Page 56 of Single Malt

Every touch from her had been a jolt of electricity straight to my cock, which sounded more painful than it was. Or, rather, it was either the kind of pain that I liked or a bad case of fucking blue balls. After how things had gone the last time I’d seen her, the memory just resulted in a hard-on I could only take care of when I had a few minutes to myself.

I was just glad we weren’t where the art exhibit had taken place. Here, I only had the memory of a kiss. There, I’d remember what it had been like to make her come on my fingers…and the look on her face when I’d dared to speak to her in front of her sister.

My frown was gone in seconds, the memories packed away. I was here for business, not to see Freedom. In fact, I didn’t want to see her. Ever. And that was the story I’d keep telling myself until I believed it. I wanted to drop off the whiskey, mingle for a few minutes, then get the hell out before I had to deal with drunken educators hitting on me. It’d happened before.

Like I said, I hated Valentine’s Day.

“Mr. McCrae.” Dr. Josephs was waiting for me at the door. “I’m surprised you came yourself.”

I followed him to the bar, talking as I walked. “I figured I’d give my employees the opportunity to spend the evening with their significant others.”

That was the truth, though not all of it.

“You’re a good man,” Dr. Josephs said. “One of the reasons I helped my friend set up this party was to encourage my colleagues to possibly offer their students the same consideration by not expecting too much work for this coming weekend. I’ve been told that young love is a beautiful thing.”

If anyone else had said it, I might’ve thought he was being a smart-ass, but Dr. Josephs was the type of man who really meant it. He was a good guy, if a little clueless, especially when it came to women. Or men. Or whoever. I had no idea what his orientation was, but I didn’t doubt he’d be clueless no matter what.

“I’m sorry for the last-minute order,” Dr. Josephs continued. “My friend and I were just talking about our arrangements for the evening when he mentioned that he’d forgotten some of the harder liquor. Of course, I thought of you immediately.”

“I’m flattered,” I said honestly. “I hadn’t realized I’d made that much of an impression.”

“Your product speaks quite eloquently for itself.” He tapped the top of one bottle. “In fact, my father’s birthday is coming up, and I’d like to get him a bottle of your best. Top of the top shelf.”

I nodded. “Let me get this set up, and then we can talk.”

His expression brightened. “I’ll help.”

Thirty minutes later, I was regretting offering to talk to him here and not insisting that I would call him tomorrow. Not because talking to Dr. Josephs bothered me. No, it was because I’d already had two women come over to “ask about” the alcohol, and they’d both stood uncomfortably close to me the entire time.

I hated to think of what they’d be like after drinking, and Idefinitelydidn’t want to be here long enough to find out.

But Dr. Josephs just kept talking. And he hadn’t been talking about whiskey for twenty-five minutes. I didn’t mind that he’d gone from whiskey to his dad since a bottle for his father’s birthday had prompted the conversation to begin with, but for the last fifteen minutes, he’d been waxing poetic about a new book he’d been reading. I would’ve said it was all Greek to me, but it would’ve been a little too on the nose since the book he was talking about was actually writteninGreek.

And he’d been quoting passages in the original language, which meant he’d say something that I didn’t understand and then start commenting on the quote as if I knew what in the hell he was talking about.

I’d basically been standing here, nodding my head as if I completely understood him, when I saw her walk in.

She was wearing a fairly plain dark blue dress that still did amazing things for her body, flattering her figure, including those long legs of hers. The way she carried herself, however, was what drew the attention even more than how she looked. Every time I’d seen her walk into a room, she looked like she knew exactly where she was going and what she planned to do when she got there. Complete confidence in who she was and what she was worth.

Fucking hot.

Mine weren’t the only eyes on her, but she didn’t look around, apparently already having seen the person she wanted to talk to. I recognized the dark-haired woman as being Dr. Ipres, the woman who’d given my name to Freedom for the art exhibit, and I felt a wave of relief that she hadn’t come with a man…or come looking for one.

My relief, however, didn’t last long, because less than a couple minutes after she’d started talking to Dr. Ipres, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man approaching her, someone I hadn’t seen before.

Tall, tanned, and carrying himself like every other arrogant asshole I’d ever seen.

But Freedom didn’t send him away. In fact, she let him join in her conversation with Dr. Ipres. I couldn’t see her face, but I could see his, and lust was written all over it.

Motherfucking bastard.

Thirty-Seven

Freedom

I suspectedAline hadn’t been entirely truthful about her reasons for leaving the library, but I didn’t pressure her to share them. I had several reasons for keeping my suspicions to myself, the first and biggest being that when she dug her heels in about something, she couldn’t be swayed without an extremely compelling reason.

While I had my opinions in regard to how easy my parents had been on her growing up, she’s never been a brat, which meant she didn’t choose petty, shallow things to be stubborn about. That didn’t, however, make it any less annoying if it was something where her opinion differed from another person’s.