the building. About halfway across the parking lot, the sky opened and half an ocean—or so it seemed—dumped from the clouds in the kind of torrent Michigan is apt to see in early summer. Within seconds, she was drenched to the skin and the victim of a nasty case of goose bumps. If only she’d thought to bring an umbrella!
She briefly considered turning around and heading home, but as she stood, dripping, just inside the doorway, Ric’s smooth, deep voice coming from a classroom close by inspired her to cast that notion aside.
So what if she was a tiny bit wet and her shoes made obscene noises when she walked? A little water never hurt anyone. For all she knew, Dao was near death, being Lisse’s primary food source. She owed it to him to buck up and do what she must to find him some help, whether it was from a more traditional source or nontraditional.
If a professor of science at a university believed in a lamia, who was she to question it? A guy with the initials PhD after his name had to know more than she did, with her BA.
Sophie stood outside of room 103 and listened as he answered a couple of last-minute questions about the next day’s assignment. Then she heard the telltale sounds of zillions of shuffling feet as the attendees headed for the door. Feeling out of place, she stood like a sentry outside the door, waiting for the last few stragglers to leave before she ventured inside. The curious stares she was gathering by students as they wandered past made her nervous and uncomfortable on top of cold. All in all, within seconds she was so miserable, she was ready to make a hasty exit. Maybe she could borrow a copy of that book from another library.
She did an about-face and took a step down the hall.
“There you are…oh. Is that you, Sophie?” she heard Ric say behind her.
Too late. Oh well. Gathering what remained of her dignity, she pasted on a smile and turned around. “Yes. It’s me. I was just waiting for your students to clear out before I came in.” A huge droplet of water dripped from her bangs and landed on the bridge of her nose. Following the law of gravity, it slid down to the tip and hung there.
Ric’s gaze followed its path until she swiped the stupid thing away.
Within a heartbeat, she was wishing she had a second water droplet to distract him.
His warm gaze wandered lower, following the line of her neck to her shoulders. It dropped about four inches lower, then didn’t budge. All it took was a quick glance down to see why. The torrent in the parking lot had made her formerly cute white shirt absolutely obscene. It was almost completely translucent now. The lines of her bra showed crystal clear, and even more disturbing, two pink nipples poked at the fabric.
“Oh my God!” She gasped and promptly folded her arms over her chest. Her face flamed. So did a few other parts.
Ric’s eyes widened, then darted in another direction. He mumbled something that was probably an apology, but with her mind screaming a few dozen curse words, she didn’t hear him. He caught her shoulder in one of his huge hands and pulled. “Come inside. You can wear my jacket. You must be cold.”
She could guess where he got that idea from! “Thanks. I’m freezing. Wouldn’t you know it? Out of nowhere it just started pouring. I hate this time of year.” She stepped into the classroom but hung back by the door, letting him go past her. He pulled a tweed jacket off the back of his chair and handed it to her.
Her heart sank. That wasn’t the kind of jacket she was hoping for. That jacket looked like the kind that would get ruined easily. But it did look cozy. “Oh, I don’t know. This looks like an expensive jacket. I’ll get it all wet—”
“I’m not worried about it. Please.” He held the jacket by the shoulders and rounded Sophie. “You look like you’re freezing.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She stuffed her right arm through one sleeve, then twisted slightly to find the other one with her left hand. Her shoulder brushed against Ric as she slid her hand into the opening. She found herself short of breath all over again. This guy had a real talent for stopping all normal biological processes in a girl. She voluntarily sucked in a deep breath and turned, whispering, “Thanks” when she was facing him full front.
His chin tipped down as he regarded her with eyes that seemed more gold than brown, unlike earlier. His fingers skimmed the length of her arms, then caught the collar. “My pleasure.” He straightened the collar—must’ve been lopsided. When he blinked, his eyes shone even more gold, like the color of a cat’s eyes.
That warm, velvet sensation fluttered through her head again, setting her heart rate into triple time. She tried to think of something funny and clever to say, something to break the spell that seemed to be tangling itself around her, snarling the impulses charging through her brain. “I…I…”
His head tipped to the side. His eyelids fell to half-mast, partly obscuring those bizarre gold eyes. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips.
Oh my God, he’s going to kiss me!
She closed her eyes, dragged in a deep breath, and waited, knowing it would be the kiss of a lifetime, like none she’d ever experienced.
Unfortunately, no sooner did his warm, moist lips make contact with hers than a voice called from somewhere behind them, “Professor Vogel?”
Interrupted again! Dammit.
That young person’s voice acted like a bucket of ice water falling from the sky, completely quenching the spark that brief kiss had just begun to ignite. She twisted her neck to look one way. Ric looked the other. The result was impact between her forehead and his nose.
He yelped in surprise. Both his hands flew to his face. “Yes, yes. Matt?”
“Sorry, Professor Vogel. I came back here to ask you a question about Monday night’s assignment.” The young man’s nervous gaze hip-hopped from Ric to Sophie, then back to Ric again. “I can call your office Monday morning if that would be better.”
Apparently checking his nose for a fracture, Ric said, “No, that’s okay. What’s your question?”
“I was just wondering if we had to answer the questions on the section on sexual reproduction or just asexual?”
Sophie snorted through her nose.
Ric gave her a one-eyebrow-lifted, teary-eyed glance, then turned to Matt and said, “You need to read the entire chapter and answer all the questions at the end of each section.”
“Okay. Sorry for, er, interrupting. I didn’t think you’d have company.”
“We’re doing some…research,” Ric said, motioning toward Sophie.
“Yeah. Sure. If that’s what you want to call it.” He chuckled, then called over his shoulder as he walked back to the door, “I think I’ll put in my application for department student research assistant if this is the kind of research the bio department is doing.” He shut the door behind him.
Sophie laughed. “Smart kid. Is it broken?” She pointed at Ric’s nose.
“No. Just sore. Maybe we should take this back to my office. It’s a little more private. We won’t have any more interruptions.”
That last word sent a shudder of expectation down her spine. She’d never done it in a university professor’s office before. Sounded like fun. “Sure. Okay. Say, what’s this about sexual reproduction? I thought you were a biology teacher, not sex ed.”
He gave her a martyred look tempered with just the slightest smile. “We don’t teach sex ed in college. The chapter’s on cellular reproduction, not human reproduction.” He gathered some things from his desk, including the book from the library, then opened the door for her. “Some people’s minds.”
“What can I say? I hear the word sex, I tend to think in human terms. I’d say that’s pretty ordinary,” she teased as she fell into step beside him.
Moments later Sophie and Ric made themselves comfortable in