Hushed

  When I wouldn't take it, he thrust it into my hands.

  "I just wanted to see your abs," I teased as I covered my nose and mouth with his shirt. I didn't care if it was pitted out. It smelled deliciously like him.

  He laughed, coughed, squeezed my hand, and pulled me forward through a strange, unfamiliar world.

  The streets were dark. The streetlights were on, but couldn't penetrate the darkness. Lights from dorm porch lights and windows and sororities and frats along the way were just as ineffective.

  The sounds of rock music and the smell of beer on the ash guided us along Greek Row toward the frats. The dorms bordering Greek Row were all girls' dorms. They were quiet with worry. The sororities were the same. But the frats were partying. Hard. As if the world was ending. Strains of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" and The Cars' "Just What I Needed" filled the air.

  By the time we reached the Tau Psi house, we were both covered in ash.

  Joel, a frat buddy of Rick's, met us at the door, smoking a joint and in a mellow, happy high. "Rick, buddy, you're covered in powder. You got that cement dust statue thing going. Cool, man. Dust yourself off and come in out of the ash." His eyes were glazed. "What happened to your shirt?"

  I held it up. "I used it as a dust mask."

  "Cool," Joel said.

  "Dust myself off? When did you become Mr. Clean?" Rick brushed my shoulder a couple of times and gave up. "It's a lost cause." He whispered seductively in my ear, "We are so dirty."

  Joel stepped aside to let us in, and grinned at me. "You brought more girls."

  "A girl. And she's mine." Rick squeezed my hand. "Keep a lookout for more. I invited her whole floor."

  "Excellent." Joel blew a burst of sweet smoke at us. "Beer's in the kitchen. On tap or in the can. We were lucky to get the keg. Last one the pub had. We pretty much cleaned out the beer aisle at the grocery store, too." He laughed. "Had to fight off the Zeta Nus."

  The living room was packed with guys and girls drinking, dancing, and partying. The windows were closed, making it stifling and hot.

  Rick looked around and headed for a window. "It's stuffy in here." His hand was on the latch when Joel tapped him on the shoulder.

  Joel shook his head. "Tried that already. Campus security came by and ordered us to close them. We get caught again, they'll shut this party down." He yelled at the top of his lungs, "Volcano party!"

  Several guys whooped and cheered.

  Rick backed away from the window and whispered in my ear, "I have a fan in my room."

  "Do you really?" I stroked his arm.

  He grinned and nodded.

  "I don't even get a beer first?"

  "Do you want a beer? I'll grab you one on the way."

  He threaded his way through the crowd and into the kitchen, where he ignored the keg and pulled two cans from a cooler full of ice. He carried them in one hand, holding on to mine with the other, stroking my palm with his thumb.

  He let us into his room and locked the door behind us. A necessary precaution. His frat brothers thought it was funny to barge in on couples.

  He tossed my backpack into a chair while I dusted myself off. "That was an adventure. I'm making a dust cloud and getting ash all over your floor."

  "Keep patting yourself." His eyes were wide and round. "You're gorgeous when you're dirty."

  "Really?" I laughed. "And the floors?"

  "I'll make a pledge vacuum up later."

  As he set the beers on his desk, his muscles rippled. I thought, Joel's right. Rick looks like a finely sculpted statue, like the David.

  Rick turned a fan on near the bed. He stepped up next to me as I was running my hands over my hips, trying to get the sticky ash off.

  "Let me do that," he said.

  He started at my hips, gently brushing and caressing as he leaned in and kissed my neck. I let his hands wander to my butt.

  "This is very dirty." His voice was low and sweet as he gently swatted my butt.

  "Is it?" I grabbed his ass, pulling his crotch against mine, and gently slapped him back on the butt.

  He laughed. "You have ash everywhere." He ran his hands over my hips again. "Here." He dusted my shoulders and kissed them. "And here."

  I was melting in his arms, breathless and getting tighter by the minute. I untied the straps of my romper and let them dangle loose.

  "So do you." I ran my hands through his thick hair, shaking the dust out. "It's in your hair. And on your shoulders." I kissed the top of them as his hands skimmed my breasts.

