Perfecting the Odds (45 page)

“Just havin’ so
me fun is all.” Karis winked at her, and Beth’s eyes widened.

“I had no idea this was a course in Anglo-Saxon semantics, Ms. Percy.
Thank you for uniting the centuries for us,” he said. She watched his jaw clench and twitch. Yep, pissed off Michael was hot, too.

“
My pleasure,” she drawled. “But if I may continue, sir. ‘The Flea’s’ speaker is even more of a lustful asshole because he played the guilt card to try and convince his lady to compromise her morals.” She exaggerated a snort. “I call coward...oh, and a
hard-up
man.”

She watched behind her hand resting over her mouth as h
is face reddened and his eyes narrowed. He bent his neck and rolled his shoulders. She knew she was in for it, and although that’s exactly where she needed to be, she trembled in anticipation, and a bit of fear. He
was
quite intimidating. And well…she was beyond turned on being the receiving end of it.

“
Ms. Percy. Please meet me in my office after class so that I can further explain that this is indeed a course on John Donne and not some yuppie coffee house where your opinions are mistakenly considered accurate or valid. Am I clear,” he bellowed. He shot her a look of disgust before he turned around to collect his patience.

“Crystal clear, gorgeous,” she drawled loudly before standing and making the short walk to the exit.  Phase one: Operation Piss-off-Professor-Finn and be requested to his office. Complete.

***

Karis hid in the girls’ restroom reviewing her strategies. There were two pivotal parts to the next step of the plan. First, Michael had to be in his office before she arrived. And second, he needed to be turned around when she walked in. Jason told her he found Michael staring out his window often, so the odds were good. It was a gamble, but for the first time in her life, she felt like she was on a straight shot to winning the lottery of her life.

The plan would work.
It just had to.

Waiting nearly
ten minutes after class concluded, she glided quietly down the empty hall to his office. Right outside his office, she peered in. Thank God. He was seated in his chair, leaning back and gazing out his office window. His hands clutched behind his head, those sexy arms flexed and strained beneath his sweater, and he rocked ever so slightly. She couldn’t help but scan his office first. It screamed all business, no play. Military precision came to mind. The large desk sat cold and empty in the middle of the room. A few stacks of paper and a cup holder of pens decked its top. This place definitely needed a woman’s touch.

Just as he removed his hands from behind his head, threatening to turn around,
Karis furtively stepped in and shut and locked the door with an almost noiseless click.

“Professor
Finn, you requested me,” she whispered.

He turned. “Yes—I,”
cut short as he stared at her, his mouth frozen mid sentence. For a millisecond, Karis feared the worst; he was going to tell her to get the hell out.
Please God, cut me a break. Just this once.

“
Karis?” His eyes swept over her form as he tried to make sense of the situation.

“Why, yes, Professor,” she continued her
twang and added an impish grin. With one fluid movement, she removed her cap and pulled the pins from her bun, allowing her mahogany waves to fall lazily below her shoulders. He blinked rapidly and watched her movements. “I thought you’d recognize my banter, Michael, but thankfully, you didn’t. I much prefer this introduction.”

“
In-troduction?” he stuttered.

She pulled off her glasses and tapped them once on her teeth before ho
lding out her arms. “Yes, to the new Karis.”

He
assessed her again then stood up and walked around the desk. He leaned against it with his hands folded tightly across his chest, flexing his arms to an impossible size. Karis felt her breath hitch as she took in his full form. God, the man was beautiful and masculine and just plain yummy. Unfortunately, his posture screamed don’t move an inch closer. He was hurting...badly.

“I love the old
Karis,” he shot back. That was present tense: he loves the old Karis.
But, boy, he’s going to fight this isn’t he
, she thought.

Fiddling the earpiece of her glasses in her mouth, sh
e walked a few steps closer but well out of reach. “You look mighty fine today, professor. A bit tired,”—she squinted—“actually you look a bit hungover… but just as handsome,” she purred. She maintained her stare with him as she pulled earpiece from her lips and wet them.

He
ran his eyes down her body, pausing on his favorite parts. “You look...covered.”

She
bit her lip and shrugged. “I was cold.”

“Yes, you were,” he
derided.
Ouch
.

“
I deserve that,” she said, pressing her lips together. His face softened, clearly not wanting to throw any more daggers than necessary. He was angry with her, but it was obvious he was far more love sick.

He
shifted to cross his ankles and placed his palms on the desk behind him. “I’ve missed you, Karis. So much.” Tears slowly formed in the corner of her eyes, born from both hormones and relief.

She hung her head in a gesture of submission.
“Oh, Michael, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. And before she knew it, his thumbs were moving beneath her eyes to catch the tears. “I was so stupid.” He leaned into her, pressing those soft lips to her forehead and ran his fingers down her arms, his warm touch covering all the pain, all the guilt for pushing him away.

“You’re not stupid,
Karis.”

“Yeah, well
I’ve made some stupid mistakes.”

He laughed lightly.
“I agree,” he said, cupping her shoulders.

“I love you, Michael. I don’t deserve --.”

His second eye roll cut her off
. “Don’t start that fucking baseless argument again.”

