Bailey and the Professor(16)

“You… didn’t…” she managed.

“No.” He grinned, putting his knife and fork down and leaning in closer to her. “It’s only half true. I told her you were fucking amazing.”

“I…” Bailey blinked back tears again. Damnit, drinking made her sleepy and emotional. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“No more chemistry,” he said, watching her sip self-consciously at her margarita. She could almost hear what he was thinking. “You know what that means?”

“That I’m not your student anymore.”

He nodded slowly, his gaze focused on her mouth.

“That was my primagravida.” Regina smiled down at Bailey. “That means—”

“A woman over thirty-five having her first baby,” Bailey interrupted, not thinking before it was out of her mouth. Then she wondered if Regina was going to think she was a show-off. Impertinent. Had she ruined everything already?

“I’m going to like this girl.” Regina grinned at her son as she put a hand on Bailey’s shoulder. “It’s my apprentice’s last birth. She’s moving to Texas.”

“Have a good birth.” Dom tapped his cheek and Regina leaned in and kissed it, leaving a bit of red lipstick there.

“Dom will get all your information for me.” Regina squeezed Bailey’s shoulder. “You two have fun.”

“We will.” The look Dom gave Bailey made her mouth go dry and Bailey sipped the last of her margarita, feeling like she was floating.

“I have no doubt.” Regina laughed, shrugging on her coat. She waggled her fingers at them near the door and then she was gone. Bailey felt a little tug of jealousy—she would have loved to go to the birth. Then she looked over at the man who had made it possible for her to attend not just one birth, but to give her the opportunity to do it all on her own. To really live her dream.

“I’m going to take you home.” Dom finished off the second beer the waitress had brought for him.

“Oh I have my car,” she said, looking at her untouched meal. She wasn’t hungry anyway. Not for cheeseburgers and fries. If she’d thought the adrenaline rush of catching a baby had been exciting, that paled in comparison to this. “I’m on call. Joanna has a client—I’m supposed to take pictures.”

He frowned. “When is she due?”

“Last week.”

He sighed. “Thwarted at every turn.”

“I can follow you.” She met his eyes, and there it was, that spark between them. It made her feel like butterflies were about to burst out of her chest in a cloud. “In my car.”

“Let’s go.” He stood, holding out his hand, and she took it.

He drove a sexy little Dodge Challenger, blue with white stripes, and Bailey followed in her red Ford Focus, wishing she was driving next to him, with his hand on her knee… or her thigh… or…

She squirmed in her seat, glad he didn’t live far. A pale yellow bungalow on a quiet, dead end street. Bailey cut the engine and she barely had time to take in her surroundings before he was opening her door for her and giving her a hand out.

“Do you want something to drink?” he offered when they got inside and he took Joanna’s coat, hanging it with his in the closet.

“I think I’ve had enough to drink,” she replied, looking at him as they stood face to face in the entryway. “I probably shouldn’t even be driving.”

His hands moved to her shoulders, pulling her near. She felt his breath on her face, steak sauce and beer, and in the next moment she was tasting it, his mouth on hers, mixing steak with strawberry margaritas, a salty sweet combination that made her heady with lust.

“You know I’m technically still your student,” she murmured when they parted, his eyes searching hers.

“I can’t wait.”

He kissed her again and she knew she couldn’t either. The truth was she’d been thinking about him ever since that first kiss, imagining just this—his hands moving over the skin-tight knit of her dress, following the gentle, easy curves of her body, her arms around his neck, hanging on so tight you would have thought she was on a roller coaster.

And she was.

He carried her to the bedroom. Not in a romantic, sweeping sort of way. He just put his arms around her waist and lifted—he was tall, far taller than her five-foot-three—kissing her the whole way. Her heels fell off, one by one, in the hallway. He kicked the door open and kissed her down onto the bed in the darkness, both of them drunk on desire.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he whispered into her neck, thigh snugged tight between hers. She whimpered and rocked, her panties wet against his leg.