Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,15
most, Leanne, is your unwavering focus on a life of the mind. It’s rarer and rarer these days.”
She tried to look pleased at his compliment but his turn of phrase still rankled. Life of the mind? She wanted to shout, “I have a body too, you know. And I like sex as much as the next person.” But as always, she bit her tongue and simply nodded. And if her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes? Well, Armstrong wouldn’t notice anyway.
“Let’s meet on Thursday. Does eleven o’clock work for you?” At her nod, he continued, “I’ll see you then and we’ll discuss your latest draft.”
He moved away, leaving Leanne alone to survey the room while she munched from her napkin of lukewarm appetizers.
Then she saw someone across the room and the food lodged in her throat. Tall. Muscled. His dark blond hair cut short. A well-worn sweater attested to his likely status as a student. She’d never seen him at any of the faculty events before—she’d remember a hunk like this for sure. But it was less his looks than his smooth, fluid presence as he gestured that reminded her of Brandon when he took the stage.
Whoever this guy was, he moved the same way. With an easy confidence in his body that made watching him a pleasure.
It’s not him, her common sense shrieked. Was she going to spend the next who-knew-how-long comparing every guy to her one-night stand? As he stood with his back to her, speaking to the dean, she tried to think logically. So what if this guy was roughly the same height? Sure, his shoulders were broad and defined. She could see that clearly, despite the casual sweater he wore. And so what if his butt was tight, hugged by a pair of well-worn jeans? It wasn’t the same firm, muscled bum she’d clutched as she’d lurched and spun into orgasm…
She blinked and looked down to see mangled crumbs ground into the now clenched cocktail napkin that had held her appetizers. She needed to get a grip.
A serious, serious grip, she repeated to herself. Just ease up on the nibblies.
Yet even as she argued with herself at the impossibility, telling herself the resemblance was only a figment of her oversexed imagination, she discarded her ruined food and moved across the room, skirting the groups of chatting people, working her way ever closer to where the dean and the unknown man stood talking. Try as she might to convince herself that she was just circulating, she needed to see his face.
To prove to herself that her imagination was working overtime.
“Leanne.” The dean’s voice carried clearly over the clattering hubbub. Trying to look casual, she turned to face the woman calling her name. Dressed in one of her signature caftans, her hair in its usual immaculate bob, the administrator was a force to be reckoned with in campus politics. Leanne looked upon her as a valuable mentor. And a friend. Today, she found herself wishing the dean was a million miles away instead of waiting politely for a greeting from Leanne.
Because even as Leanne turned, still insisting the man the dean was talking to was a stranger, her body knew better. It hadn’t forgotten the way they’d moved together or the way he’d made her feel. So while her rational brain refused to concede, her body welcomed the sight of him like a long-lost friend.
When her eyes finally, reluctantly, came to rest on his face, there was no denying the truth. In the bright room she could see the unmistakably rugged planes of his face.
Crap.
“Hello.” Her voice dry and scratchy, Leanne was overcome with the need for a drink to soothe her parched tongue. But short of turning and fleeing, there was no escape from this mortifying reunion. Her only consolation was that Brandon looked as stunned as she felt.
Clearing her throat, Leanne tried again. “Hello, Dean Rose.”
“How are you, Leanne? I haven’t seen much of you this term. Busy with your research, I assume.”
Carefully avoiding meeting his eyes, Leanne said, “I’m fine, thank you.”
Oblivious to the tension, the dean made a gesture of introduction. “Have you met each other? Brandon’s one of our new PhD candidates. In fine arts though, not English,” she clarified.
“Dance. Twentieth-century choreography.”
A student? He’s a graduate student at Wellington too? Her brain still reeling from the sight of her fantasy-man-turned-real in the flesh, Leanne could barely assimilate this startling new information. The possibility of running into her one-time fling again and again made