Prologue
The hallway was long and dark as his silent footsteps echoed in his dream. Hurriedly, sweating and panicked, he followed the familiar marble floor to his office. The moonlight glinted off of the glossy grey-blue surface and that was all he could remember thinking as he reached for the door he so badly wanted to open but dreaded to all the same. The floor had been polished. He kept running that slip of thought through his mind. The floor was clean. Lord, was he ready for this? The floor was shiny. The indescribably long second it had taken him to play these thoughts in his head ended as he grasped the cold, worn gold doorknob and wrenched open the wooden door. "Elsie…" And then he woke.
"Ah, Mr. Carson, nice to see your handsome face again!" Nancy, the day nurse, smiled brightly at him as she pulled the shade open to reveal a blinding June morning. For a second, her features were completely obscured by the brightness of the sunshine flooding in, and all he could make out was her shadow as she moved to his bedside. "Here, hon. I bet you could use a glass of water after all that sweating you did last night. Nightmares again?" Her kind face filled with compassion, and suddenly he was inundated with genuine affection for this too-happy nurse who always seemed to have a kind word even when he was a first-rate grouch.
"Yeah." He croaked, unutterably weakened by the force of the sadness that ripped through him. He busied himself with the water glass, hoping she would miss the fat tears welling at the corners of his eyes. She didn't, of course. But she was unfailingly wise in her experience, so she let him be and left with a simple pat on his uninjured leg.
"I'll bring your breakfast in a bit," she added as she rounded the corner and disappeared into the hallway.
"Thanks." Charles whispered hoarsely, mostly to himself.
Two sharp taps sounded on the doorframe and as Charles looked up, Thomas Barrow stepped through the door. His odd colored dark grey shoes glinted brightly in the sun-saturated room. Charles was slammed back into his dream, the marble of the floor in the moonlight matching the color of Thomas's shoes. This unwanted and painful reminder twisted Charles's cracked lips into an angry grimace. Thomas looked uneasy at Charles's abrupt show of aggression, and he stopped his progress across the room. Deciding he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, Charles bit out "Why the hell are you here?"
Thomas's wary expression turned dark, and he replied, "Now Charles, I know you're in pain, but let's be civilized here. I just-"
"Yeah, I know what you want Thomas, but I'm not. I'm done, I'm out. That's it."
Thomas's eyes flashed, but he carefully retorted, "You're just going to let them go, after what they did to her?"
And that was it. That was all it took. Charles had forgotten just how long Thomas had been doing his job, and how efficient he was at getting the job done, no cost barred. But now Charles was filled with a burning anger, a raging hatred and drive that told him to rip, destroy, and ruin anyone that had caused this shift in his world. They should pay for causing such immense pain.
It was his first day at the university. It was a crisp September morning, and he was returning from his meeting with the dean, Violet Grantham. She wanted to make sure he was doing well, and to ask how his first classes had gone. Everything was excellent thus far, and he whistled pleasantly to himself as he took in the beautiful campus from the north windows of the hall. The entire north side of the building was constructed of windows, and as a result, the grey-blue marble floors shone brightly and light permeated the hallways. The glare was a bit dangerous, as he had narrowly avoided colliding with a cleaning crew cart when he turned that last corner. But, the day was beautiful and he was happy, so he was not worrying about much, nor paying much attention to his immediate surroundings as he gazed out the windows and continued his brisk pace.
That was probably why he had missed her where she was crouched retrieving a leaflet of paper she had dropped on the floor. Her dark grey sweater closely matched the shiny floor, so that all he saw in the second before he tripped over her was her greying dark auburn hair. And then:
Wham!
And then another sweet memory assaulted him.
"Elsie," Charles breathed the word like a prayer into her neck and then nuzzled her, placing gentle, warm kisses below her ear and in a line down her neck. Elsie shuddered and attempted to gather her wits, pushing against his hold on her hands. He had her arms pinned above her head and her hands firmly clasped in his own, making it nearly impossible to struggle without hurting herself. And it was becoming harder and harder to make her body listen; he had graduated from her neck to the tops of her breasts, and his hot lips grazed the line of her shirt where it impeded his sensual progress. He paused, clearly thinking something over, and she seized the moment to scold him.
"Charles, stop." And he did, just like that. He dropped her hands and stepped away so quickly she wasn't even certain he had moved. She felt the loss of his heat like a slap, and she knew in that moment she wouldn't be able to refuse him much longer. Taking a deep breath, Elsie readjusted her blouse so it covered her more discreetly and she brushed the loose pieces of hair away from her face. Clearing her throat, she dared to look at him. His dark eyes were absolutely on fire, and her knees gave slightly at the heat in his gaze.
