Learning Curves. Joanne Rock

recognizing the telltale sign of nervousness carried over from her youth.

      “This is silly,” she muttered, annoyed with herself for stalking a guy as if she were a lovelorn teenager.

      Despite Cal’s playboy reputation, Madeline knew he was a sharp man with a successful business to run and a busy life to manage. He didn’t need her and her adolescent schemes taking up his time.

      She turned on her heel to leave just as the double doors swung wide and a small troop of students emerged.

      Madeline picked up her speed, not an easy task in spike heels. Now that she had talked herself out of her plan, she definitely didn’t want to be caught loitering outside Cal’s class.

      “MADDY?”

      Cal watched the woman in the red dress walk away, wondering if he had dreamed the resemblance to Madeline. He squinted to get a better view of her in the growing dusk.

      He hardly ever took note of flashy women anymore, having outgrown that particular preference long ago. He’d worn himself out on the insubstantial type in that year of living hell after his divorce.

      But something about this woman had grabbed his attention. There was a familiarity to her efficient little walk, her regal bearing, that sent a message of quiet reserve in spite of her sexy get-up.

      “Maddy?” he called her name again. If it had been her, wouldn’t she have turned around?

      He stepped up the pace, determined to satisfy his curiosity. He didn’t think it really could be her. After all, what would the Lady Scholar be doing garbed in come-hither shoes and a dress three inches shy of her knees?

      And then he knew. It was Friday night, and Madeline Watson was putting her plan into effect.

      Searching for a man to seduce.

      Oh, God.

      Fury kicked through him, sending his legs into a sprint. He caught her in ten strides. One firm tug on her slender arm caused her to topple off her heels and straight into his arms.

      “Oh!” Her breathless gasp would have confirmed her identity, even if his gut instinct hadn’t.

      For one mind-numbing moment Maddy lingered against him, imprinting her compact curves on his body. Lust mingled with the anger simmering in his veins.

      She looked gorgeous. Sexy as hell in her tiny silk dress, she revealed a tantalizing glimpse of skin. She was every inch the temptress, glasses perched on her nose and all. There was something incredibly appealing about a woman in a little red dress who wore glasses.

      Her hair swirled around her like a dark sea. The strands shimmered and swayed in the streetlight as she moved, robbing her of her usual reserved look.

      He used both hands to steady her.

      Or to feel her. He couldn’t honestly say which.

      But his hands fit right into the notch of her waist as if they were meant to be there. The smooth silk of her dress seemed to beg for his touch, but he contented himself with gently smoothing the fabric over her hips.

      “Cal.” She straightened and stepped away from him. “You startled me.”

      He took in the dress and the expanse of long leg it revealed. Her shoulders were bared to his gaze, too, exposing golden skin and thin tan lines from a bathing suit. Looking down at her, he glimpsed a tantalizing hint of cleavage and…good Lord. Was that body glitter she had dusted in that particular curve?

      The scent of raspberries seemed to emanate from her and he nearly groaned with the torment. He couldn’t have been more aroused if she’d strutted by him naked.

      Then again…

      “Good night, Mr. Turner!” One of his students waved as he jogged by, forcing Cal to recall where they were.

      “See you next week,” he returned absently.

      “I’d better go, too,” Maddy announced, spinning away from him.

      “No.” He anchored her to him by the arm.

      “No? What do you mean, no?” She glared up at him with the same mutinous look Allison had given him when he’d taken away her credit card yesterday.

      “I mean, not yet. Not until you tell me what you’re doing traipsing around campus alone after dark in a dress like that.”

      She tilted her chin toward him. “I do not traipse.”

      As another evening class let out around them, Cal heard a low wolf whistle among the crowd. He didn’t have to look around him to know the target.

      He hustled Madeline toward the parking lot, wishing he had a jacket to toss over her shoulders. “Well, there you have it, gorgeous. You’ve already collected your first bit of research for your dissertation.”

      She stumbled along next to him, apparently forgetting to be angry when her intellectual curiosity was piqued. “I have?”

      He pressed his advantage and hurried her toward his car while she was distracted. “The wolf whistle is one of the earliest possible steps in a mating process.”

      “What wolf whistle?” She stopped and peered around her, wide-eyed, as if waiting for wild hounds to emerge from the trees around campus.

      “Come on, honey, I’ll explain it to you once we get to my car.” He couldn’t really account for his sudden need to hide her from anyone’s eyes but his own. In fact, he wasn’t sure he cared to examine his motivation right now. But that didn’t stop him from tugging her forward once more.

      Madeline withdrew her arm. “Sorry, Cal, but I need to go to my office.”

      “You were planning to walk all the way to your office and back by yourself after dark?” He searched the campus with his gaze, knowing the kinds of predators that lurked at night, searching for solitary coeds—or foolish teachers.

      “I frequently walk around campus after dark,” she informed him, rocking back on her tiny heels.

      “Not in those shoes you don’t. You’re dangerous tonight, Maddy.”

      She grinned. “That’s great, Cal. Dangerous is just the look I was going after.”

      Jealousy seared his insides like a blowtorch. “Why? You got a date with some bad-ass to flaunt at university mixers?”

      The Lady Scholar folded her arms across her eye-popping dress and cocked her head to one side. “The bad-ass of my choice wasn’t available.”

      That soothed him somewhat…assuming she referred to him. “Then if you don’t have a date, what are you doing dressed to the nines in a piece of silk no bigger than a place mat?”

      “I’m on the prowl.”

      “Over my dead body, maybe.”

      Her jaw dropped, and for a moment her sassy new attitude gave way to the more conservative woman he’d known the past four years. “Cal Turner, you have no right to gainsay me.”

      “You’re my friend and I have every right to protect you from yourself.”

      “I’m not doing anything different than the average American single woman does on any given weekend!”

      “Honey, that just goes to show you how little you know about this whole process. Women don’t go out by themselves. They travel in packs for safety. Yet here you are, all alone and vulnerable as can be.”

      She brightened. “I won’t be vulnerable once I go back to my office.”

      “What are you hiding in there? A few members of the football team?” Maybe he didn’t want to know the answer. Maddy was full of surprises this week.

      “My can of Mace.”

      She was even more hell-bent for trouble than his sister. “Oh, I feel better now, Maddy. That’ll help.”