“Steve,” she said, and when he glanced at her, her heart skipped a beat.

“I can’t.”

“Okay. I won’t ask.” Perplexed, she took a deep breath and leaned back. “I don’t have any classes today,” she replied, handing him her schedule. Her Tuesdays and Thursdays were loaded, and with the exception of a couple Wednesday classes, the rest of her schedule was blank.

Steve handed it back. “Bitch.” He tilted his schedule so she could see. “I’ve got classes every day starting at eight.”

“Aww,” Jennifer said without sympathy. She saw his lips curve at the edges and watched in amazement as he suppressed it again.

“Here they come,” he said under his breath.

Jennifer stood and hurried toward Tracy. “I can’t believe you did that to me!”

“Was it really that bad?” Steve asked.

Jennifer glared at him and he met her eyes with the same ferocity. “As a matter of fact…”

“It wasn’t all that pleasant for me either,” Steve barked at her. “You are a bitch.” He stood and walked away.

Jennifer watched him, her mouth open in surprise.

Bill took off after Steve, grabbing his arm and swinging him around. “You need to apologize to her.”

“Fuck you.” Steve yanked his arm from Bill’s grasp and stormed away, disappearing around the rear of the student center.

Bill’s jaw went slack and he headed back to where Jennifer stood.

“What the hell were you two thinking?” Jennifer snapped when Bill returned to Tracy’s side. “He’s an asshole.”

Bill looked away. “He didn’t seem like one when I met him over the summer. I thought you two would be perfect together. You both know what it’s like to lose someone and I thought…,” he trailed off and shrugged.

Her eyes narrowed. “That was the qualification of setting us up?”

“Jen,” Tracy sighed.

“That is such a bullshit reason!” She started to walk away and Bill caught her arm. “Let go!”

“Don’t be mad at Tracy. This was all my idea, not hers.”

Jennifer shook her head, her eyes bouncing between the two. “Bullshit. She pushed me just as much as you pushed him.”

“I’m sorry, Jen. I thought you two would hit it off.” Tracy wouldn’t meet Jennifer’s gaze. “Do you want a ride back to the apartment?”

Jennifer took a deep breath. “No, not right now. There are a few people I want to say hello to. I’ll walk back later.”

“It’s a haul, Jen,” Bill said.

“Then I’ll swing by the frat house. Someone there can bring me home, right?”

Bill shrugged. “True.”

Jennifer started to walk away.

“Are you mad at me?” Tracy asked.

Jennifer turned and fluttered her hand back and forth. “A little, but I’ll get over it.”

“You know I love you, right?”

Jennifer smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

Chapter 6

Jennifer walked around the corner of the student center and was yanked behind the trees.

Steve rammed her against a big oak out of sight from the walking path. His eyes sparkled. “Sorry I scared you.” He leaned in to kiss her and stopped inches from her lips, staring into her eyes. “I’m not so sure you really know what you want.” He pulled back a little and let the edges of his mouth curve upwards.

Jennifer’s heart raced. She couldn’t move and couldn’t speak, her eyes lost in his intense stare. “I…I,” she finally sputtered.

“You what?” Her ragged breath smelled like cinnamon.

Jennifer moved swiftly stepping closer and sweeping his foot out from under him at the same time she pushed, knocking him flat on his back in a perfect Osoto Gari. “Don’t corner me like that ever again.”

Steve stared up at her with wide eyes from his vantage point on the ground. “Damn girl,” he uttered when he regained the capacity to breathe.

Jennifer put her hands on her hips. “My dad thought I should learn to defend myself. I’m a black belt.”

“I’ll have to spar with you sometime.” He picked himself up and brushed the dirt off his shorts.

“You would lose.”

He laughed, musical and full. “Next time you’ll be on the ground.”

“Want to bet?”

He snorted and began to walk away. Jennifer lunged and found herself on the ground with his arm across her chest. He was infinitely faster and more powerful than she imagined.

“So what did I win?” He barely concealed a smirk, masking it with a devilish grin.

A thousand thoughts flew through her mind but the one that slipped through her lips almost made her laugh. “The right to protect me any time you want.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “That’s a given.” He stood and helped her up, attempting to brush the dirt off the back of her pretty, white skirt. “You’re gonna need to change.”

She arched, trying to look at the back of her skirt but only saw the edges of dirt. “Can you take me back?”

Steve glanced at his watch. “Sure, I’ve got a little time.”

They walked to his car, keeping an eye on the parking lot and the student center for Bill and Tracy. Fortune ran with them. No one they knew saw them slide into Steve’s car.

“Who do you work for?” she asked after a few miles of silence.

“I told you I can’t discuss this with you.”

“Local police? State police? What?”

“Let it go.” He gave her a sideways look before focusing back on the road. “Please.”

Jennifer took a deep breath and exhaled, her mind filtering through all the possibilities. One stuck, triggering a vague memory, and she tilted her head, glancing at him. When they were little, he told her his grandfather was an undercover agent. She looked at her hand, her brow furrowing as she fought to remember. “FBI!” Her head snapped up with the statement.

Steve sucked the air in and shook his head slightly. Jennifer always had the uncanny ability to read him and this time was no different. He pulled in front of the apartment building and threw the car in neutral. “Look, I can’t discuss this with you, Jen,” he said, meeting her inquisitive gaze. “Someday I will, but I can’t right now. Okay?”

Jennifer nodded and started to get out of the car.

“Jen?”

She turned back.

“I need to go somewhere and I’d really like company.” He offered a nervous smile.

“Oh. Okay, I’ll be a couple minutes.” She trotted inside.

* * * *

Her dirty skirt swayed with her stride and Steve smiled a little. He sighed, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back against the headrest.

He had been doing field operations for close to five years, recruited right out of high school. He graduated at the top in his class from the academy and received a commendation for his first undercover assignment at Yale nailing a serial rapist.

Peggy went everywhere with him, and after his first collar he asked her to marry him. The relationship had been a quiet one, no tension, no fighting, nothing, just simple adoration and no warning signals hinting at her unbalanced state. After re-examining their life together, over and over and over, every day since she killed herself, he still didn’t see any clear-cut sign.

After she died, he turned reckless with his career and his private life, requesting the most dangerous assignments and bedding every hot babe he came across despite his boss’ reproach. He felt no fear, no remorse, no passion, just a cold shell driven by a boiling anger.

This assignment was a little slower pace than the rat race of drugs and mafia games he chased over the last couple of years. When undercurrents of bizarre hazing rituals found its way into the bureau, they pulled him from a job in the city. His boss wanted him here, wanted his insight and his ability to blend in. And catching the son of a bitch was no longer a choice for him, not since finding the carnage in the woods this summer. It was now a need motivated by fury.

He opened his eyes and looked at the building. Jennifer was a complication he didn’t expect. He caved under Bill’s matchmaking harassment when he heard her name, and the memories of his youth came flooding back. Talking to her on the phone had been nice, but actually seeing her, man, that knocked him on his ass.