Spice (27 page)

I
t didn't take Kane long to realize he'd made a monumental blunder bringing Nadia to the party. She'd handled the attention from the curious and the schemers well at first, making him proud. Then he'd noticed that her usual warm smile had an edge to it, her good mood sharper, her tone of voice too bright. It had bothered him that she wasn't enjoying herself at an event that was important to him, a situation she would find herself in again if she stayed with him. Then he realized that she'd fallen back on her Hollywood social skills, using them as defensive armor to protect herself from the sharks trawling the class ocean.

They were sharks. How he hadn't considered that some of his colleagues would have watched reality shows and the cooking network five years ago was a serious error on his part. Crimson Bay was a small college town, but it wasn't a backwater. More than one person had recognized her from the cooking competition show; others recognized her from her own cooking and lifestyle show. Recognition had led to speculation as people pulled out their smartphones and ran a search on Nadia, completely overlooking the fact that she was now an upstanding member of the business community.

He began to make his way toward the ballroom exit, knowing Nadia had gone to the ladies' room. He had to get her out of there. It had been a mistake to bring her, a mistake to expose her to his status-hungry colleagues. He also had to apologize to her. She'd tried to warm him and he'd ignored it. Now he wondered what price he'd have to pay for his cluelessness.

“Cheeky move, Sullivan, even for you,” Darrell Connors said as he joined Kane.

Kane suppressed a flash of irritation. The adjunct professor was as ambitious as they came. If he couldn't advance on his own merits, he'd rip at someone else's. There was a reason Connors was still an adjunct and not an assistant professor.

“What are you going on about now?” Kane demanded, craning his neck to catch sight of Nadia. How long did a ladies' room visit take anyway?

“Bringing your pet project to the faculty party,” Connors said, giving him a look that had Kane clenching his hands into fists. “I'm still trying to decide if that was sheer brilliance or a career-limiting move.”

Connors looked around the ballroom, waving at the assistant dean, who ignored him. “Our fellow faculty members seem split down the middle as far as their opinions go.”

Fuck
. Kane took a sip of his drink to hide his burgeoning anger. His fellow faculty members could eat shit for all he cared. “Pet project?”

Connors laughed, and Kane had to fight to keep his Irish in check, before he gave in to the urge to punch the other man so hard he'd have to shit to find his teeth. “Come on, Sullivan—you don't really expect us to believe that you're dating that woman with any degree of seriousness, do you? I know she's a looker, but even good looks can't erase all the baggage that one comes with. That won't fly with Herscher's board. So you must be using her for research. Is she worth it?”

Kane could easily imagine letting his Irish off the chain. One solid punch to the jaw would send the other man flying and would telegraph to all the fucking vultures in this room that his woman was not a fucking project.

He wasn't going to do it. Wasn't going to give his colleagues the satisfaction of watching him lose his shit. He also wasn't going to just stand there and let an adjunct insult Nadia.

“Ah, the board.” Kane stared at Connors, then smiled. The smile must not have been as bland as he'd intended because Connors took a hurried step backward. “Perhaps you and I should approach the board members together, Professor. I suddenly find myself curious to know what they would think of a certain slimy, status-hungry adjunct professor with a predilection for coeds' literal dirty laundry. Shall we find out?”

Kane watched in satisfaction as blood drained from the adjunct professor's face. “Uhm, ah, no. I don't think that's necessary, Sullivan. Oh, look there's Professor Long. I need to have a word with her.”

“Don't let me keep you.”
Or catch you walking alone in the parking lot, you rat bastard.

Connors backed away, then spun and plunged into the crowd. Done with the event, his colleagues, and quite possibly his career at Herscher, Kane finished his whiskey, handed off the glass to a waiter, and searched for Nadia among the speculative faces staring at him from the crowd. He caught sight of her near the ballroom entrance, head down, making her way toward the exit.

He sliced through the crowd, which gave him a wide berth. Making a beeline for the door, he ignored everyone and everything else, focusing on one thing, the only person that mattered in that moment.

“Nadia, wait.”

She stopped, but didn't turn around. He gripped her wrist. “Were you leaving?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice hollow. “This was a mistake.”

“I know, but don't worry. You won't have to deal with this again.”

She flinched, then averted her gaze. “Looks like Audie was right after all.”

“Audie? Right about what?”

“You. Us. This.”

He tightened his grip on her wrist. “Please tell me you are not going to take relationship advice from fucking Audie!”

She did wrench her hand free then, folding her arms across her chest. “I know you're not talking badly about my friends!”

He could feel a headache brewing between his eyes. With so much anger boiling inside him, the last thing he wanted to do was get into an argument with Nadia. Not here, and certainly not about her friends when there were so many other things they needed to talk about. “I didn't say anything negative about your friends. I'm just saying Audie should be the last person you take relationship advice from.”

She drew back. “Oh, and I suppose you think I should take it from you?”

His eyes narrowed. “Since I'm the other half of this relationship, I'd like to think my opinion matters more than anyone else's besides yours.”

“What my friends think is important to me.”

“I'm not saying it shouldn't be,” he retorted, his ears heating as he struggled to hold on to his temper. “But Audie doesn't know shit about relationships. If you want her advice on picking up stray sex partners and fucking their brains out, she's your girl. But there's a difference between
Dear Abby
and
Dear Penthouse
.”