Slightly f
rustrated, she lightly shook her arms free from him and allowed a few more inches between them. She held up her hand. “No wait, please just listen. I promise to bag the self-pity crap.” He nodded with a smile. “I
know
I don’t deserve you. And that knowledge is really important to me...because all that time that you were loving me and cherishing me and fighting for me, I took you for granted. I didn’t want to lose you, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew you wouldn’t leave, or rather, thought you wouldn’t.” She sighed heavily at her confession, a small weight lifting. “But then you did, just as you should have, Michael. And that was a blessing because if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have figured out that I was making the biggest mistake of my life.” She watched his lips quirk up. “So…I’m not going to question our love anymore. Our love is
it
, what everyone should want, what everyone should fight to hold onto. All this time, one simple fact presided over all the bullshit, my bullshit. I love you, and you love me. So why shouldn’t we love each other, right?” Michael grinned and nodded. “I promise I’ll try my hardest and move past my fears, and I know you’ll help me.” She huffed a final breath, her shoulders sagging with relief at her declaration and then that burdensome weight lifted completely, straightening her posture.

Michael tipped up her chin.
“Karis, I need to know one thing.”

Karis
nodded, blinking the tears away. “Anything, Michael.”

“
Why the change? What were so afraid of that now you’ve decided to work through? I need to hear you say it.”

She winced with shame and gripped his shirt as if the fear was right in front of her, threatening her decision.
She could reveal part of the reason. “It’s stupid. Trust me, Eve has told me at least ten times.”

“Tell me, sweetheart.”

She met his eyes. “I’m terrified that you’ll die, that you’ll leave me too soon. I can’t bear the thought of losing someone else—you—of having to crawl through life without you. I’ve done it too many times.”

“I am going to die,
Karis. So are you...and everyone else.”

“I know.”

“So what’s different then,” he asked.

“
So many things…but mostly, I’m different. I never took the time to see how my misery affected others. Now, I’m not afraid to live my life, to value what I have, no matter how long I have it. It sounds corny, but life is victorious. You know what helped me to that realization,” she asked and blushed. “Nevermind...it’s stupid and dorky.”

“Well, darling, you are standing in an English professor’s office. That pretty much means you are in the epicenter of dorkiness, so go for it.”
He kissed her nose, and she giggled at his persuasiveness...he always knew what to say to her.

“You know Donne’s ‘Death Be Not Proud’?” She looked at him as if were a foreign piece of text.

“Verbatim.”

She rolled her eyes
at her moment of idiocy. “Of course you do. Well, while I was wallowing in self-pity about throwing away the love of my life and all that, I decided to reread my favorite anthology. John Donne, of course.”

Michael winked. “Naturally
.”

“I read the
line, ‘
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die
,
’for
the millionth time. And for the first time in my life, I felt like life was far scarier than death. But evil and bad luck don’t dictate my life:
I
do, or I can. And I may not be able to prevent death, but I can certainly choose how I live my life. I don’t have to live in fear. And Michael? I choose happiness. You’re my happiness. I love you.”

Michael pulled her closer so that she fit in the crook of his neck—by far her favorite place to be.
Her nose filled with that deliciously therapeutic scent. Despite how much she wanted stay right where she was, she pushed back and stepped out of reach. “So I’ve decided to take some responsibility and immerse myself in our love. Starting now. Right here in your office.”

Michael furrowed his brow and sat
a bit straighter on the edge of his desk. “Meaning?”

“Meaning...”
Karis strode to the window and pulled the string to shut the blinds. “I’m going to do
what
I feel like doing,
when
I want to do it. No holds barred. Carpe diem and what not.” She made her way around the desk then shifted between his legs. She unbelted her coat, exposing just a long sliver of skin. His eyes drew down the length of her. “As a wise woman once told me, ‘to live the shit out of my life’. And I think”—she glanced around the room—“This office is in dire need of a woman’s touch. It’s very drab, you know. I think we need to spice it up a bit.” She pulled open her jacket and dropped it off her shoulders to form a pool around her heeled feet. Unabashedly nude, Karis now stood vulnerable to his rejection, his scrutiny. And he was well within his rights to hurt her. She had hurt him badly, not only his heart, but also his ego.

***

When Karis pulled the disguised stunt during his lecture, his first though was there was no fucking way Michael was going to allow some southern twit insult and embarrass him in front his class. He had lessened her use of the ‘f’ word as merely Anglo-Saxon word choice, but he was pissed. In fact, he wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up.  And it took every ounce of his patience not to call Jason and demand he decline her entrance into the class. That was rash, but he was in no mood to deal with her shit right now. He was fucking miserable. His heart was broken, and his daily life was one fucked up cyclical mess: lecture about love, go home, drink himself into oblivion, shower, and repeat.

But now.
Michael’s hands gripped the desk as he gazed at the love of his life standing gloriously buck naked between his legs--in the middle of the day, in the middle of his office. Smack dab in the middle of his greatest fantasy. In the back of his mind, he believed she’d come around. And he would have waited as long as it took.

“Jes
us, Karis. You’re—,” he rasped.

“
Yep, cowboy,” she said, running her palm along the raring evidence of his arousal. “Completely stripped--literally and figurative—in your office. As. We. Speak.”

Removing his hands from the desk, he gripped her waist.
“You were naked in—“

“Yep, completely naked in class
, too. Just a trench coat and heels,” she said, clicking her feet twice.

He frowned.
“Did any of those punk bastards see anything?”

She laughed. “No, Michael. Rein in your fists of steel.”
Michael released a ragged breath as he gripped her waist harder. “I should just keep my fucking mouth shut and put it to good use on you, but I have to ask why here sweetheart?”

“Because you deserve
surprises, too, Michael. You’ve sent me love letters, flowers, gifts, but most of all your love. I wanted to repay you...even if it seems trivial or... slutty,” she whispered, appearing shy. “And besides, I’ve always had the office sex fantasy, and since my office is off limits, I just figured--.” She looked down and tapped the desk, pretending to check its endurance. Fuck, he missed her. He plunged his tongue into her mouth, her taste so sweet, so Karis. They groped and grasped, taking what they’d both missed and needed.