Adrian Lessons Read online

  I can, however, smell the curiosity on you from a thousand feet away.

  Why was I so completely blown away to find one Cleo Reynolds in this apartment, in this state?

  That’s actually a secret of mine.

  But I’m getting there. Don’t rush me.

  In the meantime, I’ll press fast-forward.

  All around us, things fly apart into a whirl of color and sound. They eventually coalesce into a classroom, mostly full, with the bald professor Newbury in the front of the room and me in the back, the two of us separated by a ton of freshmen with some sophomores thrown in. I was the only grad student there.

  When Newbury called out names and reached the Bs, I raised my hand. “My name’s Adrian King, sir. I’ll probably need to be written in. I just added the class last night.”

  He squinted at the paper, saw I was right, and cleared his throat as he entered in my name.

  I scanned the heads in front of me, even though I knew she wasn’t there yet. If she’d dropped the class…my mouth was dry, and I wiped my hands on my pants. I felt like some fifteen-year-old about to lean against his first date at the movie theater.

  But I was Adrian fucking King. And I was finally ready for her.

  As if my thoughts had teleported her there, the door opened and she appeared.

  My heart contracted and made a bid to escape through my feet. Couldn’t blame the poor guy. He’d had a lot to deal with since last night.

  In four years, five months, and three days, Cleo had only gotten more beautiful.

  And she was staring straight at me.

  Her mouth opened a little, and she flushed. She recognized me, even if she hadn’t Friday night. She was still staring. I grinned.

  Here’s the thing you need to know about me if we’re going to be friends.

  I’m damn fine.

  ‘Fucking sexy as hell’ as many a girl has put it. Or, as this one British chick said, ‘fit and lush.’ Whatever that means, I’m willing to bet it’s a good thing.

  Girls just don’t flock to guys who aren’t hot as hell. It’s a fact of life, like how Fords suck. And it’s not like I haven’t worked hard to look this way. I deserved every ounce of the I’d-fuck-you-eight-times-a-day-and-ten-times-on-Sunday look was giving me. It was the look of my fantasies.

  Next, she was going to waltz on over, slide into the chair behind me, hook her chin into her palm, and purr, “Never thought I’d see you again.”

  In my fantasy she was also wearing a sexy nurse outfit under all those clothes, but I was willing to accept that some aspects wouldn’t correspond to reality. Probably.

  The first part went off without a hitch—Newbury called her name and she claimed a seat behind me.

  It took fantastic willpower not to turn around as Newbury spent approximately a millennia explaining the first experiment. I used that time, however, to craft the perfect line. The line that would melt her panties right off her body like molten gold. The line that combined a chaste request to be her experiment partner with a not so chaste implication to be something else.

  So when Newbury told us to form groups of two, pretty please, I turned, flashed my patented panty-melting smile, and said, “Care to examine my tongue?”

  In the space of two seconds, I realized two things.

  One—that was not the world’s best line. That was a fucking stupid line. Somewhere, Barry White was shaking his head and putting his instrument away.

  Two—she didn’t recognize me.

  She didn’t say, “Wow, it’s been ages! You look really different, Adrian!”

  She didn’t say, “I can’t believe you go to school here too. What a coincidence!”

  She also didn’t say, “I have furry handcuffs and flavored lube in my apartment and we can be there in five minutes flat,” but I promise I only expected that a little.

  And in that third second, my ego quit wincing and I realized that the lack of recognition was a very good thing.

  It’s not like I wanted her to remember what I was like in high school.

  She stammered something, and it was goddamn adorable. For a second, all I could do was drink her in. That dimple on the left side of her cheek. The freckle just under her chin. She’d only gotten hotter since high school.

  I know what you’re thinking.

  That I’m a crazed stalker.

  And yes, possibly flirting with the secretary at the registrar’s office last night until she told me which class Cleo Reynolds had first period Monday morning was a little stalker-ish, but I was surprised as you were to find out she goes to Statham.

