“My mother bought it for me,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Really.”
“Yeah. She was into road cycling for a while, and she tried to get me into it, too. I think she was more interested in the outfits, though. And the shoes. She liked the shoes; she said they were like reverse high heels.”
“I see.”
“I never actually wore this out riding a bike.”
“That’s a shame. It’s very . . . striking.”
He came over and stood in front of me, our bodies only inches from each other. My heart thudded; I could feel the pounding in my ears. My whole body felt electrified, the little hairs on my arms were standing straight up. I smiled, and that smile turned into a laugh, even though nothing funny had happened. I just needed a way to relieve a little of the pressure.
“What’s so funny?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know. This. It’s not funny, it’s just . . . I never thought that I’d be doing something like this.”
“And what is it we’re doing?”
Before I could respond, though, he brought his hand up to touch the side of my face, his forearm brushing my left nipple, which felt hard as glass, pushing against the thin material.
The Lycra of the skin suit suddenly felt as though it were actually more like a wetsuit, this awful impediment that I just had to get rid of as quickly as I could. I reached up to pull the zipper down, because I was suddenly overwhelmed by the need to feel his hands against my bare skin. It was as if my flesh were on fire and his touch would be the only thing capable of putting it out.
I got the zipper halfway down.
There was a knock at the door.
He pushed back from me so quickly he almost fell backward. I could see he had a huge erection, pressing against the front of his pants. I yanked the zipper back up and sat down in the chair in front of his desk.
“Come in,” he barked.
The door opened and Professor Douglass, one of the other journalism teachers, came in.
“Oh,” she said, look of surprise crossing her face. “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize you were having a meeting.”
“That’s generally what a closed door means,” he said, settling himself back in the chair behind his desk. I breathed a little sigh of relief; at least this way she wouldn’t be able to see that he had an erection.
I hoped my own face wouldn’t betray anything. My cheeks were probably flushed, but I tried to look as though we had just been talking about something that had to do with class. I felt Professor Douglass’s eyes take in my outfit, though she didn’t say anything. About that, anyway.
“I just wanted to borrow your copy of Feature Writing Fundamentals. My own copy seems to have gone missing, and there’s a chapter I’d like to have as a handout for my next class.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever you want,” Leo said. He swiveled in his chair to the overstuffed bookshelf behind his desk. He pulled a tattered copy of the book out and held it out to her. She looked unimpressed that he wasn’t going to get up and hand it to her, so I reached over and got it from him, then turned and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said to me, though her eyes were still on Leo. “I’ll get this back to you shortly.”
She paused, waiting for him to say something in return, but he didn’t, so she turned and left, though not before letting her gaze linger on me a few more seconds.
“She’s wondering where on earth you got an outfit like that,” Leo said, breaking the silence once Professor Douglass was gone.
“She looked more horrified that I’d actually wear something like that out of the house.”
“She’s just e
nvious because she knows she’d never look as good as you do, no matter how many Pilates classes she took.” He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his palms together. “It’s kind of insane how good that looks on you, though I must admit, I’d much rather see it off.”
I thought back to a few minutes ago, his hand on the side of my face, my whole body tingling with this overwhelming desire. I couldn’t remember ever feeling this way, not even with Nick. It was like all Leo had to do was ask me to take my clothes off and lay across his desk and I would.
But he didn’t; he took a deep breath and shook his head, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “That won’t do,” he said. “What just happened there. I’m all for the exciting aspect of this, but having Carla fucking Douglass walk in on me like that doesn’t fall into that category. What are you doing tomorrow night?”