Page 5 of The KING Review

This should be interesting.

Chapter Three

Nobody Wants That

Neve

The Night at the Bar

Iwait until we reach the outer door of my apartment near the bridge before I turn and face him—ready to shoot my shot. If you don’t try, you’ll never know, right?

“If I told you I wasn’t ready to go inside just yet,” I say, keeping my voice low, “would you kiss me? Or would you give me some line about ethics and age gaps?”

Grant blinks. I’m near certain he didn’t expect me to be so straightforward, but my sister and I are very different people. His mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile. “How old are you?”

My teeth sink into my bottom lip, and I bounce on the balls of my feet. “That mean you’re considering it?”

“No,” he says flatly. “I just want to know how long I’ll go to jail for.”

I scoff. “I’m twenty-six, not sixteen.”

Grant leans a shoulder to the wall. “I’m forty-two, Neve.”

Oof. My name in his low drawl makes the lava in my belly sing. He’s all lit up under the streetlight spill, green eyes gone mossy and dark under the frowning slice of his brows.

“I don’t care about that.” I step forward and lay a hand on his chest. A ripple of movement rolls through him, but he doesn’t back away. I can feel his heartbeat tattooing its rhythm against my palm.

His eyes flick to my mouth. I play into it, tongue darting out to wet my lips.

But just when I think he might give in, he catches my wrist. It’s gentle and firm at once, but a definite warning shot. When I look up, his gaze catches mine and pins me in place.

“I do care.” His voice is carefully impassive, but I’m better at reading people than that. He’s rattled, I can tell. His eyes dip to my mouth again.

He’s also clearly very disciplined, because that’s the moment he steps back, dropping my hand and tipping his head in an almost gentlemanly nod. I frown; I don’t want gentlemanly.

“Goodnight, Neve,” he says over his shoulder as he goes. I make absolutely no attempt not to check out his ass (hot) as he walks away.

A long, sizzling silence hangs in the air, like the static before a lightning strike. My shoulders deflate, and I turn to walk into my apartment, feeling both defeated and triumphant. Sure, he didn’t kiss me, but he definitely wanted to.

This should be interesting.

I’ve known since that night at the bar, when I lured Grant King into walking me home, that he wants me like I want him, even if he won’t let himself act on it without a little push.

I don’t want to push too hard, of course—but he’s hot, smart, funny, and clearly kind and caring. My sister would never put up with him as a friend or a colleague otherwise.

Does the age gap bother me? No. Does the fact that he has a kid bother me? No. Does the fact that he’s a professor and I’m a student—sometimes in his classes—bother me? Nope, I’m capable of compartmentalizing.

Will I walk away if any of those things bother him? Absolutely. I’m not an asshole.

I have something of a plan, but first, I’m going to try this the old-fashioned way.

I’ve been sitting out in the quad for an hour, soaking up the sun and intermittently reading up on my Intro to Therapeutic Intervention for Sex and Relationships Counseling class, all while checking the psych building door, waiting for Grant to step out.

I’m wearing red again—it wasn’t lost on me how that affected him last week.

I cross and uncross my legs, flicking my gaze up again to check the doors. Nothing. I go back to focusing on the page, making notes as I go. Pink pen scrawls the paper as I summarize behavioral interventions.

Two types of behavioral interventions: Structured behavioral assignments for patient(s) between sessions vs. experimental modulated behavioral experiments to determine negative effects of sexual encounters.