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  “Hardly. I’m a woman of the world, remember?”

  “So, about you and Kent --” Mark’s grin turned devilish. “-- I’ll bet he carries a big stick for you.”

  “Oh, please, I’m old enough to have babysat him. Plus, he’s my teacher, and that’s not, uh, cool, is it? To date your teacher? Even these days?”

  “No, it’s not cool. But the heart has its own ways of doing things.”

  Rosemary glanced at her watch. “Almost time for me to go.” She gulped the rest of her latte. “I’m in the American Lit seminar at ten. You?”

  “Nah, Kent’s class is one of only two for me this semester. I’m busy digging up a thesis topic so I can write it next semester and graduate. I did a little too much partying last year.”

  “Bad boy. Someone should teach you some discipline.”

  “Don’t I know it.” He stood, waiting for her to retrieve her bookpack. “Too bad I’m on this celibacy kick.”

  “Celibacy?” Her first day at school was enlightening her with all kinds of information she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not the safest time in history to sleep around. Healthwise, that is. Besides, I’m saving myself for my true love.”

  Rosemary glanced at him, ready to laugh, only to see his serious expression. Patting his cheek, she asked, “Shall I send any prospects I find your way?”

  “Honey, you find ’em, I’ll wine ’em and dine ’em.” With a wave and a whirl, Mark was gone, leaving Rosemary to find her own way to her ten o’clock seminar.

  * * * * *

  Back in his office, Jonathan Kent leaned back in his dark green leather chair, frowning. He hadn’t liked the way Rosemary Lockhart had sassed him. No doubt about it, she was going to be a pain in the ass. He’d had it with the dilettante housewives that Admissions was always letting in, those with too much money and too few brains or no originality. They chattered and tittered, thinking they were so daring for taking a course about erotica. In frustration, he whacked a nearby stack of papers with a thick wooden ruler.

  He ached for serious students of an art form that was too often dismissed as “literary porn.” Between the wealthy housewives, the Story of O wannabees, and the humorless de Sade devotees, he was no longer sure he wanted to teach this course. Even though he loved it.

  Intrigued that Rosemary had fought his attempt to embarrass her, he idly slapped his ruler against the desk. Obviously, she was more intelligent and feistier than the average hausfrau. She looked no more than thirty, though the aging, preppy-style clothing she wore hinted she might be older.

  He leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, recalling her curly amber-red hair, pulled back from her heart-shaped face. Her blouse’s color matched that of her blue eyes. That blouse had been surprisingly form-fitting and had hidden none of her charms, as the quaint saying went. She filled out her jeans as thoroughly as she did her blouse, a true Victorian-style body. Nothing waiflike about this one. He found himself wondering how it would feel to touch her pale, smooth skin.

  His erection throbbed. He was annoyed that he found her attractive and annoyed that he couldn’t have her. After all, she was his student. Tough shit that he had a weakness for older women, especially older women who didn’t look older.

  He clenched his hands into fists to keep from touching himself, waiting for the urge to pass. He hadn’t craved a student like this before, ever.

  Picking up his mug of good old American coffee, black, he leaned forward in his chair. None of that fancy coffee-shop brew for him. And a real man always drank it black. He knew that some of his colleagues and students assumed he was an Anglophile, drinking tea with his pinky out. Even though he didn’t have a chest like Fabio’s, he was no cream puff. He liked women, football, hockey, beer, and coffee, in that order. Just because he also liked literature and art museums, did that make him less of a manly man? Hell, no.

  He considered whether he should make himself appear more testosterone-filled. His innate shyness, combined with his studious appearance, might have given Rosemary the wrong impression, considering the way she sassed him.

  Maybe a lumberjack’s shirt would do it. That, and some work boots.

  He certainly believed that man was meant to control woman in the bedroom, though such dominance needed to be tempered with affection. Kent let his thoughts run wild, imagining a relationship in which he would show his love in tangible, corporal-punishment ways. Closing his eyes and leaning back again, he meditated on applying a paddle to the bottom of a squalling Rosemary Lockhart, her jeans and panties down around her knees, her well-padded body draped across his lap. He sighed with frustrated lust. Spanking a fully packed bottom satisfied him more than spanking a skinny one.

