Page 57 of The Longest Shot
His palm is warm, calloused in places that tell of thousands of hours gripping a stick. His fingers close, firm but not aggressive, then his thumb moves—definitely intentionally—across my knuckles in a gesture so gentle it short-circuits my entire electrical system.
I jerk back, but the damage is done, because he saw my pupils dilate and felt my pulse spike. And now I get to see his eyes darken with satisfaction and something else that looks dangerously like hunger, even as his gaze sweeps over my body—lips to chest to torso and back up again.
“Tomorrow,” I say, voice admirably steady for someone whose endocrine system just committed treason. “Eight p.m. This room. Bring textbooks, every assignment rubric, class notes, and coffee." I pause. "Goodcoffee, not the athletic complex swamp water.”
“Yes, ma’am," he says.
"OK," I say, moving to the door, desperate to escape before I lose control.
“Morgan," he says, his voice stopping me.
I don’t turn around. “What?”
“Thank you.”
Two words.
Totally genuine.
From a guy who usually confronts such moments with jokes and volume.
I smile, but I don't let him see it.Godno, hecan'tsee it.
“Don’t thank me yet," I say. "You have no idea what you’ve just signed up for.”
I leave him, but feel his gaze following me, roaming over my ass like hands. And only when I'm at the exit and in the cool air do I realize my hands are shaking. Not from fear or anger, butfrom the terrifying realization that I’ve just made a deal with the one person who has proven he can make me malfunction.
But what choice did I have?
My team needs resources.
And, more than that, he took a chance helping me.
So he deserves a commitment from me to helphim.
It's a deal to benefit both of us. A simple equation. A solution. Nothing more.
I repeat this mantra all the way back to my apartment, but my body calls me a liar with every step—skin still buzzing where he touched me, pulse still elevated, my mind already constructing elaborate fantasies about what those calloused hands could do with proper motivation and significantly fewer clothes.
Or maybe no clothes at all, bent over the table in that dusty classroom?—
Stop.
By the time I reach my building, I’ve almost convinced myself I’m still in control. That I can manage this, manage him, the way I manage everything else—with logic and discipline and a hard-as-granite edge that definitelywill not crackeven if he looks at me likethat.
The lie is unconvincing, but I swallow it anyway.
twenty-two
MORGAN
The study roomis perfect in its sterility, a chapel of virtue in which we will complete the work required and absolutelynotfall victim to the sizzling feelings between us. Or so I tell myself as I sit here, waiting for James in the cell of beige walls and fluorescent death.
It’s the academic equivalent of a sensory deprivation tank, which is exactly what I need. Because, in here, with the mission ahead of us, there can be no distractions, no ambiance, and absolutely, positivelynothingthat could be construed as romantic.
In addition to the isolation and privacy, I chose this location for its complete absence of comfort. The chairs are plastic torture devices designed by someone who definitely got rejected from art school, the lighting makes everyone look vaguely tubercular—there is absolutelynothingsexy or warm about this space.
Perfect.
