Page 34 of Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Blink.

Blink at her some more. “What?”

She is so full of shit—there is no way.

She’s not old enough to be a professor.

“You’re fucking kidding,” I blurt out leaning forward as if that will somehow make her confession make more sense. “Right? Please tell me you’re joking.”

She is enjoying my confusion. “Why would I joke about that?”

I study her, trying to reconcile the quick-witted woman sitting across from me with the image of aprofessor.

Impossible.

“You’re not old enough to be a professor.”

“Okay.Rude,” she says, though her lips twitch like she’s trying not to laugh.

“No, I mean you look—” I stop, realizing this is a minefield I’m about to step into. “You don’t look old enough for that job. What do you teach, anyway?”

“For your information, I teach sociology. At a university. With real adults.” Her chin tilts and her expression smug. “You can google it if you’d like. I’ll wait.”

My brain cannot compute.

“Like…collegesociology?” I continue to sound stupid, unable to wrap my brain around this.

“Yes. Like—the college here. It’s a university, technically.” Austin crosses her arms. “Monday and Wednesdays at 9 a.m. to 11:30. Tuesday and Thursdays at 1. My office hours are on Fridays at 2. I even have a nameplate on my door.”

The only university I know of is State, about a thirty-minute drive out of the city. It’s huge—twenty-five thousand students, nationally ranked programs, and a football team they televise like it’s the Super Bowl.

A big fucking school.

I lean back, still trying to wrap my head around it. “This is blowing my mind right now.” I feel my face melting off as I squint across the table at her. “How old are you?”

She laughs again. “Twenty-nine. How old are you?”

“Twenty-six,” I say automatically, still stuck on the fact that she’stwenty-nineand aprofessor.

“Aw, you’re a baby,” she teases, resting her chin in her hand, fluttering her lashes at me.

I glare at her, though I can’t help but grin. “You don’t get to call

me a baby when you’ve not even cracked thirty.”

“But it’s still older than you, and I’m your elder, so show some respect.”

I find her smart mouth so…

Goddamn sexy.

Sexier now that I know her sharp tongue comes equipped with an even sharper brain. She’s confident, quick, and completely unapologetic about it. It’s a lethal combination—one I wasn’t prepared for when I walked into this bar.

Inside my pants, my dick twitches.

Of course, it does.

Because apparently, my body has zero chill when it comes to her.

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