Learning Curves. Joanne Rock

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СКАЧАТЬ She straightened and stepped away from him. “You startled me.”

      He took in the dress and the expanse of long leg it revealed. Her shoulders were bared to his gaze, too, exposing golden skin and thin tan lines from a bathing suit. Looking down at her, he glimpsed a tantalizing hint of cleavage and…good Lord. Was that body glitter she had dusted in that particular curve?

      The scent of raspberries seemed to emanate from her and he nearly groaned with the torment. He couldn’t have been more aroused if she’d strutted by him naked.

      Then again…

      “Good night, Mr. Turner!” One of his students waved as he jogged by, forcing Cal to recall where they were.

      “See you next week,” he returned absently.

      “I’d better go, too,” Maddy announced, spinning away from him.

      “No.” He anchored her to him by the arm.

      “No? What do you mean, no?” She glared up at him with the same mutinous look Allison had given him when he’d taken away her credit card yesterday.

      “I mean, not yet. Not until you tell me what you’re doing traipsing around campus alone after dark in a dress like that.”

      She tilted her chin toward him. “I do not traipse.”

      As another evening class let out around them, Cal heard a low wolf whistle among the crowd. He didn’t have to look around him to know the target.

      He hustled Madeline toward the parking lot, wishing he had a jacket to toss over her shoulders. “Well, there you have it, gorgeous. You’ve already collected your first bit of research for your dissertation.”

      She stumbled along next to him, apparently forgetting to be angry when her intellectual curiosity was piqued. “I have?”

      He pressed his advantage and hurried her toward his car while she was distracted. “The wolf whistle is one of the earliest possible steps in a mating process.”

      “What wolf whistle?” She stopped and peered around her, wide-eyed, as if waiting for wild hounds to emerge from the trees around campus.

      “Come on, honey, I’ll explain it to you once we get to my car.” He couldn’t really account for his sudden need to hide her from anyone’s eyes but his own. In fact, he wasn’t sure he cared to examine his motivation right now. But that didn’t stop him from tugging her forward once more.

      Madeline withdrew her arm. “Sorry, Cal, but I need to go to my office.”

      “You were planning to walk all the way to your office and back by yourself after dark?” He searched the campus with his gaze, knowing the kinds of predators that lurked at night, searching for solitary coeds—or foolish teachers.

      “I frequently walk around campus after dark,” she informed him, rocking back on her tiny heels.

      “Not in those shoes you don’t. You’re dangerous tonight, Maddy.”

      She grinned. “That’s great, Cal. Dangerous is just the look I was going after.”

      Jealousy seared his insides like a blowtorch. “Why? You got a date with some bad-ass to flaunt at university mixers?”

      The Lady Scholar folded her arms across her eye-popping dress and cocked her head to one side. “The bad-ass of my choice wasn’t available.”

      That soothed him somewhat…assuming she referred to him. “Then if you don’t have a date, what are you doing dressed to the nines in a piece of silk no bigger than a place mat?”

      “I’m on the prowl.”

      “Over my dead body, maybe.”

      Her jaw dropped, and for a moment her sassy new attitude gave way to the more conservative woman he’d known the past four years. “Cal Turner, you have no right to gainsay me.”

      “You’re my friend and I have every right to protect you from yourself.”

      “I’m not doing anything different than the average American single woman does on any given weekend!”

      “Honey, that just goes to show you how little you know about this whole process. Women don’t go out by themselves. They travel in packs for safety. Yet here you are, all alone and vulnerable as can be.”

      She brightened. “I won’t be vulnerable once I go back to my office.”

      “What are you hiding in there? A few members of the football team?” Maybe he didn’t want to know the answer. Maddy was full of surprises this week.

      “My can of Mace.”

      She was even more hell-bent for trouble than his sister. “Oh, I feel better now, Maddy. That’ll help.” Unwilling to debate a topic he wasn’t going to give an inch on, Cal placed his hands on Madeline’s shoulders.

      She was normally a good five inches shorter than him, but tonight, in her heels, they were nearer to eye level. Her skin felt cool to the touch and she shivered with her whole body.

      Was it the cold? Or had his touch affected her that way? Intrigued, he pulled her a little closer.

      She came willingly, gazing up into his eyes as if there was nothing unusual about him brushing greedy fingers over her bare skin in the moonlight.

      That fact only proved to him that she was too naive. There was no way he could let her go out alone tonight.

      “Frankly, I don’t trust the Mace,” he continued. “In fact, I don’t know that I’d trust the football team with you either. Not when you look like that.”

      She smiled. “I’ll be fine, Cal.”

      He shared her grin and leaned in closer. The heat between them growled to life like a throaty engine. “I know you will, gorgeous, because I’m going with you.”

      She started to pull away, but he halted her by sliding his fingertips over the smooth flesh of her upper arms.

      Her answering shiver roused and scared him in equal measure. It amazed him that he kept her captive there with no more than his touch. How would he ever endure an evening with a woman who had more fire-power than fuel injection?

      “Cal—”

      “Meet your date for the night, Maddy.” He stroked a lazy finger across her collarbone. “The bad-ass of your choice is officially at your service.”

      4

      THE HEADY SENSATION of Cal’s thumb rolling over her shoulder distracted her, but not so much that she missed his words. “Excuse me?”

      He pulled her toward the parking lot. “I said I’m coming with you, Maddy. Let’s go.”

      “Wait a minute.” She dug her red suede heels into the loose gravel of the small parking lot СКАЧАТЬ