College Girl (14 page)

“I missed you, too, you freaking
crotch sniffer,” she muttered, leaning down to pet him.

When she followed me into the house,
I took the flowers to put them in the vase of water. By the time I came back,
Alex and my dog were still worshipping one another.

“Everything’s in the guest
bedroom. I’m going to get changed. If you need anything, I’m just down the
hall.”

Wishful-fucking-thinking on my
part, but hey. She stood up and walked toward the guest bedroom, my dog
obediently following behind her. I had worn jeans and a T-shirt to pick her up,
mostly because it had felt way too douchey to show up at her dorm in a suit
like one of those frat dildos.

Walking down the hall, I
remembered this time to close the bedroom door behind me. Then I stopped and
closed my eyes, trying not to think about Alex down the hall stripping out of
her clothes. What struck me, though, was that the thought of her going with me
tonight made the inevitable disapproval I was facing seem more bearable.

For one, my mother would have a
hard time trying to convince me to
patch
things up
with Gretchen with Alex standing right there. And my father might
keep his thoughts about my graduate school education to himself. Besides, like
I had told Alex, I enjoyed her company—even if a disproportionate amount
of my brain had devoted its energy to imagining her naked.

I straightened my tie and walked
out of the bedroom. The guest bedroom door was still closed, so I went into the
living room and thought about the first night I had brought Alex back here …
the surprised whimper as my fingers had stroked over her panties. I swallowed.
Fuck
. I could not think straight with
her around. But like she had said yesterday: no sex. My cock, however, was not
cooperating with her decree. I sat down on the couch, futilely trying to turn
my thoughts to the theorem I had been working on earlier in the day. It was
useless.

The door to the guest bedroom
swung open, and Finn trotted out, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Asshole.
Seeing Alex walk out a second later, I nearly bit off my own tongue. I made a
mental note to thank my sister for the dress, which barely covered half of
Alex’s creamy thighs. She began walking very carefully, like she was navigating
a tightrope.

“I’m not good with heels,” she
said, flushing with embarrassment. “And I don’t think I tied the back of the
dress very well. Can you re-tie it so it won’t come loose?”

I stood up, and she walked slowly
until she reached me. Turning, she pointed to the loose knot she had tied. But
that’s not what I was paying attention to. The dress was almost entirely
backless. Reaching up to secure the top, I could feel the heat of her bare skin
and wanted nothing more than to slip the dress from her shoulders and carry her
into the bedroom.

“You smell good,” she murmured.

I closed my eyes. So did she.
Sweet, like strawberries. And she was trying to kill me. There was no other
answer. My hands shaking, I tied a bow and double knotted it before lowering my
arms. She turned around and smiled, holding out a black sweater.

“This is all I’ve got. Not exactly
fancy. Is it okay?”

“You look beautiful,” I said
hoarsely.

“You clean up pretty nicely yourself,
Professor Bennett.”

I gave her a sharp look.

“What? You don’t want people to
know you’re seducing undergrads?” she asked mildly. “Don’t worry. If anyone
asks, I’m a twenty-four-year-old Master’s student in the English program.”

“My sister already knows about
you.”

Alex blinked.

“You told your sister about me?”

“Had to,” I laughed. “The dress
you’re wearing is hers.”

“Oh shit! I’m
borrowing
your sister’s dress?”

“Not quite. My sister’s
only
half a foot taller than you are.”

Alex shook her head.

“But you said the dress was
hers
.”

“Her design,” I corrected.

“
Becca Gray
. Your sister is Becca?”

“She is.”

Alex swallowed.

“Julie said this dress
cost—”

“Would you stop worrying?” I
laughed.

“I can’t. It’s a genetic
trait—dominant on my mother’s side.”

I nodded toward the door and took
her hand as I called Finn.

“He’s coming with?” Alex asked.

I nodded.

“I was going to drop him off with
a friend, but it’s easier just to take him.”

We walked outside, and I locked
the door. When I started walking toward the SUV at the curb, Alex stopped.

“That’s yours, too?” she asked
with an air of shock and condemnation of my clearly profligate lifestyle.

