Chapter Seven
Clarity
Racing waves of sensation rolled up my back and over my shoulders from the place where Ford's hand had touched my bare back. My body reverberated with the awkward strength I had felt from him on the dance floor. The masculine pull of his body during the waltz still tugged at me, and my eyes sought him out again.
He stood with a colleague, an English professor, across the dining hall, and I wished we were anywhere but Landsman College. In any neighborhood, in any city, our age difference would not be an issue, and I wouldn't feel the bonds of an honor code strangling my natural responses to him.
My stomach warmed with a hunger to be near him again, but Ford was doing his best to avoid me. He had practically run off the dance floor. My cheeks burned with the thought that he had felt my attraction and dismissed it with distance, but my heart wondered if maybe he felt the same.
If only we had met in some big, anonymous city. I played over the cocktail party in my mind, an urban skyline replacing the manicured lawns and fall leaves of Landsman College.
"Having fun?" Thomas popped out of the crowd in front of me.
I clapped a hand over my chest as the fantasy shattered. "Sure, yeah, I guess," I said.
"I'm sorry we couldn't be partners. I tried," Thomas' smile was crooked.
"I thought Ford, I mean, Professor Bauer chose them at random."
Thomas scrubbed a hand over his opposite shoulder. "Yeah, but we would have written a great article. Don't you think?"
I shrugged. "What did you and Allison come up with?"
"She thinks the silent auction should include eco-friendlier items in order to raise awareness of global warming." Thomas crinkled his nose.
"That's a good way to spin the assignment to something you think is important." I shifted so I could see Ford again across the dance floor. He was heading out the door, and my thoughts stumbled.
Thomas followed my gaze. "Professor Ford wants everyone to meet in the foyer so we can compare story ideas and make sure we're not overlapping."
"Oh, god, I was supposed to mingle with my father and get quotes from alumni for our story idea." I clutched my champagne flute with both hands. All I had done was stand in the corner and daydream.
Thomas brightened. "That's okay, I'll stay with you if you want. We can hear what Professor Bauer has to say then come back in here and try to have some fun."
I threaded my way through the crowd with Thomas close on my heels. "I haven't even come up with a good lead yet. I don't even really have my opinion fully formed. Oh, my god, I hope this assignment isn't due soon."
"Don't worry, I'll help," Thomas said.
"No, that's okay, you have your own article to write, and it looks like Allison is waiting for you," I pointed to our classmate.
Thomas took one look at Allison and crinkled his nose at her hopeful smile. Then he grabbed my arm and steered me to the opposite side of the door. I couldn't dodge around a tall table without wrenching my arm away from him and making a scene, so I found a spot in the corner and turned on him.
"Thomas, what has gotten into you?" I asked.
"Sorry, Clarity, I just wanted, I just thought we could take a second." He looked around in panic and then snagged a wilting rose from the centerpiece of the tall table. "I just wanted to know if—"
"Are you two coming?" Ford appeared behind Thomas. The college kid shrank despite their almost equal height. "Sorry, did I interrupt something?"
"No, we were just on our way to the class meeting." I stepped around Thomas and caught Ford's sleeve. "I haven't gotten any quotes from people."
He patted my hand. "That's alright, we don't want to bury our own opinions for this assignment. Op-eds are a vital part of a student newspaper."
He shrugged off my touch, and the bubble in my chest deflated. I followed Ford out to the foyer, and Thomas trailed after us. "But op-eds very rarely share a byline. Shouldn't we be sticking to the assignment like everyone else?"
"Why don't you let me check in with the other students and see where we all stand, Ms. Dunkirk," Ford said. The blue in his eyes was hidden under a shade of hard gray. "Unless you have further issues with this assignment, can I address the newspaper staff?"
The push and pull of Ford made me step carefully. I stood on the opposite side of the circle from him, arms crossed. Each brush of his eyes called up sparks that his serious expression extinguished. My early fantasy cooled and hardened as he clearly regarded me as just another student.
As he talked, I suddenly couldn't take it. "Shouldn't this have been an individual assignment in order to get the best variety of opinions and ideas? You could have asked us each to find a topic and then assigned partners after the most compelling stories were chosen," I said.
Ford's gray eyes flashed over me again. "Ms. Dunkirk, I think you'll find, in the real world, editors very rarely tell you what to write. Yes, there are expectations, but if you cannot discover those and cater to them, your articles will not be included."
"But you've told us to write a co-authored piece," I snapped.
"In order to facilitate your learning. Is that something you are still interested in, Ms. Dunkirk?"