  The important thing for you to know is that my heart aches as I look at her, and in that respect, nothing has changed.

  I quickly realize that not only does she not recognize me from high school, she doesn’t recognize me from Friday night. Which is fine. I’m just as happy to forget the circumstances under which I finally saw those long-fantasized-about tits.

  Tits feels too crass for her, but boobs makes me sound like a child. Breasts makes me sound like a fifty-year-old businessman who secretly likes it up the butt. There needs to be a better word for them.

  Anyway, there’s something up with her. She’s flushed and giggling, and her nose is running, though she doesn’t notice all that much. I decide to mess with her a little.

  ““You’re pretty brave to come to Professor Newbury’s class high.”

  She nearly combusts right there in front of me, because she hasn’t changed much since high school.

  Fast-forwarding again. Through the food-coloring and the kiss, the completely unexpected, utterly wanted kiss that’s sloppy and uncertain but everything I’ve ever wanted, the best kiss I’ve ever had, better than kisses from girls who’ve perfected the art.

  I’m carefully copying down her number, agonizing over the last digit, which I finally decide is a six. Zip forward a little more, and I’m responding to emails to my advise column persona. In particular, one ‘High and Dry’ has me intrigued. A girl who writes erotica for a living might be the only girl left who could teach me a thing or two.

  I already know a lot. That title of mine? Let’s just say it’s earned.

  What? Yeah, I’ve been into Cleo for a long time. That doesn’t mean I’ve been a monk for four years. I figured if I ever met her again, I’d want to know how to please her.

  Practice makes perfect.

  The way I see it, women have to deal with a lot of shit from society, so they deserve to feel amazing. And if there’s a better possible feeling than the one that starts low and spreads all over your entire body, I’ve yet to hear of it.

  I’ve done my research.

  I’ve done my field testing, too.

  So believe me when I say that I could make you come simply by lying beside you, whispering the dirtiest words into your ear. Believe me when I say that I could give you the orgasm of your life with just two expert touches. Or keep you teetering on the edge for hours, so long that when it finally comes, it’ll burn your whole world up.

  I can, and have.

  But to be honest, I don’t really want to get with High and Dry. I’d love to get ahold of her work, just to see if there’s something I’m missing in my repertoire, but mainly I’m distracting myself, whiling away the time in the café until I can call Cleo without seeming like a nutcase.

  Because if I’m honest with myself, she’s been the only thing in my head since Friday night.

  I don’t believe in fate. I’m charming on the surface, but on the inside, I’m more than a little cynical. We’re scattered like soap bubbles from a kid’s toy to the wind, to either be ground into the dirt or float just close enough to the sun to burn up.

  But Cleo Reynolds showing up in my apartment…

  That’s the kind of thing that could make me believe in fate.

  So now that you know where I stand, we can fast-forward again. Just a little, to the inside of a Mexican restaurant, where a beautiful girl that I haven’t seen in four years is pointin
g at me with a look of total disgust on her face.

  “You!” she shouts, somehow managing be completely adorable even when she’s pissed. “You’re…him!”

  “I’m who?” I play dumb, even though it’s obvious. The text she must have sent? The statue she mentioned?

  Cleo…is High and Dry.

  Cleo writes erotica for a living.

  My desire for her notches up, if that’s possible.

  “You know who. A total arrogant jerk who thinks he’s qualified to give advice to someone he’s never met, that’s who.” She stamps her foot. Behind us, there’s the sound of someone yelping and water being hastily mopped up.

  A laugh comes to my throat as I read the text. “And least now you don’t have to worry that I’m…an old man with syphilis.”

  “Old man, no,” she growls. “Syphilis, maybe.”

  I spread my hands out. “I get tested all the time.”

  Instead of seeming pacified, she makes an “ugh” sound, throws a few bills on the table as well a longing look at her last taco, and stalks out of the restaurant.

  I must have really annoyed her if I could get her to abandon a taco. Those are damn good tacos.

