Hook, line, sinker

Okay, here it is: Tom Baker's first encounter with our feisty heroine. When we left Tom last week, he was fuming over a text message from his brother, Nate, and still trying to figure out what to do about his not-so-secret admirer, Saskia. But Kate Ramsey is standing right in front of him. And as soon as he looks up, you can bet that his life won't ever be the same again.

Don't forget that you can skip forward a few months and read all about Kate and Tom in The Science of Attraction.

One more thing: in this excerpt we're edging toward a little raciness. Consider this fair warning for the faint of heart! And for the rest of us, be patient — the real fun is yet to come...

The Prelude to Attraction (Part 4)

The next speaker is busy setting up and there’s the usual kind of background noise, as laptops are exchanged and plugged in. The microphone is still on as it’s passed between speakers and the newcomer breathes softly into it when the chairman fastens it into place.

“Oh, right— thanks,” she says, her voice hitching into half a giggle on the last word. I’m still staring at my brother’s message, but her voice hits a note that I feel in the tip of my dick.

So of course I look up.

And yeah, my body reacts predictably when I catch sight of the woman on stage.

She’s hot. There’s no two ways about it. Short, dark hair in an artful kind of mess. The sort of haircut that looks perfect straight out of bed, which is precisely where I’d like to be dragging her right about now. Smooth olive skin, and lips painted a luscious shade of red. No prizes for guessing what I’m thinking when I look at them.

My eyes trip down over her shoulders, down the lines of her dress. The white fabric glows against her skin and the thing looks like it was fucking stitched right onto her goddamn body. Over her tits, into her tiny waist, and down the curve of her hips.

She’s still talking to the chairman in a hushed tone, but the mic’s on so it carries through the room.

“No, absolutely,” she says, nodding her head. “I’m sorry.”

There’s something odd about her voice. Not odd, exactly—just different. She’s definitely not American, but it’s not that. Although the accent—English, I guess, but I’m crap with accents—carries an authority with it that amplifies her obvious self-confidence.

She’s been invited to speak in a session full of hotshots. She must be seriously kickass, and so her self-confidence is entirely unsurprising. But it’s the humor underneath it all that’s fucking with me. She’s laughing at herself as she fumbles around on stage in front of a hundred some people, and yet she’s being totally natural about it. It’s fair to say that I’m intrigued, and that Nate’s message is now the furthest thing from my mind.

The chairman calls for everyone’s attention again by clearing his throat and waving awkwardly.

We scientists are a rare breed, I chuckle to myself.

But none quite as rare as this woman in the spotlight, it would seem. The chairman is now running through a list of her accomplishments, and while I’m eager to learn everything about her, I’m even more rapt by how she’s responding to her own introduction. It’s almost like she’s blushing, but trying desperately to rise above it—to take the praise she’s earned and own it. There is something entirely refreshing about her particular combination of awesomeness and humility.

And the awesomeness, it seems, she has in spades.

“The fellowship Kate received as part of this doctoral thesis award took her to Stanford,” the chairman is saying, and I sit up in my seat, because although I work on the East Coast, at least we live on the same landmass. A part of me wants to punch myself in the face for already planning a bicoastal relationship with this woman I’ve known—or not known—for all of three minutes.

But it doesn’t matter anyway, because the chairman’s next sentence does it for me.

“But alas, her time in the States was short-lived, because she quickly got snapped up by the Schaeffer Institute in Germany, where she’s now the newest member of that rather spectacular faculty.”

It’s literally like a slap upside my head, which is fucking ridiculous, really. Because what the fuck? Why am I hurting over her moving to Europe before I’ve even spoken to her? Before I’ve even really heard her speak.

I am clearly some kind of super-creep.

But then she takes the floor, and I feel almost vindicated. Almost.

“I want to first thank the organizers for inviting me here,” she says. “This week has been absolutely fantastic, and I feel like I’m high on science.”

She looks down at her toes and bites her lip.

“Which I realize is an incredibly nerdy thing to say,” she continues, and the blush is real this time. I am destroyed, and I feel myself grinning like an idiot. Like I’m the one making her blush that way.

I briefly cycle through all the things I can imagine doing, to bring that color into her cheeks. My lips on her neck. On her chest. A hand between her thighs. My face between those thighs.

My cock makes another cameo, and now I’m shifting uncomfortably in my seat, because fuck, this woman has a half-hour slot, and I’m looking like I’m about ready to come in my pants before she even really gets started.

“I’m going to take a huge risk here today and tell you all about a project that is yet to be completed,” she says. Her voice slides over all those vowels like she’s riding a goddamn roller coaster and I’m hooked.

“And I know it’s a risk, I know it might go all wrong,” she says, pausing for effect, dragging her beautiful eyes around the room. “But the truth is, I’m just so bloody excited about this work, I can’t help but share it, even if it’s not fully baked.”

And just like that, I’m completely hard, and out of my mind for some chick I don’t even know.

Jump to Part 5