"Charles?" Thomas's voice pulled Charles out of the memories like sound through a vortex, and the beeps and clicks of the hospital machines returned Charles to the situation at hand.
"What do you want?" Charles barely whispered the words, but Thomas's hungry gaze told Charles he had heard every one.
"I want you to find them. I am not going to pretend I care about what happened to you. It was your own fault, getting involved with a citizen, but I'd say you know that already." Thomas leaned in now, his burning, steady gaze boring into Charles's eyes. "I want those bastards dead, Charles. We have that in common, if not for the same reasons. I can get you back in. We managed to stop any information leaking back to Burns. He has no idea what happened or why you disappeared, and right now he doesn't care. You have one chance to go back."
A sudden, futile flicker of hope shot through Charles and he asked before thinking, "If no one found out, that means you got the guys who had…" he just couldn't say her name, not yet. He swallowed, "The guys who had her. If you have them, why aren't you looking for her and why hasn't anyone told me this!" Charles hissed the last bit, fury burning his throat.
"Two of them were taken down in a firefight and died before the ambulance arrived. The last one was some young kid, a lackey. He didn't have any details. He's scared shitless and talked like there was a fire under his balls. He doesn't know anything." The disappointment weighed heavily on Charles's heart.
Somewhere inside, he knew she couldn't possibly be alive. The bastards had either killed her before trying to escape town, or they had her someplace that no one would find, somewhere she would slowly suffer and die. He tortured himself with the morbid images in his head, the things he had seen them do to her. Charles ripped his hand down his face and looked up at Thomas. Fiercely he said, "I want to kill each and every one of them myself. No questions asked- by you, or anyone else. That's my condition."
Thomas didn't even blink. "Welcome back."
The Beginning
It was his first day at the university. It was a crisp September morning, and he was returning from his meeting with the dean, Violet Crawley. She wanted to make sure he was doing well and to ask how his lesson plans and such for his first classes were going. Everything was excellent thus far, and he whistled pleasantly to himself as he took in the beautiful campus from the north windows of the hall. The entire north side of the building was constructed of windows, and as a result, the grey-blue marble floors shone brightly and light permeated the hallways. The glare was a bit dangerous, as he had narrowly avoided colliding with a cleaning crew cart when he turned that last corner. But, the day was beautiful and he was happy, so he was not worrying about much, nor paying much attention to his immediate surroundings as he gazed out the windows and continued his brisk pace.
That was probably why he had missed her where she was crouched retrieving a leaflet of paper she had dropped on the floor. Her dark grey sweater closely matched the shiny floor, so that all he saw in the second before he tripped over her was her graying dark auburn hair. And then:
Wham!
She was knocked sideways by the force of the impact and he rolled through the air in a futile effort to avoid landing on her. He ended up crossways on her body, his groin pressed tightly against hers, and in the second before she smacked him, he heard her exclaim in a thick Scottish accent, "You idiot!" Whap! Her hand made stinging impact with his side as she struggled beneath him. Abashed, he ungracefully crumpled her strewn papers as he scrambled to release her body. Unfortunately, even though he had failed to notice her kneeling there, his body now took note of her incredible curves as he slid off of her lap. His body reacted immediately; it had been much too long for him. He looked at her, fearing she had noticed his body's response to her closeness. Her eyes widened in complete surprise as she felt him harden, and in a second her surprise turned to anger. She raised her hand and slapped him across the face. "Get off get off get off!"
Charles hastily stood up. He held out his hand to help her up as well, but she swore under her breath and stood up without his help. He took a good look at her now, and had to hold his breath as he was so taken with her beautiful face. It took him a second to regain his thoughts, and he realized a second late that he should help her retrieve her papers. As he bent to pick some up, she said, "Don't help anymore, really." He felt terrible for his awfully clumsy actions in the last few minutes. For someone not accustomed to making an idiot of himself, he had certainly done a fantastic job in the last few moments, and he had no idea how to make it up to her.
"Look, Miss…? I am very sorry for what just happened. I am not usually so blundering… I… I don't even know what happened. I am truly sorry." She stood up fully now and looked him in the face for the first time. He caught his breath as her fiery blue eyes pierced his own. So beautiful and so fierce, this woman. He fought a smile as she glared at him. " How about you just leave me alone now. Believe me, I have certainly been more thoroughly acquainted with you than I would like." With that, she turned and literally marched away, leaving him with her perfume filling his nostrils and her hips swaying through his mind.
