Page 33 of Trust Again

He interlocked his fingers with mine, pressed our hands firmly against the refrigerator, leaned back a bit and looked at me.

His pupils were dilated, his cheeks flushed, and every time he inhaled his chest brushed mine.

“I don’t think you want to hear what I’d like to do with you, Babe.”

Actually, I did want to hear it. In fact, I wanted to hear it in detail, because my body was now completely at his mercy. He was so hot that I wanted to tear his clothes off. Now, here, and regardless of the fact that our friends were in the next room.

“What do you want, Spence?” I whispered as breathlessly as if I’d been jumping rope for three hours.

He leaned in until the tip of his nose touched mine.

“I want you to stop feeling sorry for me and start treating me like a man.” His hand on my lower back continued to slide until it cupped my bottom and squeezed.

I gasped.

“And if you don’t want me to do this every time we’re in a room together, you should do what I asked and do it now.” He let go of me and stepped back. “Give me space, Dawn. For both our sakes.”

Chapter 11

So that’s what I did—I stayed away. Or more accurately, I avoided running into Spencer. Allie came to see me in the dorm, but I didn’t go to her place much. After all, Spencer had made his feelings pretty clear at our last meeting: he didn’t want to see me.

So I focused on the publication ofHot for You, putting the finishing touches on the story so I could finally upload it to the usual Internet platforms.

And Isaac met with me regularly to work on our presentation for Professor Walden’s class. We’d break out in a sweat whenever we thought about it, but Isaac always tried to be encouraging.

“Don’t worry, it’s gonna be good, we’ll get it done,” he said through his teeth, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose with his forefinger before cleaning the lenses with the hem of his shirt.

We sat in the library and spread out our papers over two tables. For hours we polished the conclusion of our presentation. Luckily, Isaac knew how to create impressive charts and a clear timeline.

We were going to show that damn professor what we could do. No one was going to push me out of this class. Okay, it wasn’t my favorite, but I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of dropping out. Tomorrow I would stand up in the lecture hall and give the best presentation that this jerk had ever heard. True, I’d probably puke beforehand and sweat bullets, but it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that Isaac and I were giving it everything we had.

I held the index cards in my hand and walked across the room while talking. When a slide was supposed to come up, I would wave my hand in that direction.

“You’re driving me nuts,” Sawyer interrupted.

“What do you think those headphones are for? I lent them to you so you could block me out,” I responded. Damn, I’d lost my train of thought. Back to square one.

“Not again,” she groaned.

“Well, you interrupted me. I have to start from the beginning. It’s good practice for tomorrow,” I said.

“You’re driving yourself nuts with this crap,” Sawyer said too loudly. She was still wearing my headphones and couldn’t hear her own voice.

“It would drive me much crazier if I didn’t learn it inside and out.” I took a deep breath and let out the air in small, concentrated puffs.

Sawyer stared at me like she’d seen an alien. “What the hell are you doing?” Finally she removed the headphones.

“Breathing exercises that help cut anxiety and build a stronger voice,” I explained.

“Man, you’re insane.”

“Thanks, Sawyer. That’s so nice and helpful of you. Maybe I’ll mention you in my next foreword.”

“How about naming your next heroine after me? I always wanted to play the lead in something arty and soft-core but somehow it always seemed a bit too risqué. But for a book, I’m all in,” she said with a hint of a smile.

Ever since she’d figured out my secret, we hadn’t spoken about it. It felt like my answer to this question would determine how we would deal with the subject from now on.

I held her gaze. “Okay, agreed.”