But I was a glutton for punishment, especially at Nathan’s hands. Which was why I found myself knocking on his front door in broad daylight.
Chapter Eleven
I wish I could say that when I opened the door and saw Adele that I was immediately angry at her showing up at my house. But that would be a horrific lie. My first gut reaction was a flare of lust so hot and so bright that I thought my skin might melt off the bone. Because the look in her eyes was so full of challenge, practically daring me to slam the door in her face. She’d probably have liked that, actually.
But the dance that we’d been dancing the last couple weeks was so far beyond what I could do right now. Not since I’d spent the last hour staring at an email from Elias, my brother-in-law, if you could call him that. The dick who was my dead wife’s brother who hadn’t shown his face in the good ol’ US of A since she died, now suddenly wanted free reign to go through her stuff. Yeah, that had put me in an awesome mood to begin with, so close to a tipping point of bad decisions.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed, yanking her by the upper arm into the house. The last thing I needed was some nosy, ‘well-meaning’ neighbor noticing the tall, slender blonde who happened to be one of my students standing at my door. Besides, I didn’t put it past Adele to sit on the front porch for hours just to piss me off.
“Can’t a girl swing by to say hello to her favorite professor?”
I released her as soon as the door slammed shut, and without removing my eyes from her face, I saw the way that she rubbed at her arm where I’d gripped her. Only with her, she was probably praying I’d leave a mark.
“No. You can’t. How the fuck did you find my house?”
She clicked her tongue, eyes flitting beyond me to look into the family room that led into the kitchen. “Such a dirty mouth. Though, I suppose I knew that already, didn’t I? In fact, if I had a dollar for every time you said fuck that night we were together—”
I grabbed her arm again, marching her back toward the door, because if she finished that sentence … I didn’t know, but there was no way I was in the frame of mind to be tested.
“Hey,” she said, yanking her arm out of my grip and walking backward, very much away from the door. “No need to get grabby, okay? I’ll be good.”
I almost laughed, the way she batted her eyelashes at me when she said it. Instead, I folded my arms over my chest and gave her a level look. “How do you know where I live?”
Adele dragged a finger along the edge of the entryway table, probably picking up dust along the way, then smiled up at me. It was a real smile, genuine and disconcerting at the same time. “A girl’s gotta have a few secrets, Professor Easton.”
Then I did laugh. I couldn’t help it. The entire situation was so absurd, that I kept laughing harder and harder until I had to brace my hands on my knees. When I finally got ahold of myself, I stood up, only to find Adele so close to me that I could reach out and touch her, had I wanted to.
Though wanting didn’t have much to do with it, I supposed. Wanting was a strange thing, because so much of it was just out of your reach. Either you couldn’t move your hands far enough to grasp what you wanted, you shouldn’t grab it, or it was perpetually moving. Adele was standing stock-still, right in front of me. For a few moments, all we did was stare at each other, me trying to catch my breath.
Finally, she lifted a hand like she was going to lay it on my chest, but I circled her wrist before she could make contact with my shirt, and her hand hovered in the air just a breath away from touching me. Her pulse was frantic and skittish under my fingers, where they wrapped around her skin. The speed of her heart belied the look on her face, which was pure, unadulterated seduction. The fact that I’d touched her at all made her think she’d won, I could see it.
“You need to leave,” I said under my breath, trying to regain control of the situation, because I felt horribly out of control.
“You don’t want me to though. I can see it in your eyes.” Adele moved toward me again, and even though I tightened the grip on her wrist, she laid her hand over my heart, smoothing up over my shirt until she curled her fingers around the back of my neck, digging her fingernails into the skin just below my hairline.
All I could hear was my ragged breaths and my pounding heart, and I didn’t let my eyes leave her emerald gaze, which bored into me like she knew exactly what I was thinking.
She probably did. She probably knew exactly what I was thinking because my cock was about to burst the seams of my pants, it was so damn hard. Adele took a step closer, pressing her breasts up against my chest, and I let out a hard exhale.