CHAPTER 1
Laura
“Miss Brown, are you paying attention?”
The question is asked in front of a hundred other students, all of whom are now looking at me. I’ve always been the shy, quiet, studious type. Not the sort of girl who draws scrutiny.
“Yessir,” I blush. “Of course.”
He has no idea how much attention I’m paying.
Doctor Rollins is the sexiest professor in Coyote Pass College, which most people wouldn’t say is saying much. It’s a small community college in a small city in California. Most people have never heard of the place. But everybody has heard of Sam Rollins.
He’s thirty-eight years old, a Scorpio with Leo rising. He’s written three books and he’s been on dozens and dozens of TV shows. He works for the FBI as a forensic psychology consultant.And he’s hot. He’s tall, and his dark hair is cut really well in swoops and fades.
I had a dream about him last night, a dream that’s making me distracted. One that kept me from paying attention to whatever question he picked me out to answer.
The dream started out just like this. We were in the lecture hall, except it was empty besides me and him. In the dream, he was trying to teach me something I couldn’t seem to grasp. Something about the dark triad of personalities. I ended up bent over the podium with pages falling all over the place like snowflakes in a snowstorm. It was filthy. It was primal.
He moves on with the lecture. It was embarrassing to be called out, but I figure nobody is going to remember that ten minutes from now. The real problem isn’t drifting off in class. It’s the fact that I have to ask him about my most recent assignment, and now I have to do it while he thinks I’m messing around and not listening to him.
As class ends, I am so nervous I feel like I might be sick. I keep glancing down at the paper I worked really hard on, thinking that it has to be a mistake. There’s no way this is really my grade.
This assignment is worth thirty percent of my grade, and right now it has a big, fat C on it. I’ve never approached a professor before to ask for an amendment, but I know it deserves a lot more than a C. I was hoping for an A. Maybe an A+. Right now, I would settle for a B.
I have to catch him before he leaves, but after the initial onslaught of questions that inevitably follow every class. I hang back behind the small gaggle of students, waiting until they’re all attended to.
He is putting his laptop into his briefcase as I approach, paper in hand.
“Yes, Miss…”
“Brown. Laura Brown,” I say. “I’m in your class.”
I immediately wish I hadn’t said that last part. He knows I am in his class. I’m currently in his class, after all. He just graded my paper barely above a failing grade. I wonder if he remembers that, or if what I’m going to ask is just going to come across really fucking entitled. I hope it doesn’t. I’m not spoiled. Not in any way.
His lips quirk into a smirk as he catches what I just said. I am making a fool of myself and I’ve barely opened my mouth.
Dr. Rollins has always made me nervous, ever since the first class he taught. Up close, he’s devilishly attractive in the way very few men ever really are. He’s got good, strong features and an energy to match. Superficially, he has thick dark hair that he runs his hand through when he’s stressed by some undergrad’s misunderstandings. He’s running his hand through his hair now as I push my paper across the desk toward him.
“Um, I think you might have made a mistake,” I say, stammering the words. I can barely believe I’m saying them. I glance at him to see if I have made him angry with that comment.
He’s old enough to be my father, but every time I make eye contact with him, which isn’t often, I feel a zap of electricity run through me. I feel like I am in trouble for some reason. Maybe it’s his stern demeanor. Maybe it’s his taciturn expression. Did I mention he has a very, very handsome face? It’s old fashioned, in a way, like the movie stars in the golden age of Hollywood.
I am lucky to be breathing the same air he breathes, let alone talking to him.
Doctor Samuel Rollins is one of the most respected psychologists in the country. He has a private practice that nobody can get into. Some people say he caters exclusively to a celebrity clientele. We’re lucky that he moonlights at the Coyote Pass College as a kind of favor to people who don’t have the money to pay for an Ivy League university. Dr. Rollins is someone we’re all grateful for, and that’s partly why I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
“I made a mistake? Do go on,” he says.
“I just wanted… um, I was wondering why my paper was graded so low?” I can’t make eye contact with him, but somehow I know he’s still looking into my soul. Being near this man is like being in front of a walking human emotional x-ray. He’s running me through a big clanking MRI of feelings.
He rifles through my paper for a brief moment before making a sound of recognition.
“This paper centered on your theory that your ex-boyfriend, Dave—namenotchanged to protect the guilty—is a sociopath,” he says. “The first problem is that psychopath and sociopath were both retired in favor of an ASPD diagnosis. You might know this because I happened to cover it in my lectures.”
“Yes, I am sorry, I used a colloquial…”
He talks over me as I stammer excuses.