  A sharp double rap on the heavy walnut door to his office startled him into sitting upright quickly, and in the process slopping part of his coffee on himself. Grabbing the roll of paper towels he kept nearby because of his tendency to spill things, he cursed, turning his glare on the person entering his office. It was the department head, so he had to be halfway polite, damn it all.

  “Yes?” Jonathan muttered, swabbing at his shirt and pants. Good thing he kept a spare change in the office and that most of his clothing was washable. He’d learned that lesson long ago.

  “Jon, we’ve been waiting for you in the faculty lounge.” Professor Percival Furbish looked down his long nose at him. Jonathan knew he looked exactly like a gawky, adolescent scholar-geek with coffee all over his clothing.

  He checked his watch while swearing under his breath. Damn that Rosemary Lockhart. Not only had fantasizing about reddening her lovely fundament made him forget he was holding a mug of coffee, she’d also made him forget the time. He didn’t need to get into any more trouble with his boss. Their mutual animosity, instinctive for unknown reasons, had to be lived with if he planned on earning tenure this year.

  Through clenched teeth, he said, “I’m sorry, Percival. I’ll be right there.”

  “See that you come now. You can change your clothing later,” Furbish barked before stalking away.

  Why does he hate me so much?

  Wait a minute. The only other people I’ve ever seen Furbish act this way toward are gay. His homophobia is legendary. Perhaps he doesn’t like me because he thinks --?

  Nah, that can’t be it. He might think I’m a pervert because I study erotica, but I’ve never given him any reason to think I’m gay.

  Jonathan wadded up the coffee-stained paper towels. Full of temper and embarrassment over his stained, wet clothing, he made his reluctant appearance at the departmental meeting.

  Chapter Two

  What had she been thinking, scheduling three of her four classes back-to-back? Rosemary had consumed nothing all day except the latte with Mark and a candy bar she’d extracted from a vending machine between her eleven a.m. and noon classes.

  At least the schedule she’d chosen kept her Tuesdays and Thursdays completely free, and that had its advantages. She needed a part-time job to stretch Charlie’s insurance money.

  She wended her way across campus to the bookstore. Let’s face it -- grad school is meant for the young. No one as old as I am has enough energy to deal with it.

  She ceased her trek for a moment. Though she needed to buy books, her hunger and thirst nagged her and the cafeteria was on her way. Eager for a large bottle of water and a fat sandwich, she rushed through the double doors, only to run face-first into Professor Kent, knocking him flat on his behind. His cup of coffee emptied itself completely, mostly on him. She stepped backwards while checking her clothing for coffee stains, effectively bottlenecking traffic in and out of the cafeteria. Students grumbled, shoving their way around the two.

  Realization hit her. She’d just knocked down one of her professors and covered him with his own coffee. What a great way to begin her graduate school career. Putting her things on a nearby table, she leaned over and extended her hand to Dr. Kent. “I’m sorry, so sorry, sir. Her
e, let me help you.”

  Hmmm. She’d called him “sir” again. What was up with that?

  Kent batted away her helping hand as he clambered to his feet, his face a darkening thunderstorm once he noticed who’d collided with him.

  “Ms. Lockhart. So I have you to thank for ruining my only clean clothing here on campus. Are you blind, my own personal jinx, or just stupid?”

  Stunned by the cruelty of his comment, her cheeks reddened as if he’d slapped her. “Dr. Kent, I am truly sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going. But it was an accident, and it doesn’t give you the right to call me stupid.”

  He glared down at his ruined clothing. Seeing her opportunity to flee, she was spinning to escape when his large, strong hand grasped her upper arm. She gasped at the immediate heat his touch produced as he turned her back to face him. Abruptly, Kent dropped his hand as if he, too, had felt branded.

  “Ms. Lockhart, I apologize for my boorish behavior. My reaction was execrable, as were my manners. Of course it was an accident. Are you all right? The coffee didn’t burn you, did it?” His gray eyes bored into hers, the eye contact almost a physical blow. A small fluttering in her empty stomach warmed her to the core.

