She presses her forehead into my chest and groans. “I’d love to. I would. But I promised myself that I’d go into my advisor’s office today. I’ve been avoiding him for weeks.”
“What’s another day?” I skim a finger down her neck and between her breasts, tugging at the edge of her top. I raise my eyebrows, looking for permission, but her jaw is set with determination. I give it one last shot. “I’m not really sure why we can’t do both? Shower then meeting?”
She laughs. “Nice try, but I know you. We’d get in there and you’d get all soapy and I’d get all soapy and I think we’ve learned that you like to take your time.”
Damn, this woman knows me well, and the idea of her being soaped up isn’t helping her argument. I sigh and rub my head. “All right, go shower and I’ll give you a ride to your advisor’s office, okay?”
“Thank you,” she replies, pushing up on her toes to kiss me again. I clench my hands around her waist and fight the urge to toss her in the shower anyway. “I’ll be back down in an hour.”
“I’ll be ready.”
She pulls away slowly, her fingers lingering in mine. With a tilt of her head she says, “And that shower idea? I’ll keep that in mind, okay?”
She walks off and I head back into the shop to take a cold shower of my own.
Chapter Eight
Morgan
I don’t release my grip around Damien’s waist until the motorcycle comes to a complete stop. Even then I’m reluctant to let go, as I like the way his body feels against mine and to be honest, I’m not looking forward to speaking to Christensen. I have a feeling he’s not going to take my announcement well.
Damien squeezes my hand and then lifts off his helmet and then mine. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just dreading this meeting.”
He frowns. “What’s going on?”
“I’m quitting the program.”
Okay, what I saw before on his face wasn’t a frown. The expression on his face is an actual frown. “You’re what?” he asks as though he didn’t hear me. He totally heard me.
“I’m quitting the program. I never should have been in it in the first place. That story wasn’t my creative mind, it was a memory—sort of--and a painful one at that. Now that we’re caught up to the present I’ve got nothing left to tell. My writer’s block is not going away and I realized today that it’s not a block. It’s that the story is finished.”
Damien is my wild Guardian. Free-spirited and independent. He doesn’t care about rules or feel bound by the same internal struggle as the others. But he touches my chin and holds my eyes with his strange, intense, violet ones and says, “That story is far from complete, Morgan. The day your parents died and we changed to human form is another chapter entirely. The things we did. What we saw. It’s a story for Dylan’s history books.”
“But it’s not my story. It’s yours. It’s not Maverick’s, my main character. None o
f this makes sense.”
“Give it time and I think it will become clearer. You’ve been through a lot. Think about when you first got here and how the gates of your memory opened. You received a wealth of detail.”
The simple fact Damien knows all of this and cares enough to say it rattles me. “I’ll consider it, but even so, I have to go in and talk to him.”
He nods. “I’ll wait here.”
I slide off the bike and he grabs me by the jacket, giving me a powerful kiss. The Morrigan may be gone but I still feel a burst of hunger from his touch. Even a mortal can’t help but get a boost from Damien’s raw sexual energy.
I take a deep breath and walk away, hoping I can figure out my next move.
*
The professor makes me wait.
I suppose I deserve it after forcing him to follow up on me for a month. I sit for twenty minutes in the lobby before the receptionist escorts me back to his office. Even then, he’s not there. I’m instructed to wait a little longer.
Alone, I glance around the room, realizing I’ve never been alone in here before. The wall behind the desk is covered in certificates and three large, framed diplomas. A bookshelf flanks one wall and photos line the other. Curiosity grabs me and I stand, looking over the pictures. Professor Christensen seems to be quite the world traveler. There are images of him all over the world, mostly at ancient ruins. Egypt, Rome, Greece, among many others. My eyes skim over his desk and land on a file with the name Anita Cross on the edge.
Anita.