CHAPTER SEVEN
EVEN IN THE EARLY PART OF our relationship, Dean didn’t give up on me. He could have—and I don’t think I would have blamed him if he had—but he didn’t. He didn’t give up on the idea of us. And his persistence made me believe in us too.
A few days after the museum lecture and our first date, he came into Jitter Beans and asked me to his place for dinner. I agreed, trying to suppress my nervousness. I was finally seeing a handsome, kind man whose smile made my pulse race. It was exactly the kind of normal I had been craving for years.
“It’s me, Liv.”
Just the sound of Dean’s voice through the apartment intercom sent a tingle over my skin.
It’s me.
Is it really you?
“I’ll be right down,” I called into the speaker.
I grabbed my coat and did a quick check of my reflection in the mirror. I was pleased by the flush of expectation coloring my cheeks and the sparkle in my eyes. I looked happy.
I was happy. I’d never had this kind of anticipation for a man. Despite my earlier anxiety, it felt good, like champagne bubbles zinging through my veins.
“Hi.” Dean was waiting in the foyer, a smile creasing his face.
My heart gave a leap at the sight of him. He wore jeans and a button-down shirt open at the collar to reveal the column of his throat. For an instant, I wondered what it would feel like to press my lips against his taut skin.
“Hi,” I replied somewhat breathlessly. I extended the potted plant I’d brought him. “It’s called a peace lily. It has white flowers that bloom in the spring.”
“This is for me?” He took the plant with a bemused look as we walked out to the car.
“Yeah. It’s really easy to care for. Just water it regularly, about once a week, and make sure it gets some sunlight. The leaves will start to droop if it needs water.”
“I’ll just call you if I need plant advice.” He shifted the pot to one arm and opened the passenger side door for me. “Thanks. No one’s ever given me a plant before.”
He set the plant on the floor of the backseat and got behind the wheel, then drove to a colonial-style building located on the west side of town. I followed him into his apartment on the third floor. Despite the ideal location, the furnishings were utilitarian and spare with a chipped Formica table, plastic chairs, and a plaid sofa.
I approached a wall of large windows that overlooked a quiet, tree-lined park. The evening light spilled over the expanse of grass and illuminated a playground in the distance.
“Nice place,” I remarked.
“Comes with the job. Should I put the plant by the windows?”
“Sure, but it shouldn’t get too much sunlight.” I took the plant from him and set it on the table. “Are you going to decorate at all?”
“Hadn’t intended to, no.” He pulled the cork on a bottle of wine and poured two glasses.
“You should. Hang some pictures, get some curtains, a few more plants. Maybe a couple of throw rugs.”
“I don’t need that kind of stuff,” Dean said. “I’ll only be here until the end of spring semester.”
A strange feeling uncurled in my chest at the reminder that his stay in Madison was temporary. He seemed to realize it too, because a faint consternation darkened his expression.
“So how do you like Madison?” I asked in an effort to dispel the sudden strain.
“It’s great. Lots to do, good students.” He handed me a glass, then slid his gaze over me. “And there’s this really pretty girl I like.”
Pleasure heated me from the inside out. I was wearing a loose black skirt and a scoop-necked white T-shirt that was apparently flattering, given the way Dean’s eyes lingered on the swells of my breasts. My nipples budded in response, and I knew he’d be able to see the hard peaks through the thin cotton of my shirt and bra.
Our gazes met again with a spark. I turned away from him.
“How did you get the UW position?” I asked, going for a curious-and-friendly tone.
“Usual application procedure. I didn’t work at all last year, so I wasn’t sure they’d make an offer, but they did.”
“Why didn’t you work?”
“I was writing a book, and my grandfather was sick, so…” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “Because of that gap, I want to take a few more postdoc positions before settling into something permanent. Good diversification too.”
“Spoken like a true professor.” I curled up on the sofa and took a sip of the wine, which was probably a fancy, expensive vintage—not that I could tell the difference. “And where do you want to end up?”
