The Rule of Always

CALLIE

It was worth it.

Begging my editor for the assignment to interview Dr. Israel Hammond. Being so careful to cloak my identity so he wouldn’t bolt as soon as he realized I was the reporter.

Putting up with all the defenses I knew he’d erect when I walked into the room. Splurging on these shoes and the dress hidden beneath my wool coat.

All worth it to see the brief unguarded moment of shock skitter across Iz’s face.

“What’d you say?” His eyes narrow behind the square black lenses.

He looks even better than the last time I saw him. The same severely sketched bone structure. The thick wing of brows over black brown eyes, framed by a tangle of long, curly lashes.

The sinful curve of his mouth, at turns stern and sensual. There’s actual gray at his temples now and sprinkled into the stubble kissing his granite jawline.

So fucking hot.

How am I still standing? By all rights, I should already be on my knees sucking this man’s dick through his pants.

If he takes those glasses off and polishes them on his shirt again, I will combust right here in the Strand’s Rare Book Room. Israel Hammond is nerd porn.

He’s bookish and brawny, his ideas straining the limits of his mind, his arms straining the sleeves of his jacket. And I’ve wanted him since the day we met.

“I’m C. G. Holmes.” I caress his thumb again, grinning when he jerks his hand back like I scalded him. “No, it’s a guy, and—”

“I never said I was a guy in my email,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but—”

“You assumed I was a man.” I shake my head and tsk. “And here I thought you were a feminist.”

“You used a fake name to maneuver me into this?”

“Not maneuver and not a fake name.

It’s my byline. Callista Garcia... Holmes. My father’s last name is Holmes, but I dropped it legally years ago.”

“Why?”

“I’m supposed to be asking the questions here.”

“Are you? Is this some kind of joke?”

“Not a joke. My job.”

“Your job?” A harsh laugh erupts from him, and he eyes me skeptically.

“You expect me to believe you’re a hack for the NY Daily Register? You graduated with honors from Yale at eighteen and were a damn Rhodes scholar.

You’re a PhD with a trail of fellowships behind you and can do anything you want.”

“Exactly. Anything I want. And apparently what I want is to interview rude assholes who refer to me as a hack.

Now you said in the email your hotel was nearby and we could conduct the interview there. You ready?”

Wariness sifts into his gaze. The thought of having me in his hotel probably sets him on edge. God knows it’s got me burning to think of us that close to a bed.

I start walking toward the exit, pausing to look over my shoulder when he doesn’t follow.

“Coming?” I ask, loud enough for anyone listening to hear. “Or you're scared I’ll kiss you again?”

A scowl jerks his thick brows together. “Dammit, Callie. Would you …”

He draws a deep breath, marches his fine ass over, grabs my elbow and ushers me to the door. I lean my head into his arm, breathing in that clean, masculine scent.

He frowns down at me and drops my elbow.

“Don’t smell me,” he grumbles, holding the door open for me to pass ahead of him.

“Like I can help it if you bathe in cologne.”

“You don’t like it,” he says, walking ahead, setting a too-fast pace. “Don’t inhale.”

I scramble to keep up, not a simple task considering these heels are nosebleed high. We clomp along in silence for the block to his hotel.

The sounds of the city, the press of the crowd, do little to distract me from the big man beside me.

Even in heels, I don’t clear his shoulders. To be crushed beneath his weight while he comes into me. He’d probably snatch my breath with one thrust. The power of his body …

I’m hot. I’m wet. How does he do this to me? Reduce me—a scholar who has prided myself on having my shit together my entire life—to this throbbing, horny girl who just wants to wrap my legs around him and ~hump~?

“Why the hell are you writing for the Register?” he asks, the suddenness of his deep timbre startling me. “I told you. It’s what I want to do right now.”

“You’re a PhD, Cal.”

“No, I’m not.” I glance up at him, showing him defiance but secretly wondering if he’ll judge me.

“But you were just a few credits from your doctorate when you were my TA.”

“Never too late for a gap year,” I joke faintly. “Or five.”

He doesn’t stop, but his steps slow, and he finally watches me for more than a few seconds. “What’s going on with you?”

This is the part people miss when they quick-judge him as broody, moody, aloof. I mean, he is all those things, but they miss what I saw in him every time he stayed long after class to answer students’ questions.

