The Beauty Series (4 page)

There were six new emails today, each several pages long, dense blocks of text he’d sift through, dissect, and debate. Four from professors and politicos in the U.S., one abroad, and the last from a Jain monk in India. Well, the man’s assistant, technically, since he didn’t use a computer or even prepare his own food. The topics varied from domestic politics, global events, human rights, anything they could discuss passionately and endlessly, spinning his intellectual wheels in the rut of rhetoric. A network he’d built up over his years as a young, ambitious soldier with his eye on public office, never realizing he would one day need them as his sole link to humanity.

He lost himself in the words. Only here, he didn’t have to be himself. The subjects tested him intellectually, but he didn’t have to think about his own life and the lack of it. Not about Erin and when she might realize what a loser she’d hooked up with. Not how he’d feel when she walked away.

Hours slipped away with only the clean, crisp notes of logical arguments, falling one after the other in a melody he could play in his sleep.

“You’re awake.”

He looked up to see Erin standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed, her slender body leaning back just inside the doorframe. He wondered how long she had been there.

“Oh man, I’m sorry.” He stood up quickly, and pain shot down his neck. Partly it was the position he’d been in, but his neck had been stiff ever since the explosion. Months of physical therapy and rehabilitation visits had only helped so much. The explosion had damaged more than his skin. “I didn’t realize how long it’d been.”

She shrugged, wandering closer. “It’s okay. You can work whenever you want.”

Like a beacon, her presence shone light on things better left dark. She brushed her fingers over a dusty pile of papers. He’d told her to skip this room on her first visit here, and despite everything that had happened between them, he’d never changed that. Her first time in this room, the one place he’d felt alive in those dim hours, and her presence somehow felt more intimate than the sex they’d shared.

“Let’s go back in the bedroom.” His voice came out hoarse. “I can think of something better to do.”

“Not sleep, though, I guess.” Something seemed different about her, a diffidence. A chill in the air between them. She ran her fingers along his desk and gently blew the dust off her finger. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were hiding something from me.”

He wasn’t, not like she meant, so why did he suddenly feel guilty? Because she didn’t know the extent of his injuries and PTSD. Because she didn’t know how much he longed for her. Because she didn’t know how lost he was when not anchored to her. He couldn’t divulge any of that without losing part of himself—without losing her.

“Ask me anything you want to know,” he said. His voice sounded raw, because that was how he felt. Exposed here, vulnerable. For her, yes.

She swiped a finger across the top of his glowing laptop—of course that one came away clean. One of the few things disturbed here. “Is there another woman in the picture?”

Shock mingled with relief as he laughed. “What? No.”

“I mean, our relationship was pretty sudden. I’m not saying we have to be exclusive or that I expect that from you.”

He spoke bluntly to put a stop to that. “There’s no one else for me, Erin.”

“Then why do always come in here when you think I’m asleep? I know you already work in here all day. When do you rest?”

He opened his mouth to respond and then realized he didn’t know the answer. She hadn’t stayed over every night in the two weeks they’d been sleeping together, but dawn usually found him right in that leather swivel chair, eyes bleary from staring at the screen. He’d gone from being active in graduate school and in the military to…nothing. He still felt that drive, that ambition, but he had nowhere to put it, nowhere to go.

Seeming to assume he’d refused to answer, she wandered to a shelf piled high with books—academic journals that were probably years old, highlighted and dog-eared.

Her hand stilled over the answering machine. It blinked red up at her. She turned to him in question, asking if she should press it.

He shrugged. He had no idea who it was nor did he care, but if it would help ease her mind that there wasn’t some other woman, some secret plot, then he’d rather she listened.

Instead she faced away, speaking to the door. “I didn’t mean to snoop or…or accuse you of things. I never wanted to be that girl.”

“They’re reasonable questions. I
want
you to ask them. No, I’m not with anyone. You. I want only you.” And he didn’t want her to be with anything else either.

She made a small gasping sound, like a sob pulled up short.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

He waited.

Her laugh was breathless. “Okay, I guess it does mean that. I just…have some trust issues. The last guy I dated…well, let’s just say it didn’t end well, you know?”

Yeah, he understood that she’d been hurt, and he hated that. He also figured he would be lumped in with that asshole. Which normally wouldn’t bother him except he already had enough flaws at this point and couldn’t afford to pay for another man’s sins too.

“So I’d like it if—” She spun to face him, her eyes glistening in the dark. Her lips trembled. “If we could take it slow.”

Slow? That was the opposite of how he felt about her. Every part of him wanted to claim her, to take her as his own so no other man could ferry her away when she went out into the world while he was trapped here.

“No problem,” he said, achieving some level of casualness. “That’s what we’ll do.”

If it killed him, that’s what he’d do.

The goddamned red light was still blinking, mocking his inability to communicate with the outside world. Distracted, and maybe needing to prove something about his trustworthiness even if she wasn’t ready to believe it, he pressed the button to play while she looked on.

“Hi, Blake, this is Jeremy. Jeremy Mosely, Dean of Social Sciences. You remember we spoke about the Associate Professor’s position? I know you turned me down then, and we went ahead and hired some bigwig advisor from Washington to come down for the summer semester. But wouldn’t you know, his guy got elected and now he’s backing out of the contract. Can’t change his mind and we’ve got a class without a professor. We’d love for you to reconsider…ah, who am I kidding? We’re desperate at this point. It’s only a six week class. Name your terms, Blake.”

Jeremy rattled off some phone numbers, but Blake didn’t move. Damn. He hadn’t really wanted Erin to know about that. It would only serve to highlight his uselessness. His brokenness. Of course, the cat was out of the bag now, and if he tried to backtrack in any way, she would only look at it like he was hiding something.

