‘Yessir.’
I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the sight of her until I see her. She sent a text fifteen minutes ago to tell me she’d arrived and staked out a chair on the second level. I was supposed to call her when I got there, but I didn’t. I wanted this moment. I hoped she’d be caught up in reading, not looking for me. That I could take a few precious seconds to drink her in. That I’d get to witness the exact moment she notices I’m there.
Dori never disappoints.
As though she feels my eyes grazing over her, she glances up and right at me. She snaps the book closed without marking her page and tosses it towards her bag on the floor. Springing from the chair, she’s clamping her mouth shut to keep from saying my name and giving my identity away – but her smile is a mile wide. One second later, she’s in my arms, on her toes, offering her lips up for a kiss. I’m happy to oblige.
‘I wholeheartedly approve of that welcome,’ I murmur into her mouth, kissing her once more as she regains her composure and recollects where we are – in public.
Sweeping her hair back on one side, I cradle her head in my hand and smile down at her now-demure expression – pursed lips, faint blush pinkening the curve of that exposed ear. My voice restrained, low, I say, ‘Let’s go be alone, beautiful girl, where I can ravish you without the audience that bothers only you.’ I feel her pulse speed under my fingertips and tighten my opposite arm around her, pressing her closer. ‘Or … I’d be happy to back you up against a wall, right here, right now, and kiss you breathless. For a start.’
‘I’ll get my bag,’ she says, her warm breath gushing against my neck.
I nod, and she ducks her chin low and steps away to collect her book and bag from the floor, and her sweater from the chair. Shrugging into it, she leads the way down the narrow staircase, across the expanse of main floor, and out of the door. I reflect that this may be the only time in my personal history in which I entered a Starbucks and didn’t buy anything.
Outside at the kerb, she pulls to a sudden stop. ‘Oh, did you want something?’
I arch a brow. ‘Not anything they sell. Let’s go see this tiny room of yours. And say hello-and-goodbye to your very considerate roommate.’
Glancing up, she bites her lip and smiles at the same time, pulling me across the street to the campus. Her face is a perfect picture of the inner mischievousness with which I’m oh-so familiar. Avidly familiar.
We don’t get far before we’re in a thick grove of storeys-tall trees, which I make a mental note of for some future encounter. When it’s warmer.
The campus is well lit and well populated for a Saturday night, which makes me feel easier about her being here. No one pays us any mind. We are two more students crossing the campus grounds, in search of entertainment – or privacy. As though I’m playing a character, I immerse myself in a storyline where Dori and I have parallel goals, parallel lives. Where we meet for coffee in between classes, commiserate about professors and assignments, take walks and weekend trips and lie out in grassy common areas on sunny days. Where we study between make-out sessions, and make love between study sessions.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asks, and I realize I’m frowning.
I stop, pulling her fully against me and tip her concerned face up to mine. ‘Absolutely nothing,’ I say. ‘I just need to do this before going any further.’ I lean to kiss her in the semi-darkness. Someone hoots in the distance – at us or at something unrelated – I don’t know or care.
I’m always amused by people’s reactions when I’m recognized in entirely incongruous, unexpected places for movie-star viewing. A state college dorm elevator is, predictably, one of these places. Dori grips my hand when a couple of girls with laundry bags get in. They’re whispering while giving me not-so-covert sidelong glances. Wrapping my arms around Dori, I pull her back against my chest and into our own personal space bubble.
When the girls exit one floor up and the doors begin to close, they turn back and stare, bug-eyed. I wink, and Dori catches me doing it.
The doors slide shut, and she smacks my hand where it lays across her abdomen. ‘You’re a bad boy, Reid Alexander.’
Chuckling, I whisper into her ear, though we’re alone now. ‘Baby, you just wait until I get you into that room. Unless you don’t want to wait …’
Breath catching, she shudders against the length of me, from my thighs to where the back of her head rests under my chin. I close my eyes and breathe through my nose, which only intensifies the cake-sweet smell of her invading my senses. Fucking hell. She has no idea how close she is to me slamming that emergency stop button and backing her into a corner.
Then again, maybe she has a very clear idea. Her fingertips stroke my hand, feather-light, where she slapped it seconds ago. When we reach her floor, she grabs hold of my hand and makes a sharp right, pulling me into the hallway. We may only have the next twelve hours, but I’m going to make good use of every single one of them.
DORI
Seated at a corner bistro table by the front window of the Starbucks, we wait for the car that will take Reid to the airport. He checks email and messages on his phone, facing away from the other Sunday-morning patrons, while I sip my latte and make note of every visually accessible detail of him. It could be weeks before we see each other again, unless he can slip away from his crazy promotion schedule – something he’s promised to try to do.
The late-January sun glints off the waves of his movie-star hair, burnished gold with darker natural lowlights. Falling over his forehead, curling over his ears, marginally flattened by the knitted cap he wore on the walk from my room, it begs to be touched. His dark lashes, too, are somehow gold-tipped. When those lashes sweep up and his gaze connects with mine, I catch my breath. In the clear morning light, his dark blue eyes are vivid enough for me to perceive every individual facet, his irises becoming mosaics of broken sea glass.