Or to challenge their worldview, to stretch them into considering something new. He cares. “I’ve been in school my whole life,” I say.

“Whatever the world has told you about intense Asian parents who pressure their kids to excel, at least in my case, it’s true.

There are, of course, exceptions, but my mother, whom I adore, by the way, was not one of them.”

“Your mother is Japanese, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And your father?”

“Colombian. They met in college.”

I huddle deeper into my coat against the cold night air.

“They weren’t together long.” “He left?”

“He died. Car accident,” I sigh and shrug.

“I think he would have tempered her some if he’d been around, but when she saw my IQ scores and my teachers urged her to skip me ahead a couple of grades so I would be challenged, she pounced. And hasn’t looked back since.”

“So this is some kind of delayed act of rebellion?”

“No, this is me as an adult woman figuring out what the hell I want to do with my own life.

Yes, I’ve been to Yale and Oxford and have a pile of prestigious fellowships, but I haven’t enjoyed much of it. I want to enjoy something.”

“And posing as a reporter does that?”

“I’m not posing. If you remember, I double majored in undergrad.”

“Public policy,” he says, nodding with a stiff little smile tugging the full, sculpted line of his mouth.

“And journalism.” “Bingo. So not that much of a stretch. I’ve just always focused more on public policy. The last few years have been about what I want to do. I’ve traveled and met new people and wasted time, a luxury I’ve never had.

And, yes, I’m freelancing to support my quarter-life crisis.”

He stops in front of his hotel and I stop, too. We stand still as the revolving doors spit out a stream of people exiting the building.

“So you’re serious about this,” he says.

“I am.”

He watches me through a length of curled lashes before nodding and gesturing toward the hotel entrance.

The lobby, luxuriously understated, hums with activity, and a low murmur of voices drifts from around the corner. I assume it’s a restaurant because a mix of tantalizing scents tease my nostrils and make my mouth water.

“Have you eaten?” he asks. “They do a great steak at this restaurant, if your tastes haven’t changed.” “I still love steak,” I answered, shooting a hesitant glance up at him.

“But I think it would be better to conduct the interview somewhere private.”

“Let me guess,” he drawls, a wry twist to his mouth. “My hotel room would work better?”

“It would, yes.” I lick my lips, nervous in case he refuses. “I typically conduct interviews in private and use my phone to record. I think I laid out the terms in the email, and you agreed.”

“Yeah, but that was before—”

“Before you knew it was me?”

He doesn’t answer but starts for a bank of elevators nearby. “Let’s go.”

“Um, u-up?” Am I really stammering right now? “Up to your room, you mean?”

Consternation and possibly irritation jerk his brows together. “Isn’t that what you said you wanted?”

If he could hear my thoughts about what I want from him, he would take the stairs two at a time and bolt his door. “Yes, that’s great,” I say, composing myself and suppressing any whorish urges.

“You hungry? I’m starving.”

“Starving,” I agree and follow him into the elevator. It fills up, and I find myself pressed to the back wall with Iz standing in front of me.

The blonde beside me runs acquisitive eyes over the regal set of his head, the wide stretch of his shoulders, the broad plane of his back tapering to his waist. He takes up more space than everyone else.

Not just the big body, but his presence. He lures you to look and then holds you in thrall. I stare at her until she feels my eyes on her. When she drags her stare from the vicinity of his ass to meet mine,

I tip my head toward him and bare my teeth at her. I run a finger over my throat with a slitting motion, and her eyes widen.

I lean toward her and whisper, “Just kidding.”

But I think I might for real cut a bitch over this man.

When we reach the eleventh floor, he steps off, looking back to make sure I’m following. I wave at the blonde.

“Lucky bitch,” she whispers with an envious grin.

I offer a “what can I say” shrug and totter after Iz before he changes his mind.

He’s scanning his door open when I catch up to him. I step into his suite, inspecting the sitting room furniture and the well-appointed room. Bed must be in the back.

I offer up a silent prayer to the goddess of hookups that I find out before the night is over. Phase one of my plan—the element of surprise—wasn’t flawless, but it worked. Now for phase two.

The Dress.

“Is there somewhere I could hang my coat?” I let the sleeves slither down my arms. The wool pools at my feet, and I hear his sharply indrawn breath.