“With whoever makes the right offer,” Dean said.
“What’s the right offer?”
“A university with plenty of funding, tenure, research opportunities. Either a place that already has a solid Medieval Studies program, or an institution that wants to create one. There’ve been a few openings in recent months, but none I was interested in.”
“So you’re still waiting for the right one to come along?”
“The right one is always worth waiting for.” He winked at me.
My face heated with a flush of pleasure. Dean settled on the other end of the sofa, the lines of his body relaxed.
I let my gaze sweep over him, appreciating the way his shirt stretched over his muscular chest, the jeans molding to his long legs. As much as I liked the way he looked in his tailored suits and ties, I loved the way casual clothes fit him to perfection, loved the rumpled look of his hair and stubbled jaw.
“What about you, Olivia Winter?” he asked. “What are you going to do with your life?”
“I don’t know yet,” I answered honestly. “I’m hoping for library work or maybe something with a publishing company.”
“And where do you want to end up?” Dean asked.
“Wherever I feel at home.” The confession slipped from my mouth before I realized it was out. I ducked my head to take a sip of wine, embarrassed by the Pollyanna nature of the remark. “So, uh, what’s for dinner?”
I felt his gaze on me, intent and curious, then he unfolded himself from the sofa and stood. “Baked eel, pickled cabbage, and parsnip pie. Recipes from a medieval cookbook.”
“Oh.” I tried not to look disconcerted.
He chuckled. “I’m kidding. We’re having manicotti, green salad, and focaccia bread.”
“That sounds much more appetizing.” I followed him into the kitchen as he took a pan of bubbling pasta and cheese out of the oven. “Did you make it?”
“No, sorry. Ordered it from a restaurant downtown. I can’t seduce you with my cooking.”
“You don’t need cooking to seduce me,” I said without thinking.
Wow. Where did that come from?
Dean flashed me his gorgeous, hint-of-wicked grin. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
After he showed me where the utensils were, I set the table in the dining room while he finished getting the food together. I moved an open shoebox from the table to the windowsill, noticing that it was half full of various types and lengths of string.
I picked one up. It was a worn piece of white string, the frayed ends tied together in a knot. Why would anyone have a shoebox filled with loops of string?
Dean came in with the plates and put them on the table.
“What’s this for?” I asked, holding up the string.
“String figures.”
“What?”
He took the string from me and looped the ends around his middle fingers, then did some quick maneuvers with his other fingers, tucking them under the loops and pulling the string taut. He extended his hands to reveal a pattern of three triangles between two parallel lines.
“It’s like the game cat’s cradle,” he explained. “You make figures and patterns with a loop of string.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s…” …about the dorkiest thing I have ever heard.
It also made me like him even more.
“… interesting,” I finished. “Where did you learn to do that?”
He shrugged. “Practiced a lot when I was a kid.”
“Kind of a different hobby,” I remarked.
“Yeah.” He unhooked the string from his fingers. “Spent a lot of time in my room. String figures and the knights of the Round Table.”
“You were into medieval history even as a kid?”
He nodded. “The King Arthur tales anyway. Excalibur, Mordred, the Holy Grail, all that stuff. Guess that planted the seed.”
I had the sudden sense he’d just revealed more about himself in those few lines than anything else he’d told me so far.
“Did you have a favorite knight?” I asked.
He gave me a wry smile. “Galahad, of course. Proclaimed the greatest knight ever.” He tossed the string back into the box. “I’ll show you how to do string figures one day.”
“Can’t wait.”
He chuckled at my less-than-enthused tone, then went to retrieve the food before we sat down. My nervousness eased a little now that I had a bit of insight into his childhood. Still a polar opposite to mine, though. At least he’d had a room to call his own.
Over dinner our conversation flowed comfortably—I told him about the classes I was taking, he talked about his research, we discussed the different things to do in Madison and Chicago.