When the quick meeting broke up, Thomas leaned in to nudge my shoulder. "I'll stay if you still want to get those quotes," he said.
"Clarity," Ford strode across the dispersing circle. "If we're done discussing tonight's assignment, I have that feedback you asked for."
"My story?" I asked. "Yes, I'd like to see what you thought."
"It's in my office, if you're interested." Ford said. He gestured towards the doors, and I went with him.
The cool air after a formal event always felt freeing, but tonight it only whipped up a stir of nerves. I shivered.
"Did you have a coat?" Ford asked.
"No, there was valet parking," I said.
He unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket and slipped it around my shoulders. I tried to protest, but he shook his head. "It's a rental, might as well get some good use out of it."
Ford's spicy musk surrounded me, and I breathed it in deeply. Feeling his amused attention on me, I tried to recover myself. "I love the smell of autumn, all the leaves and wood smoke."
He nodded. "You know, I don't mind typing up my comments if you send me it."
Fear gripped me. "You didn't like it. I knew it was a frivolous waste of time, but it felt like I just had to get it out." I wrapped his coat tighter around me and shuffled my high heels through the dried leaves.
Ford laughed. "Spoken like a true writer. All I meant was I could save you a trip."
"Thanks," I glanced at him, "but it was nice to have an excuse to leave."
It sounded innocent, but echoes of other thoughts loudly contradicted me inside my head. Ford's dark hair curled over the crisp collar of the white tuxedo shirt, and my fingers itched to sweep it clear. To tangle my hands in the hair at the back of his neck, the neck that already showed dark stubble. I wondered what it would feel like against my cheek, the bare skin of my arm.
I shivered again, and Ford jumped ahead to open the door of Thompson Hall. "One nice thing about a top floor office is that it's always hot," he joked.
His narrow office was so warm that I immediately shed his tuxedo jacket and slipped it onto the hanger I found on his couch. Ford opened the small, ivy-covered window and let in a soft, autumn breeze to cool us.
"So you really liked it? You're not just being nice to me?" I asked.
Ford tossed me the short story and leaned against his desk. It took a moment before I could tear my eyes from the shirt that was tight against his muscles when he crossed his arms.
"I loved it," he said.
The words sent a honeyed delight over my body until I looked down at the pages. "There's so much red ink. Oh, my god, it's like a blood bath."
Ford chuckled as I sank onto the small sofa in his office. He stepped over and sat on the arm next to me. "Don't let that get you down. Most of my comments are about structure and clearing out the extra images. Your writing itself is impressive."
I gripped the pages and pored over each mark. Ford cleared his throat and went to reopen his office door. The breeze made it waver closed again, so he leaned against it. The faint light from the hallway cast him into silhouette, and I realized neither of us had bothered to turn on more than the small desk lamp.
In the dim light, he could still read my expression and chuckled again. "You have to think of all criticism as constructive or it'll sink you," he said.
"Do you mind going over it with me? I'm not sure I can interpret all of this as positive unless you explain it," I said.
Ford pushed off the office door and went to one of the sparsely occupied shelves. He pulled a bottle of scotch from behind a wide textbook. "Would my comments go down better with a drink?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I had champagne at the event," I confessed.
He smiled at me, then pried his eyes away and poured an extra finger of scotch. I tugged my thin dress strap back into place and wished the breeze would blow through the open window again. His office was getting warm.
"You seem used to events like that. Does your father make you go with him a lot?" Ford asked.
I looked up from the pages of my short story and met his eyes. In the dim light, the gray was shifting to a deeper, fathomless blue. "You don't like events like that, do you?"
"The event's fine, I just have a problem with a lot of the people there," Ford said.
I shrugged, and my dress strap slipped again. "My father is great at those events. Maybe knowing how to schmooze is an inherited trait."
Ford finished his drink and settled onto the arm of the sofa next to me again. His fingers plucked my errant strap and tugged it back in place. "You inherited that but not your father's passion for creativity in everyday life?" he asked.
My breath faltered. His fingers had left a brand on my bare skin, one that my body believed only his touch could sooth. "Creative expression has its place but, no, I think practicality should take precedent in everyday life."
Ford reached for the tendrils of hair escaping my messy chignon then pulled back. He rose, tossed himself into his creaky, old desk chair, and kicked his feet up. "You know, I think I might be starting to agree with your father. You are too practical. You know college is supposed to be a time to explore, right?"
I shoved away the blazing thoughts of what I wanted to explore. "Is that what you did?"
He shook his head. "I enlisted straight out of high school and had the Army pay for my education."
