Tempting - Lucian Alex. Страница 32

She didn’t look at me when I walked away, and once I was out the door, I didn’t look back either.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nothing felt right, nothing felt clear. Not how I felt about Adele, about the fact that she knew about Diana, that she knew my father, albeit not very well. I must have sat at my dining room table for two hours, staring at the blank wall across from me and sifting through my sluggish thoughts.

I wanted her, that I knew. Physically, definitely. Emotionally? That was murkier. I didn’t want to talk to her about Diana. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about that, so I was just keeping Adele on an equal playing field with the rest of the world’s population. If I owned a dog or a cat? I wouldn’t tell them, for fear that the animal race might suddenly evolve and gain the ability to speak. I wasn’t looking for marriage or children or any of that. It wasn’t something I needed after losing it once.

But she was smart. She was tough. And she’d trusted me enough to show me her biggest vulnerability: her relationship with her father.

I nodded my head, and grabbed my phone, where it had stayed silent on the table while I processed.

Me: Could you come over after work?

Adele: Sure. It’s not my night to close, so I’ll be there in 30.

Finally pushing myself away from the table, I moved through the kitchen in search of something resembling a meal. While I munched around some cold lo mein noodles, I researched Adele’s scholarship.

The Margaret Phillips Memorial Scholarship was awarded to a handful of girls based partly on academics. They’d have to maintain a 3.7 GPA, be working toward a major in journalism, literature or creative writing, and be unmarried. All of those checked boxes afforded Adele half of her tuition, all of her books, no room and board, which explained the small, humble apartment.

I smiled a little reading through Margaret Phillips’ bio.

Margaret arrived in Boston at the age of 18, with no family to support her. As an unmarried woman in the 1940’s, she had to work twice as hard to get through college, finally graduating with her degree in literature. She went on to become a high school teacher, and spearheaded many community efforts to support women who were pursuing their education. For years, she was vice president of the Boston chapter of the National Organization of Women. She established this scholarship in 1998.

Yes, Margaret Phillips would probably like Adele, scraping her way through school with a giant chip on her shoulder. There wasn’t much I could find that spoke to personal misconduct, and how that might affect her maintaining the financial support being given to her.

There was a soft knock on my front door. Wiping my hands on a dish towel, I looked through the peep hole and couldn’t help but grin. Adele had pulled the black hood of her sweatshirt up over her head, and with the blond strands coming out the sides, she looked exactly as young as she was. Maybe younger.

“Come on in,” I said when I opened the door. Her smile was tentative, but she attempted one anyway, looking behind her before I closed the door, the darkness of the sky cloaking her arrival. “How was work?”

She smiled, taking the hood down and running a hand through her hair. “Boring as hell. Is that why you asked me over here?”

“No,” I conceded with a wry smile and gestured to the couch.

After she’d chosen the seat closest to her, I sat far enough away that I’d have to stretch to touch her. Adele lifted a thin eyebrow briefly at that, then settled back into the cushions, turning to face me with one leg tucked underneath her.

“I didn’t realize you were here on scholarship.”

“Ahh, and the picture is becoming clearer.”

“Adele.”

“Sorry,” she said, dropping her eyes down into her lap for a few long moments. “I knew I wouldn’t get any help from home with my tuition, not if I planned on majoring in writing. And I just don’t want to be one of those people saddled with student loans until I’m thirty-five.”

Which was only one year older than me. I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat. I felt ancient, and the knowledge of our thirteen year age gap made my bones creak under my skin, like they’d suddenly adjusted to my line of thinking.

“We have to be careful, Adele.”

“Careful doing what, exactly? Last time I walked out of this door, it sounded an awful lot like a sayonara, thanks for the orgasms kind of goodbye.”

I actively chose to ignore that, probably because I couldn’t disagree with her. It had. “If we get caught, even from anything we’ve done up until this point, I don’t want you losing that scholarship.”

“Would you lose your job? If we did?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “The Easton name is pretty well-entrenched here. My father and I might not get along, but he’d never let ‘the family legacy’ get tarnished by a scandal. Trust me.”

He’d done a damn fine job of it so far.

Adele shifted, moving forward a couple inches. When she hesitated before saying anything, I just waited. If she pushed about Diana, it would clear up a lot of my questions. I wasn’t going there. Not now, maybe not ever. But she stayed quiet, and oddly enough, I found myself unable to be silent.

“I wouldn’t lose my job. But you could definitely lose your scholarship. My father wouldn’t be able to, or frankly might not want to, intercede on your behalf if we were discovered. We have to be smart here, okay?”

Adele moved one hand forward so slowly that I couldn’t look away. No doubt about it, she was giving me an opportunity to back away. To get off the couch. To tell her to stop.

I didn’t want to tell her to stop. I wanted another hit of whatever it was she was injecting into my bloodstream. When she wrapped her strong, supple fingers around my hand, I dropped my head back onto the couch.

“I don’t know what we’re doing, Adele. I don’t know how to stop, but I don’t know how to not worry that this is such a hellishly stupid idea.”

Her hand traced up my forearm, and through the cotton of my shirt, I could feel the heat of her palm. I kept my eyes closed, because everything was heightened. I could smell her next to me, coffee clinging to her, hiding her normal scent. The place that her hand smoothed up against felt like a concentrated pulse, just one large zing of electricity that I could never attempt to contain.

On the side of my neck, her breath warmed the skin. Then her lips touched the spot under my ear in the most innocent of kisses.

“You worry too much, old man,” she whispered, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “No one will know.”

“You can’t possibly know that.” Shit, my voice sounded rough.

Her tongue dragged around the shell of my ear, and my cock was seriously attempting to punch through my slacks. I kept my hands fisted at my sides, not wanting to interrupt whatever fucking amazing thing she was doing.

“We can be careful, be quiet about this.” The sharp edges of her teeth caught my jaw and my mouth turned toward her in reaction. Her responding chuckle was lazy and low. Suddenly, her weight pitched to the side, toward me, and she settled herself on my lap. “In fact, I think I should show you just how capable I am of being quiet.”

When I opened my eyes, her face was only inches from mine, her hands bracketing my head on the back of the couch. I slid my hands up her legs and her sides, curving my palms around the hard bumps of her rib cage.

“You have much more to lose than I do. Are you sure about this?”

The smile she gave me in return was so sweet, so unguarded that I smiled back. We kissed that way, not dropping the sides of our lips at first, not wanting to break those expressions of happiness.