His gaze cuts down the hallway. I glance that way, too. The crowd has thinned out. Shaking his head, he takes out his phone, and next, he’s speaking.
“It’s me. I need a ride. I’m at Hamilton. South entrance. Five minutes? Thank you.” He puts the phone away. “Let’s go.”
“Go where? Who did you call?”
He leans into me. “I’m walking away. You’re going to follow me, and I’ll explain in the car.”
“Car? Another Uber that will run me over?”
“That was a taxi.” His eyes narrow on me. “Follow me. Or…”
“Or…”
“You will regret it,” he says low and husky.
When he spins and cuts down a wing that leads to the south entrance, I want to head in the other direction. I feel something I shouldn’t when I’m around that man. Never mind lust and craving. It’s a loss of control.
I want to know what’s lurking under his skin. It’s a pull I’ve never felt before, and before I know what I’m doing, my feet are moving in his direction.
At the end of a quiet hallway, beyond a set of double glass doors, a black SUV is parked on the street. The south entrance is cut off by an overpass and a one-way street, sothere is hardly any traffic. Not a soul on the street. The door to the SUV is open, and my professor curls one finger to beckon me inside.
Damn it.
I hop in and sit in the captain’s seat next to him, glad it’s not a bench seat. The air conditioning soothes my heated skin.
I point to the guy driving. “You have a chauffeur?”
“Yeah. He works for friends of mine.” Cormac leans forward. “I can trust him.”
I nod. “Because we shouldn’t be in a car together.”
When the vehicle pulls out, he smiles and leans back, crossing his legs. “We can be in a car together. There’s nothing going on here. I don’t want anyone to know I’m going to fix your apartment problem.”
My fingers ball into a fist. Not out of anger, out of stress. “How do you plan to do that?”
“You’ll see.”
It looks like I don’t have a choice. The SUV just took the turn, headed downtown.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“You’re my student, and as you pointed out, you need my class to get back on track. And you were also right to point out, I’m already a doctor, and it’s my responsibility to be the bigger person and get over what I’m feeling.”
“What are you feeling?”
His eyes blaze at me. “You don’t want me to answer that. I just can’t have you worrying about a roof over your head.”
“I have a roof over my head.” I clear my throat. “I’m staying with a friend. Onhersofa,” I clarify so that he doesn’t think I’m staying with a male friend.
He might hunt down the guy.
Christ, I can’t even mention Pierce. I can’t have my professor starting a war with the Langstons.
“A friend’ssofais not where a medical student should be sleeping.”
“You went to UCLA, huh?” I ask to change the subject.
I try to calculate how old I was when my family lived in L.A. That will only remind me of the difference in our ages, and that I was a teenager when this man was in my father’s class, talking medical school girlies out of their panties.