I know what he sees. There’s no back. Nape to waist, just naked skin. The dress is the thinnest leather imaginable. So thin it almost feels like satin, and it molds my ass.

My Colombian father may have died when I was very young, but I’ve met his mother. And I inherited Abuela’s ass. I bend over to retrieve the coat from the floor, and he groans softly.

Good.

This man has made me suffer for a long time. He should suffer, too. While I was his TA, he never saw me in anything but T-shirts and leggings and jeans and hoodies.

I kept my hair short and wore almost no makeup. Face is fully beat tonight. My hair, pulled over one shoulder now, swings to my elbows. More than once I’ve imagined him pulling it while he fucks me from behind.

I’ve been such a good girl, Santa. Just this one early present,please.~

I turn, brows lifted. “Closet? Hanger? Should I just toss it—” “I got it.” He steps forward and takes the coat with the tips of his fingers, avoiding contact. His stare drops to my breasts.

The dress has long sleeves that cling to my arms, but the front plunges. It’s not immodest, but shows the girls at their full, perky best. It’s a little cool in here, and my nipples peak, pressing against the fabric, visibly budded.

He looks at them and away quickly, expelling a harsh breath. “I’ll hang this up,” he says, turning away with my coat and hanging up his jacket, too.

“The menus on that table. We can call for food and get started while we wait. I don’t want to keep you.” Yes, you do, Professor.

You’ve wanted to keep me since the day we met, and tonight I’mgoing to show you why you should.~ We order steak and salad. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep food down with the knots in my stomach, but my hunger dictates I at least try.

With that behind us, we settle at the coffee table in the center of the room, me on the couch and him in a seat across from me that looks almost too small to contain the powerful breadth of him.

“There’s plenty of room over here.” I gesture to the ocean of space on the couch beside me. “If you want to—”

“I’m fine over here, Callie.”

“Yeah, you are,” I agree with a husky laugh.

The glance he shoots me is sharp, but I detect the tiniest press of his lips like he’s squelching a grin. He just rolls his eyes, though, and slumps in his seat. “Begin.”

I lean forward to place my phone on the coffee table, well aware that my breasts are near to spilling from the bodice of my dress. “Is that your usual interview attire?” he asks, eyes zeroed in on the flaunted décolletage.

“Oh, this?” I point to the dress and offer a tinkling laugh. “I had an event beforehand and didn’t have time to change.” His skeptical look calls me a liar; my innocent smile dares him to prove it.

“I’m recording.” I press the red button on my phone and dive in.

I ask him the usual questions about Virus, his groundbreaking bestselling book, about his formative time at Morehouse

College, his foundation for criminal justice reform, the bail fund program he and Grip have been raising money for through a college campus tour.

He’s the most fascinating man I’ve ever known, and I could ask him a thousand questions and still have a thousand more buzzing in my brain.

Every time I’m near him, I feel smarter, stronger, stand taller.

He has that effect, stretching you, challenging you into the absolute best version of yourself. It’s why his class was overflowing to waitlisted when he was the visiting professor at NYU.

It’s why I did everything short of auctioning my virginity (which was by then, alas, long gone anyway~) to win the coveted spot as his TA.

His combination of rare intellect, sincere compassion, irrational modesty, and an immutable sense of right is irresistible.

Moth to flame. Bee to honey. Iron filings to magnets. Whatever you want to call it, I’m inexorably drawn to this man and tired of resisting.

Our food comes halfway through the interview, and we both eat with relish but keep talking. The beer he ordered with his steak seems to relax him.

The muscled slope of his shoulders loses some of the tension, and soon his deep laugh that always unleashes butterflies in my belly warms the room.

I start asking outrageous questions just to make him laugh more.

“I’m sure your readers don’t care if I’m over or under on the toilet tissue debate,” he says, a low-timbre chuckle rumbling from his throat.

“Favorite color,” I press on.

“Black,” he says with a wink that a lesser man would find creepy, but totally works for him. “Should have known.” I laugh and chew on a straw.

“Favorite revolutionary.”

“Shit, that’s impossible.” He blows out a breath. “I’ll do it for the last sixty years. Female, Angela. Male, Malcolm.”

