Blood of Zeus (Blood of Zeus #1) - Meredith Wild Page 0,23
sorry,” I say again.
He lifts an eyebrow. “Why are you sorry?”
He says it the way a teacher speaks to an incorrigible student. Like he wants me to write all the reasons on a chalkboard a few dozen times until I learn my lesson.
I will not show up at my professor’s apartment uninvited.
I will not show up at my professor’s apartment uninvited.
I tug the inside of my lip between my teeth and decide the pain of apologizing again can be tolerated, all things considered.
“I’m sorry for showing up out of the blue. I checked campus security and no one turned it in. I figured you might have found it after…” After you tugged on my hair like you couldn’t stop yourself. “I just figured you might have it.”
We share a silent stare that devolves into my shameless pass over his body. He’s in jeans and a flimsy white T-shirt today. His hair is loose and messy, and I’m too eager to have my fingers get better acquainted with it.
“Come in,” he finally says, turning into the apartment.
I follow him inside and shut the door behind us. The loft is spacious but modest. The simple exposed brick walls and vaulted ceilings make the one-room studio feel open and airy, even for someone of its owner’s stature. My survey of the space snags on the bed in the corner. Its puffy white duvet is rumpled on one side. I’m riveted on it longer than I probably should be. But even now, there’s lingering energy from that area. A warmth that’s common to bedrooms, where secret dreams live—but a heat that’s also unique to him. To this man…
If that’s all he is. Because right now, more than ever, I’m starting to wonder.
When I look away from the bed, he’s watching me. Intensely. I have to grab the edge of the kitchen table to stay upright from the force of his feelings. There are so many, all at once, and I feel my cheeks color before siphoning away some of it.
“There are two kinds of people in this world, you know.”
“Yeah?” He crosses his arms.
I smirk. “People who make their beds in the morning…and those who never do.”
He can’t seem to resist an answering grin. “And what kind of person are you?”
I hear the answer play in my mind first. “I’m like you,” I echo. By the time the words leave my lips, the meaning has changed and I’m reminded why I came. At least one of the reasons… “More than I think you realize.”
Seemingly immune to the subtext, he strolls toward the kitchen table and reaches into the side of his carrier bag hanging on one of the chairs. “I guess academics can be a type.” When he returns, the earring is dangling from his long, elegant fingers. “Here you go.”
I hold out my palm, and he drops it there without touching me. His careful avoidance bothers me.
“Thanks.”
His lips twitch to the side. “It seems like an expensive piece, so I held on to it thinking I’d see you Friday. But I didn’t.”
I look down at the sparkling gems against my palm, knowing I should respond to him with something more than thanks, especially because I’ve been spared from telling my mother that I lost it. But nothing springs to my lips.
“You only have two excused absences for the class,” he adds.
My nostrils flare as I meet what I suspect is the practiced look of a disappointed professor. I register only slight guilt for missing the class. I read the assigned cantos, wondering where he’d put the inflections and how his energy would change when he recited it in class. It was almost enough to make me show up despite other plans.
“Not to worry, professor. I did my homework.” I whip out a stapled assignment from my purse and shove it into the space between us. “I came for the earring, but I also came to talk. It seemed to me that the lecture hall maybe isn’t the best place for us to do that.”
He shifts his jaw. “And my apartment is?”
A frustrated growl vibrates deep in my chest, inaudible but a marker of emotion that’s been pent up for too long. “At least this way you won’t be at risk of destroying school property if things get too intense.”
He releases a long, quiet breath before moving into the kitchen and retrieving a bottle of water from the refrigerator. “What exactly do you think is going to happen here?”