  "How did these get so dusty?" He cupped them and rubbed my nipples through the terry cloth fabric of my romper and my bikini top beneath.

  I reached behind my neck and untied my bikini top. "This is filthy, too." I arched my neck and let him kiss it the way he liked, one hot kiss trailing after another to the hollow where my pulse beat for him.

  His hands were hot as he slid the elastic holding the top half of my romper down. Untied the bottom string of my bikini top and tossed the top aside. He looked at my now naked breasts as if they were objects of awe.

  He kissed them. Ran his tongue around the nipples. One and then the other. While I sighed and ran my hands through his hair, pressing his head against me.

  "I could do this all day." He grinned up at me and kissed his way back up my neck, finally cupping my face between his hands. "You are so damned beautiful." He backed me up to the lower bunk of his bed.

  I knew how to neck with him, knew what he liked. I nibbled on his lips. Teased him with my tongue. Stroked his backside and ran my long nails gently up his spine until he shuddered with pleasure.

  I knew how to pet him, but I didn't know how to make love to him. As he laid me on the bed, my heart beat wildly with both fear and anticipation.

  He lay down beside me, stroking my arm. I kicked my flip-flops off and ran my bare feet up his calves, catching the hems of his jeans with my toes and riding them up.

  He slid his hand beneath the back of my neck and kissed me until I was breathless and eager. His kisses slid down my neck and to the tops of my breasts.

  "I missed you so damned much. As I was driving ahead of the cloud, I kept thinking, If the world is ending tonight, I have to get back and spend it with you. That would be my dying wish."

  His voice was hoarse with desire, seductive, and at the same time amused and mock serious. Like he never thought he'd been in any real danger.

  "That is some line." I traced his chest. "Do you say that to all the girls?"

  He grinned. "Only to the one I risked my life through an ash storm to get back to." He paused and wiped all teasing from his face. "I'm completely serious."

  He rolled on top of me, holding his full weight off me with his elbows and staring down at me with solemn eyes. He pressed the hard bulge in his jeans between my legs.

  I tightened again, wanting him.

  "If this is it"—his voice was low and sultry—"I only have one regret—that I didn't get to make love to you."

  I studied him, willing my heart not to melt. "You're full of it, frat boy."

  "I mean it, Laur." His Adam's apple bobbed. "I know we haven't been seeing each other long, but being away from you just for a weekend made me realize…"

  He hesitated. "I'm falling in love with you. I think I have been since…you know, we first met." He was suddenly modest.

  Maybe it was a calculated play, but it made me go soft and mushy inside all the same.

  I held his gaze and blinked back tears of happiness. "Since you rescued me from certain death?"

  He'd saved me in so many ways.

  "Yeah, that, too."

  "I'm falling in love with you, too." There, I'd said what had been on my mind. There was no taking it back. I reached for the zipper of his fly.

  "Damn, Laura. I've been dreaming of this." His voice was ragged. "The whole drive back this is all I could think of."

  I slid his zipper down, wanting him more than anything.

  But my mind kept racing with
the thought Rick Butler is falling in love with me.

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  Maddie

  As January and the new semester began, I had a good feeling. One of those intuitive gut instincts that defy logic and reason. That you simply can't explain. And you wouldn't want to. You just know. This semester was going to the one. The one where life changed and great things happened.

  I leaned into the mirror over my sink in the bathroom of my apartment and carefully applied a second coat of mascara.

  Next to me, my roommate Olivia stood over her sink and made a face at herself in the mirror. "Ugh. Dark circles. Can I borrow your concealer? I'm out. I need to make a run to the store."

  "Help yourself."

  She slid open the mirrored door of the cabinet below the mirror over the sink and found what she wanted.

  Our university-owned townhouse apartment only had one bathroom. And still had the same crappy, cracking countertops and vinyl in the awful goldenrod and avocado colors of the seventies when it was built. And brown carpet so worn it was barely recognizable as carpeting. But at least the apartment had two sinks and we each had our own room. Short of a major disaster, our damage deposit was safe. Hang as many posters as we wanted. Ding the walls. Spill on the carpet. As if anyone could notice. And the apartment was cheap, even if we were always calling maintenance because one thing or another was broken.

