Page 41 of The Biker and the Professor
Gosh, he’s so sexily annoying.
“I like your hair,” he compliments. “Did you have it colored or something? It's looking a bit darker today, fuller.”
“Nope. I haven’t done a thing to it. Same color, same length, same volume. In fact, I haven’t washed it in over a week.”
He laughs, almost sheepish. “My game is weak as hell when it comes to you, Toni Blume. I don't know what it is about you that makes me so damn nervous.”
“It’s my cat ears, isn’t it?” I joke. “Or is it my tail?”
Letting out a deep chuckle, he touches my arm to stop me. “Go on a date with me this weekend,” he says when I stop to look at him. “I know this is like the ninety-ninth time that I've asked, but I'm nothing if not persistent. And I know you're not turning me down because you're seeing someone; I have it on good authority that you’re single as they come.”
I watch his face as I contemplate his offer. Not only am I not interested in anyone except Nero, but my heart is also far from healed. I can't imagine seeing myself with anyone but Nero, let alone allow someone else to touch me, kiss me, make love to me. I’m his, whether I want to be or not. I am owned and willfully enslaved by Nero Gunnar.
And, you know what, that’s reason enough to sayyesto Fitzpatrick. Ineedto be able to see myself with someone else. Ineedto be freed from his ownership of me. Ineedto be able to seebeyondNero Gunnar.
He has just confessed to me, without words, that he loves me. However, we can never be together. We willneverbe together.
Therefore, the fastest and most efficient way to get him behind me, out of my system, out of my memory, is to go out with Professor Persistent here. Maybe getting to know someone else, someone my age, someone who shares common interests, who doesn’t know what “Club Cat” and “Old Lady” mean, will help me to move on. To forget about this fling. To take me out of the fantasy I’d found comfort in over the past couple of months.
So, smiling, I blink into focus again and shock him with my answer. “How does Saturday evening sound?”
Chapter 15
Nero
“Another,” I say,slamming the empty beer bottle down on the counter.
“Gonna mess up your liver if you keep going like that,” Gray Beard, the brother working the bar tonight cautions me.
Can’t get more messed-up than my heart. “The hell do you care?”
He shrugs and pops the cap off another beer, sliding it across the counter to me.
Tony goddamn Blume was so afraidI’dbreakherheart that she decided to break mine first. Screwed up logic, but I get where she's coming from—a shitty marriage and a shit-brain ex-husband.
But still, how is it fair for her to take that shit out on me when I’ve been nothing but good to her? She was my girl, my Steady, theone. I’d given myself to her completely. That woman got the best of me. She’s got no damn idea how little I cared for women before her. Then what did theonewoman I dared to give a shit about do? Rip my heart out and stomp all over it.
Screw you, too, karma.
Craziest thing is, Iknowshe wants me. It’s all over her, in her eyes, the way her breathing changes whenever I'm near, the way she relaxes with submission, waiting for me to tell her what to do, claim her. Her confession isn’t a lie. She’s in love with me. It’s all there. I own her, more than she would ever admit. But hell if I’m going to control, force, or manipulate her into staying with me like her ex-husband did. I'd never do that to her.
The decision needs to be hers. If I told her to stay, she’d stay. If I asked her to choose me, she’d choose me. Not just because she loves me, but because it’s what she’s used to. From what she told me about her past, she’d allow others around her to make decisions for her, decisions that never had her best interest at heart. Not even when she demanded a divorce was her request acknowledged.
Then there’s Cookie manipulating her every damn day.I’mnot about to become another one of those snakes in her life. I’ll always allow her to make her own decisions. Even if those decisions included kicking me to the curb. Hurts like hell, but I’m also proud of her for being able to do whatever the hellshewanted to do.
All that said, I can’t say I saw it coming. There I was busting my ass, saving and secretly investing as much as I could, studying as hard as I could, so that I’d be able to have enough, to land the best job, to get on her level one day, to be able to provide for her, when all that time she was categorizing me asjust a fling.
Just. A. Fling.
While I was planning forever, she was planning the end.
Kendra struts into the bar just then, spots me, and comes right over, taking the empty stool beside me. She sits with her back against the bar, elbows propped back on the counter. “You look like shit.”
I take a swig of my beer. “Don't start, Kenny.”
“The new wannabe Club Cat chose you to break her in.”
“Tough shit,” I grouse.
