Memoir in the Making: A May-December Romance Page 11

  She held out her hand with the corkscrew in it and waited for Ainsley to take it. Ainsley nodded minutely and then reached forward for the corkscrew, their fingers brushing. Tingles raced from the touch up Meredith’s arm and into her chest before disappearing. If that’s what every touch with Ainsley felt like, then she certainly wanted more.

  Turning away from Ainsley, Meredith went to the sink and filled up a glass of water. She needed to stop drinking the wine if she was going to make it through the night without touching Ainsley on purpose. She might be much older than Ainsley, but apparently, her maturity level had gone out the window with the first look they’d shared. She couldn’t even make it through an hour with Ainsley without thinking about her in some compromising position.

  Meredith groaned and drank down half the glass of water, wishing she could dump it on her head like a cold shower. Anything would be preferable to the feelings sweeping around inside her body. Meredith finished her glass of water and refilled it before turning around to watch Ainsley struggle with the wine. She had one bottle tucked underneath her arm while trying to pry out the cork.

  Laughing, Meredith walked closer to her and touched her back lightly to get her attention. Her palm burned from the contact. Ainsley looked up, embarrassment written all over her expression. Meredith gave her a sweet smile and then shook her head. “Let me do it. You’ll break the cork if you keep doing it that way.”

  “I’ve never been really good with wine.”

  “I don’t imagine it’s your drink of preference,” Meredith commented, smoothly setting the bottle on the table and prying the cork out. She set it into a glass bowl on her kitchen counter top along with close to a hundred other corks. “It wasn’t mine until graduate school. Too expensive when I was a broke college student, but splurging in grad school was an entirely different story.”

  “Yeah. Hard liquor is mostly what I drink.”

  “It’s cheapest,” Meredith answered and opened another bottle. “Nothing wrong with it. Sometimes a good hard drink is just what’s needed.”

  “I never thought you would be a connoisseur of alcohol,” Ainsley said.

  Meredith laughed, her eyes closing as the sound reverberated through her chest. “Oh, the things you must learn about your professors. I love to drink. It’s very relaxing. Sam and I used to go to wineries and sample all the different kinds. I’ve quite a collection going.”

  “Where?”

  “They’re in my office.”

  Ainsley turned and walked the other direction. Meredith, curious and not sure she wanted to let Ainsley just wander around her house without being there while at the same time being drawn to her wherever she went, followed. Ainsley turned into her office, opening the door and then stopping to stare in awe.

  “I’d never been in here before.”

  “Nope.”

  “How many bottles do you have?”

  Meredith admired her own collection. Close to a hundred bottles were neatly placed in their own holders along the west wall. She’d built the shelving unit herself. In a feat of anger, she’d finished it and then drank down a shot of whiskey with Sam to celebrate. Whiskey would be good before the rest of her guests arrived, but at the same time, it wouldn’t be the wisest choice. In her attempt to avoid other faculty with it, she would no doubt do something with Ainsley. Meredith would have to choose the lesser of the two evils.

  Ainsley walked up to the shelves and ran her fingers over the bottles, reading some of the labels out loud. Meredith closed her eyes, listening to her voice as it echoed around the tiny room. She got to one in particular, and the name made Meredith smile. Opening her eyes, she looked directly at Ainsley.

  “Feel free to continue to look. I need to finish opening the wine we plan on drinking.”

  “You don’t plan on drinking this?”

  “Not at all,” Meredith answered. “At least not by myself and not without a special occasion in mind.”

  Ainsley grinned, and Meredith’s heart melted. She would love to share a bottle with Ainsley, a few bottles in particular that reminded her of the sweet bite Ainsley would no doubt be if she ever got a full taste. Meredith left the room and went back to the kitchen, opening the rest of the wine with a flourish. The whites were all in the fridge still, chilling to a better temperature for consumption.