  I grab my traitor phone and follow her. She’s marching down the sidewalk at top speed, but my legs are a lot longer than hers, and it turns out I can keep up at my normal pace.

  This does not escape her attention. She turns her head and scowls. “Go away.”

  “But you asked for my advise. Maybe I can help more in person,” I say lightly, cursing myself for choosing, out of all the distractions available to me today, the one that involved irritating some anonymous girl through email. As funny as it was.

  Strike two for fate.

  “I told you, I did not contact you,” she says emphatically. A piece of hair falls over her forehead, and it takes mental chains the size of pythons to keep from brushing it away. “My idiot roommate did. And she’s going to owe me at least two more taco dinners before I forget all the trouble it caused. I thought you were…”

  She says the last part mostly to herself. As we wait for a crosswalk light to town, I sidle closer and grin. “Devastatingly handsome? Rakishly charming?”

  “Nice,” she says icily, and jaywalks across the street.

  “I am nice,” I pant as I catch up with her again—her sudden burst of speed caught me off guard. “If you let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night, I’ll show you just how nice. More tacos?”

  Her eyes glow, but then she smacks herself gently in the face, muttering, “No, Cleo, you are stronger than free tacos and bedroom eyes…”

  A glimpse of hope. “What was that about my eyes?”

  “That was a private pep talk,” she snarls.

  “You said it out loud,” I point out.

  She stalks ahead of me again, grumbling to herself. I catch the words ‘stupid sexy green eyes’, which heartens me.

  I jog up, catch her arm, and try to pour every ounce of hotness that’s in me into those aforementioned stupid sexy green eyes. “Listen. There was this energy between us this morning—”

  “That wasn’t energy, that was Xanax,” she says.

  I elect not to ask. “Call me crazy, but I think you’re interested. You wrote your number on my arm. You made out with me in the middle of class. A lot of guys will dance around with stupid bullshit before they finally get around to asking a girl out, but I think your time is worth more than that. One dinner. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it would be good for you.”

  I’m smiling easily now. I put actual effort into that. Normally, all it takes is a look and girls are begging me to take them out. Now to cinch it. I lean in close.

  “I’ve already tasted your taco,” I breathe.

  Whap! Something flies into the side of my face. I stagger back, looking wildly for the large bird that must have just crash-landed into my cheek, but all I see is a hand.

  “Oh, shit—I’m sorry—” Cleo is fire-engine red. Even through the smarting pain, I’d like to know how far down that blush goes. “I didn’t mean to—it’s just that the way you—sounded like something else—automatic response,” she dithers, and then, clearly not knowing what else to do, turns on her heel and rushes off again.

  I follow, hand to the face, smirking.

  She is so turned on.

  “So why not go out with me?” I press, gamely pretending she didn’t just smack me.

  Whatever guilt she might have felt vaporizes as she turns, her eyes flashing.

  “Honestly? Because it’s so obvious you’re just out to get laid. It couldn’t be more clear if I looked up right now and saw a jet in the sky spelling out the words I JUST WANT YOUR POON-TANG.”

  “Poon-tang?” I repeat, stunned.

  “You’re the type of guy who sleeps with every girl he can get his hands on, and just because of your—of your—nice lips and abs and—” her furious eyes dart up and down my body— “bone structure, you’re not used to hearing the word no. Well, get used to it, buddy, because it’s all you’re gonna hear from me. We all have unrealistic dreams, okay? I want to streak across Fenway Park. You want to go out with me. Both will never happen.”

  Fenway Park?

  For the second, I think I’m about to burst out laughing. It must show on my face, because her eyes narrow and then she’s heading away from me again, toward…

  My apartment building?

  I want to explain to her that I’ve slept with lots of girls, she’s right, but never because I didn’t respect them and only because of her—because when I saw her again, I wanted to do the kinds of things to her that she deserved to have done, and I wanted to be able to do them perfectly.

