Рони Лорен – Off the Clock (страница 4)

Marin smiled and played with the tab on the top of her soda. “I’m clearly hanging out in the wrong department. My professor just talks about sleep apnea. Though I’ve been monitoring the sleep lab and can confirm that nocturnal penile tumescence is alive and well.”

“Ha. I bet.”

She wet her lips and, feeling brave, leaned forward to grab the script he’d left on his desk. He didn’t make a move to stop her, and she squinted at the page, trying to decipher his handwriting. The fantasy looked to be one between a boss and subordinate. She saw the parts she’d heard him read aloud. I’m so hard for you. I tug your panties off.

She crossed her legs. The part he’d gotten hung up on had various crude names for the female anatomy listed and scratched out—like he couldn’t decide which one would be most effective. She didn’t have input to give him on that, but just seeing the fantasy on the page had her skin tingling with warmth, her blood stirring. She shifted in her chair. Kept reading.

“Okay, well that’s a good sign,” he said, his voice breaking through the quiet room.

Marin looked up. “What?”

He leaned his forearms against the desk, his blue eyes meeting hers. “You just made a sound.”

“I did not.”

“Yeah, you did. Like this breathy sound. And your neck is all flushed. That one’s working for you.”

She tossed the paper on his desk. “Oh my God, you really don’t have a filter.”

He smiled, something different flaring in his eyes, something that made her feel more flustered than those words on the page. “Sorry. It’s all right, though. Seriously. You already saw me with a hard-on. Now we’re even. But this is good information. I thought this one may be too geared toward the male side—a fantasy that’d appeal to me but not necessarily to a woman. You’re telling me I’m wrong.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re like …”

She could feel her nipples pushing against her bra, their presence obvious against her T-shirt, and fought the urge to clamp her hands over them, to hid her traitor body. She stood. “Okay, so I’m leaving now.”

“No, no, come on, wait,” he said, standing. He grabbed her hand before she could escape, and the touch radiated up her arm, trapping her breath in the back of her throat. “You can help. I’ve got a stack of these. I need to know which ones to test next week and which ones to trash. Or maybe you can offer suggestions? I promise to keep my eyes to myself. And I swear, if you help me, I’m yours for whatever you want. I can take a shift in the sleep lab for you or something.”

She stared at him. He was kidding, right? He had to be kidding.

“You want me to read through fantasies and tell you which ones turn me on?” His hand was so warm against her cold one. And she’d said the words turn me on to him. Out loud. She might just die. “Can’t you ask your friend who’s in this department to do that?”

“She’s a lesbian, so her fantasies don’t quite line up with these. I need a straight girl’s opinion. Wait—are you straight?”

She blinked. Were they actually having this conversation? “I—yes. But this is beyond embarrassing.”

“Why? Because you get turned on by fantasy stuff? It’s not embarrassing. It’s human. You’d be shocked by how many people struggle to tap into that part of themselves. That kind of responsiveness is a good thing.”

Responsiveness. Donovan West was talking about her sexual responsiveness. Hello, alternate universe. “Donovan, I don’t know …”

He let go of her hand and opened a drawer. “Here. I have an idea. I’ll give you some headphones and a thumb drive with the ones I’ve already recorded. You can take them back to your lab and listen to them while you do data entry. Then you can just tell me which ones you recommend when you’re done. You won’t have to feel self-conscious sitting with me. Plus, I need to record some more tonight, and I can’t do that if someone’s in here with me.”

He held out the earbuds and a blue thumb drive. She eyed them like they would bite her, but on those files would be Donovan’s voice in her ear, saying those explicit things, things she’d never had a guy whisper to her. Things she’d only imagined in the private quiet of her room when she gave her mind leave to go to those secret places. The temptation was a hot, pulsing thing low in her belly.

She needed to say no. Make some excuse. Stop this lie she’d started.

She took the items. “Okay.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Yeah?”

