Page 25 of Boiling Point
Heat rose in my cheeks, mortifying and reassuring all at once. “Believe me,” I said, ducking my head and catching his gaze through lowered lashes. “You’re nothing like that. I’ve had my share of sleazy advances.” A leering football coach in high school, a too-friendly manager with wandering hands… I shuddered. “You’ve been nothing but a gentleman.”
Cal relaxed his brow, relief softening his features. But behind those gray eyes, a shadow lingered—old scars not yet faded. He squeezed my hand again, as if to reassure us both. “I’m glad tohear it,” he said quietly. “And I hope you don’t think I see you as some devious, self-serving student trying to?—”
“Secure an A in your class?” I finished, smiling despite myself.
He nodded, a hint of wry humor tugging at his lips. “I know the type.”
“And I’m not it?” I teased.
“You”—he leaned in, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“are definitely not that.” A grin broke free. “Those girls don’t filter into my office until end of term.”
Chapter 11
Callum
Gabrielle stepped outside, bathed in golden light, and lifted her face to the sun, eyes closed.
“It’s warmed up a little,” she said as she zipped up her brown leather jacket.
Her blonde hair lifted in the breeze, sunlight catching the soft waves and igniting them like a halo. I couldn’t look away, struck again by how effortlessly beautiful she was—lovely in her simplicity, enchanting for it. She opened her eyes and caught me staring.
“You’re right,” I said as I shrugged on my jacket. “Feels almost like spring.”
“We have different definitions of spring,” she jabbed with a teasing smile as she pushed her hands into her pockets.
We had barely taken a step toward the car park when Gabrielle’s phone buzzed. She fished it out, glanced at the screen, and hesitated before sending it to voicemail.
I arched an eyebrow. “Need to take that?”
“No,” she replied with a breathy laugh. “That was my aunt. She’s a talker, so I try to preplan our conversations.”
“Not one for quick chats?”
“There’s no such thing as a quick chat with Aunt Suzy.” She thumbed out a text. “I’ll just tell her I’m out with a friend and will call her later.” She smiled up at me, tucking the phone away again. “There, off the hook.”
I rocked back on my heels. “A ‘friend?’” I teased. “Is that what I am?”
“As far as she’s concerned? Yes.”
I stepped close enough to feel her warmth. “And as far as you’re concerned?”
She met my gaze, and the world around us paused, the lazy hum of Sunday afternoon small-town traffic fading to a whisper. For a moment, I thought she might evade the question—until she spoke, her voice low and sincere. “What do you want to be?”
I drew Gabrielle off the pavement toward a shuttered storefront, its windows dark behind a rusted gate. I pressed her gently against the faded brick wall, slipping my hands from her arms to her waist, anchoring her there. Her breath caught as I dipped my head and grazed my lips along the delicate line of her jaw.
“So many things,” I whispered as she trembled beneath me. “Some I dare not mention.”
The words were an exhale against her skin, and I felt rather than heard the soft moan that escaped her lips. She leaned into me, pliant and warm, and all my fears unspooled, melting away like ice in the spring thaw. Her fingers curled into my shirt, holding me as if afraid I might disappear, and the tender desperation of it made my pulse kick up.
“Cal,” she breathed, threading one hand into my hair, pulling me closer still. The sound of my name was a revelation—intimate, electric, charged with all the possibilities she’d offered but left me to define.
I kissed her slowly, a claiming, and something in me shifted irrevocably. Her lips moved beneath mine with exquisiteurgency, and the universe narrowed to the cadence of our breath and the delicate press of her fingers on my skin. The world dimmed to nothing, the silent street vanishing behind the symphony of sensation she stirred in me. I tasted the hesitant tang of her longing, felt her heartbeat racing against mine.
As we broke apart, a shiver passed between us—a thin seam of air, fragile and fleeting. I cupped her face, unwilling to release her from this moment. Her cheeks were flushed, her green eyes luminous.
“Wow.” The single word was an admission and a benediction. She blinked slowly, as if waking from a dream.
“Wow indeed.”