"So you were practical too," I said.
Ford trailed his eyes up to my face, and I realized how primly I was perched. "You know it's possible to be both. Like Hemingway," he said. He nodded towards the skeleton selection on his shelves. "Top, middle shelf."
I stood up, the swirl of my long black dress and the appreciative focus of his eyes like a caress against my sensitive skin. I hoped he didn't see the trail of grazed goosebumps. I had never felt a man's eyes on my body with such pleasure.
I wanted to linger along the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, but the book was easy to find. "Did you just move offices or something?" I asked.
Ford snorted. "I guess I'm just not your stereotypical professor."
My mind backtracked and played that thought over again. Ford was not a stereotypical professor. Maybe that was why I was having trouble thinking of him as off-limits. He was relatively young for a professor, more closely connected to a vocation than scholarly studies. Ford was also unmarried, single, and devastatingly handsome.
I was not the only student that thought about him, and that was a fact. My female classmates, and a few of the men, commented on his effortless attractiveness almost every day.
"Have you ever read A Moveable Feast? It's Hemingway's reminiscing about starting out as a writer in Paris." Ford continued to lounge in his office chair.
I blocked out the thousand nagging voices of my body that urged me to test the muscles of his thighs by falling into his lap or taste the potent scotch flavor that must have lingered on his lips.
"No, I haven't read it." I sat down on the edge of the sofa as prim as before. "You must have."
Ford smiled. "It's a favorite."
I flipped through the dog-eared pages and wished I could take the copy home with me. The pages he marked and the passages he underlined made me wonder more about him than the story of a young Hemingway in Paris. I imagined climbing into bed with a book he knew so intimately, and the thought fired another blush across my cheeks.
Focusing my eyes on the open page in my hands did not help. The passage spoke about settling into bed with his wife, their books, and the open window showing the stars outside. Longing was a sharp burn through my chest. The simplicity and peace of that scene and the loving way it was worded made me want the same with all my heart.
Ford had underlined it and bent the corner of the page. I wondered if he read it with the same ache. He said nothing and gazed out the open window of his narrow office. The last clinging ivy rustled quietly, and the faint scent of cold drifted in. The season was moving on to winter any day now, and it added to the bittersweet tone of the words.
The sound of faraway laughter reached us, but we were both content to sit in the quiet of the top floor. I knew we were the only ones in the building, and even the light from the hallway seemed reticent to join us.
Foolish, romantic junk, I thought.
That's why I worried my writing was frivolous. My head was always filled with silly notions or daydreams that would never come to pass. Ford was just being polite, and he was probably counting the seconds until I woke up from my schoolgirl trance and let him go home.
Ford rocked gently in his office chair, his feet still up on the corner of the desk. He looked perfectly content until he caught me gazing at him again.
"I'd let you borrow my copy, but it's all marked up. I know it's practical to buy used books, but you really should take the chance to approach a book entirely from your own view." He sat up and clapped his feet on the floor.
"Doesn't that sort of negate the whole point of college lit classes? What would Professor Rumsfeld say?" I asked.
The teasing brought a deeper, sapphire blue to his eyes. "Students only get what they put in," Ford said, "so, by all means, if you want to skim the parts that touched me instead of letting the story reach you, then go ahead and borrow that copy."
I flipped through a few more pages and glanced over the marked passages. Ford leaned forward to crane his neck, and I wondered if he knew how romantic the lines he had chosen really sounded.
"I don't think it would distract me," I quipped. "You've underlined pretty much every word."
The corners of his mouth curved up. "If you don't have a book like that, then you need to spend a lot more time reading."
Our conversation faded to the background as I wondered how his lips could appear both hard and soft. The smile warmed them, while the hard line of his jaw promised a force that could crack inhibitions.
I couldn't breathe. "Sorry, I have plenty of reading for class," I said.
When I went to stand up, I tripped, and Ford shot off his chair to steady me and we tangled together in the small space. I couldn't step back because the sofa edge promised to trip me, and Ford's leg was caught by his office chair. We teetered for a moment, arms clinging to each other, and then laughed.
"Hold on," Ford said, his breathless laugh near my ear. "Get your balance."
My balance was gone, along with clear thought, and any sense of control. Ford pulled me to him stronger than gravity, and I stepped closer. His quick intake of breath encouraged me to come closer.
My hands had flown to his chest, not to push him away, but to cling. Underneath one palm, I could feel his heartbeat galloping. All I could do was look up into his dark-blue eyes and let him draw me closer.
Ford's supportive arm around my back tightened, and I felt the hot pulse of his muscles flex as he tugged me gently against him.
