I’m midway through jotting today’s date on the upper righthand corner of my paper when I glance up to find none other than Pacific Valley University’s star quarterback and ladies’ man extraordinaire climbing the steps two at a time … making a beeline to the back row—to my row.
The girls beside me are giggling now, whispering about all the dirty things they want to do with him. The brunette on the left tightens and fluffs her top knot and the sandy blonde next to her casually dips her hand into her bag to retrieve a rollerball of pink lip gloss.
“Um, I’m sorry. Would you mind scooting down one spot?” The girl with the top knot leans across her friend’s lap, tapping me on the knee.
“Oh my God, Kaitlynnnn, don’t be rude,” her friend scoffs at her before massaging her juicy-wet lips together. She turns to me. “Ignore her. She thinks she actually has a chance with Talon Gold.”
I want to tell them to stop acting like he’s some demigod, to stop referring to him by his entire name like he’s some iconic celebrity, because he’s just a guy.
A mere mortal.
An arrogant asshole well aware of his disgustingly unfair good looks and propensity for scoring touchdowns—and hot chicks—in record-shattering numbers.
A man with zero shame and zero fucks to give.
Though I guess if the one girl prefers guys who are “dicks” it would make sense that she’d be fawning over this one.
Talon Gold is the King of Dicks.
“I can’t believe this,” Kaitlyn grabs her phone, firing off a text. “Monica is going to freak when I tell her he’s in my class.”
Her friend sits stunned and speechless as he gets closer. I don’t even know that she’s blinked since she spotted him.
“God, he’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Kaitlyn releases the dreamiest of sighs. “The bleached hair, the dark roots. I just want to run my hands through it, mess it up a little more. And that bronze skin. What do you think he tastes like?”
Southern California is practically a factory that mass produces guys exactly like him—the silver spooned, privileged kind whose multi-millionaire daddies write fat checks to the best athletic trainers in the world so their kids can become star college athletes and have all-you-can-eat buffets of college pussy while professors grade them on favorable curves so their report cards reflect the kind of grades they should be getting.
“Down girl,” her friend says before swatting at her. “Okay, shut up now. He’s almost here. Be cool.”
I don’t have to look up to feel his gaze pointed in my direction as he makes his way to the center of our row. A second later, he takes the lone empty chair next to mine.
“Irie, right?” Talon’s long legs stretch wide, pushing into my space, his expensive sneaker stopping two inches from my knock-off Golden Goose sneakers.
Cute.
He’s pretending like he might not know my name. He’s pretending like he hasn’t been trying to hook up with me since the fall semester of our freshmen year when I got roped into attending a party at some beer-scented three-story on frat house row and he cornered me the way a mountain lion corners prey, carefully stalking me first from all angles then making smooth and deliberate moves until he positions himself to go in for the kill.
Fortunately for me, his hunting skills were still in need of some fine-tuning back then.
I got away.
And I’ve gotten away every time since.
The auditorium hums with small talk. My body hums with electric amusement. Over the years, this has become a sort of game between us. Cat and mouse. Offense and defense. He’s tried every strategy in the book, but I’ve managed to stick to the one that always works—cold, coy, aloof, and uninterested.
“All right, dudes and dudettes,” the professor rests his hands on his hips, rocking back and forth on his heels as he scans the room. “I’m Dr. Longmire, but you can call me Rich if you want.”
The girl to my left giggles to her friend. “He’s not a regular professor, he’s a cool professor.”
“Welcome to Anthro 101.” Dr. Longmire—Rich—twists the shark tooth necklace that hangs on a leather cord down his tanned chest as he paces the room. “We meet Mondays and Wednesdays from eight to nine with recitation on Fridays with my TA. You should have received your syllabus in your email over the weekend. If you need a paper copy, I’ve got a few on the desk up here. That said, I’ve been asked to remind you all that PVU is striving to become a paperless university. Please only print things when absolutely necessary.”
One student gathers his things in a hurry and dashes out the side door. He’s probably in the wrong classroom. It happens and it’s no big deal, but it doesn’t stop a group of meatheads in the corner from finding it hilarious and yelling out, “Loser!” just before the door swings shut.
Talon exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Professor Longmire cracks a joke about how he doesn’t usually scare people off until after he goes through his entire pitch.
No one laughs.
“You have a good winter break?” Talon asks me, leaning close and keeping his voice low. He’s trying to feign intimacy, trying to act like we’re more than the acquaintances we’ve only ever been. Smooth. But I see through it.
“The best,” I lie, sparing him the details before pointing at the front of the room. “If you don’t mind …”
His heavy stare weighs on me, and a blanket of heat covers my skin in the seconds before the steady trot of my heart turns into an all-out gallop.
This happens every time—the ongoing war between my mind and body every time he comes around.
I’d be lying if I said his attention didn’t flatter the hell out of me. I mean, come on. I’m only human—a mere mortal myself. I just happen to have a hell of a lot more self-control than the average SoCal blondie strutting PVU’s seaside campus. I appreciate the attention, but by no means am I naïve enough to think there’s anything special about it.
Talon wants to screw me.
And he only wants to screw me because he can’t.
Nothing more, nothing less.
“Hey. You have a spare pen?” Talon asks with zero shame, his cinnamon-scented whisper tickling my eardrum.
Dipping down into my bag, I retrieve a hot pink gel pen—color choice unintentional—and hand it over without so much as making eye contact.
From my periphery, I watch as he examines it for a second before his full lips mouth a quick thank you. The garish color doesn’t seem to faze him, doesn’t so much as threaten his jock itch masculinity.
He flips to a clean page in his notebook—which is interesting since I’ve always taken him for a laptop kind of guy—and concentrates on the screen ahead.
“Now, I’ve been teaching here for over thirty years,” Professor Longmire prattles on as he paces the front of the room. “I’ve been around long enough to know that these 8 AM Monday classes are a pain in the you-know-what. I know not everyone is going to go to every single class. I know that there’ll be times you’re hung over or you over-sleep or what have you. Don’t email me. Don’t send me your sob story or made up excuses. I don’t want to hear it. Now some of the younger professors, they post lecture notes on the class website. But I don’t have time for that. So here’s what you’re going to do. Everyone’s going to have an accountability buddy.”