  “I’m fine, and I’m sorry. Really.” She started to edge away, embarrassed and uncomfortable with his aggressive staring. It made her feel as if her underwear were pressing against her crotch too tightly. And that sensation made her want to fling her clothing off in all directions, a dangerous desire to experience in front of one of her professors.

  He grabbed her upper arm again, stopping her departure. His gaze pinned her like a specimen butterfly. Heart pounding and mouth dry, she managed to mumble, “Yes, sir?”

  His sharp, square features softened. But his slight grin petrified her more than his earlier scowl.

  “Ms. Lockhart, you really must be more careful, dear, or I shall have to find some way to ... discipline you.”

  His grin grew wide. Rosemary fled, sensing his eyes on her bottom.

  * * * * *

  Jonathan berated himself even as he enjoyed watching Rosemary Lockhart’s bottom jiggle in her jeans. What was he thinking? He cringed at the nastiness of his first comment, when he was ripping mad about wearing yet another cup of coffee. He’d vented his anger at Furbish on her, saying to her what he’d wanted to say to his department head. But he winced even more at remembering the mention of “discipline” to her. That sort of thing could get him brought up on charges of sexual harassment, perversion, God knows what. Furbish already thought he had deviant habits and treated him accordingly.

  He couldn’t ignore his aching erection. Rosemary made him dream of doing things that he’d never admitted to anyone, and for which he had never found a suitable partner. He’d dominated several women, of course, followed by intense sex with them. But he’d never found the right one, the one who would submit to him because she loved him, the one whom he would cherish and chastise affectionately -- in short, a wife. He’d seen thirty come and go, and didn’t want to see forty without a partner, a helpmate, a lover. Could the right woman be close at hand?

  But he couldn’t have Rosemary, he reminded himself while trudging back to his office. After all, she was one of his students. Besides that, she probably thought he was a little odd, the way most of them did. And then there was the question of age. Though she looked thirty, she carried herself like someone older. The taboo of having a younger man for a partner had stopped some of his promising relationships before they’d gotten off the ground.

  Where was the woman who wanted what he had to offer?

  * * * * *

  Rosemary made it home before the traffic became too snarled with rush-hour refugees anxious for home and hearth. Dropping the enormous bag of books that had set her back nearly five hundred dollars, she flopped into the nearest chair, Charlie’s old recliner. She was so tired, partly because she never had eaten anything after accidentally forcing Dr. Kent to wear his coffee.

  Pushing back in the recliner, she thought again of her professor: his stern visage; his outsized, able-looking hands; his clear gray eyes that seemed to look right through her, reading her most secret thoughts, her desires. She hadn’t felt this way since --

  She shut her eyes against the memory’s pain.

  She hadn’t felt this way since the first time she’d been introduced to Charlie Lockhart, instructor and brilliant doctoral candidate. But Charlie had been older than she. Dr. Kent had to be at least ten years younger. He’d not want her. He’d be searching for some fresh young gal to bed and wed, not an old crone like her.

  The phone rang once, twice. Muttering to herself, she grabbed the portable handset, taking it to the kitchen with her. As she searched the fridge for something quick to assuage her hunger, she half-snarled, “Yes?”

  “Whoa, gal, what crawled up your butt? Got a minute to talk to your oldest, dearest, better-looking-than-you friend?”

  “Only if she treats me to dinner. I’m so hungry I could make Olive Garden regret their ‘all you can eat’ promotion.” Rosemary grabbed a container of cottage cheese and began spooning it into her mouth, cheered by her best friend’s call. Faith always made her laugh.

  “Hey, seems I owe you some supper, anyway, for helping me repaint all the molding at my place last weekend. Want to go tonight?” Faith asked.

  “Unless you’ve got a hot date you’d rather entertain.” Rosemary stopped eating the cottage cheese.

  Faith cackled in her ear. “Not tonight. But I do have a double-date proposal for you.”