We went back to the sofa for coffee and chocolate cake. As Dean put a cup on the table in front of me, he reached out to push a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His fingers brushed my cheek, and a tingle skimmed through me.
My reaction to him was both exciting and unnerving. String figures aside, he was experienced in ways that were foreign to me, his confidence born of an assurance I couldn’t imagine and didn’t know if I could handle.
And still, I wanted to try.
“So.” I pleated the folds of my skirt. “You don’t have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, I have a girlfriend,” Dean said. “She’s just out of town right now.”
He grinned when he caught the look on my face. “Liv, of course I don’t have a girlfriend. And I’m very glad I don’t because otherwise I wouldn’t be here with you.”
“Oh.” A blush warmed my cheeks. “That’s nice. Thanks.”
He still looked amused. “You’re welcome.”
I gathered my courage and pressed forward. Better to know now what I was getting into. “But I’m sure you’ve had a lot of girlfriends, right?”
“I’ve had girlfriends, sure.”
I certainly didn’t expect a different answer, but my heart still shrank a little at his admission. “Any serious ones?”
“Depends on what you mean by serious.” He sat across from me. A shuttered darkness concealed his eyes. “There was a woman in grad school. Helen. She was a close friend of my sister’s. Still is. She also became close to my mother. They stay in touch.”
“Was that how you met her?” I asked. “Because she was a friend of your sister’s?”
“I’d known Helen for a couple of years through my sister. Then we both ended up at Harvard for grad school. She studied art history.”
“How long were you together?”
“About three years.”
“Why did you break up?”
“Different goals.” A tense undercurrent threaded his voice. “Among other things.”
I wondered how two PhDs—in history and art history, no less—could have different goals. “And she lives in California now?”
“She took a job at Stanford while she was still finishing her dissertation. Not far from where my parents and sister still live.” He reached out to refill our coffee cups. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about them right now.”
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.
“You.”
My stomach tightened. I tried to smile.
“Not much to talk about there,” I said.
“Not true.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and studied me, those penetrating eyes seeming to look right into my soul. “What’s your key, Olivia?”
“My key?”
“An old friend once told me that everyone has a key to unlocking their secrets. What’s yours?”
“Um… I’m pretty sure I don’t have a key.”
“I’m pretty sure you do.”
“Well, if everyone has one,” I said, “what’s yours?”
“Ah.” A twinkle flashed in his eyes. “You have to discover that yourself.”
“Then you have to do the same with me.”
“Challenge accepted.”
My anxiety ratcheted up a few notches at the idea that he would probe for information about me. I was well-protected with several layers of scar tissue, but that night of the museum lecture I’d realized how difficult it would be for me to withstand Professor Dean West. And now I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to.
“String figures and medieval knights,” I said softly.
He lifted an eyebrow in question.
“The keys to unlocking you.” My heart beat faster as something indefinable crossed his expression.
I knew I was right. I just didn’t know how those keys worked.
We looked at each other for a minute across the expanse of the sofa. I trailed my gaze to his mouth, remembering the warm touch of his lips against mine, the gentle way he held my face. Never had I been kissed with such heat and thoroughness. I wanted him to kiss me like that again.
Dean moved closer to me, lifting a hand to my hair with a restraint that gave me the chance to retreat if I chose to. I didn’t move. The air simmered with heat as he tugged at my ponytail and released it from the band. My hair sifted over my shoulders, and he speared his fingers into the strands, combing out the tangles. A breath caught in my throat.
“I wanted to touch you the minute I saw you,” he said, his gaze on my lips.
“I… I wanted that too,” I whispered.
He rested his hand against the side of my face and leaned in to kiss me. The touch of his mouth sent a wave of heat into my blood. I grasped the front of his shirt and melted into the kiss, opening my mouth under his and letting him inside. Hot and damp, our tongues slid together, his breath warm and chocolaty.
A moan escaped me, urgent and filled with growing need. Tentatively, I forced my fists to unclench from his shirt and spread over the expanse of his chest. His hard muscles shifted beneath my hands as I slowly traced the lines up the length of his torso. He was all heat and lean, tensile strength, coiled with a power that I instinctively knew was both safe and protective.
