In Too Deep Read Free Page A

meat pie he was shovelling down his throat and, judging by the scarcely legible notes he tapes to the staff cloakroom’s water heater when it doesn’t work, I’m not sure he could manage copperplate handwriting.
    Security is tightish at the library, as we’ve got some rare and precious documents in the archives, but after my usual wrangle with the keypad and the deadbolt I manage to get the door open and launch myself outside, with the intention of heading for the small urban garden beyond the parking area, for some thinking.
    But just as I’m hurtling out, someone else is hurtling in, and I run smack into a dark, bespectacled, heavily laden figure. He isn’t moving fast, but his arms are full of his briefcase, a pile of books, several newspapers and a rolled-up map and we cannon into each other, sending his paraphernalia flying everywhere.
    And I’m blushing again. It’s only our semi-resident, semi-superstar eccentric academic I’ve gone and barged into. The adorably fit and lovely but rather bookish and haphazard Professor Daniel Brewster.
    ‘Oh dear! I do beg your pardon,’ he apologises as if it’s entirely
his
fault and not mine for forgetting to look where I’m going due to woolgathering about perverts and blue notepaper. We both swoop down, fielding the books and papers, and, as I pick up several volumes that I know he really shouldn’t have removed from the archive, I’m struck again by how scrumptious he is in a distracted, studious way. His curly black hair looks as wild as a gypsy’s and as usual there’s that gorgeous, swarthy hint of stubble darkening his cheeks. If he didn’t have the rather etiolated look of someone who stays inside poring over books all the time, he could easily pass for an earthy Mediterranean sex-machine. Apart, of course, from the seriously studious glasses and the superannuated tweed jacket.
    I get the shock of my life as I look up from retrieving a few sheets of typed paper, to meet the dark eyes behind those elegant specs … and find them locked on to my cleavage like a pair of targeting lasers. It’s clearly visible in the dip of my V-necked top.
    Is
he
Nemesis? The notion makes me rock on my heels and nearly tumble over backwards.
    Every part of me starts to tingle but, when he blushes a darker crimson than Nemesis’s lurid underwear fantasy, it’s seems unlikely that he’s the man himself. Especially when, having been crouched down on his heels to sweep up his books and papers, he promptly
does
tumble over backwards on to the concrete path. All from the shock of having been caught staring at my ample bosom. I’ve only gone and knocked a minor TV celebrity, whom I just happen to fancy something rotten, over on to his arse! It’s all your fault, Nemesis, for making me crazy!
    ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ I exclaim, graciously taking the blame for him falling, even though I didn’t knock him over; he fell over while gazing at my breasts. Which he’s still doing, his brown eyes on fire. His ears seem to be feeling the heat too, because the lobes have acquired a very fetching touch of pink. I suddenly wonder what it would be like to gently nibble them.
    What? I don’t know what’s got into me these last few days but, what with Nemesis and Professor Hottie McHotstuff here, I seriously think I’m turning into a sex maniac.
    Hauling in a deep breath, I reach out to help him rise, thus improving his view of my boobs, but he springs up with an unexpected athleticism, snapping to his feet in an almost panther-like leap.
    ‘No, no! It was my fault,’ he corrects, sounding both mortified and slightly irritated. He bends down again to scoop up more of his maverick paperwork, and then as he looks up from his search, his face is almost parallel to my crotch and only inches away from it. He doesn’t tumble over this time, but sort of starts backwards as if proximity to my pubic parts has zapped him. The action’s more like a startled gazelle this time than a sleek feline