  Meredith set the bottles out on a side table she had in her living area. Along with the plastic cups and square paper napkins. She turned all the bottles to the front so the labels could be easily read and then went back to the kitchen. She was arranging cheese on a plate when a hand appeared on her lower back. Taking in a sharp breath, Meredith looked over her shoulder to see Ainsley.

  “Anything else I can do to help?”

  Meredith nodded while thinking, Getting your hand off my back would be a decent start to that. She nodded toward the refrigerator. “Pull out the whites? It’s almost time for people to start arriving. Just one or two for now would be good.”

  Ainsley walked over to the fridge and opened the door, Meredith’s eyes tracking her progress and her movements and following each step Ainsley made. She swallowed when Ainsley bent down, her ass sticking out in the air as she grabbed two of the bottles and stood straight up again.

  If Ainsley didn’t stop whatever it was she was doing, Meredith was going to have a conniption about it all. Even though Meredith knew Ainsley wasn’t doing most of it on purpose, the sensations running through her body thought otherwise, and the thoughts going through her head certainly were taking everything in a different direction than she wanted to.

  Sighing, Meredith cursed Sam and wished he would call her. He would be able to calm her down, hopefully. Either that or he would just stir something else up that she hadn’t thought about and make the whole situation a whole lot worse.

  Once they had the wine and cheese set up there was nothing else to do but wait. Meredith tried to find something to keep her hands busy, but there really was nothing else to do. She’d been far too efficient during the day. Grabbing her glass of wine she’d avoided, she sat down on her couch in her mostly empty house and took a large sip. There were chairs strewn about that could be folded and put away, there were tables strategically placed with food and chips on them, the kitchen table reserved for whatever else came in. Trashcans were set out next to the tables.

  Ainsley plopped down on the couch next to Meredith with her own wine, and Meredith’s thoughts were immediately off party mode and focused on Ainsley. One of Ainsley’s legs was curled up under her body, her jeans tightening with the movement, and that shirt. Meredith drank down her hum. The shirt Ainsley had on was beyond sex. It accentuated every curve she had. The low V-cut neckline gave just enough cleavage that Meredith wanted to trail a finger down.

  She drank again, regretting grabbing her wine instead of a glass of water. Her tongue would follow her finger. God, I can’t, her mind whispered at her. It was getting more difficult with the passing seconds, and Meredith wished, just once, a faculty member would arrive early.

  “Nothing else to do but just wait,” Ainsley said, her voice breathy.

  Meredith narrowed her eyes after nodding her agreement. Perhaps Ainsley was having the same difficulty she was having. Meredith wouldn’t put it past her, but God she was beyond distracted with her own desire. Closing her eyes briefly, Meredith recited as many grammatical rules as possible in her head just to give her brain something else to focus on. She started with commas, worked toward comma splices and then went onto sentence structure.

  Ainsley touched her thigh with three soft fingers, and Meredith jumped. She settled her wine on the end table so as to not spill it again and then turned to focus on Ainsley. There was something in her eyes. Meredith was leaning forward, her body tilting at an unreasonable rate. Meredith cleared her throat and sat back, blushing.

  “Thank you for helping me set up. It made everything go far more quickly.”

  “Any time,” Ainsley replied. “Anything you need.”

&nb
sp; Meredith balked. The way Ainsley said it she could barely contain herself any longer. Anything she needed, well what she needed Ainsley couldn’t give her—or rather she couldn’t take it. What she needed was a freezing cold shower to wake up the senses her brain had suddenly forgot it had.

  Her leg burned from where Ainsley had touched it, only this time the burn wasn’t disappearing. Meredith closed her eyes and wished the clock would hit the top of the hour and everyone would show up at once. People would distract her—they would give her an excuse to get far away from Ainsley. With no one there, she was stuck in this awkward limbo.

  “How many are we expecting?” Ainsley asked.

  “Fifty.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “It is,” Meredith answered. “But it’s very entertaining. At least…on occasion.”

  “I hope so. I should have come to these the last few years.”