He moved over me, his arms bracing on the sofa cushion beneath me as he angled his mouth more firmly over mine. Arousal flared in my belly as I felt the muscular weight of him moving on top of me, my breasts pressing to his chest. My nipples tightened, a response that jolted a shock of pleasure to my core.
Dean’s kiss grew harder, more possessive. Trembles vibrated through me. I sank against the sofa and gripped his back. After a moment of hesitation, my heart pounding, I slipped my hands beneath his shirt and over his naked skin. His smooth muscles flexed and pulled beneath my palms. He stroked his tongue over my lower lip. My sex throbbed.
“Ah, Liv…” His voice was hoarse as he eased back to look at me. He trailed his hand over the side of my neck down to my chest.
I drew in a breath when he cupped my breast, brushing his thumb over my hard nipple. Even through the cotton of my shirt and bra, I could feel the warmth of his hand. He shifted on top of me, nudging his knee between my legs. My skirt slid up my thighs.
I was falling, sinking into a whirlpool of sensations. Everything about him filled me—his fresh, clean scent, the taste of his chocolate-laced breath, the touch of his hands and scrape of his whiskers.
My mind fogged with pleasure and swirls of color that concealed any darkness. I arched my hips, seeking relief from the ache pulsing in my sex. He smoothed his hand up my bare leg, stroking the tender flesh of my inner thigh before brushing the cotton of my panties.
I moaned, pushing upward, heat spooling through me. His mouth came down on mine again the same instant he increased the pressure of his finger, sliding it against the damp crevice of my sex.
I gripped the sides of his head suddenly and wrenched away. I stared at him, our breathing hard. His eyes were hot with lust for me. Twin currents of energy—fear and desire—lanced into my heart. My face flamed.
“Olivia?” Dean cupped my cheek. Beneath the lust, confusion sparked in his expression. “What’s wrong?”
“I… I’m sorry,” I gasped, burning with shame and unfulfilled need.
Dean levered himself off me, his shoulders cording with tension. “No, it’s me. I went too fast.”
“No, it’s not that. I…” God in heaven. Words stuck in my throat. Explanations tangled in my brain.
Dean tugged my skirt back down my legs and sat up. He dragged his hands over his face and through his hair, expelling his breath on a heavy sigh.
I stared at him, wanting to touch the strong lines of his profile, smooth my hand over his neck. I fought the ache threatening to break open my chest.
“Dean.” My voice was thin and ragged.
He held up a hand. “Just… give me a minute, Liv.”
Silence filled the space between us, broken only by the sound of our breathing. He pushed to his feet and went into the bathroom.
Embarrassed and not wanting to prolong the awkwardness for either of us, I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my bag, and hurried out the door. The street was bordered by several other apartment buildings, so there were at least three bus stops.
Cold air whipped against my face. Buttoning my jacket, I walked a few blocks to a stop farther away and prayed a bus would arrive soon.
“Liv!”
I tensed as Dean hurried toward me, his jaw tight with frustration. His jacket was open, his hair messy. He came to a stop and glowered at me.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.” I hunched into my jacket against the chill.
Dean swore, pulling a hand down his face again before he visibly tried to regain control of his emotions. “If you want to go home, I’ll take you.”
“I do want to go home.”
“Then come on.” He turned and stalked toward the apartment building.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and followed him to the underground parking garage. Tears stung my eyes. I badly wanted to explain, but I didn’t know where to start. And Dean’s irritation felt like a forbidding wall I couldn’t breach.
He yanked open the door for me, then went around to the driver’s seat. Tense silence filled the air as he drove down University Avenue, his hands gripping the wheel. I thought he’d drop me off and leave, but he got out of the car to walk me to the front door.
I stopped on the doorstep and turned, keeping my gaze on the column of his throat. “I’m sorry.”