A smile spread over her pretty face. “They want to hire you at the university? Associate Professor?” She laughed happily and launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “That’s amazing, Blake.”

Shit. He hugged her back and then gently set her away. “Erin, it’s not going to work out.”

“But he said you could name your terms. You think you could get an office with a window in it?”

“I don’t care about the office. I mean, there’s not going to be an office.”

Her head jerked back at his sharp tone.

He softened, pleading a little. “It’s just not a good time.”

She looked around the small cluttered space as if she were seeing it for the first time. After a long moment, she said quietly, “I see.”

Goddamn her, she probably did see. She saw the thick walls that separated him from the rest of the world, shielding him from their sight. And then what? Would she walk out and never return? Would he wish that she had, knowing some stronger, more functional man could better care for her?

He couldn’t let that happen.

The inevitability washed over him, and he shut his eyes against the deluge. Truth was he needed to do this for himself. How long could he remain in hibernation before he withered away to nothing?

His throat constricted, but he managed to say with no small amount of futility, “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. If the position is still open, I’ll take it.”

A
sense of
rightness filled Erin as she ducked into the social sciences building. She’d been flush with anticipation all through her morning classes, knowing she would get to see Blake at lunchtime.

Two weeks had passed since Blake had accepted a position as a temporary adjunct professor with the university. They’d been together almost every evening in that time.

Normally they were consigned to the night, with takeout and a movie downstairs. They’d tear open the fortune cookies, adding “in bed” to whatever it gave them for the future.
Soon life will become more interesting…in bed.
And then Blake would set about proving it true in a languorous lovemaking session in his bedroom until the sun streamed between his blinds. Blake had joked that he was a gargoyle, turned to stone at sunrise. A not-so-subtle reference to the scars marring his handsome face.

She balanced two lattes from the vendor outside, slipping through the heavy crowd of students exiting the lecture rooms. A few banded together in small lines in front of the closed office doors. Office hours most commonly ran during the middle of the day between the usual blocks of class times. They began the week before classes started, to allow students to meet their new professors.

In Erin’s case, she had gone to see her advisor, who she already knew from previous years. He was smart and unassuming, so she liked him. He’d given her feedback on her preliminary ideas for the final research paper. She would incorporate his critique into her outline over the next few days, and he would sign off on it when school began.

She had one more stop to make before she left campus.

Professor Morris. The name made her flush with sexual heat. Probably because she’d called him that when he went down on her last night.

He was only here temporarily, but the letters were freshly engraved on the frosted glass of his office door. They must be hopeful he’d stick around beyond one semester. So was she.

Voices came from inside. Damn. Someone had beat her to him. Ah well, better that way. Then he could spend the rest of his office time with her. Oh, she knew he had a job to do. Amusing Erin Raider wasn’t why the university had begged him to be an adjunct professor. But it was the first week of classes; how many questions could they have?

Someone jostled her in the hallway, and scalding coffee spilled onto her hand.

“Shit,” she muttered.

A shadow moved in the office, then another. So there were a few students in there, chatting up the new professor to get in his good graces. With a start, she realized that must be exactly how she looked, coming to bribe him with a coffee. A blush heated her cheeks far more than the hot liquid could. If only they knew what she
really
did for him.

But no one would know. They had agreed not to tell anyone. More accurately, she had talked him out of disclosing their prior relationship. The position would be toast if the university knew he had a sexual relationship with a student, even if she wasn’t
his
student. She could see the wisdom in that. It was an ethical black mark, but no way was she putting off graduating or letting him get out of his return to society.

One semester. Only one little semester and they’d both be free. They could have a relationship out in the open. Bliss.

The hallway thinned to the occasional straggler. Finally the office door opened, and two girls tumbled out, a flurry of tiny tank tops and scrunchies, the kind of adorable, I-just-threw-this-on look that Erin always envied. They barely spared her a glance, but some sense of propriety held her back from rushing inside before the door swung shut. No need to draw attention to her double-fisted coffee routine. Acting casual, she hitched her backpack on her shoulder and reached for the latch on the door. With her back turned, she heard them speak.

“Did you see his face?” one of them said, giggling.

“I couldn’t stop looking, and
not
in a good way,” the other replied.

Erin froze. She held the door handle, but she was stunned by their awful words. They weren’t making any effort to be quiet, despite the fact that they’d only made it two feet away. She wasn’t sure if Blake could hear them from inside, but if she opened the door, he certainly would.

The first girl sighed. “Yeah, but when he turned around…damn, I didn’t mind looking then.”

“Mm-hmm,” the other agreed. “That was a fine piece of ass, no doubt. As long as he faces the other direction, I could stare at him all day.”

They continued down the hallway as anger bubbled up inside her. She’d always considered herself a passable feminist; certainly outright objectification or meanness bothered her. But here it was directed at not only a man, but the man she cared about. The man she loved.

Swallowing hard, she pushed inside.

“Hey, Professor. You have a minute?”

Blake looked up from his desk and smiled. “For you, always.”

Maybe for the first time, she studied him critically. One half of his face was handsome, beautiful even. The other was matted with heavy burn scars from the top of his lip to his temple. His eye was still functional, but the shape didn’t match the other side, giving him a mismatched appearance.

She liked everything about the way he looked. The bravery of his military service, the bravery he showed going out into the world despite how people judged him. How precious it was that he’d lived, that he was with her.

Suffused with sudden emotion, she shoved the coffees onto a cluttered file cabinet and launched her arms around his neck. He caught her with an
oomph
but soon after tightened his embrace into a hug.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked, laughing slightly.

I’m so proud of you.
But she didn’t want to bring it up if he hadn’t heard those girls. He seemed in good spirits. Instead she said, “Missed you.”