  But words fail me, because she is now definitely and without a doubt unlocking the door to my apartment building.

  “Stop following me,” she hisses as I come up behind her.

  “I live here!” I say, shouldering around her to get to the door.

  “I live here!” She returns my shouldering with an enthusiastic shove, so that we both end up tumbling through the door together.

  “You were in my apartment Friday night,” I say, straightening. “Remember?”

  Her eyebrows come together guiltily as she does. “Oh, right. I guess I just assumed you were visiting, or…ugh, I don’t know.”

  We get in the elevator together and there are two very powerful minutes of elevator music and awkward silence.

  But I don’t get out on my floor.

  “Isn’t this where you live?” She keeps her thumb on the door’s open button.

  I think fast. Panic is unfurling in my stomach. I’ve waited four years to see this girl—I can’t screw fate over by letting it end like this. “Do you have an ice pack in your apartment? I think my face is swelling.”

  The guilt I successfully banked on flowers in her cheeks. “I guess so.” She takes her thumb off the button.

  Cleo’s apartment is the mirror image of mine, except covered in girl stuff. A potted flower, an actual poster from The Notebook, and romance novels…everywhere. Kiss of the Highlander is balanced on top of the windowsill. Seducing a Duke is nestled in with the shoes by the door.

  “That’s all my roommate Marie’s stuff,” says Cleo shortly, rummaging in the freezer. I swear I see a frost-coated book fall out. “She’s crazy about romance.”

  She withdraws an icepack, wraps it in a rose-patterned tea towel, and crosses the room. I watch uncertainty flicker over her features as she holds it to my face.

  Coldness seeps into the spot that’s not actually very sore, but I’m not paying attention. Her face is so close. Her eyebrows are a few shades lighter than her hair. Her eyelashes are surprisingly pale too, almost translucent. I swallow. “Cleo…”

  “You can borrow it,” she almost squawks, shoving the ice pack at me, and I’m gratified to see a blush spread over her face.

  I can’t help myself. Another grin leaps to my lips. “Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you come down to my apartment�
�”

  It’s the wrong thing to say.

  “Jesus, you’ll stop at nothing,” she snaps, dumping her backpack on the kitchen table.

  “To what?” I widen my eyes innocently.

  “To get me in your bed!”

  “It’s seven p.m. on a Monday night. You really think that’s what I’m going for? Come on, Clee…”

  I use the nickname unthinkingly—lots of people called her that in high school—but it makes her flare like a sunrise. “Oh, so it’s Clee now? You barely know me!”

  I know her more than she could believe. “Cleo, then.”

  She opens the front door. “Sorry I slapped you. Now goodbye.”

  “But we’ve barely talked,” I smile, trying not to let on that I’m pleading. “You haven’t told me anything about your illustrious career of writing erotica for a living.”

  “That’s because it’s none of your business.” I’ve either brought up something she didn’t want to think about or she’s just reached her limit, because she’s trembling with irritation. “Look, I’ve had a completely shit day, all right? The last thing I need is to be hassled by a guy in my own apartment. And I don’t write erotica, I just write the sex scenes for my roommate’s romance—”

  She freezes, her hand flying to her mouth.

  “I can’t believe I just said that,” she whispers. “You better not tell anyone or I’ll—”

  “It’s too late, Cleo.”

  The voice belongs to neither of us. The door to the left of the living room opens, and standing there is a short girl with curly dark hair. She stares at me for a second, then at Cleo, before bursting into tears.

  “How could you,” she wails at an impressive decibel before slamming the door again.

  Cleo repeats the word “shit” so many times it sounds like she’s telling me to shhhh. Then she grabs my arm, steers me out into the hallway, and shuts the door.

  I stand quietly outside her door as realization sinks in.

  I finally ran back into the girl of my dreams, and in less than a day, I’ve made her hate me.

  ~5~

  CLEO

  “I heard he can give a girl an orgasm that lasts for an hour.”