He let out a breath and lifted a hand to touch me, then dropped it to his side. “You don’t need to apologize. It’s my fault.”
“I’m not… I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m playing games,” I said.
The idea that he might think that of me was laughable. I was incapable of playing games with men. I didn’t know any of the rules.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
I fumbled to fit my key in the lock, my eyes stinging again. Dean waited until I was safely inside, but didn’t respond to my mumbled good-night. Still, I felt his gaze on me through the glass door before I turned to walk up the stairs to my apartment.
Old memories and nightmares blistered my sleep that night until finally I got up and spent hours staring blindly at the TV. A black, empty pit cracked open inside me. At dawn, I hauled myself over to my computer and opened my email to find a message from him.
Liv, I’m so damn sorry. Can I see you again?
No. That was all I needed to say. I would never hear from him again.
N-o… My hands trembled on the keyboard. No, you can’t, Dean. You can’t see me again, and I shouldn’t want to see you…
I stared at the message, trashed it, and wrote: You can come over tonight.
I hit the send button before I could think anymore. I sat there with my heart pounding until his response came four minutes later. I’ll be there at seven.
I dressed and went to morning classes, worked an afternoon shift at Jitter Beans, then tried to study at the library before going home. I showered and changed into loose black pants and a T-shirt.
After clipping my hair back into a ponytail, I paced the living room until the bell rang five minutes before seven. I buzzed Dean in and left my apartment door partway open.
“Liv?” He knocked and pushed it open the rest of the way.
“Hi.” I ran my shaking hands over my thighs, unable to stop myself from drinking in the arresting sight of him in jeans and a rugby shirt that looked thick and soft. His hair was rumpled in the way I was beginning to love, the length brushing the top of his collar and curling over his ears.
He shut the door and shucked off his jacket, not looking anywhere but at me.
“Liv, I’m sorry,” he said.
I shook my head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was.” His eyes flashed with self-directed irritation. “I went too fast, and I scared you. I didn’t mean to.”
Oh, Sir Galahad…
My throat constricted. “I wasn’t… I don’t want you to think…”
I didn’t even know what to say, much less how to say it. As much as I had thought about being with a man like Dean West, I didn’t know if I could ever actually do it.
And I didn’t understand why he would even want me to.
Dean was successful, authoritative, experienced, sophisticated, assured.
I was not.
“Look, I…” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, slanting his gaze away from me. “I haven’t been with a woman in a while, Liv.”
“You haven’t?”
“Since before my grandfather got sick. I had to deal with him and his illness, and between that and my book it didn’t leave room for anything else. Or the desire, really.”
“Oh.”
“I’m telling you because you’re the first woman in a long time whom I like,” he said. “And I didn’t mean to act like a horny teenager on his first date, but I did and I’m sorry. I do have more control than that and can move more slowly.”
I almost smiled. Well, that was something. A sexually experienced professor who had been abstinent for a while, and now wanted… me. It would have been funny if it weren’t another glaring reason why we couldn’t possibly work.
Or could we?
A whisper in my mind, faint as the last ring of an echo.
I stared at Dean, the fathomless depths of his brown eyes, the lock of hair brushing his forehead. I remembered when he had pulled me close to him, and we fit together like the pieces of a puzzle.
I looked at his mouth and recalled how it had settled seamlessly against my lips. How his body had locked to mine, my curves yielding to the hard planes of his chest.
Maybe we could fit in other ways too, convex and concave, angles and hollows. His confidence might bolster my own. Certainly he could show me what true pleasure felt like. And I…
I’d have loved to believe I was a fair lady to his knight, but from what I could remember of the King Arthur tales, none of the women met with a desirable end.
No, I was just Olivia Winter. Still trying to find my way through. A woman who knew very well that knights didn’t exist but held out hope that good men outnumbered the bad. A woman who still believed in leaps of faith, as long as you trusted your instincts.
I gestured toward the sofa. Dean and I sat down next to each other. Anxiety clenched my stomach as I struggled for a way to tell him the truth.
