Page 35 of Better Than the Beach
“I want you. I want this,” I say between kisses. “So much.”
He pulls back quickly.
“Then let’s go to the dean. I’m not wasting any more time.” He grabs my hand and leads me toward the door. “We’ll go to the dean and disclose our relationship, then I’m taking you back to my place. Then this weekend, we’re going back to Golden. Ma is going to die of happiness.”
“Wait,” I say, pulling my hand from his, standing awkwardly in an empty hallway. “What about Colleen? Isn’t she your wife?”
He shakes his head, anger flaring in his eyes briefly.
“I’ll tell you all about it, in depth, later. But the short version is this. She is myex-wife. Has been since September of last year, but we were separated long before that. I allowed her to live with me—in the guest bedroom—until she could find a place, but I kicked her out just before Christmas because I caught her fucking her boyfriend, who also used to be one of my good friends, inmybed. We’re not together now, and we weren’t together when you saw her in December, either.”
He grabs both of my hands and looks straight in my eyes, and I let what he’s said wash over me, but then something else nags at me, and I wince.
“What?” he asks. “Cassandra, what is it? Tell me.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking.
“In December she, um,impliedthat she might be pregnant, or that there was some sort offamilyto be concerned with?”
Before I’m finished speaking, Nolan is shaking his head back and forth.
“Colleen and I don’t have any children, and she is not pregnant with my child. She’s not pregnant with any child, actually. But even if she were, it wouldn’t be mine, because you were the first person I’d had sex with in almost a year.”
The confession almost knocks the wind out of me.
“And now?” I whisper and he smirks.
“And you’re also thelastperson I’ve had sex with.”
My smile takes over my entire face.
“Good,” I quip. “Because you’re the only person I’ve had sex with.”
There’s no mistaking the heat and lust and possessiveness in his eyes.
“Good.” He growls, then tugs me back down the hallway. “Let’s get this over with so I can take you home and have you the way I’ve been dreaming about since you left me in December.” His gaze sets me on fire. “Fuck, Cassandra, the things I’m going to do to you.”
“Yes, please, Professor.”
Hours later, after we’ve successfully transferred my class section and signed the necessary university documents, we’re tangled naked in Nolan’s sheets. My body aches from the things we’ve done and from the things I crave.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Nolan says sleepily into my hair, his fingers trailing up and down my naked back. “I’m so glad you decided to pursue music therapy, but I never would have guessed you’d enroll in the program on the same campus where I was just hired as an assistant professor.”
“I know,” I say dreamily. “And to think it all happened because CSU awarded me a scholarship.”
Nolan stills. “A scholarship?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I applied for a few at the other universities, too, but CSU is the only one that came through.”
I feel him sit up. “What was the scholarship, Cass?”
“Oh, um, the Hutchinson Women in STEM Award,” I say. When I roll over to look at him, he has a curious smile on his face. “What?” I ask.
“My mom.” As if that answers everything.
“Nan?” I question. “What about her?”
He chuckles.