“I’m not making any promises, but I’ll let you know if I’ve listened to any before I leave tonight.”

His grin was like a physical touch to her skin. “That would be amazing. I’ll owe you big-time, Mari.”

She got caught up in that smile like a fly in a web and wanted to linger, wanted to stay there all night and listen to him talk about his research, what made him passionate, what else made him smile like that. But if she stayed, she’d only risk embarrassing herself further, or worse—get herself in trouble. Because the thing blooming inside her with him looking at her like that, like her opinion mattered, was intoxicating and potent. She wanted to cling to it, to wrap herself up in that feeling and jump into the unknown without thinking about the consequences. Something she could never do.

She lived her life carefully, always making sure to stay between the lines on the road. No alcohol. No drugs. And definitely no risky behavior with boys. She’d learned from her mother that one foot off the path, one chased whim, could lead to chaos. She knew enough about her mom’s disorder to know that those genes probably lingered in her, too, and this pulsing desire to flirt with Donovan, to push this charade further, could be a dangerous one.

She probably shouldn’t listen to the tapes at all, shouldn’t open that door. Things were safe right now, calm. She needed them to stay that way.

But Marin couldn’t bring herself to hand the flash drive back. Not yet. She didn’t want to do anything to erase that smile off of Donovan’s face.

So she mumbled a quick good-bye and headed down the hall with the thumb drive tucked in her pocket and the soda in her hand. She’d only told Donovan she’d try. She had an out. She needed to take it and focus on her job. Get those little numbers entered into the computer, get lost in the monotony, and forget about the sexy TA down the hall.

But it wasn’t more than twenty minutes after she stepped back into Professor Roberts’s lab that the temptation proved too great. Maybe she’d just listen to one, show Donovan a good faith effort, and be done. She cued up the recordings, and Donovan’s voice filtered into her head.

“I spot you first across the bar. You look beautiful, and I know you’ve come here with someone else. I can see him getting you a drink. But I can feel your eyes on me, taste your desire, and I know that tonight, it’s going to be my hands on you, my body moving over yours, and my name on your lips …”

Marin didn’t get another lick of work done that night.

2

Then

Marin rolled her shoulders before she climbed out of her car, trying to shake off the guilt. She’d picked up her little brother from art camp this afternoon, where he’d been all week, and Nate had begged her to stay home and have movie night with him and Mom. She’d missed seeing him, but this was the last night she’d get Donovan alone. On Monday, classes would start back up again. He’d find out she was a fraud. An eighteen-year-old one at that.

So Marin had promised Nate she’d have an epic Mario Brothers battle with him tomorrow and watch whatever movie he wanted afterward. He’d pouted but had made the deal when she’d added cookie-baking to sweeten the pot. Her mother had also given her the guilt routine, complaining that Marin hadn’t been home at night all week and that Marin should be more sympathetic about the breakup she’d just gone through with random-asshole-of-the-month. Her mom had tossed out the word sad, knowing that the word was one that would normally trigger Marin to do whatever it took to fix it. Her mom’s manic episodes were hard to deal with; the depressive ones were annihilating. It shredded Marin to see her mother suffer through them. And scared her.

But this time, Marin sensed her mom was saying it more to manipulate her than anything else and it had pissed her off. Normally, she could keep the frustration in check, be understanding and supportive. She knew her mom’s condition was an illness, that her mother couldn’t easily control her emotions or her actions. But in that moment, Marin had felt so damn exhausted by it all. Smothered. So she’d let the anger take over and had told her mom she had to go to work on a Saturday because the only grown-up in the house kept getting fired from jobs and they needed the money.

It’d been ugly and mean, but sometimes the pressure in the volcano was just too much. The crack had splintered and broken open. Her mother had called her selfish.

Maybe she was. Tonight she needed to be. Tomorrow she’d mend the fences, smooth things over. But this week was her break from it all, and she wasn’t going to let the last day be stolen from her.