Two hours later, Charles had accomplished very little in the way of work. He had intended to finish putting his office together today so that when classes began he could focus on the students. But, after his encounter with the beautiful woman in the hall, his thoughts were filled with little else. What astounded him most was not his lack of focus, but rather the woman causing his distraction. No denying, she was one gorgeous woman, but by his usual preference of the lithe blonde type she was a complete anomaly to his romantic senses. Her hair was a deep, rich auburn with traces of grey here and there. The lines around her eyes and mouth suggested a happy life, albeit a somewhat difficult one. He was puzzled by his intense reaction to her. He had always been attracted to younger women, the kind that were good for playful relationships that ended before anyone got hurt. But damn if this woman didn't break all of his patterns. Her curves were breathtaking and just recalling the way she felt beneath him for those few seconds turned his temperature up almost unbearably. He shook his head and snapped himself back to reality. Getting up from his desk, he retrieved some shrunken heads from a box and placed them on a shelf. Turning around, he glanced at the clock on the wall and swore aloud. His meeting with the senior professor assigned to do his orientation had started five minutes ago. He grabbed his portfolio and rushed from the classroom.
Elsie Hughes stood at the desk with her arms crossed and looked down at the file one more time. The appointment card read "2:30pm, Charles Carson. Social History and Chemistry." Social history and chemistry? What a strange combination, she thought. She had no idea why the dean had asked her to handle this man's orientation. She was a professor of English, about as far from Chemistry as one could get in her mind. But, it was about time for her to take a turn, she guessed. As one of the senior professors at the small private university, it was part of her responsibility to make new professors feel comfortable and welcome before the first week of classes began. The orientation served as a way to make connections with senior professors who knew the quirks of the college and could provide guidance about the expectations of the teaching staff. Normally, the dean tried to place the new professors with a veteran of the same field, but apparently all of the professors from the other departments were unavailable, so she was stuck with a tardy, undoubtedly lackluster yearling professor too green to understand the importance of impressing his peers.
She tapped her foot in irritation and glanced again at her watch. It was now 2:45 and she was losing patience. She decided that she would wait five more minutes and then leave. If Mr. Charles Carson couldn't have the courtesy to be on time, she was not about to have the courtesy to wait all day. Her morning had begun with a flat tire, which made her late for an English Department meeting, after which she left in such a hurry that she dropped her papers on the floor in the hall whereupon some man she had never seen before rammed rudely into her and then practically took advantage of her right there in the hallway. She blushed recalling the encounter. His strange and rapid reaction to her body had surprised her so much that she was incredibly rude to him. He obviously hadn't meant to run her down, and it was her fault for stopping in such a bad spot, right around a blind corner.
Her blush deepened as the image of his body ran through her mind. She guessed he was around 60, tall and strong, with tidy salt and pepper grey hair. He was well dressed and smelled amazing, something very fresh and clean, she thought. She would never say it aloud, but her reaction mirrored his, even though she was much better able to hide it. She smiled a secret smile and turned toward the window, lost in a daydream.
Charles raced into the office. As if it wasn't bad enough he was late to begin with, after he left the classroom he had gotten completely lost in the labyrinth of complicated hallways. Glancing at the wall clock, he noticed he was 17 minutes late. Unacceptable. He was angry that he had lost focus over some silly incident with a woman. He continued through the office to the desk where he stopped to ask the receptionist for the right conference room. "Miss? I am Dr. Carson. I have a meeting with…" Charles glanced at his notebook. "a Professor Hughes? I am a little late and I was hoping you could point me in the right direction." The receptionist smiled a strange smile and said, " Doctor Hughes is waiting for you in room 174. Good luck." She smiled strangely again as he gave her a questioning glance. She gave his physique a full, appreciative gaze and then leaned forward apologetically and said, "Between you and me, Dr. Hughes is… mmmm, a bit on the irritable side. And you are late… I suggest you find some way to grovel. She doesn't take orientations often and she hates them to begin with. It would be in your best interest to apologize right away." She raised her eyebrows or emphasis when she said the last part, and Charles knew he was in for it. He ran his hand over his face and decided to bite the bullet. He walked briskly to the conference room door and whipped it open, only to be assaulted by the intoxicating scent of the woman from the hall. In the few moments before she turned from the window to glare at him, he took in the voluptuous curves again and he completely forgot the apology that was on the edge of his tongue. All he could do was gape like an idiot.