PENELOPE TRIED TO ignore Bishop. The story he’d told her swirled through her mind constantly in those first few weeks after he’d confessed it. He had a whole list of reasons why they couldn’t be together, but that last one was a doozy. She spent a lot of time wondering if he was right.
He wouldn’t get the counseling she suggested. He didn’t want to talk about his issues, because in his skewed judgment, he deserved to be miserable. If the counseling was successful, he might be happy, and that wouldn’t support the life sentence of isolation he’d given himself. He seemed determined to disappear back into the bleak and lonely world she’d found him in all those months ago.
Maybe she should let him. It wasn’t her job to save him.
She repeated this in her head, over and over, as she watched him read at night, his elegant and troubled face always too close to the book, even while wearing his reading glasses. He’d frown, flip back to prior pages, and squint at the text. Sometimes he mouthed the words as he went along, his soft lips mesmerizing her for far too long.
She could watch him read all night. Bishop didn’t read passively. He read as if he was having a silent debate with the book. She flipped pages as she progressed, but Bishop seemed to peel the pages away, as if every reveal was a layer deeper into his exploration of the manuscript. As if he was devouring each word, so that when he was done, the book would remain a part of him forever.
This evening, a month beyond her birthday and that fateful night she’d stolen into his bed, Penelope mentally repeated her silent warning again, that this man was too determined to be miserable. Any effort on her part would be a waste of her time.
His long fingers absently caressed the cover of the novel in his hands, and her nipples peaked. She could practically feel the pads of his fingertips stroking over the sensitive tips of her breasts, just like the binding. Sighing, she switched off the warning in her head. She wasn’t listening.
Turning a page of the book in her hand, she pretended to read. It had been a month since she’d kissed him, and sitting across from him each evening had only gotten harder. The truth was, there was no one else she ever wanted to read with, let alone get naked with.
She wanted her guardian to consume her like he did those books. Savor every single part. Move his lips against her skin as he worked to interpret every nuance of her. Satiate himself with her body so thoroughly that she’d be part of him forever.
Was she willing to risk her heart for the chance that she might help him through to the other side of the abyss he’d been living in for the past ten years? But it was more than her heart. There was something so deep about the connection she had to him. It really felt as strong as if he was a father to her. A father, a brother, a best friend, a lover. The other half of her soul. The family she never had.
She needed to maintain what they had. He was her grounding point now. Her home base and the bedrock on which her new life was being built. Before him, she’d only ever had a shaky, temporary foundation. Now she had something solid.
Maybe Bishop had been right in the beginning when he’d said her interest in him was really just a need for her father’s love, combined with her budding sexual curiosity. Maybe that’s what it was in the beginning. Maybe, but she didn’t care. It was more than that now. Their relationship had grown roots and branches. It had morphed into something real.
Penelope set her teeth and lifted her chin. No matter how fucked up the reason she’d developed an interest in her guardian, all the therapy in the world couldn’t convince her that what she felt for him wasn’t real, and that he wasn’t worthy of her interest.
Dealing with Bishop was a delicate dance. He had so many things driving him away from her, but, lucky for her, there were some powerful forces pulling them together, whether either of them wanted it or not.
Besides, she wasn’t afraid to man-handle her challenges. Bulldoze her way right through to the end game. Drugs in her dorm room? Exhibit A.
But she didn’t think Bishop could be bulldozed. His convictions went so deep that, if they had any chance, she’d need to play this more delicately. Maybe let him lead. Defer to his guidance and let him feel like her guardian until, together, they’d exhausted all paths and he finally realized everything led back to them.
At least she prayed it all would lead back to them, because she feared the other option was losing him forever.
She just had to be strong and patient. Let him be the good guardian he wanted to be to her. Pen’s stomach flip-flopped. Bishop was an enigma so tangled that she couldn’t imagine where his guidance might take her, in his efforts to steer her away from him.
Inside his head was a Gordian knot of guilt, self-sacrifice, shame and fear, and if she could just solve that impossible problem, they could be happy. Luckily, “impossible” had never scared Penelope.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and looked up to see Bishop pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. She realized she’d seen him do this often in the past few days.
Watching her guardian read was pretty much the only guilty pleasure Pen had left since she’d promised him she’d back off the seduction, so she practically had all his reading-body-language memorized. This was definitely new.
“Have a headache?”
Bishop opened his eyes slowly, as if it hurt, and blinked at her. “It’s okay, I can keep reading.”
“It’s a yes or no question, Professor.”
He smiled weakly. “Yes, I have a headache,” he said, indulgently. “I have a lot of chart data to transcribe right now, and spreadsheets always give me eye strain.”
“I can transcribe,” she offered immediately, jumping at the chance to work in the lab.
His refusal was immediate and predictable. God forbid she spend any extra time around him. She rolled her eyes.
“Bishop, why can’t I help? I’d love to work with you in the lab. Please?” She set down the copy of Ethan Frome she was rereading and sat forward. “School doesn’t start for another few weeks and I’m bored out of my mind.”
“No. It’s not going to happen.”
She didn’t like emotional blackmail, but she was willing to use it for a good cause. “You know, I used to beg my dad to let me help him in the lab, but he never let me. Then you came along and he welcomed you right in with open arms. That really hurt me. Don’t be a dick like my dad.”
She sat back and crossed her arms, glaring at him. Checkmate, Professor.
*****