Page 57 of Wicked Surrender

It wasn’t lust. The need to make her believe she was beautiful was something deeper. The urge to stop all those people from laughing at her was a possessive need to protect and comfort her.

I wanted her so fucking badly, but it was my heart that I had to guard around her more than anything else now.

19

LAURA

Isat at the library with my laptop open and my books surrounding me. Even though he wasn’t supposed to be here for another hour, I had no time to freak out about how he’d act around me after I showed up at his frat house. After he’d kissed me like I’d secretly always wanted to be kissed.

The way a man kissed a woman heneeded.

It felt good to be needed. That was basic human nature.

But feeling like the object of Jason’s hunger was a heady sensation that still filled me with equal parts glee and terror.

I’d already made my mind up about how I’d play this out.

I would act like it never happened. Much like he’d done after I called him pathetic and put him in his place about wasting our time. After that session, he carried on as usual. And so, post-kiss, I’d carry on as usual.

I wasn’t tense leading up to our Tuesday night session, though. Distracted by the emails from the engineering department, I was excited and impatient to research more of what I could do.

More about what I could try to do if I ever got the courage to change my major.

Killing the time until Jason would show up to be tutored, I fell down a rabbit hole of reading through what my bio-chem instructor had sent me. While he seemed convinced I would excel in a pharmaceutical career—which I hadn’t fully crossed out as a daydream—he was very much a fan of giving me tips on how to look into switching into bioengineering.

Reviewing the criteria for the other majors filled me with excitement, and then when I researched potential grad schools I could go into, I completely lost track of time.

“Oh.” I whispered it to myself when I glanced up to check the clock on the wall.

Jason should’ve been here forty-six minutes ago. I hadn’t realized, so stuck in what I was looking at. I fell under the spell of fantasizing about having a career that excited me and challenged me, so much that I didn’t realize Jason’s tutoring hour had started already.

He wasn’t here.

A pang of disappointment came, but I dismissed it quickly.

Fine.

Whatever.

Jason was the kind of person who would always do what he wanted, and there was simply no control over that. Before I could wonder or worry if he wasn’t showing up because he’d finally decided to listen to my advice and quit wasting my time, I dove right back into what I was reading up on.

Because if he were to ask me again, now, if I still thought he was a waste of my time, I wasn’t sure I could answer the same.

I ended up staying at the library until nearly ten o’clock, but when I went home, I was still so keyed up and intrigued about this research and this program.

Most of the lights were out in the house, but I was too awake to rest. In my room, I opened my laptop again and started seriously considering how I could make this switch. Cross-referencing courses and seeing what I’d need to enroll in, I again got so absorbed in it all that I barely registered a knock on my bedroom door.

“Laura?” My dad entered, looking like he’d just come home from a night out. He and Mom were too “dignified” to party or anything like that, so his appearance in a tuxedo made me suspect that they’d gone to a fundraising gala.

“Oh, hi, Dad.” I started to organize my papers and close my laptop, but it was too late.

He furrowed his brow, entering my room fully. His serious and unpleased gaze was on my desk. “I wondered why you were wasting the electricity to leave your lights on so late.”

Yeah, like that matters.He was a former doctor, part-time professor, and current dean. He had other things on his mind than caring about the environment or our carbon footprint.

“But now I’m wondering why you are wasting your energy looking into all of this.”

The irritation he didn’t try to hide came out harshly. Scowling at me as he picked up a printout of a research scholarship application, he practically fumed. “What the hell is this?”

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