For two weeks,I focus more on learning her and her routine than I do on my studies.
She’s out of her dorm by seven every morning. She goes for a run, then comes back and presumably showers—a thought that has me aching every time I imagine her slender, lithe body naked with water and suds dripping down her skin.
I haven’t touched myself to the thought of her yet. In fact, I haven’t fucked or touched myself since I saw her that day under the tree. I’ve considered that perhaps the lack of release is adding to my heightened state, but the agony of my arousal feels like something dangerous. Like allowing myself to come thinking of her might explode this into something more than it already is.
I don’t want to jerk off. I don’t want to fuck another woman. I wanther. Nothing else will satisfy me.
After her shower, she goes to the coffee shop near campus. She always orders a latte with an extra shot and whatever their special muffin of the day is. She sits at the corner table by the window, pulls out whatever book she's reading for class, and loses herself in it until it’s time to head to campus.
On Monday, I'm at the coffee shop when she arrives. I've claimed the table next to hers, laptop open, looking like any other graduate student getting work done before class. She doesn't notice me at first, but when she brings her coffee and book over to the table, our eyes meet.
“Oh.” There’s surprise in her voice, but she doesn’t sound upset that I’m there. “Hi. I’ve seen you in lecture. I don’t think we’ve officially met.”
“I’m Romeo.” I smile—that brilliant, charming smile that has dropped the panties of every woman I’ve ever encountered, from ages eighteen to sixty—and hold out my hand. “Romeo Ciresa.”
“Romeo.” The sound of my name on her tongue thrills through me like the burn of an electric shock. “I’m Savannah. Beauregard.”
“Savannah Beauregard.” She shakes my hand with a playful smile. That thrumming in my veins intensifies, like I’m vibrating on the inside. I want to sweep her into my arms and carry her out of here, take her back to my penthouse, and lavish her with attention until she’s mine entirely. “It’s a pleasure.”
That’s the fucking understatement of the year. I’ve never been so stiff in my fucking life just from talking to a woman. My cock is diamond-hard, bent uncomfortably in my jeans, and I can feel my fucking pulse in it.
“It’s nice to meet you. This place is nice, isn’t it? I come here most mornings. Before class."
"I'll have to make it a habit, then. The coffee's excellent."
She blushes—just slightly, a faint pink staining her cheeks—and sits down, opening her book. But I notice the way she glances up at me periodically, the way her attention keeps drifting from the page.
I don't push. Not yet. I just sit there, working on my laptop, occasionally making a comment about the coffee or the weather or the reading for Dr. Kouris's seminar. I make it a point to be casual. Friendly. Unthreatening.
By the end of the week, she's expecting me. When I walk in, she looks up and smiles—a real smile this time, not the practiced one she gives Whitmore.
"Your usual table," she says, gesturing to the seat across from her.
I smile back. "If you don't mind the company."
"I don't mind."
We fall into an easy pattern. She reads, I work, and occasionally we talk—about class, archaeology, NewYork. Nothing too personal. Nothing that would make her uncomfortable.
But I'm learning her with every moment that passes. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she's concentrating. The way she bites her lower lip when she encounters a particularly challenging passage. The way her whole face lights up when she finds something interesting in her reading.
That last one does something to me. Something I don't have a name for, because I’ve never felt it before in my life.
Claiming my space by her in the library is even easier. The building itself is huge, but I know the spot Savannah has picked out for herself: a carrel on the third floor, tucked away in a corner with a view of Washington Square Park.
I find her there a few days after our coffee shop encounter, surrounded by books and papers, completely absorbed in her work. I take the carrel directly across from hers—close enough to observe but far enough to maintain plausible deniability.
She doesn't notice me for the first hour. She's too focused, taking notes in a leather-bound journal and occasionally pulling up articles on her laptop. I watch the way she works, intensely focused, and then occasionally pausing to stare out the window while she thinks through something complex. When she finally looks up and sees me, she startles slightly.
"Romeo. How long have you been there?"
"About an hour. You were very focused. I didn't want to interrupt."
She glances at the books spread across my carrel—I've brought materials for my MBA coursework. "You’re not a full-time archaeology student then?”
“Financial analysis. Thrilling stuff." I lean back in my chair. "What about you? You look like you're onto something interesting."
Her face transforms—that light I've been watching for, the one that makes her beautiful in a way that has nothing to do with her physical features.
