Spiral of Bliss 01 Arouse by Nina Lane Read Free Book Online Page A

and I had a sudden image of folding myself against that chest and feeling his arms close around me. Safe. Protected.
    Nothing to fear. Not from him.
    I stepped back, not having felt this way before and not knowing where it was all coming from.
    Why him? Why now?
    “I’m a visiting professor for the year,” he said. “Medieval history.”
    He was a medieval history professor. For whatever reason —the sheer dorkiness of the field?—this admission eased some of my tension.
    “Oh.” I hitched the satchel over my shoulder and folded my arms across my breasts. “Well, thanks for your help back at the registrar’s.”
    “The professors of whatever classes you need to take can approve your transfer credits,” he said. “You don’t need to go through the registrar’s office first. Get the course syllabus and bibliography from your previous college, and bring them to the professors to see if it fits their curriculum. If it covers the same ground, they should approve the transfer as a direct course equivalent.”
    “Why didn’t Mrs. Russell tell me that?”
    “She probably didn’t know. Professors have a lot of power.”
    I almost smiled. “Even medieval history professors?”
    “Especially medieval history professors,” he assured me.
    “Knights on horseback and all that?”
    A responding smile tugged at his mouth. “And damsels in distress.”
    My heart constricted.
Ah, fairy tales.
    “Hey, Professor West!” A young man jogged up to him. “I heard you were teaching here this year. I was at Harvard when you were a grad student. Tom Powell.”
    The kid stuck out a hand. Professor West shook it and made a few appropriate comments. I backed up a step, not wanting to leave him and yet not knowing how to stay.
    The other guy kept talking. Something about a paper he was working on.
    Professor West glanced at me. I had the sense he was about to make an excuse, extract himself from the conversation so that he could turn back to me.
    So we could finish what we’d started.
    I retreated another step, staring at the sunlight glinting off his hair, the sharp edges of his profile, the muscles of his neck, and the confidence of his stance.
    Professor West was beautiful. He was beautiful and warm and wanted to help a distraught girl in a ragged gray sweatshirt. Even though his eyes seared me like a caress he hadn’t made a move to touch me or invade my space. If anything, he seemed to restrain himself from doing so.
    If I could trust myself with anyone, I thought, it might be him.
    Before he looked at me again with those penetrating eyes, before I could think of an excuse to stay, I surrendered to my fear and hurried away. I had to force myself not to look back.
     

     
    I thought I’d never see him again. If I’d been another kind of woman, I could have sought him out, taken one of his courses, dropped by his office.
    But I wasn’t the kind of woman who did things like that. I couldn’t be, even if I’d wanted to. I’d worked hard to get into the UW, and I had a very strict schedule of classes I needed to take to graduate.
    I had a part-scholarship and a job at a coffeehouse on State Street, a tiny studio apartment, and an unwavering notion that graduation would put me on a path toward something
normal
.
    While I nourished a secret hope of one day finding a man who would help rid me of my inhibitions, I had to focus on other things first. I’d spent years figuring out what I needed to do, and I couldn’t deviate from that course now that I was finally accomplishing something. Seeking out a medieval history professor who made my heart race certainly wasn’t part of my plan.
    Two weeks after our encounter on the sidewalk, the semester started. I managed to get my transfer credits approved by appealing to the professors of two courses. I immersed myself in classes on digital communication, international studies, database management, and American literature.
    When I wasn’t in class or at the library, I studied or