Her eyes narrowed as if she thought I was playing her—which I’ll admit I kind of was—but she said, “Okay. Let me see.”
I spun my laptop to face her, and she pulled it toward her to see what I was on about. “This looks like a standard physics problem. What are you solving for?”
“Y.”
She studied the problem for a few minutes, flipped her notebook to a blank page, jotted some notes, and said, “I think if you apply basic calculus reasoning, you can get there by first solving for X.”
I’d figured that out too when I worked on the problem earlier, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Thanks.”
I took my laptop back and worked on the problem while she returned to her project. Even though I remained hyperaware of her, catching her little sighs and feeling her eyes on me from time to time, I still managed to finish all my physical chemistry homework for the next two weeks while we worked together in easy silence for a couple of hours. At last my ass needed a break from the hard wooden chair.
“You in a good place?” I asked.
Lifting her eyes, she asked, “A good place for what?”
“Taking a break, maybe letting Ichabod have a turn at the good study carrel.” I grinned.
She sat up straight and groaned. “Argh. How long have we been working?” Pulling her phone from her jeans pocket, she answered her own question. “How did that happen?”
“What? Time?” I laughed.
With an exasperated huff, she said, “Yes. I can’t remember the last time I studied for two hours straight with no breaks.”
“Well,” I drawled. “You did take a few breaks to see what I was doing.”
Her narrowed eyes amused me.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said with a sniff, but her eyes didn’t meet mine. “I’ve outlined my entire quantum physics project.” Almost as an afterthought, she whispered, “All of it.”
“I’ve finished two weeks’ worth of problems for physical chemistry.” With a quirk of my lips, I added, “From the looks of it, we should study together more often.”
Her brow shot up.
“You know, since both of us get so much done when we’re together.”
She shook her head, but I caught the tiny grin playing over her luscious lips.
Reaching my arms above my head, I twisted from side to side, giving my back a stretch. Across the table, Chessly tested all my good intentions when she pressed her elbows back and arched her back, lifting her tits to the ceiling. I had to remember I was a gentleman so I wouldn’t allow myself to drop into a fantasy of her stretching like that in front of me without clothes on.Fuck. The more time I spent around her, the prettier she became, which was saying something considering she’d had all my attention since the moment I first saw her.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Would you like to grab a pizza at Stromboli’s?”
“Um—”
From the expression that flitted over her features, I worried she was planning to turn me down. Then her stomach did me a solid, rumbling loud enough to be heard down the hall. She slapped her hands over her middle with an embarrassed chuckle.
Grinning, I said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Fine. Okay. I guess I can take a break for dinner.”
“Don’t hurt yourself admitting you liked studying with me as much as I liked studying with you.”
“Whatever,” she said, but she didn’t put any heat into it.
We gathered up our laptops, notebooks, and whatnot, repacked our backpacks, and headed out into the frigid January evening. Outside Hillman, we fell into step as I subtly guided her in the direction of the parking lot. Our breaths lingered in the air behind us. She must have been super cold because she didn’t move away when I dropped my arm casually across her shoulders, pulling her closer to my heat.
One of the perks of being a big man and an athlete was that I ran hot. While she huddled in her down puffy coat, I managed just fine in a T-shirt and hoodie. We didn’t waste time though, walking briskly over the recently plowed sidewalk to the parking lot behind the Union where I’d left my truck.
