"And I said I had to talk to you."
She started to close the door but I shoved through. The door slammed
behind me.
She held herself stiff with anger, her small fists clenched, but even
the rigidity of her body could not change the curving softness of
breast and hip and thigh to which the pale green tissue of her dress
clung. Confronting her in the small room, I felt the same quick surge
of desire, the same overpowering response to her beauty that had swept
over me the night before when her physical presence had seemed to
dominate the confined space of my own trailer. I had never reacted to a
woman so immediately and so forcefully.
How much of my reaction showed in the way I stared at her I don't know,
but it seemed to me that the bright spark of anger in her green eyes
subtly altered.
"I'm not sure what you're trying to prove," she said, less sharply than
I had expected, "but this isn't the way. You can leave right now."
"No. I'm here and you're going to listen to me."
Abruptly she turned away, scooping up a light coat from the back of a
chair. She started toward the door.
"If you want to talk, there's a restaurant not far up the road. Maybe
the waitress will listen."
I caught her arm. "I had to talk to Lois," I said, my fingers digging
into the soft flesh of her arm. "It was important and I can't explain
why. But I never saw her except in the Dugout, I never went out with
her, I never made a pass at her."
Laurie's face was still aloof, indifferent. "Is that supposed to mean
something to me?"
"Yes!"
"What do I do now--start to melt?"
"Are you trying to tell me that what happened last night meant nothing
to you? Just another lark?"
She wrenched free. "What did you expect? You didn't really believe that
bit about the student having a crush on teacher, did you? I was having
some fun, Professor. And tonight I'm having it with someone else!"
I almost hit her. Rage rocketed through me with an explosiveness that
was so shockingly violent I barely held the arm drawn back for the
blow. And in the next instant I had pinned her against the wall and
my arms were tightening around her, my mouth imprisoning hers in a
brutal, angry kiss that brought the taste of blood to my lips. I wasn't
even aware whether or not she was struggling. I knew only that she was
intensely, excitingly desirable and that the full warm length of her
was pressed against me.
I stepped back, breathing hard and quick. There was a frozen moment of
time suspended while I waited for her to explode.
Laurie laughed. "My God, Professor, you certainly do keep surprising
me!"
She tossed the coat she had been holding in the direction of the chair.
It missed and tumbled onto the floor. Ignoring it, she was already
moving back into my arms.
"Let's try that again," she murmured. "But this time don't bite."
The kiss was long and deeply disturbing. When it ended I felt shaky.
I wanted her--but for the first time I wondered if my emotional
attraction to her went beyond that need, if I wasn't already completely
in love with her. I stared at the puffed redness of her bruised lips,
at the delicate bone structure beneath the smooth skin of her cheeks,
at the vivid coloring of her eyes, and the painful knowledge came to me
that I was not free to love, not until I knew--
"I--I think I'm a little afraid of you, Paul Cameron," she said in a
voice that was younger, more subdued, less self-assured than I had ever
heard it. "I think you'd better leave now."
"But--"
"Please! It was true what I said about Bob--I do have a date with him.
He should have been here by now." Her eyes were pleading. "I was mad
at you. Besides--" she hesitated, her gaze searching my face as if she
wanted to remember every line. "I think I need a little while to mull
this over. This little girl isn't used to being swept off her feet. Not
like this."
I reached for her but she backed away quickly. "No! Let's--let's see
how we feel tomorrow when we're both a day older and wiser and--calmer.
I'll be here--waiting for you."
At last I nodded. "You're right, Laurie. But if you let that blond
kid--"