  “Probably.” Meredith sighed and looked out her front window, hoping a car would drive up. The idle conversation was killing her. She didn’t want to talk with Ainsley, but she certainly wanted to do something else with Ainsley’s mouth. Licking her lips, she chastised herself for the thought. It was getting far too old to have to do that, and her resolve was slipping.

  She wouldn’t be able to hold herself back much longer, and honestly, she was forgetting why she even had to in the first place. And that was why Sam should have answered his phone—he would be able to remind her what was at stake, what would be better than love.

  Chapter Twelve

  People kept filing into the house one after the other. Ainsley helped refill the wine that was emptied and the crackers as they were eaten. Meredith spent most of her time in the kitchen, getting the next round of food ready to go out. Faculty had brought food, and that was mostly already gone. They’d been there for at least two hours, and Ainsley’s feet ached. She had no doubt Meredith’s were probably screaming bloody murder in those heels she was wearing.

  Shuffling through the kitchen with another empty plate, Ainsley set it down next to Meredith and brushed her hand along her back. It had become so natural to touch her during the party that she couldn’t help herself from doing it over and over again. It felt good to be able to be at ease and calm around her. Wiggling her hips, Ainsley was reminded she wasn’t completely as at ease as she thought she was.

  Her body was still on fire from her attempt to get off, and it was making everything that much worse. Each time Meredith turned to her and rolled her eyes at something one of the other faculty said, a shot of electricity would roll through Ainsley and pool in her underwear—the underwear she hadn’t changed from what Adam had stuck her in.

  “Any more crackers?”

  “Nope, fresh out,” Meredith answered and looked at Ainsley from over her shoulder with a smile. “Thanks so much for helping. You don’t have to. You can go enjoy yourself.”

  “I am enjoying myself,” Ainsley said and picked up her own plastic cup filled with wine as she said it, taking a sip. “See?”

  “Right. Because you’ve been in here most of the night rather than out there.”

  “Lots of people have been in here.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Meredith said and sighed. “But really, go spend some time with classmates. You don’t need to be chained to this party like I am.”

  “I really don’t mind.”

  Meredith settled her hand on Ainsley’s arm, and Ainsley shivered. The touch warmed her skin, sending pleasure waves through her body. Her hips rocked forward, and she had to bit her tongue to keep from moaning. Looking at her toes, Ainsley centered herself.

  “I know you don’t,” Meredith said. “But really, go enjoy yourself. There’s plenty of time for helping out later.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Go.”

  Ainsley left the kitchen with her heart doing a steady thrum in her chest. She was sure her cheeks were flushed, but that could be explained away with the heat in the air from the bodies smashed into the tiny house. They hadn’t turned the heat on before everyone arrived, and it had been a smart decision. It was hot enough as was, adding the furnace to the situation would only make it worse.

  Sitting down in a chair, Ainsley listened in on a conversation between Hopkins and two other students. They were talking literature—that was why she had disliked the idea of the potluck in the first place. It was far easier to talk literature than creative writing, and the one side of the English department would probably take over all of the conversation if the writing side let it. They could certainly talk about what they were writing, but it wasn’t as easy to carry that conversation into the next hour as talking about Chaucer or the newest hit on the block.

  Ainsley chugged half of her wine and listened in, trying to find a place to interject. She didn’t want all the professors there to think she only paid attention to her writing classes and ignored her other ones. She had taken so many literature classes just to round out the writing ones that certainly she could carry on a conversation about something.

  Before she could, Ainsley glanced up and saw Meredith standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her gaze locked on Ainsley. Ainsley shivered and looked back, ready to give as much as she got. She shifted in her seat, warmth spreading through her groin and stomach with each passing second as they held each other’s gaze. Meredith took a long, drawn out sip from her wine, and Ainsley wished she hadn’t finished her own off.

  Meredith was gorgeous in the blue dress. It accented her perfectly, but Ainsley could see why she wore it. It probably made Meredith feel good. The material was soft against her skin; Ainsley remembered it from when she’d briefly laid her hand on Meredith. She’d brushed her fingers against the soft material and hadn’t paid attention to it then, but now she did.