  "HBM 225—the fundamentals of cooking and dining service." I slid the brush back into the mascara tube. "Process of elimination. If my gut feeling is about a guy, he has to be there. All my other classes will have the usual food science suspects. This one will have a slew of fresh hotel and business management majors. Why are all the hot guys in my major taken?"

  "I told you freshman year you should have gone after Zach," she said.

  I shrugged. "I had a crush on him for, like, two seconds. Until I realized, yeah, he's hot. But there's no chemistry between us. Except, back then, our actual chemistry class. I like him as he is—my best study buddy." I picked up my curling iron to touch up my hair.

  After two years of a science-heavy curriculum that included microbiology, physics, organic chem, and bio chem, I was looking forward to one of the fun classes. HBM 225 was an elective for me, but highly recommended by my advisor. All the big food companies that courted our grads wanted cooking experience. The class was taught by an award-winning chef who'd run numerous five-star restaurants, and the new kitchen was state-of-the-art.

  "I still don't see why you think this class is going to be your life-changing moment." She put some lip gloss on and puckered her lips to make sure it was even.

  "Gut instinct." I finished my hair and turned off the curling iron.

  "I think your gut instinct is more about your brother teaching here this semester. It's freaked you out."

  I didn't argue with her. She was partly right. Ian taking a job here had freaked me a little. We walked out of the bathroom and downstairs together, grabbed our coats and backpacks, and stepped out into the bracingly cold air of January.

  Our apartment sat on a hill next to campus. We had to walk down a long set of concrete stairs to get the edge of the main part of campus. Going down was fine. Coming back up at the end of the day with a heavy backpack was tortuous. It was the joke on campus that to get anywhere you had to walk down a hill then up a hill. Or up a hill then down a hill. This was exactly true. We came down the hill, then had to head up one to the buildings where our classes were.

  Olivia and I parted company at the main part of the mall. "Good luck." She gave me a hug. "See you this evening."

  "I might be late. I'm having dinner with Ian."

  "Tell your brother hi from me." She blew a breath of frosty air out. "If I get to the store, I'll pick up some chocolate. Just in case your intuition fails you and 'the life-changing event or guy' is not in HBM 225." She winked. "Chocolate is better than guys, anyway. It never acts like a douche and makes you cry. I'll get dark. It's healthier."

  I shook my head, annoyed and amused by her at the same time. "Later."

  The lecture part of HBM 225 was in a medium-sized lecture hall in the College of Business building. Tuesday was lecture. I had a Thursday cooking lab in the new state-of-the-art kitchen the university had just completed last academic year. The lecture hall seated about a hundred and was nearly half full when I arrived.

  I stood at the bottom of the tiered lecture room and expectantly looked up over the sea of faces. Heart pounding. What was I expecting? To get hit over the head with magical lightning like some sort of princess? For some guy to jump out of his seat and start throwing rose petals at me and go down on one knee? To extend his long-fingered hand and help me up to a happily ever after?

  I scanned the crowd. Too many girls. Too many guys who were not my type. Too many familiar faces. Too little chance for anything new and adventurous.

  I found a seat in an empty row, holding out faint hope for the rest of the class that had yet to arrive.

  My study buddy Zach Harris walked in. I frowned as a tall, sexy, familiar-looking blond guy strolled in next to Zach with his arm looped around a blond Double Deltsie sorority girl. His head was bent over hers like he was so into her. I was practically predestined to dislike the Double Deltsies on account of my mom. Who'd threatened to disown me if I so much as thought about going through rush and pledging them. What she had against them, I didn't know. Just that they were bitches by birth. My hackles immediately went up.

  "Ian," I whispered beneath my breath like a curse. It was just like my big brother to prank me by coming to my class with a Double Deltsie on his arm. Although Ian was thirty-four, he looked much younger and could easily pass for a student—a grad student, anyway.

