After the last few years of taking women’s studies classes as a minor, she’d almost gotten used to seeing the lone male in class. They came as a joke, a bet, or because they thought the class was about something sexual.

“Excuse me, are you in the right class? This is History of Feminism. If you’re supposed to be in beginning writing, it’s down the hall in room 313. ”

She watched the man looking at her with something she would have thought was anger, but there wasn’t any aggression coming from him. It was something else entirely. He looked like he was in pain, struggling to form words. He must be embarrassed that he had parked his ass in the wrong room. She could almost take pity on him. Then again, he could just be a dick that thought it was a joke to take the class.

“Are you okay? It’s okay if you are in the wrong class. We aren’t going to force you to stay. Just grab your stuff and slink out. We won’t laugh.”

There was a funny rumbling sound in the quiet classroom that rolled towards her like a wave. It came from his direction.

The man just stared at her. He didn’t look like many of the guys she knew. He looked grown, having lost that boyish appearance so many college men were hoping to slough off in their freshman year. He was good looking; there was no doubt about that. His hair was brown and a little messy, but cute. All in all, not bad. His staring at her was possibly an attempt to try and get the upper hand. If that was what he thought, he had another thing coming.

Now Quinn was in a position where she had to play a game with a potential asshole. She did not like playing games. In fact, she thought anyone that did that deserved to get punched in the neck. It was bullshit to twist people around either out of ignorance or for mean-spirited amusement.

“I’m sorry, do you not speak English? I can get an interpreter in here…” Trying to be the bigger person, she was thinking through the reasons he wouldn’t respond to her. She watched his mouth open again and waited. Every set of eyes in the room was bouncing between her and the man near the back.

Before she could say anything else, the door opened again and Professor Burrell walked in. She stopped short when she noticed the standoff between Quinn and Rain.

The professor’s eyes cut to the class and the man. “Mr. Rochon, glad to see you made it. If everyone would quiet down, we can get started. Quinn? Do you need something?”

Quinn broke her eye contact with the man and looked to the professor. She respected and admired Burrell, and wanted nothing more than to be like her when she was the same age. She’d hoped that the professor would take the man to task. But now she had thrown her a twist she wasn’t ready for.

“No, I’m fine. Do you want me to take attendance?”

“Just pass around the list and we can start while they are telling me whether or not they are physically or mentally here.”

It seemed the professor knew the man in the class. He hadn’t acknowledged her when she came in, his eyes were still trained on her.

Quinn went back to her desk and even as she turned her back to him, she could tell that he was still watching her. She glanced down at the attendance sheet and scanned down to Rochon. Rainier Rochon was his name. He must be a local with the name Rainier. It was also apparent that he was in the right class. That was an interesting turn of events.

Handing the clipboard to the first person she came across; she kept her eyes from turning back to Rainier Rochon. Though she knew without a shadow of a doubt, if she had looked up, she’d see him staring right back at her.

* * *

Rain gripped the tiny table that passed as a desk and hoped he didn’t break it. His heart was beating out of his chest. His skin felt hot and uncomfortably tight. His animal was clawing to get out. He was struggling to maintain his composure.

There was a roar in his mind that was mostly his bear, but some of it was him. His mate was standing at the front of the class, just feet away from him. He must be dreaming. Did he already get bored and fall asleep in class? That would be embarrassing, to say the least. His life couldn’t change that fast, could it?

The minutes ticked by and he worked to control his voice, his hands, but he couldn’t control what was happening on the inside. His heart wouldn’t stop its double-time staccato, his cock was hard and that was doubly uncomfortable given the jeans he was wearing. He wanted nothing more than to grab her and run from the lecture hall and into the forest.

His fingers itched to touch her, his mouth wanted to taste her. His desire was overwhelming to someone who had managed to control their physical needs for most of his life. Now his emotions and sex drive were spinning inside him like a tilt-a-whirl. He was a starving man in front of a buffet. A man hobbling through the desert and seeing an oasis. Desire took on a whole new meaning for him. It wasn’t a thought, it was a drive, a pull at the core of his being that demanded to be acknowledged.

Grabbing her and dragging her from the classroom wouldn’t be acceptable or advisable. His twin souls had a partner and they needed to think about how they were going to be treating her. For the first time in twenty-one years, he could feel himself stitching together a space inside him that he hadn’t realized had been empty. His souls melding with another person, a perfect fit. She was a beautiful, strong woman and he got the feeling she didn’t have the best first impression of him.

That was something he could overcome. He had to. He needed to come up with a plan to talk to her. She’d already formed opinions about him based on the fact that he was even taking the class. It threw their dynamic completely off. Never had so much ridden on first impressions. Now he had to show her, convince her he was not only a decent person but her person.

He was in the negative already and he hadn’t even met her. As he focused on the class, taking in the words by osmosis, his animal memorized every little nuance of their mate. Her eyes, hair, her skin, the frown lines on her forehead. She was distressed by him or the situation he had caused by just being there. This was bad. He needed advice, a game plan, maybe even a script.

His feet wanted to move, they wanted to beat a path towards her. He wanted to touch her face, wrap his hands around those cheeks, feel the smoothness, and brush his thumbs over her cheekbones. If he was closer he could smell her. The room was awash in scents. He needed to know her scent, what her skin smelled like when she was warm when she was cold. After a shower what did she smell like? After she woke from a nap, soft and dewy?

What did she like to eat? Her favorite music? What were her goals in life? What did she hate, or hope to change about herself, or to change in the world. Did she like the woods or was she a city girl? Was he even her type? These were all things he had to know, things he needed to experience to even begin to know who she was.

None of these things were things he could know sitting in class. They weren’t even things he would be able to find out with a single encounter. They were the things you would learn about a lover with time spent together.

Rain didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to learn about her piece by piece. He wanted to know everything about her all at once.

There was too much happening for him to think of anything beyond what he was feeling. He was so fucking over the moon. His mate, a human, was in the same room with him. His desire to protect her was overwhelming. There was no immediate threat in the classroom, but it didn’t change that his bear would have been happier if she was stashed safely away in a den somewhere.

As the minutes ticked by, he tried to get a hold of himself. Resisting all of his instincts, which was not something he would normally ever do, Rain managed to make himself relax. Releasing the edge of the desk, he took deep, measured breaths, his eyes on his mate the entire time.

The woman was named Quinn. He did manage to catch that when the professor came in. Quinn--it was a beautiful name. If fit her, he could tell that. But now he was making assumptions about her based on how she looked. His instincts told him that that was a dangerous way to go. Nothing about how she looked would tell him the truth of her.