“I’m sorry I freaked out last night,” I finally said. “It really wasn’t you.”
“What was it, then?” Dean asked.
“I…” Just say it.
A crease formed between his eyebrows. “Liv, I shouldn’t have—”
“Dean, I’m a virgin.”
He blinked. “What?”
My heart felt like it was about to claw out of my chest.
“I… I’m a virgin,” I repeated. “I… I’ve never had intercourse before.”
“Oh.” Comprehension dawned in his expression. “So that’s why you…”
“I just… I don’t want you to think it was anything you did,” I said. “It wasn’t. Everything we did… I liked it. I wanted it.”
I wanted you.
“It’s weird, I know,” I continued. Sweat collected at the base of my throat. “I’m twenty-four.”
“It’s not weird,” Dean said.
Oh, with me, it definitely is.
“Well.” I let out a shaky breath. “I wanted you to know. When I… when I asked you about your girlfriends, I didn’t tell you that I haven’t had a serious boyfriend. Ever. I’ve dated some, but mostly I’ve just kept to myself.”
He frowned, as if he were trying to figure out what I wasn’t saying. I avoided looking into his eyes, tracing my gaze over his shoulders and arms. My pulse tripped at the way he sat—the wide masculine stance of his feet on the carpet, his hands linked loosely between his knees.
“I’m not frigid or anything,” I added quickly. “I mean, I have a collection of erotica and I… I touch myself… oh, God.”
My face flared with embarrassment. What the hell am I doing? I pressed my hands to my cheeks and closed my eyes.
Dean moved close enough that I could smell his delicious mixture of soap and autumn air, and then he closed his hands around my wrists and pulled them away from my face.
I forced my eyes open, my throat aching. Tension still lined his features, as if he knew there was more, but warmth and affection filled his expression. That alone eased some of my rampant fear.
“Olivia.” He skimmed his fingers across my hot cheek. “I want you. I won’t hide that. I can’t. But that’s not the only reason I asked you out.”
“Why did you, then?”
“Because you… you’re different.” He rubbed a lock of my hair between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve spent most of my life trying too damn hard to prove myself to other people. To surpass their expectations. Or trying to fix things when I failed. But that only meant driving myself harder to succeed.”
Something inside me loosened at his confession. I knew all about presenting a very specific version of yourself to others. No matter how heart-wrenchingly difficult it was.
“I don’t feel like I have to try so hard with you,” Dean said.
“So you’re saying I’m easy?” I lifted an eyebrow skeptically.
A smile tugged at his mouth. “I mean you’re easy to be with. I need to prove myself to you, but in a good way. Because I want to, not because I have to.”
He suddenly looked embarrassed and let go of me. He paced to the windows, his hands shoved into his pockets.
“I don’t think turtles have very interesting lives.”
North’s voice, wry and gravelly, echoed at the back of my mind. Some of my anxiety eased.
Dean was no reclusive turtle. That much was certain. He had an innate self-assurance, a way of moving through the world that I wished I could cultivate. And he was sexually confident, even I could see that, experienced in how to please a woman. He would know exactly what to do.
The question was—did I want him to do it to me?
The answer was—
I gazed at the expanse of Dean’s back, the way he stood with his feet apart, as if he were rooted to the ground. Solid. Secure.
“What about those string figures, professor?” I asked.
“What about them?”
“You said you’d show me how to do them.” I paused. “I’ll bet you carry a piece of string around, don’t you?”
He turned to face me, his eyes sparking with amusement. He dug into the pocket of his jeans and produced a loop of string. With a few maneuvers, he hooked it around his fingers into a familiar pattern and approached me.
“Do you know cat’s cradle?” he asked.
“Believe it or not, I do.” I pinched the X-shaped pattern, pulled it around to the middle, and fastened the string around my fingers.
Dean took the string from the top, looped it to form another pattern, then held out his hands and let me make the next move.