."

   She couldn't believe he was saying these things. His eyes were more intoxicating than the wine. "Calder, I'm happy you're here. Very happy. But I'm not asking for forever. Being with you now is enough. I don't have a lot of faith in happily ever afters."

   "I thought you liked your coffee with cream and your literature with optimism."

   He'd remembered her words all this time? "I do. I just don't expect it in real life. Especially with someone like you, with all your advantages."

   "What advantages? I'm rich and I have a famous name. I don't think you give a damn about my money, and being famous isn't all it's cracked up to be. All it gets you is tabloids digging into your privacy and publishing every embarrassing secret you've ever had. I wish nobody had ever heard of me."

   A breath of fear washed over her. She hadn't thought about that aspect of being involved with him. "They wouldn't be that interested in me, would they?"

   "Not right away, no. Once they work out that I'm serious, you'll get the full treatment. I'm sorry."

   "Would they look into my past?"

   "Of course. They're carrion." He took another

sip of wine and then seemed to notice her distress. "What's wrong?"

   She straightened the already impeccably placed silverware. "I'm very private about my past. I don't want people to know about it."

   "Because your family isn't educated?"