LITMIR.BIZ

      1

      “IF YOU’RE FREE Saturday night, would you mind initiating me in the rites of womanhood?”

      Thunking herself on the forehead, Madeline Watson slumped down on a bench outside the business department’s faculty lounge to wait for her quarry. All the come-on lines she concocted were too stuffy. Head in her hands, she stared down at her penny loafers and wished she’d paid more attention when other women discussed their dating adventures. Why had she spent the past ten years with her nose buried in books? She had no idea how one went about propositioning the sexiest man in town—or any man for that matter.

      Wouldn’t it be simpler to invest in a killer red dress and a pair of stiletto heels?

      She cleared her throat and tried again. “What would you think of taking our relationship to the next level?” A nearby giggle alerted her to the new wave of students tromping through the University of Louisville’s echoing marble corridors on their way to evening classes. Great. All Madeline needed to cap off this hideous day was to have a student report her for trying to pick up imaginary men in the hallway.

      The embarrassment would be well worth it if her proposition worked, however. No man had ever sent her hormones into overdrive the way Cal Turner could with one lazy smile.

      The door to the faculty lounge swung wide and Madeline plastered her back to the wall as if she could root herself to that very spot. A handful of university professors poured through the door, balancing heavy textbooks, steaming cups of coffee and overstuffed briefcases. Their sudden appearance forced Madeline to recall that the object of her quest was no imaginary male. Cal Turner might look like a fantasy, but those drool-worthy pecs were as real as the grading curve.

      Madeline rose, praying she wouldn’t lose her nerve to face the lone man who would be left in the lounge in a few minutes. She nodded to the handful of professors she knew from her years on staff as a graduate assistant, but most of the coffee-clutching crowd was business faculty, a breed far removed from the social sciences department that Madeline called home.

      The old Mae West line ran through her head as she waited. “How’d you like to come up and see me sometime?” But that one didn’t really apply to her…she lived in a one-story house just outside of downtown.

      She needed something modern. Something direct and aggressive to go along with her quest to be more daring. If she was ever going to get the dissertation review committee to sanction her study of human mating rituals, she had to prove to them there was more to her than just a buttoned-up intellectual. A fling with the most notorious ladies’ man on campus ought to do the trick.

      The fact that a fling would also fulfill her secret desire for Cal was purely coincidental. Could she help it if the perfect man for the job happened to be someone she fantasized about on a regular basis?

      Madeline unbuttoned the top button of her oversize men’s shirt and took a deep breath. She could do this.

      Once the noise had died down and her digital watch flashed 6:01 p.m., she eased open the frosted-glass door and stepped inside the faculty’s inner sanctum. Foam cups littered all three round tables, along with leftover napkins and doughnut crumbs. The only person left in the faculty lounge was Cal.

      For a moment Madeline gave in to the pure pleasure of staring at the man who didn’t know he held her future in his calloused hands. Seated in a back corner with his elbows on the table, he wore a gray T-shirt

Скачать книгу