That riot of chestnut curls that slipped past her shoulders drew my attention first. The way the strap of her backpack snagged her baggy Mountain State University sweatshirt and pulled it tight across her chest sent my gaze to her sweet rack. I’ve always been a boob man, and this girl’s looked like the perfect handfuls for a guy who can palm a football. I let my eyes slide down to discover a pair of toned legs filling out black yoga pants. Bet if she turned around, I’d have an eyeful of gorgeous round ass.
Instead, her friend said something that made her snort-laugh, snapping my attention back to her face. My gaze collided with a pair of the deepest green eyes I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t tear myself away from them. The two of them whispering would have made me laugh if not for how gobsmacked I was. The girl was gorgeous.
Then she opened her mouth and sassed me, which meant I had to play with her. I parked my ass in a seat with a clear line of sight both to the prof and to her, but most of my attention was on her. When I winked at her, I swear steam puffed out of her ears, so I had to do it again. By the time the professor made his announcements and turned the class over to the TA, I’d learned a few things about Jamaica Winslow. One: she was prepared. Two: she was super intelligent. Three: she irritated the prof. I couldn’t figure out if she did it on purpose, but from the prof’s nasally, snobby delivery, I thought maybe she did, which interested me more. Four: she couldn’t keep her eyes off me. That part I liked—a lot.
Then the TA did me a solid—not on purpose, but I’d take it. He paired me up with Jamaica for our class project. Kinda felt like I’d caught the ball on the twenty behind the corner with only the safety to beat to hit the end zone.
I gathered up my pack and headed up the aisle to chat with my new “partner.” Judging by the scowl twisting her perfect pillowy lips, she didn’t see our pairing the same way I did. Huh. Time to change that.
“Looks like we both got lucky,” I said.
She stuffed her hand on her hip and glared at me. “You did, anyway.”
I hiked a brow and waited.
The exasperated sigh that escaped her disturbed the curls falling over her forehead, momentarily distracting me.
“I’m an English major. Judging by some of the other pairings, Dair put English majors with non-English majors. I hope you have something to bring to the table.”
Leaning in close, I whispered, “I have all kinds of ‘something’ to bring to the table.”
The pink stain on her high cheekbones gratified me.
“I always like to start things on a first-name basis.” I stuck out my hand. “Callahan O’Reilly.”
It was all I could do to stifle the laugh that tried to escape me when she bared her teeth. “Jamaica Winslow.”
Her small hand was warm, soft, and surprisingly strong as she shook mine. When our palms met, a tingle feathered over my skin, and I held on for an extra couple of seconds when she tried to pull away. Her eyes widened a fraction and satisfaction coursed through me. Good to know I got to her too.
She slipped her backpack off her shoulder, setting it on the arm of a chair to fish around inside it. A second later she extracted a day planner, opened it, and like magic, pulled a pen from somewhere in her curls. The action had me leaning in for a closer look at what else she might be hiding in that mass of hair. From beneath her brows, she gifted me a long-suffering glare I met with a grin.
“When can you meet so we can figure out our project?”
“Tuesday nights after eight and some Thursday nights after eight if we have a home game.”
She consulted her old-school calendar. “I might have to work on those nights. Do you have any other time?”
“Not in the mornings. I have weight-training and film from six to eight-thirty.” Ticking off on my fingers, I said, “Classes from nine to noon. Lunch and meetings. Classes from two to three-thirty, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Practice from four to seven. Dinner.” At her wide-eyed stare, I added, “Film on some Monday and Wednesday nights, depending.”
“Wow. That’s—Wow.”
“Can you ask your boss not to schedule you on Tuesday and Thursday evenings?”
“Or we can meet on nights when I don’t work. I’m sure we’ll be doing most of this project independently and exchanging notes anyway.”
“That’s not what it says on the syllabus.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Didn’t you read the syllabus? It says the group project ‘must show evidence of close collaboration.’” Her eyes saucered as I quoted the syllabus from memory, and disappointment put an edge in my voice. “That doesn’t imply independent research and exchanging emails.” I crossed my arms over my chest and enjoyed the way her pupils dilated a fraction when her gaze dropped to my arms. That was more like it.
She glanced down at her day planner again and said, “Looks like I can meet you at 8:15 p.m. tomorrow night. Does that work for you?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t have to check your calendar or something?”
I tapped a finger to my temple. “It’s all right here.”
Tilting her head, she glanced up at me from beneath her brows. “Of course it is.”