  The color brought out her eyes in a way that made Ainsley able to detect the blue from across the room. There was only one hue in the dress, and its hemline was just mid-thigh. Ainsley licked her lips and glanced back up, realizing her gaze had dropped. Meredith smirked and walked back into the kitchen with her wine glass. No one had really talked to her since entering the home. Sure there were pleasantries passed, but it was nothing beyond that.

  Meredith was the one who wasn’t fully a part of the group. The thought struck Ainsley, and her stomach dropped. It was sad, really. From what she knew, Meredith had worked at that school for over ten years, and she still didn’t really have any friends among the faculty—at least no one beyond Sam. Ainsley grinned. Sam was easily her favorite professor, after Meredith of course, and if she was honestly thinking about it, she liked them for two completely different reasons.

  Ainsley stood up, giving up on interjecting into the conversation, and got herself a plate of food. She wondered briefly if Meredith had eaten anything and figured she might as well try to find out. Ainsley filled two plates with food and then headed toward Meredith. Pushing her way past a few senior students and into the kitchen area, she set one of the plates down in front of her professor and snacked off the other.

  “Thought you might want something to eat.”

  “I’m famished,” Meredith said. “Thank you. I’d completely forgotten.”

  “Thought you might have. It’s dry out there. Can I stay in here? It’s much more fun in here. All they want to talk about is what meaning was behind To Kill A Mockingbird and what Harper Lee might have meant when writing each and every scene.” Ainsley rolled her eyes and stuffed another piece of cheese between her lips.

  Meredith giggled and used a fork to eat some pasta salad from her plate. She nodded and looked back at Ainsley, her back still to the door.

  “Yes, because every writer has a secret meaning behind the words they write. I’ve no doubt there’s hidden meaning in the book that Lee wanted to add in, but I do doubt the extensive attributes some of my finer faculty insist on seeing in there.”

  Ainsley snorted. “It’s like my memoir—what secret meaning is behind that story of me trick or treating? There’s no
meaning—it’s just a story.”

  “Tenacity,” Meredith answered.

  “What?”

  “Tenacity. You were very determined in that story, and it showed tenacity. Not just for getting candy on a Halloween when you were grounded and it was your birthday, but for life in general. You’re a go-getter. You’re someone who doesn’t wait around to find out what is going to happen to them but rather takes a step in the direction they want and goes to get whatever it is they have in mind.”

  “You got that from a stupid little story?” Ainsley lowered her chin and stared at Meredith.

  “That and more. There’s always hidden meaning, Ainsley. Whether you want there to be or not. There’s an advantage to taking literature classes, so long as you don’t become too wrapped up in them that you forget the craft of creation.”

  “Huh,” Ainsley said and took another bite of cheese. “I never would have pegged you for secret meanings.”

  Meredith grinned and leaned back against the counter with her ever-present wine glass in hand. She sipped at it carefully before turning and looking at Ainsley again. “You’re also very stubborn.”

  “I—I beg your pardon.”

  Meredith laughed and shook her head. “Come on, you have to see it.”

  “I agree with you. I know I’m stubborn. Just how did you figure that one out?”

  “Trick or treating—I told you, hidden meaning.”

  “So is the whole point of teaching memoir classes in order to creepily stalk your students and get into their psyche? It’s just weird.”

  “I imagine even if I read some of the fiction you’ve written I would be able to figure it out. Characters have a way of taking on certain attributes of their authors, mostly because that’s what they find attractive about themselves. Same with plot points—the plot is what gives the meaning behind the reaction of the character. Hidden meaning, Ainsley. Surely you’ve been listening to my lectures.”

  “I have, for the most part.” Ainsley looked out at the crowd she could see from the doorway, not wanting to look at Meredith. She’d paid as much attention as possible to Meredith, but honestly, her attention was more on other things with Meredith than the words she was saying.