“I borrowed it.”

Popping the back, I waited for
Finn to jump in. Then I went around and opened Alex’s door. She sat down smiled
at me, and I felt a rush of anticipation.

She had said no sex, but I
was
going to watch her come tonight.

Alex

Going with Ryan to his parents’
event was an epically bad idea, and I knew it. Of course, I had had bad ideas
before … thinking I wanted to be a doctor being number one. But my decision to
go with him might knock pre-med off the top spot.

I glanced over at him as he drove.
The term
Egyptian sun god
came to
mind. He had already loosened his tie, the color of which just happened to
match his unbelievably blue eyes. The first couple of buttons of his dress
shirt were undone, exposing the golden skin underneath, and I was having a hard
time keeping my eyes off him. Of course, this made the whole “just friends”
thing seem kind of silly. But what other choice did I have?

My options sucked. Yesterday I
could have held my ground and told Ryan to fuck off. Or I could have forgotten
about the whole being in love thing and just slept with him. Instead, I had
gone the completely psycho route and decided to try to be friends with someone
I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Real smart, Alex.

Ryan merged onto the freeway, and
I realized that the only person who knew I was with him tonight was Julie.
During my brief conversation with Mom last night, I hadn’t been able to work up
the nerve to tell her that I was in love with someone ten years older, because
it was easy to imagine the speed with which she would have gotten in the
4Runner and floored it the entire four hundred miles across the state of
California to yank me out of school.

It didn’t matter that I had been
the most absurdly boring teenager ever. Or maybe that’s why I knew Mom would
flip out. If I ever did something crazy, she would think I had lost my
goddamned mind. Alexis Reed was boring, dependable, and completely invisible to
the opposite sex—until my library stalker, followed by Ryan Bennett.
Which, of course, made me wonder again if being stalked was the only reason
Ryan had even looked at me twice. I cleared my throat, and Ryan looked over at
me.

One look from him, and my heart
raced. That was how bad I had it.

“So I forgot to ask you where your
parents’ place is.”

“In Sonoma.”

“Oh. … Did you grow up there?”

He nodded.

“Mostly. I spent summers in France
for several years.”

“Ah,
oui
?
Vraiment
?” I joked.

He asked me a question in
rapid-fire French, and I blushed, shaking my head.

“I do okay on the homework, but my
French basically sucks. Three years in high school and pretty much all I can
say is,
J’écoute à la radio
.”

Ryan smiled.

“
Tu écoutes la radio
,” he corrected.

“Seriously? I have no idea why I
decided to double major. Second biggest mistake after the pre-med thing, I
swear.”

“It’s an easy mistake to make.
You’re too hard on yourself. In French, the verb already contains the
preposition
to
, so you don’t need to
add it again.”

“You mean all this time I’ve been
saying, ‘I listen
to-to
the radio’?
That’s fantastic. Okay, I’m done embarrassing myself. Tell me about your
family. You have a sister, Becca. And your parents?”

“Richard and Kathleen Bennett,
married forty years this May,” he sighed.

“Do you … get along with them?”

It felt like such a silly
question. He was twenty-eight, not twelve.

“When they’re not treating me like
a wayward adolescent, sure,” he said dryly.

My pulse spiked.

“And what are they going to think
about you showing up with me?”

“They’ll think I have good taste.”

I blushed and looked down.

“Did you send a Valentine’s Day
card to your sister?” Ryan asked.

I looked over at him, startled
that he remembered.

“Yeah, it was kind of a half-assed
effort this year, but I would have felt bad if I didn’t do it. She’s probably
getting too old for it. I’m sure she’s more worried whether the boys in her
class like her.”

He nodded and glanced out the
window.

“I wanted to take you for a walk
around the grounds, but I don’t know if those heels would survive it.”

I laughed.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t know if I’m
going to survive these heels.”

It was already dark, and we stayed
on the freeway for about a half hour before Ryan merged onto another highway
toward Sonoma/Napa. Wine country. After that, I pretty much lost track of where
we were. Another twenty minutes or so passed—with my nerves getting worse
and worse—before Ryan pulled onto a long driveway lined with trees lit up
by twinkling lights. We drove through a stone archway, and I looked up at the wrought-iron
sign.
Bennett Family Cellars.
I swallowed. Holy
shit
.