The small office plunged into darkness, barely rebuffed by the small desk lamp and a digital clock that read midnight. Neither of us moved as our privacy was confirmed. No one else was in Thompson Hall anymore, and we were all alone.
Ford's lips parted, but he said nothing. His arm continued to press me in, and my fingers flexed on his hard chest instead of pushing him away.
A question appeared in his eyes and I nodded, more a reaching out than an answer. I found my footing and reached up on my toes with perfect balance.
Ford swallowed a frustrated groan and slipped his other hand around my waist. He pressed his lips together to wet them, then let out a surrendering sigh.
My hands inched up his chest to the bare skin at his unbuttoned shirt. Warning bells and worries sounded in my head, but a wildfire of desire pushed them away.
Just one kiss, I told myself.
One kiss would be enough to get rid of the pressure, to release the delicious anticipation, and leave me with clear thoughts. One kiss would snap us both back to reality.
Ford must have felt the same way because he bent his head, his eyes drifting to my eager lips. I felt a push and pull in his arm as he struggled. We were alone, cloaked in a silent building, in the center of a private campus, and the only light was blocked out by our joining bodies.
No! My mind cried frantically. I was seized with thoughts of my reckless mother and all the hurt she had caused our family. If I gave in to even one delicious moment, I was no better than her.
I caught Ford's eyes, and he saw them flare with worry. His only answer was a lost smile: we were both goners, and there was no going back.
When my body pressed against his, and we both felt the heat, it all felt inevitable.
Then he stopped, stilled his encircling arms, and caught his breath. A battalion of emotions charged over his face and for a moment, I hoped he would lose the battle. I wanted his lips on mine, I wanted the heat of his kiss, the assurance that he felt the same fiery longing as me.
Ford pulled away and cleared his throat. "I never understood how long dresses and high heels mixed," he said.
I forced a giggle. "The lights going out didn't help."
"I forgot they turn out the building lights after midnight, not that I'm usually here this late," Ford said. He turned and pushed his desk chair in. "Don't worry, there's enough light from the exit signs and windows to see our way down to the front."
I turned back to his nearly empty bookshelves and pretended I needed a minute to remember where his copy of A Moveable Feast was supposed to fit. It was a thin ruse but, then again, so was his rummaging around in his desk drawers as if his keys weren't in his pockets.
Ford opened another drawer and pulled out a small, laminated card. "I better call security and let them know we're still in here before they lock the doors. I don't think shimmying down a rain gutter is going to work in that dress."
"No, don't!" I cried. I spun from the bookshelf and dodged over to his desk to put both hands over his phone.
It took no more than a few seconds for Ford to catch my reason for panic. Despite the fact that the overheated moment we had just shared our office visit had been innocent, the likelihood of campus security seeing it that way was significantly less. I knew for a fact, from my father, that most of the campus-wide rumors flew from the mouths of the security guards. They saw everything and often drew their own conclusions, mostly for fun.
What would they say when Ford and I sauntered out together in our formal wear?
He said nothing, but stepped back and crossed his arms. The look on his face was a choppy surf of frustration and fear. It was much more his reputation than mine at stake. I would only lose face while he could lose his job.
"Let me call them," I said. "I'll just tell them I was picking up a paper and didn't realize the time."
Ford leaned over to the sofa and picked up the forgotten pages. "That's the truth," he said.
He didn't meet my eyes, and I knew whatever we had felt moments before was gone. I picked up the phone and dialed. "Hi, sorry, I'm in an open office in Thompson Hall, and the lights just went out. Yes, yeah, I know. I was picking up a paper from my professor and didn't realize it was past midnight."
I hung up and trotted to the door. "Thanks for the comments on my creative writing, Professor Bauer," I said.
He followed me into the hallway and pulled his office door shut behind him. "I'll walk you down," he said.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Ford scowled. "I've fallen asleep in my office once or twice. I'm sure the security guard will think nothing of it happening again."
The beefy security guard at the front door didn't even raise an eyebrow. "Student ID," he held out his hand to me.
Before Ford could say whose daughter I was, I lied. "It didn't match my dress for the donors’ dinner. My name's Trisha Maxwell."
The security guard rolled his eyes and opened the door for me. "Asleep at the wheel again, Ford?" he asked.
Ford scrubbed a hand over his face as if he'd just woken up. "Would have slept all night if I didn't hear her clattering around."
We stepped out into the cool night air, and Ford followed me down the sidewalk. I shivered, but refused to look back, afraid he would offer me his coat again.