“Oh my God!” She stalked away from him, her hands fisted at her sides. “How can you talk so horribly about her like that?”

Dammit. He could face a room full of academic fucktards and stay calm, but two seconds with Nadia and his control frayed like an old rope. “Do you want me to lie? It won't change the facts.”

“You're not being fair to her.”

“Fair? Was she being fair to you when she said all that crap to you that night you went to help her?”

He blew out a breath. “Audie's views on relationships and what denotes a healthy one are horribly skewed and her interpersonal skills are sorely lacking. She needs serious and intensive therapy to uncover whatever her underlying issues are with love and intimate interactions, and I hope like hell that that's where she is right now. If she doesn't get help, she'll continue to spiral down until she self-destructs. And you are going to let her take you down with her.”

Nadia's expression hardened. “Spoken like a psychologist.”

“That's what I am! I've never lied to you about what I am or what I want with you. Isn't lying against the principles of recovery?”

She froze. “What did you say?”

“About what?”

“The principles of recovery. I never told you about those. We've never talked about the steps, the program. How do you know?”

“I did some research on recovery from drug addiction. I wanted to have the information in case I needed to help you with anything.”

“Oh my God.” Horror spread across her features. “So it's true?”

“Is what true?”

She shook her head, hurt tarnishing her beautiful eyes. “I didn't want to believe it. Even when they said it, I didn't want to believe it, but it makes sense.”

“Nadia, for the love of God, stop.” He shoved his hands through his hair. “Why the hell are we arguing like this? What's going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Like hell it was nothing! You didn't even act like this the day after Audie got hurt. What's going on with you, Nadia?”

“Are you using me, Kane?”

He stepped back, shock blanking his features. “What did you say?”

“You know what? I don't want to talk about it.” She turned away. “I just want to go home and forget this night ever happened.”

He snagged her arm again. “Not yet.”

“Let go of me, Kane,” she hissed. “You're causing a scene.”

“Like I give a damn.” He led her to a darkened alcove, found an unlocked door, then nudged her inside. “We need to talk about this, Nadia. I want to know everything everyone said to you tonight.”

She sighed, and the defeat in her tone, in her posture spiked his fury again. “It doesn't matter who said what, it was all the same. People either thought you were slumming or they thought you were using me as the subject of your next book or paper.”

“What?” His vision flashed red. Connors's use of the phrase
pet project
suddenly made sense. Someone actually said that to Nadia's face?

“Am I just a chapter in your next paper, Kane?” She looked at him, the disbelief cutting him deep. “What's the title anyway? ‘How to Love a Drug Addict'? ‘The Sexual Needs of the Addicted'? Is that why you're with me?”

“Of course not! Do you seriously think I've been using you as the focus of a research paper all this time?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” she retorted. “You volunteer to act out positions from
The Perfumed Garden
with me. You don't blink an eye when I tell you about my addiction issues—”

“That's because it's in the past,” he ground out.

“It's not in the past!” she shot back. “That's what I've been trying to tell you. You think those people out there would really give a damn if my drug abuse hadn't happened? I tried to tell you this, but you brushed it off, and it leaves me to wonder why.”

“Why what?”

“Why someone with your intelligence, credentials, your career, and your media standing would want to be with me. Why would you stick around after dealing with my friends and my family so soon? Why would you stick around after my confrontation with Audie? Why would you be with me? I couldn't come up with a good reason—until your coworkers gave me one.”

“A professor needs to publish or perish. That's the rule for tenure, and yes, I want tenure. We're a research institution. We do studies of all kinds all year. Sometimes I will lead studies, gathering data from volunteers. I've interviewed hundreds of subjects for my thesis, my articles, and my books. Men and women, young and not so young. But I do not fuck any of my subjects. I have never put personal information into any of my published material, and I don't intend to start. Give me some credit for having some ethics if nothing else. My colleagues gave you crap.”

“Did they?” she asked, her voice quavering. “Every single one? The women in the bathroom seemed to think I was research, as if they couldn't imagine Professor Kaname Sullivan dating me. Maybe all of this has been one gigantic real-life study for you. The nipple clamps, the clit jewelry—you put them on me then parade me out in public so you can document my reaction.”

“You started that game, Nadia, on our very first date. I took it to the next logical step, so don't put that on me.”

She shook her head as if what he said didn't matter, or she didn't care. “You want me to believe this isn't some grand study, when everyone else thinks it is?”

Slowly he placed his hands on her shoulders, turned her so that she could see his eyes. “For the last time, this isn't about fucking research!”

“What is it about then?”

“What it's always been about. This!”

He crushed his mouth to hers, desperation and anger and need roaring through him. He would prove to her that what they had was too raw, too strong, too fucking real to be research.

She responded immediately, thrusting her hands into his hair. She kissed him just as hard and demanding as he kissed her, biting down on his bottom lip to draw blood.

Something inside of him snapped. He yanked up her skirt, wrapped his hands around the string of her thong, and pulled. She gasped as the fabric easily gave way. He cupped her mound, feeling the hard edge of the clamp framing her clitoris, the heat of her core, the liquid fire of her need. Heedless of his burning lip, he continued to kiss her as he stroked her clit with his thumb, two fingers sliding into her moist heat.

“I want you,” he growled against her mouth. “You want me. That's what this is about. That's what this has always been about.”