On the way up the winding hill, I
could just make out the outline of grapevines beyond the road. Finn yipped in
the back, and I turned and looked at him. Right now, given the choice, I would
have gladly spent the night hanging out with Ryan’s dog instead of going to a
fancy party.

We pulled up to an enormous
Mediterranean-style building, and a man in a valet jacket came running up.
There were luxury vehicles all over the place, and I started having my own
little private panic attack as Ryan waved the guy on and kept driving. He drove
around the back of the main building until he reached a more industrial-looking
structure. When he parked and got out, I froze. The back of the SUV popped
open, and I heard Finn jump out. Seconds later Ryan was at my side opening the
door. I didn’t move until he reached across me and unbuckled the seatbelt
before taking my hand. I stepped out, careful not to catch my heels-of-death on
anything, and Ryan offered his arm.

“Welcome to Bennett Family
Cellars,” he said.

“Please don’t let me fall on my
face,” I whispered.

“Never,” he smiled.

“Where’s Finn?”

Ryan shrugged.

“He’ll turn up.”

He took out his phone and began
texting someone as we walked toward the main building. Then I watched as he
took out a set of keys, smiling as he unlocked a door that said
Employees Only
. When he held out his
hand for me to go ahead of him, I stepped into the room, which looked like an
industrial kitchen prep area, bustling with people in white and black. Ryan led
me through another door, and we ended up at one end of an enormous room jammed
with people. Ryan lifted his hand and waved at someone, and my nerves ratcheted
up again when I saw a gorgeous woman—an insanely tall, gorgeous
woman—striding toward us. She was wearing a bright red cocktail dress
that was—
wow
. Plus, she was
almost
as tall as Ryan in her heels.

“So this must be your plus-one,
baby brother.” She turned to me, her blue eyes—like
Ryan’s—twinkling. “Alex? It’s nice to meet you. I’m Becca.”

She held out her hand, and I took
it.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“You’re so tiny!” she said.

“I definitely didn’t get the tall
genes like you two,” I laughed.

Becca nudged her brother and
pointed across the room.

“When you get a chance, can you
tell your friend over there that he’s at a winery, not a bar. He’s going to be
shit-faced before ten.”

I looked in the direction she was
pointing and saw Ryan’s
friend
James
at the bar knocking back a shot. Standing next to him was a bored-looking woman
holding a glass of white wine. I recognized her instantly.
Ryan’s
ex-fiancée.
She was so well manicured that it made my chest squeeze. I
looked back at Ryan’s sister, grateful for the dress I was wearing,
particularly since my other option had been jeans.

“Becca, thank you so much for the
dress.”

Ryan leaned toward me.

“Alex, don’t tell her that. My
sister owes me for being the sibling who takes the brunt of our parents’
disapproval.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” she cried.

I laughed, and she turned back to
me.

“Alex, have a glass of wine. I
won’t tell anyone.” She winked and then saw someone across the room. “Duty
calls. Senator!”

With a wave, she began striding
across the room toward a gray-haired man. I looked down, wishing I could be
like that—totally fearless. Maybe it would help if I happened to be
six-feet tall and gorgeous. I turned to Ryan and smiled.

“Your sister’s great.”

I felt stupid for even saying it.
She didn’t need
my
approval. Ryan
took my hand.

“Come on. Let’s get a drink before
one of my parents finds us.”

That was actually the
last
thing I wanted to do, because it
meant getting closer to Ryan’s ex and James McDevitt. I tried to concentrate on
the most important thing, which was not tripping and killing myself in these
heels. When Ryan approached the bar, I fell back a little, watching as he put
his arm around his friend’s shoulder. He said something quickly in James’s ear.
Then I watched James spin around with a drink in his hand. His dark eyes locked
onto me.

“Alex!” he bellowed, like I was
some sort of long, lost relative.

He started walking toward me, but
Ryan caught the back of his suit.

