Beauty and the Professor (A Modern Fairy Tale Duet 1)

Not how he’d feel when she walked away.

Hours slipped away with only the clean, crisp notes of logical arguments, falling one after the other in a melody he could play in his sleep.

“You’re awake.”

He looked up to see Erin standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed, her slender body leaning back just inside the doorframe. He wondered how long she had been there.

“Oh man, I’m sorry.” He stood up quickly, and pain shot down his neck. Partly it was the position he’d been in, but his neck had been stiff ever since the explosion. Months of physical therapy and rehabilitation visits had only helped so much. The explosion had damaged more than his skin. “I didn’t realize how long it’d been.”

She shrugged, wandering closer. “It’s okay. You can work whenever you want.”

Like a beacon, her presence shone light on things better left dark. She brushed her fingers over a dusty pile of papers. He’d told her to skip this room on her first visit here, and despite everything that had happened between them, he’d never changed that. Her first time in this room, the one place he’d felt alive in those dim hours, and her presence somehow felt more intimate than the sex they’d shared.

“Let’s go back in the bedroom.” His voice came out hoarse. “I can think of something better to do.”

“Not sleep, though, I guess.” Something seemed different about her, a diffidence. A chill in the air between them. She ran her fingers along his desk and gently blew the dust off her finger. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were hiding something from me.”

He wasn’t, not like she meant, so why did he suddenly feel guilty? Because she didn’t know the extent of his injuries and PTSD. Because she didn’t know how much he longed for her. Because she didn’t know how lost he was when not anchored to her. He couldn’t divulge any of that without losing part of himself—without losing her.

“Ask me anything you want to know,” he said. His voice sounded raw, because that was how he felt. Exposed here, vulnerable. For her, yes.

She swiped a finger across the top of his glowing laptop—of course that one came away clean. One of the few things disturbed here. “Is there another woman in the picture?”

Shock mingled with relief as he laughed. “What? No.”

“I mean, our relationship was pretty sudden. I’m not saying we have to be exclusive or that I expect that from you.”

He spoke bluntly to put a stop to that. “There’s no one else for me, Erin.”

“Then why do always come in here when you think I’m asleep? I know you already work in here all day. When do you rest?”

He opened his mouth to respond and then realized he didn’t know the answer. She hadn’t stayed over every night in the two weeks they’d been sleeping together, but dawn usually found him right in that leather swivel chair, eyes bleary from staring at the screen. He’d gone from being active in graduate school and in the military to…nothing. He still felt that drive, that ambition, but he had nowhere to put it, nowhere to go.

Seeming to assume he’d refused to answer, she wandered to a shelf piled high with books—academic journals that were probably years old, highlighted and dog-eared.

Her hand stilled over the answering machine. It blinked red up at her. She turned to him in question, asking if she should press it.

He shrugged. He had no idea who it was nor did he care, but if it would help ease her mind that there wasn’t some other woman, some secret plot, then he’d rather she listened.

Instead she faced away, speaking to the door. “I didn’t mean to snoop or…or accuse you of things. I never wanted to be that girl.”

“They’re reasonable questions. I want you to ask them. No, I’m not with anyone. You. I want only you.” And he didn’t want her to be with anyone else either.

She made a small gasping sound, like a sob pulled up short.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

He waited, because it seemed like she might not trust him. There were a lot of reasons he was the wrong man for her, but not because he would betray her.

Her laugh was breathless. “Okay, I guess it does mean that. I just…have some trust issues. It’s just that you’re strong and secure, and I’m…well, I’m a train wreck, basically. I don’t have enough money in my account to cover rent, and it’s due in five days.”

“I can help you with that.”

“No. Absolutely not. That wasn’t some kind of sly request for a sugar daddy. I don’t want your money, especially now that we’re sleeping together.”

“It wouldn’t be like that.”

“That’s exactly how it would be. Dirty and cheap.”