The stereotyping irritated me, so I goaded her. “Your place or mine?”
She blew out an impatient breath. “How about the study tables at the back of the first floor of the library?”
The corner of my mouth drew up. “Doubt it will be as quiet as your place, but we can meet there.”
Muttering something under her breath that sounded like “Lord, save me from arrogant jocks,” she wrote in her calendar and shoved it into her backpack. When she straightened up, the pen disappeared back into her hair. Fascinating.
“Arrogance comes with the territory. Dumb, not so much. I’m glad you got it right.”
For a second she closed her gorgeous eyes and pulled her lips between her teeth. I didn’t have to hear her say “Give me patience” to know she thought it. Damn, this girl was going to be fun.
“See you tomorrow night, Jamaica.” I spun my ball cap around so the bill shielded my eyes, saluted her, and headed up the aisle. I would have rather spent the rest of the morning teasing a certain curly-haired beauty, but I didn’t have to check my phone to know I was already late to lunchtime film.
By the time Jamaica arrived at the library for our study session, I’d snagged a table in the back where she’d directed, my books spread across the surface to show her I was more than the best tight end ever to grace Holland Field at Wildcat Stadium. After checking the time on my phone, I raised a brow in her direction.
“Sorry I’m late. A group of girls from the freshmen dorm rolled in at ten minutes to close and spent twenty minutes deciding to buy one bag of sour gummy worms and a couple boxes of Red Hots.” A massive eye roll accompanied her into her chair as she plopped down with her backpack on her lap.
Without acknowledging my outlay on the table, she began extracting notebooks, folders, and books from her bag as though it were Hermione’s magic purse from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. At last, she set her pack on the floor beside her chair, pulled a pen from somewhere in her curls, and opened one of her notebooks. “I’ve outlined a list of themes we could explore. I’m sort of partial to exploitation in Hardy’s novels.”
“Hello, Jamaica. How was your day?”
When she glanced up at me, I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. She might have ideas about how this partnership was going to go, but I had ideas too.
“What?”
I jacked a brow. “How was your day?” Letting a little grin slip out, I shrugged. “Aside from the annoying freshmen at closing time.”
Her head tilted to the side as she finally looked at me, a puzzled expression on her stunning face. “Um, it was fine. Good, actually. Yours?”
“Better now.” I leaned my forearms on the table and dropped my voice half an octave. “I’m looking forward to pairing up with you.”
She scolded me with her face. “Partners. We are project partners.”
I coughed into my hand to hide my laughter at her expression and her schoolteacher tone. “The difference is—what?”
“We are not ‘paired up’ as in getting together. We are partners preparing a class project for our mutual advancement.”
“Is that what we are?” I drawled.
A prim nod preceded her nose tipping up and her eyes narrowing. “Precision in language precludes misunderstandings.” She opened her notebook, her pen poised above the page. “Our project needs a thematic focus. As I said earlier, Hardy’s interest in the exploitation of the working class runs through all his books. We could use The Mayor of Casterbridge, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles as our anchors and bring in some modern movies and politics to show the timelessness of his theme.”
Tapping my finger on the part of the syllabus I’d circled, I said, “Or we could discuss manners”—I cleared my throat—“in Austen’s novels. We could use Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion as our anchors and bring in modern movies and social media to show the timelessness of her theme.” I may or may not have smirked at the little “O” she made with her mouth when I mimicked her, verbatim. “Precision of understanding of intelligence precludes misunderstandings.” Stealing her pen from her hand, I set the tip of it on my blank notebook page and waited.
Her plump lips disappeared inside her mouth while she pulled a long breath in through her nose. That breath escaped on a puff as she reached for her pen, a pretty shade of pink coloring her cheeks. “Got it. You’re not another dumb jock.”
“Correct.” I held her pen away from her, examining it. “This is fancy,” I said as I checked out the engraved intertwining knots that ran the length of it, ending in some sort of round pink crystal at the top. Hefting its weight in my palm, I admired the obviously expensive writing implement.
“May I have that back, please?”
I gave her my best innocent face. “You don’t share your pens?”
Stretching out her hand, palm up, she said, “That one’s special.”
“A present from your boyfriend?”
“A present from my high-school English teacher when I graduated.” She wiggled her fingers.
The edge in her tone said I was on the brink of pissing her off. Relenting, I touched her precious pen to her palm but didn’t let go. “No boyfriend, huh?”
