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In the third row, a man with shoulders almost as broad as Bonner’s raises a hand. It’s more a baseball glove.

“Wow, okay. Ryan. You are hard to miss, Rhino. Tell us about yourself.”

Ryan clears his throat. “I’m Ryan. I’m not new… I started my degree a few years back but needed to put it on hold for personal reasons. Picking up where I left off.”

“He could pick up a fucking sequoia,” Tali whispers. Again, her inside voice isn’t quite inside enough.

“Something to add, Anatalia?” Dr. Bonner stares at her with arms folded, brow quirked. Is that annoyance?

“No, sir, and you can call me Tali,” she retorts in a louder voice.

The class continues as it should. Plant Systematics and Taxonomy covers identifying, naming, and clarifying plant families and species. Bonner’s worry about certain students’ recollection of year one leaf variables is justified. If you can’t correctly identity a leaf, how the fuck are you supposed to pair it to a genus? Six assignments are listed. Some are individual work, one is with a partner, and the other is a group project, with groups assigned by Dr. Bonner. I can only hope he doesn’t hold our post-bar hookup activities against me and put me in a dud group. I mean, he sure enjoyed himself. That’s a good thing, a positive.

“Ms. Aldereyne, can you stay back a moment,” he says, just when I think I’ve escaped through the door unnoticed. Ryan was talking to the doctor, and how he saw around that guy’s bulk is a mystery, unless he was paying attention when I stood, collected my things and made my way toward the door.

“I have another class,” I protest. It comes out weak, with a hint of whine.

“I won’t keep you long,” he replies as Ryan steps around me. Tali hovers until she is dismissed with a curt “Out!” and a flick of his fingers. Oh, fuck. “Close the door behind you, Tali.”

Tali throws me a glance over her shoulder before doing as she’s told. I understand. His bossy tone and instruction to “come, now!” have me doing what he demands. He may look all teddy bear, cuddly, sexy. In reality, he’s a grizzly crossed with a black bear.

“Aspen Aldereyne,” he begins, and my muscles freeze solid. “Not a tourist, but a student. My student.”

I swallow, the pooling saliva overwhelming my mouth. Not so long ago, his dick overwhelmed my mouth, but I digress. He’s hardly the affable mill worker he said he was. Wait, we didn’t discuss occupations. He said he worked in town, as opposed to the mill which is out of town. I assumed he was a mill worker, given his grungy appearance. Even polished doctors who lecture need a weekend outlet. Before me in dark pants, a pale-blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his half-up, half-down hair, he could model for Timberland.

“You didn’t tell me you were a student,” he says, one hand stuffed inside his pocket. Is that hiding an erection? No, it can’t be. One night is one night. We moved on; I moved on.

“Funny, I don’t remember you asking me. Nor telling me you were a doctor who teaches at Wyldan U.”

His eyes hood, a crackle of potential energy sparking through the empty room, save for us two mere meters apart.

“I won’t say anything if that’s what you we⁠—”

“I don’t care about that,” he snaps back, a wrinkle forming on his forehead.

“Then what’s the issue, Doctor?”

“The issue, Ms. Aldereyne,” he growls, rising from his seated position and covering the distance in three strides, “is that I want to do it again, and again, and again.”

Chapter Five

Aspen

A FRIGID DISPOSITION

Biotechnology is a class I’m sure I’ll love. The bare-boned science basis of cell structure and how everything lives and dies. This was the area my mother adored, and her passion was handed down to me. Before she died, I remember my mother in three ways. Incredibly young and beautiful, in love with my father, and a close second was her passion for plant biology. Working in a lab makes me feel closer to her memory, and my memories require all the help. To lose anyone at seven years old is soul destroying. The loss of a mother at any age has a hollowing effect; some poets and writers haven’t even come close to depicting with the visceral accuracy it requires.

Botanical Science Laboratory Three is in the old wing, deep in another grand, red-bricked Victorian building. This building is adjacent to the one housing reception and enrollments and staff rooms, accessed by a covered breezeway or the subterranean tunnels used to move about the campus when the weather is unforgiving and the snow too deep to traverse. I knew of the Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado, a complex, deep military system. These tunnels were not deep, nor complex. Similar to prohibition-era smuggling tunnels, they are just wide enough to allow two adults to walk without touching, or an equipment trolley to be wheeled along and not impede the movement of students or faculty. As the weather is still mild, sunny days with the barest hint of wind, the tunnels are more a shortcut for some wanting to arrive at their designated class without battling the above-ground foot traffic. I adore the feeling of the sun on my skin. Those tunnels are more a need than a want, and while I can walk to every class without outer layers and snow boots, I will relish doing so. Wyldan is located three hundred and eighty miles east of Anchorage, and just over seventy from Centennial Peak of Kluane Park in Canada’s Yukon. The biodiversity is incredible, as are the fluctuating and inhospitable temperatures that can turn on a dime.

“Hi, Aspen, wasn’t it? Lukaz, from Systematics with Bonner.” Lukaz Vaskari holds the laboratory door open. The breath I exhale upon seeing a familiar face is victorious. Yes, I’m insular and private. That doesn’t mean I want to drift through life alone. If we get partnered up for projects in this class, it would be nice to recognize at least one person. Lukaz sounds like a nice and genuine guy, according to Tali. I only have her word, and that’s good enough. He’s also good looking with rugged yet classic features partially hidden under long, dark-blond hair which falls across his face. Gray eyes give way to a straight nose, full lips, a tiny dimple, and a square jaw to dampen underwear for miles. His build is athletic and capable, with hands I can picture exploring every inch of my naked flesh.

“Hey, Lukaz,” I reply as causal as possible.

We find two seats among the paired desks, each pair separated by another on the other side of the aisle. Behind us in the lab proper, stainless-steel sinks are recessed into workbenches set up with compound and stereo microscopes and sterilization autoclaves. On another bench are spectrophotometers and potometers. A spectro measures how much light a substance transmits and absorbs, while a potometer measures a cut plant shoot’s water uptake. This is my happy place. If I could divide my time between wandering forests and unlocking specimens in a laboratory, that would be my dream.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, because I’m gonna need all the help I can get.” Lukaz grins. I grin back, appreciating his honesty, until a frigid force blows through the door, causing all conversation to cease.

“Holy shit,” whispers someone to my right, on the other side of the aisle.