Attraction E-Book

Cameron Kane

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Rachel Moore is a grad student in chemistry at New York’s Ellison University. And she would be doing just fine if only her professor weren’t so distracting…

Dr. Alan Taylor is not just the best-looking man on campus—and possibly in all of New York—but also funny, charming, and a total nerd. Rachel’s heart doesn’t stand a chance.

When an accidental date ends in a night of passion, Rachel doesn’t know what to think. Was Alan just trying to get in her pants, or could this be something more?

Please enjoy this free prequel to the forthcoming Chemistry Trilogy, a New Adult romance series about a group of grad students who work hard in the lab but still have time for hooking up, breaking up, and generally getting into trouble.

For updates on my work and other goodies, please follow me on Twitter: @mscameronkane. (Who knows? I may even follow you back.)

Leseprobe

Cameron Kane

Attraction

A Chemistry Short

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Rachel Moore stared at Dr. Taylor just a little too intensely. She had always been an attentive student, and, after all, he was standing in front of a lecture hall full of students; it was natural to pay attention. She was sure her classmates didn’t notice anything strange about the way she was looking at him. But she noticed. She loved chemistry and was fascinated by it. She knew what it felt like to be completely absorbed in a lecture—but this wasn’t that. In fact, she was only half-listening to what Dr. Taylor had to say. It had been that way for weeks.

Of course, she always reviewed the lecture slides as soon as she got back to her apartment in the grad student housing complex. Her grades were consistently stellar. But she wasn’t getting anything out of the lectures themselves. It wasn’t that Dr. Taylor was a bad teacher—quite the opposite, in fact. He was funny and charming, and very good with complicated explanations. That was probably why he was so highly rated on Ellison University’s teacher reviews website. The problem was that he was just too good-looking. He was quite possibly the most attractive man on campus, Rachel thought. If not on the entire island of Manhattan.

He looked thirty or so, but he didn’t dress like a lot of the younger professors, in jeans and corduroy jackets—if they wore jackets at all. Dr. Taylor was always professionally dressed, in a full suit and a maroon or navy tie. He was so put-together that Rachel couldn’t help wanting to rumple him up a little, to run her hands through his black hair—medium-length with a slight curl—until it was flying in all directions. Even with the layers of neatly ironed clothing he wore, it was obvious that he had a nice frame: slim but well-muscled. He was at least six feet tall, and probably closer to 6’3” or 6’4”—it was hard to tell from the back of the room, but Rachel had always been too nervous to get any closer. His brown eyes were piercing even from this distance; who knew what they could to her up close.

She knew that other girls in the class (and maybe some of the boys) had mild crushes on Dr. Taylor. She’d even giggled about him with her only friend in the class, Janelle, a couple of times. In fact, that was probably part of the reason he was so successful: Students who were attracted to him would have an added incentive to do well, since everyone wants their crush to think they’re smart. Plus, anyone who wanted to take the second half of Chemistry 405 with him in the spring needed to pass this semester first. But she was pretty sure no one else had it this bad. Nobody else was petrified at the thought of sitting closer to the professor, let alone talking to him.

She wasn’t usually this shy. Actually, she prided herself on being direct with men, even when she was attracted to them. But it was different with Dr. Taylor. Maybe it wasn’t just attraction, but also a hint of intimidation. She really respected his work, and that made it harder to approach him. It was one thing to have a crush on a classmate and then realize he didn’t like her. It would be quite another to find out that Dr. Taylor found her stupid, or boring, or otherwise unappealing. She wasn’t sure she could take it.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice.

She’d made it almost the whole semester without talking to the professor, but now she couldn’t avoid it. She had a question about their latest assignment—the last one before the final exam—and there was no one else she could ask. It was a small lecture (about twenty-five students), and there were no TAs; Dr. Taylor did all his own grading. The rumor was that he preferred it that way.

Increasingly nervous, Rachel glanced up at the clock: only fifteen minutes to go. She bent down to grab her book bag, thinking she’d pull out the assignment so that she could review the exact wording before she approached Dr. Taylor, but as she leaned over, her shoulder grazed the desk, tipping over the coffee thermos precariously perched on the edge of it.

Rachel watched the thermos fall as if in slow motion. She cursed herself for sitting right by the top of the stairs as the plastic hit the floor with a loud whack and then bounced onto the steps—whack, whack, whack—finally coming to rest about halfway down. Everyone had looked up to see what was happening, including Dr. Taylor. Thankfully, the thermos was empty, but Rachel still wanted to disappear as she hurried to collect it. The whole commotion died down quickly; Dr. Taylor cleared his throat and returned to his lecture, and the other students switched their attention back to him. Probably everyone would have forgotten this by tomorrow, but that was little comfort to Rachel. She couldn’t believe she’d been so careless.

***

Fifteen minutes, it turned out, was just enough time for Rachel to stop blushing. As Dr. Taylor said goodbye to the class and reminded them to start studying for next week’s final, Rachel hurried to gather up her things. She stuffed the thermos deep into her book bag, never wanting to look at it again, and took a deep breath before descending the stairs.

Dr. Taylor was still gathering his notes. He looked up as she approached, and she felt her face flush all over again. Calm down, she told herself. You’re just asking a question.

“Hi, uh, Professor Taylor?” Her voice came out higher than usual—squeaky, almost.

“Call me Alan.” He smiled at her, his skin crinkling slightly around the eyes. “And you are?”

“Rachel Moore.” Dr. Taylor—or rather, Alan—looked surprised.