“That’s none of your business.” She snatched the pen from me and stuffed it somewhere in her hair. Fascinated, I watched her extract a plain old generic Bic from roughly the same spot.
“I’ll take that as a no.” At the top of my blank notebook page I wrote: Jamaica is fair game.
Her hand flashed out, and she spun my notebook to read my note. Glaring at me, she said through gritted teeth, “Dr. Dair isn’t running a dating service. We’re partners for an academic project. That. Is. All.”
“Which totally explains why your eyes keep finding their way to my mouth.”
“Are you always so full of yourself?”
I let one side of my mouth turn up and held back when her eyes strayed there—again—for about the tenth time since she sat down at our table. My interest in her plump pink lips was a given. But that would have to wait till later.
Pulling my notebook back across the table, I said, “Judging by the class discussion yesterday, I bet working class exploitation is a hot topic for presentations. Which means manners will stand out, especially when we don’t go for the obvious with Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, don’t you think?”
Her mouth dropped open, then she snapped it shut with an audible clunk. “Have you read all of Jane Austen’s books?”
“Nah. My mom and sisters have a Jane Austen movie binge-a-thon every year for Christmas. They might have dragged my brother and me in to watch with them once when we were snowed in.”
“Your only experience with the literature is movies, then.”
If I wanted a snowball’s chance in hell of keeping my GPA at or above my current 3.85, I needed to wipe that dismissive tone off her face pronto. “I’m not a fan of the way Hardy portrays women. Bathsheba Everdene is a total bitch in Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess is raped and shamed in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and Susan and Lucetta die basically of broken hearts in The Mayor of Casterbridge.”
She blinked. “Your family watched those movies too?”
“No. I read the books in my AP English class in high school. Not a Hardy fan.” I sat back and let that sink in.
For a long minute, we held each other’s eyes.
At last, she nodded and wrote across the top of her blank notebook page: “Focus—manners. Books—Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park.” When she glanced up, a little smirk played over her pretty mouth. From the moment she sat down, I’d totally been checking out her mouth and wondering about how those plump lips would feel against mine. The difference between us was that I wasn’t hiding my interest.
“We’re going to have to read the books, you know. We can’t rely on the movies for passages to quote.”
I smirked back at her. “Yeah, I had that figured out.”
Loud female laughter interrupted our standoff.
“Hi, Callahan,” Tory Miller’s breathy singsong assaulted my ears. “We didn’t see you studying with the rest of the team.” She sidled up to our table, stuck out a hip, and planted a hand on it while she twirled a lock of blonde hair with the other.
The girl was a walking cliché.
When I continued to say nothing, she went on. “The other guys said you wanted to study by yourself, but we thought you might like company.” Though she stood right beside Jamaica, she completely ignored my study partner.
Behind Tory, her posse of freshmen giggled. Across from me, the most interesting woman in the library stiffened, her pen poised above the page where half a word awaited finishing.
“Thanks for your concern, Tory.” I glanced past her. “Ladies.” I touched the bill of my ball cap.
She stepped closer. “You know, a better place to study is the ice cream shop across from the Union.” A sly expression slipped into her eyes. “Or the study room at Delta Chi.” When she leaned her hip against the table, her short skirt hiked higher up her thigh. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her run her fingers along her bare skin, but I didn’t bite. “Or your place.”
“Another time, maybe. Right now, I’m a little busy.” I glanced across the table to see Jamaica writing paragraphs in her notebook. From the ferocity of her pen strokes, I was surprised the paper remained intact.
Tory tossed a gaze over her shoulder and returned her eyes to me. “Sorry. I guess we didn’t realize you had company.”
“Yeah, and we’re busy.”
Tory’s pouty lip always preceded a tantrum. Usually, I blew her off, but one look at Jamaica told me she was about an inch from stuffing her books in her bag and walking away from our project—from me—for good. And we’d barely started.
“So I’ll catch you later. Ask the guys where we all should meet up. I’ll text ’em when I’m done here.”
The pout morphed into a sunny smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Don’t stand us up.” Though she delivered the words in her annoying singsong way, I didn’t miss the edge in them. From the look of her stiff shoulders, Jamaica heard it too.
With an exaggerated flounce, Tory pushed up from the table and ran her bloodred nails across the tops of my shoulders as she sashayed past me. Gritting my teeth behind a false smile, I suppressed a shiver of revulsion at her touch and watched to make sure she and her giggling entourage left the area.
When my attention returned to Jamaica, to my annoyance, Tory’s interruption had broken the connection I’d worked all evening to build.