  Rosemary groaned aloud. “I told you, Fai, I’m just, well, not ready. Yesterday would have been fourteen years.”

  “Aw, hon, I forgot it was your anniversary. Let’s do that dinner tonight. Seriously.” Faith’s voice exuded concern.

  “As long as it can be early. I drank a lot of champagne last night, and today was my first full day of grad school. I have to read a total of four hundred pages before Wednesday. I’m whipped, and I haven’t eaten enough today to keep a bird alive. Can we meet at --” Rosemary checked the clock over the stove. “-- five? The usual place?”

  “You got it, hon. See you there.”

  Rosemary hung up the phone before putting the cottage cheese back in the fridge. Five p.m. meant she had time for a short nap. She set the kitchen timer before heading for the couch and sleep.

  * * * * *

  At five minutes to five, Rosemary pulled into the parking lot of The Last Fern Bar. She wasn’t quite sure what the name meant, especially since the place hadn’t a fern in sight, though it did have a bar. However, the restaurant’s name amused her anyway. After pulling the heavy pine door open, she glanced at the specials listed on a white board before spying Faith.

  She had met her friend at the Institute of Technology on the first day of her new job as a filing clerk. Just out of college, with a raging recession in Boston affecting everyone except MBAs or those with scientific degrees, Rosemary took the first thing she could find: a clerical job. It was a very good clerical job, with fabulous benefits, but it didn’t exactly stretch her mental capacity.

  But Faith Charity Hope, whose mother had gone a little nuts in naming her daughter after the classic virtues, had brightened Rosemary’s days and made her laugh. She could forget about the dismal apartment she shared with two near-strangers, courtesy of an ad in the alternative rag, the Boston Phoenix. Though her tiny room had peeling plaster and was in a dilapidated section of Cambridge, she’d not have traded it for a cushier spot in her parents’ home in another state. She treasured her independence.

  Faith showed her the ropes, both at the university and after hours. After meeting Faith, she’d enjoyed her first adult girls’ night out at The Golden Banana, her first radical dye job and bikini wax, and a series of naughty escapades she’d keep mum about till her dying day. Well, she did tell Charlie eventually. Though he’d been as casual about her adventures as she had been, he found them a fine excuse to paddle her bare backside every night for
a week. She smiled. Charlie had begun spanking her on their third date. Love at first whack.

  “Hey.” Faith grinned at her. “You look fabulous. You’re glowing, in fact. Are you sleeping with someone?”

  “With whom? You know my life has no men in it. I still miss Charlie too much to sleep with someone else.”

  Faith signaled the bartender for two Harpoon IPAs. “Aw, c’mon, Rosie. You really do look as if someone parked his shoes under your bed recently. Are you sure you drank that champagne alone last night?”

  “I’m sure.” Rosemary changed the subject. “Who have you been seeing? You mentioned a double date. It’s not a double blind date, is it?”

  “Wellll, nooooo.”

  “So, dish.”

  “He’s sweet, funny, handsome, sexy, rich -- okay, he’s not rich, but he’s sweet and funny, and smart, and he’s sexy to me. His name’s Doug Freeman, and he works for a telecommunications firm. You know how I like engineers.” Faith paid for the two beers, swigging hers briefly before continuing. “I met Doug at the Stop ’n’ Shop, of all places. He made a rude comment while we were both looking at cucumbers, and from any other man, I would have been shocked or insulted. But he resembled a little boy using a dirty word he didn’t know the meaning of. So cute. We started talking, one thing led to another, and we met for dinner the very next night. That was last week.” Faith stopped to catch her breath before continuing. “I saw him Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I’ll see him again tomorrow night. I don’t know if he’s The One, but I like him, and for now that’s good enough. It’s been two years and five months since I lost my Max. It’s time for me to have a life again. Time for you, too, Rosie.”

  “No, it’s not.” Rosemary shook her head “no” emphatically.

  “Yes, it is. This is Fai, honey. I’ve got your best interests at heart. Doug works with this fellow named Steve. He’s about your age, and he used to teach math before he jumped to tech. I think you should at least try dinner with him and Doug and me.”