  He'd been teasing and threatening to spy on me and "ruin my life," which is what I'd repeatedly accused him of during my emotional adolescent years, since he'd taken the professorship in the chemistry department.

  Zach spotted me and waved. He said something to the girl and came toward me while I pondered ways to kill my only brother. If Ian had also infiltrated my other friends and the rest of my study partners…

  Olivia had to be in on this, too! I cursed them both. Including Olivia's laughter at my gut feeling about this class. And her stupid offer to buy dark chocolate.

  Ian paused at the end of the aisle and looked up as he waited for the girl to go in first. Our eyes met. Mine snapping with sisterly indignation. His a startling hazel that were almost green in the light and held absolutely no spark of recognition. Only a healthy appreciation of what he saw. A real player.

  Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!

  Now that he was closer I realized he was not my brother. Definitely not my brother. And not just because Ian's eyes were blue.

  I couldn't help staring at this guy, really gawking. If I hadn't forced myself to maintain some composure, my jaw would have been on the floor. This guy's eyes and face were the same shape as Ian's. His hair the same color. He smiled the same charismatic, confident smile my brother used on all the girls. He even had the same characteristic dimple in just his right cheek. But he was sexy as hell. And worse, I was reacting to him!

  I had a hot brother—like, a really hot brother. When he walked down the street, girls looked. Even though he was way older than me, my friends thought he was smokin'. You know what a disability having a brother like that is? Your friends always asking if he'll be around and drooling all over him when he is?

  I thought it was worse for Mom. I mean, it had to be worse having your friends tell you how sexy your son was. And that he could turn them into cougars. Mom seemed mellow about it, taking it in good humor. Her pride evident as she threatened to lock up her baby boy. Ha! But there had always been something wistful about her, too. Something I couldn't understand.

  They say everyone has a twin out there somewhere. I'd just run into my brother's younger, hotter double. I couldn't stop staring at him. Which was probably totally giving him the wrong impression
.

  Zach set his backpack down and looked at me, confused, like, What the hell are you staring at? Or maybe it was more like, Oh crap, not again.

  "Maddie, this is my roommate, Seth." Zach's brow furrowed, as if he was expecting trouble. He sounded almost tentative as his gaze bounced between Seth and me. As if he sensed my immediate lust for his roommate, like someone had sprayed pheromones in the air. And Zach just wanted them put back in the bottle.

  Hey, hanging around Ian, I knew the feeling and sympathized completely. I'd had it many times myself.

  "And Kayla," Zach said. "Seth, Kayla, Maddie."

  Oh, crap, I thought as recognition dawned. His roommate? The charmer of the Double Deltsie house. I wanted to laugh at myself and the total ridiculousness of the whole situation. So much for intuition and my life-changing HBM 225 class. Not only did Seth obviously have a girlfriend—boo, not much chance for me—Zach, always acting like a protective brother, had warned me off him. Since, I dunno, the first time he'd mentioned Seth.

  "Hey, Maddie." Seth's voice was deep and sexy, too. Like he could be on the radio. How unfair was that?

  He gave me a definite up-and-down. With Kayla right next to him. Douche. Like Ian, he was used to girls liking his attention. That much was pretty clear.

  "Nice to meet you, Kayla." I smiled at her.

  She flashed me a smile as her gaze, too, bounced between Seth and me with a knowing look in her eye. Which I didn't understand at all.

  Finally, I gave Seth my undivided attention. "So you're the infamous Seth." I smiled like I wasn't interested in him. Like his charm had no effect on me. Even though I was lying and my pulse was racing as if I'd just sprinted a mile. "The other guy on campus who lives in a sorority."

  I don't know why I said it that way, like I was putting him down. Maybe I was just subliminally trying to fight feeling attracted to a guy who reminded me of my brother. To the ultimate hookup king.

  "Lived." Seth seemed intent on correcting me. "I moved in with Zach at his apartment at semester. And to be clear, your math is off. There were four of us houseboys." His smile deepened. "And you must be Zach's study partner, the infamous Maddie."