“I bet you're not really cold, doc. Not underneath it all.”“Actually, I am. Oh. And Jackie and I have a bet going.” She motioned to her roommate, Jaqueline Jean-Louis, a former child music prodigy. The two women had known each other for years and Jean-Louis taught in the university's prestigious music department. What Van found fascinating about the whole relationship was the fact that Jean-Louis was a shifter. A jackal, specifically. He always wondered if Irene knew. If she did, she absolutely never showed it. But it wouldn't be unusual for her not to know. Many shifters went through their entire lives successfully hiding who they really were from the full-humans close to them. It was important to their kind to hide who they were. In fact, hard choices were sometimes made in order to keep their secret.
“Is that right?” he asked, taking a glass of champagne from the tray passing by.
“Yes. I'm convinced you believe I'm a virgin and all this time you've been hoping to defile me.”
No matter what he did, he couldn't keep from choking that champagne right back up.
She simply didn't understand. For nearly seven years now, the man had sought her out. At every charity event. Every university function. Anything she had to go to in order to fulfill her responsibilities to the university, Niles Van Holtz was there. He wouldn't pounce right away. He'd wait until she'd finally entertained the thought that he'd decided not to attend and then boom . He'd be there. Usually easing up behind her and asking her something rather inappropriate in her ear. You could almost say she'd come to expect it.
Irene looked up into Van Holtz's handsome face. And he was handsome. Gorgeous, in fact, if you followed the normal societal standards. Dark brown hair that had streaks of white, black, and gray nearly covered those oddly colored eyes of his. Kind of a gold amber or something. She wasn't really a color person; she left those sorts of decisions to Jackie. Even now the gown Irene wore—a pale silver...thing—her friend had picked out for her.
Van Holtz also had a rather square jaw and a nose she bet once had a deviated septum, based on the way it went crooked right below his brows, and a rather abnormally large neck. Yes, a very handsome man. And, perhaps, one of the most arrogant beings she'd ever come across. Truly, if she had any emotional investment in this man, she'd be forced to have him wiped from the planet. But Irene had very little emotional investment in anyone. Jackie and Jackie's boyfriend, Paul, pretty much covered her emotional investment. And she was quite okay with that. More than okay.
Van Holtz cleared his throat. “Um...and why do you think it would matter to me if you're a virgin?”
Irene shrugged. “You have that demeanor. I imagine you probably like it when the virgin tells you, 'Ow! You're too big. Please, we have to stop!' And you say”—she lowered her voice several octaves to match Van Holtz's—“'Don't worry. I'll make it good for you, sweet little virgin girl.'”
Van Holtz stared at her for at least a full minute and Irene began to wonder where Jackie had wandered off to. She brought the woman with her to stop Irene from doing things like this. Saying something that would cause huge repercussions financially. The Van Holtz family gave the university a lot of money and with a stupid attempt at honesty, Irene may have caused that money supply to dry up.
But then Van Holtz threw his head back and laughed, shocking Irene and causing everyone in the room
to turn around and stare at them. Not surprisingly, Jackie suddenly appeared at her side
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