I nod to yet another Malcolm X T-shirt hugging the width of his chest. “I should have guessed. What do you love so much about him?” He sketches a brief shrug and sips his beer.

“He was brilliant. The natural kind that formal education only refines. The elasticity of his mind fascinates me.

How he was incredibly, almost obstinately principled on one hand, but allowed his views to evolve as he learned.

And it never feels like a contradiction. Just a man asking questions and metamorphosing as he finds answers. I respect that kind of growth. I hope I can keep growing and evolving that way.”

I allow his words to settle on my skin, sink into my pores, to water me. I haven’t been around him in so long, and as much as my heart is pounding behind my sternum and my whole body feels on high alert, it also feels like home.

We only had a semester together, and he has basically avoided me at the events where I’ve volunteered since, but when I’d catch him staring, like he does now, it always felt like I’d come home.

“Favorite person in the world?” I continue softly.

“My daughter, Cecily.” His quick grin is affectionate, wistful. “She’s the best of my ex and me. I’d trade everything for her.”

I’ve never asked about his ex-wife, and now doesn’t seem the best time to start. I remember him flashing pictures of his beautiful daughter on his phone.

“Last question,” I say, reluctant to end it but sensitive to how long this day has been for him.

“What would you want your legacy to be?” His thick brows rise and then collapse into a thoughtful frown.

“Hell, I don’t know. I don’t think like that. I started speaking out when I was in college about the bullshit happening to marginalized people because it needed to be said. By as many of us, as many times, in as many ways as possible.

Next thing I know, people are asking me to come speak. And then I have a foundation. And then I have a book deal. And now you ask me about legacy when I was always just putting one foot in front of the other.

Just doing what needed to be done right then. It was the urgency of the moment that pulled me onto this path, following the urgency of every moment.”

He contemplates his beer and shrugs. “I guess that’s part of it, not ignoring the things that need to be said or the people who need to be protected. Doing what’s right, what’s required right now.

The rule of right now is how I got here, and I guess it’s essentially what I’ll leave behind.”

He clears his throat and stands up, nodding toward the debris of our meal. “You done?”

“Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”

He gathers our plates and glasses on a tray, striding over to set it outside the door. When he walks back, his gait is less assured.

His steps seem to drag, and some of the wariness I hoped food and libations chased away returns to his eyes. “So you got what you needed?” he asks, not sitting down.

He hovers there like a thundercloud, like he’s waiting for me to stand, and my heart plummets to my overpriced shoes.

The dress, the stilettos, the hair and makeup, the stimulating conversation, the undeniable sexual tension sparking between us whenever we’re together—none of it was enough to make him want me.

Oh, he wants me, but it wasn’t enough to get him past whatever holds him back. I’m not his TA anymore. Hell, I wasn’t when I kissed him on the last day of that semester at NYU.

Is it the age gap? What’s fifteen years between rabid lovers?

“Is that my cue to leave?” I ask, turning off my phone’s recorder.

I stand, tugging at the tight line of the dress across my hips. A deep swallow bobs his throat, and he looks away.

“You do that on purpose, don’t you?” he asks quietly, resentfully. “Yes,” I reply, not bothering to play dumb.

The thick sweep of his lashes lifts, and his eyes narrow. “Why?” “Because I like watching you want me.” I bark a harsh laugh. “It’s the only evidence I have that you don’t hate me.”

“You know I don’t hate you, Callista.”

I step around the coffee table until I stand right in front of him, so close the heat of his body warms the bare skin of my chest.

“Show me then.”

“Show you what?”

“That you don’t hate me.”

He runs a hand over the back of his neck and huffs an impatient breath.

“What do you want from me?”

I stare up at the long distance separating us.

Not the foot or so difference between our heights, but the distance he has imposed since the first day I walked into his office. Nothing has worked. I pretended I didn’t want him.

I’ve played hard to get, running off only to realize he wasn’t chasing. I threw myself at him, and he didn’t even try to catch. I kissed him on our last day of class, and when he kissed me back, my pussy melted.

My soul quaked, cracking open, inviting him in. And ultimately my heart broke when he pulled away and pretended nothing had happened. I’ve tried everything except just asking for what I want. So I’ll shoot my shot. This last hope shot.

“What do I want?” I step even closer, so close my nipples tighten, pressed against his chest. “Kiss me before I go.”