passed her alcove. Then she felt the touch of eyes. Glancing up, she gasped in surprise. “Professor Sullivan!”
A pained look wrinkled his brow. “Please…call me Max. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not hung up on titles.”
When his mouth curled into that quick, engaging smile that always seemed to knock the air right out of her lungs, she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze from the sensuous curve of his mouth. Lord, he was good-looking! If only he wasn’t so young…
The thought shocked her. What was she doing? She didn’t care if he was forty and as dependable as the sunrise. He was her teacher. And she wasn’t looking for a man! How many times did she have to remind herself of that?
“Natalie?”
She blinked, and her gaze flew to his. She took one look at the amusement dancing in his eyes and realized too late that he obviously knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her and every other woman who had any estrogen in her veins. Mortified, she just barely held back a groan. What was it about him that had her acting like some kind of starstruck teenybopper? She had to stop this!
Cursing the hot color in her cheeks, she straightened her shoulders. “I beg your pardon, Professor. Did you say something? I was up late last night working on my homework and my brain’s not working very well today.”
“You’ve found my secret hiding place,” he said, grinning. “Do you mind if I join you? Feel free to tell me to take a hike if you need the space to yourself. You were here first, and I don’t want to intrude.”
She should have sent him on his way. It certainly would have been the wise thing to do, considering the way her heart seemed to skip a beat every time her eyes met his. He knew exactly what she was doing by insisting on calling him Professor, and she had a sneaky feeling he was just biding his time. For no other reason than that, the last thing she should have done was share a table with him in a secluded nook of the library. But when she opened her mouth to tell him she worked better alone, she heard herself say instead, “Of course you’re not intruding. I just didn’t expect to see anyone I knew.”
“I always come here when I need to jump-start my creativity,” he said as he pulled out the chair directly across the table from her. With an animal grace that was incredibly sexy, he dropped into the chair and stretched out his long legs.
Underneath the table, his foot innocently brushed against hers. Just that quickly, the air in the alcove grew much more intimate. If he noticed that she’d gone as still as a post, he gave no notice. Instead he nodded at the book open before her on the table. “Are you working on your term paper already?”
“I can’t afford to get behind,” she said simply. “I have to be at work in an hour, but I thought I’d at least get started.” Cocking her head at him, she frowned. “What about you? What did you mean…you come here to jump-start your creativity?”
He grimaced. “Writer’s block.”
“Are you serious?”
“Hopefully, it’s not a permanent condition,” he retorted in disgust. “Though it certainly seems like it. Every time I sit down to write, all I do is stare at the screen and get nowhere.” Suddenly realizing how that sounded, he grinned crookedly. “Wah! Feel free to call me a crybaby. Sometimes, the truth hurts.”
She had to laugh. “Well, now that you mention it…”
“No more whining,” he promised her. “You’re here to study and I’m just rambling on, bothering you. I’ll shut up now.”
“You’re not bothering me,” she said.
“Shhh,” he whispered, grinning as he pointed to a sign on the wall. “No talking. Can’t you read?”
When she gasped, then narrowed her eyes at him, he almost laughed. Damn, he liked her! Unable to resist the chance to find out more about her, he abandoned any idea of reading and sat back to openly study her.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, blushing.
Wicked mischief flashed in his eyes as he leaned forward and said in a whisper that forced her to lean forward, too. “Watching you. I was just wondering how everything’s going. What other classes are you taking besides mine?”
He watched in delight as she narrowed her eyes at him again. “I thought you came here to read.”
“No, I came to jump-start my creativity,” he corrected her. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“Oh, really? And how are you doing that? All you’re doing is asking me questions about school.”
He smiled. “You don’t have a clue how fascinating you are.”
“I bet you say that to all the women you find yourself sharing this table with.”
Uncaring of the sign asking for silence, he burst out laughing. “I like you, Mrs. Bailey.”
“Like I said, Professor, I bet you say that to all the women—”
Chuckling, he didn’t deny it. “Guilty as charged. Now that we’ve got that settled, what was that you were saying about your other classes?”
For a moment she gave him that look again, the one that made him want to laugh, then she laughed herself. “Okay. I don’t know why you’re so interested, but I’m also taking English lit and algebra. With your class, that’s nine hours. I’d love to take more, but with the boys and my work schedule and everything, that’s about all I can manage.”
“I think it’s incredible that you’re able to take anything when you have children,” he said honestly. “Do you have any time at the end of the day to just sit down and put your feet up and relax with your husband?”
Something flickered in her eyes, but she only said quietly, “The husband took a hike a long time ago, but yes, I do get to put my feet up once in a while.”
So that was what had put the shadows in her eyes, he thought. Obviously, there was more to the story, but he didn’t intend to push. “If you find time to relax when you’ve got sons, then you must be better organized than my mom was when I was growing up,” he said easily. “Most of the time she was running from daylight to midnight.”
“Oh, I can handle that.” She chuckled. “Algebra is another matter completely.”
He grinned. “Not your thing, huh?”
“God, no! The only math I’ve done in the past eighteen years is balance my checkbook, and sometimes, I don’t do that well. Give me your class any day. It’s a piece of cake compared to algebra.”
“Really? Maybe I need to toughen up the curriculum,” he said dryly.
Only just then realizing what she’d said, she gasped, “Oh, no! I didn’t mean—”
Laughing, he sat back to grin at her. “I was just kidding. The class is hard enough as it is. So tell me what else you’ve been doing besides taking care of your kids, working and studying. Have you joined a sorority yet?”
“Yeah, right.” She chuckled. “Somehow, I don’t think I would fit in very well with