“Not the time or the place for it,
McDevitt,” Ryan whispered sharply. “Deal with the date you brought here.”

Ryan let him go, and James took
the last couple of steps toward me, leaning forward and kissing my cheek.

“It’s good to see you again,” he
whispered in my ear.

He smelled of hard alcohol and
cologne. In other words: overwhelming—kind of like his personality. Ryan
gave him a light shove, and James turned back and looked at me once before
sauntering back over to his friend’s extremely pissed-off-looking ex. A second
later Ryan handed me a glass of red wine, and I gave him a look.

“Were you and your buddy running a
contest to see who could bring the most inappropriate date? ’Cause I think he
won.”

Ryan shrugged.

“I knew he was bringing Gretchen.”

“You
knew
he was bringing your ex? Whatever happened to
don’t go for your friend’s ex
, et
cetera, et cetera? Isn’t that part of the guy code?”

“Only if the guy in question gives
a shit, and I don’t.”

He held up his glass of wine and
touched it to mine.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“That was yesterday,” I pointed
out.

“Well, this is my do-over.”

I took a sip and nearly choked
when a large hand—not Ryan’s—came down on my shoulder.

“What do you taste?”

Turning, I saw a handsome man with
steel-gray hair dressed in an impeccable suit. He was at least ten years older
than my own parents, very tall, and very obviously Ryan Bennett’s father.

“Um, dark chocolate, sir.”

I frowned. I had never called
anyone
sir
in my life. My parents
were kind of hippies, and my friends had always just called them Stephen and
Michelle. On the other hand, it seemed way inappropriate to call Ryan’s father
by his first name, considering I had never even met the man.

“I’m impressed, young lady.”

I reddened.

“Thank you.”

“Dad, this is Alex Reed.”

His father reached out his hand,
which I took. His father’s hand was massive, like Ryan’s, and I felt like I was
visiting the land of the giants.

“I’m Richard. It’s very nice to
meet you, Alex.”

When a man with an earpiece
arrived next to Mr. Bennett, Ryan’s dad smiled and excused
himself
.
I took a quick swig of my wine and glanced at Ryan.

“
Sir
?” Ryan laughed.

I gave him a crooked smile.

“I don’t know what came over me.”

“That’s Richard Bennett, inspiring
formality.”

I detected a hint of scorn in
Ryan’s tone, but I decided it was better not to ask. Looking across the room, I
saw Ryan’s friend James nursing a drink next to his unhappy date, who was
sulking as she sucked down another glass of wine. When James saw me looking, he
raised his glass.

Smarmy dickhead.

Servers were moving through the
room with large trays containing a dangerous number of glasses filled with red
wine. When a woman came by and offered glasses to us, Ryan set his empty on the
tray and took two, placing my barely sipped glass of wine on the closest
surface.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you
for joining us this evening,” Ryan’s father said from a small stage across the
room. Next to him, there was a tall, stately woman with golden hair like his
sister’s, only hers was shorter.
Ryan’s mother.
“Our
vines may be dormant at this point in the season, but this is still a pivotal
time of year for us as we prepare for spring. The vintage you hold in your
hands this evening is of special significance to our family, a reserve
dedicated to our eldest son, Reece. If he were with us today, I imagine he
would be running Bennett Family Cellars. Now please, everyone. Raise a glass
and join me in toasting Reece and the future of winemaking in Sonoma County.”

In a daze, I blinked and slowly
turned to Ryan. His features had turned to ice, and the wine glass that had
been full a few seconds ago was empty.

“Ryan?”

He turned to me with a twisted
smile that told me he was going to brush off any attempt at sympathy.

“Do you want to take a walk?” I
asked. “I need air.”

He stared at me like I had just
barked like a dog. Then, slowly he nodded and took my hand. As we weaved
through the crowd, I tried to absorb this new information. Before tonight, Ryan
had just been my incredibly hot TA. To think of him as a brother, a
son—and someone who had lost his older brother—was strange. It made
me think of everything hidden beneath all of us, the things we carried with us
and never told other people about. It made me feel lonely. We were almost to
the front door when the woman I had seen on the stage intercepted us.