Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,65

scorn or panic to overtake him. But the only sensation he felt was warmth pervading his entire body, dispelling any fear or doubt.

He loved Leanne.

Brandon brushed his fingers along her delicate spine, tracing the vulnerable column with his fingertips as the tear ran down his face and disappeared into her hair. He sniffed, hoping she wouldn’t notice his emotional state, but he should have known his mood couldn’t escape her perceptive nature.

“Brandon? Are you okay?” she asked, leaning back, her features creased with concern. She brushed a hand across his face, and he tensed when her probing fingertips found the single, salty trail bisecting his cheek.

He smiled and hugged her tight, relishing the feel of his softening cock still buried deep inside her, of her full breasts crushed against his chest, of the scent of her hair filling his senses.

“I’m fine,” he promised and he meant every word. The worry in her eyes eased a little and he took the opportunity to kiss her again. His tongue slid between her lips and he tasted her. Thrusting a little deeper, he angled his head and intensified the kiss. She moaned softly, the sound curling inside his brain and inflaming him further.

He loved her.

Acknowledging his emotions was a new and unfamiliar sensation but with Leanne, it felt too right for him to doubt. Hell, he’d been falling for her from the moment he’d seen her from the stage. And because he loved her, he knew it had to end. Because he wasn’t someone who could give her forever. He’d only hold her back. Professionally and personally. And she deserved better than that. Her goals, her ambitions, her dreams. They mattered to her, so they mattered to him.

He loved Leanne, but all too soon he would have to end it so she could follow her own path. The dull ache at that frank acknowledgement tempered his happiness and his joy and he wished, somehow, it could be different. That he could go on loving her for more than one night or one week or one month.

Forever.

He knew it couldn’t. They’d only ever agreed to a fling and he couldn’t renege on his promise now. He couldn’t say the words in his heart, because they would tie her down and ruin everything she’d worked so hard and so long for. But for right now, he could show her and maybe then, when she left him to make her mark, she would look back and remember him as someone special too.

He deepened the kiss and his cock hardened, his desire a resurgent wave tempered with the immense debt of feeling he couldn’t express. Even without words, he wanted to show her just a little of how he felt through his touch. That was all right, wasn’t it? She’d consider it just another round of their casual affair and he could express his feelings through movement, in the only way open to him. A dance. A pas de deux.

The irony twisted his lips into a grudging smile.

He stood, wrapping his arms around her waist, and Leanne’s legs locked around his hips, grinding against his rapidly expanding erection. He tipped her back, feasting on her succulent breasts.

“I want you again.”

She whimpered as his teeth closed over her nipple. “God, I want you again too.”

The words were a balm to his aching soul.

As he carried Leanne down the hall toward her bedroom, the words of the plaintive French song floated back to him.

C’est toi pour moi. Moi pour toi

Dans la vie.

It’s you for me. Me for you.

Our whole life long.

As they sank into a torrid tangle on Leanne’s bed, he knew the chanteuse sang the truth. There was no one else for him and there never would be.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, either.

Chapter Thirteen

A little before one o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, Leanne hurried down the crowded corridor toward the Office of Graduate Studies, the staccato rap of her heels marking her rapid progress through the halls. A burst water main two blocks from her apartment had delayed her commute to campus by nearly twenty minutes and today of all days was not the time for running late. Today was the first day of the rest of her life, as the guidance office posters used to tout, and she felt ready and eager to forge ahead.

Easing a newly manicured hand over the front of her chic suit, she grinned and pulled open the heavy door. In less than half an hour, she would