Thank you for all your lovely reviews!
Chipolatas are a type of sausage, for those that didn't know or didn't Google it!
Chapter 3: 27th November
Bella
The Fox had a picture of a stunning strawberry blonde woman on the bookshelf above his desk. Who was she? I wouldn't dare ask him anything so personal. Still, I couldn't help but speculate. Was she his wife? He didn't wear a wedding ring, but some married men didn't. His sister, perhaps? Optimistic much?
I was pondering this important question whilst waiting for the incubator to finish cooking my cells, when the door to the lab flung open.
"Swanny, what'cha doing?"
My skin immediately started to crawl. Bloody Tyler Crowley, again. The guy was an arrogant prick who thought that he was God's gift to women. And because I kept saying 'no' to his pathetic requests for a date, he had decided to torture me by calling me 'Swanny,' and interrupting my lab time.
"It's called research. You should try it sometime. Maybe then you wouldn't look like such a tool in the departmental meetings."
"You know, some might say that your snipes are thinly veiled attempts to hide your devastating attraction to me."
The timer went off on the incubator. I put on my gloves and retrieved my little beauties. Since modifying my research protocol with The Fox's help, I was getting some exciting results, ones which seemed to prove his theories.
"Well, Tyler, wow! You sure figured me out. Oh, I want you. I need you. Give it to me good, big boy!" I retorted sarcastically.
Unfortunately, even the lowest form of wit was too witty for Tyler.
"I knew it!" He punched the air and suddenly was right in front of me, lips puckered, perilously close to my face.
Trapped between the lab bench and Tyler's drooling mouth, holding a tray of perfectly incubated neurons in holders that rapidly needed to be processed, I felt panic rise within me.
"What the hell?"
Unfortunately, Professor Masen's exclamation startled Tyler, and he slammed into me, causing the glass tray of samples to be smashed to smithereens. His body weight crushed against me, thereby pressing the glass shards roughly into my hands. I screamed in pain as I slid to the floor.
"Oww! Tyler! You just killed a day's worth of research!" I cried, tears threatening to run down my face. I turned to look at The Fox, who was fuming.
Totally fucking pissed.
"Get out." My professor's voice was ice cold steel.
I attempted to scramble to my feet, but the glass had penetrated my plastic gloves and blood seeped through. It was properly fucking painful. I could feel my face starting to crumple, and hot tears burn behind my eyes and nose.
"Shit! Not you, Isabella. You don't move. I meant Crowley." He turned towards Tyler. "Get out of my lab now! None of this would have happened if you hadn't been harassing Miss Swan!"
"I wasn't … she …"
"I heard everything. You were. It's not Isabella's fault that you don't understand sarcasm. Get out. NOW!"
The moment Tyler was gone, The Fox was by my side.
"I'm sorry, sir! Really sorry! He just came towards me and … the samples!"
"Shh … don't worry about that. Let me help you up, okay?"
"Okay." I found myself just staring at his beautiful face as he manoeuvred himself in front of me and into a crouch.
"Right, um … I think the best way to do this would be if you put your arms around my neck and let me take your weight as I stand up," he suggested. I merely nodded. He leant forward, and I curled my arms around his neck, trying not to wince with the pain in my hands. "Good girl," he murmured, and then slowly stood up, taking me with him.
"Thank you, Professor." I whispered, suddenly aware that I was standing, arms round his neck, in what could be construed as a rather intimate embrace. There were mere millimetres between his chest and mine. I could feel his body heat warming me through to the bone. I was assaulted by his delectable caramel and malty scent, coloured by a hint of alluring musk. All I needed to do was tilt my head up just a little and …
"I'd better take a look at your hands," he said suddenly, running his hands up my sides and over my upper arms before stepping back. "We need to make sure that you're not going to need stitches or something." He led me to the sink and pulled off my gloves. The palms of both my hands were covered in small, painful cuts, but none looked bad enough to warrant a visit to the Emergency Department. He turned the taps on and ran water over the cuts.
"Oww …" I bit my lip to stop from crying out.
"Sorry, I just want to make sure there aren't any shards of glass in any of the cuts," he said, looking at me, but then for some reason doing a double take and looking back at me again. I heard him sigh.
Of course.
Looking after me must be eating into his lab time.
"I'm the one who's sorry. I just want you to know, sir, that Tyler's attention was not wanted. I didn't ask him to visit me. He just …"
"Wouldn't leave you alone—I know. I've already had words with Professor Hale about him. Every time I've looked in during the past couple of weeks, he's been in here. This time I decided to eavesdrop." He picked up the first-aid kit, found some gauze bandages and began wrapping my hands.
"I'm glad you did. If you hadn't …" I shuddered at the thought of Tyler's slobbery lips making contact with my own, and of him touching me, but managed to compose myself. "As soon as I can, I'll repeat the trial."
"I know you will, and I don't want you to worry about it until your wounds heal."
"Yes, sir." He finished off the dressings to my hands by fixing them in place with some tape, leaving just my nails exposed.
"Bella?" I looked up sharply. He'd never called me that before.
"Yes, sir?"
"Stop calling me sir."
-cc-
Edward
I was abso-fucking-lutely mad as hell.
I had observed that little shit, Tyler Crowley, slowly encroach on Bella's lab time every day for the past two weeks. Today I listened in, and was delighted when it became apparent that she despised him even more than I did. But in a heartbeat, his advances had caused her injury. I had to pick her up off the floor, surrounded by the glass and blood.
There had been one dangerous moment, just after I had gotten her standing up, where she was in my arms, with barely any space between us. She was in tears, her beautiful brown orbs wide with distress and pain. My heart was thrumming, and blood was pounding through my ears as I took in her upset, as well as her intoxicating, sweet scent, like strawberry ice cream, mint and roses. I came perilously close to kissing her lovely mouth, but somehow managed to find some restraint. It was really difficult. My whole body was in revolt, desperate to feel her, all of her.
Bella was clearly embarrassed, but she had absolutely no reason to be, in my opinion.
"As soon as I can, I'll repeat the trial," she said, once I had bandaged up her hands.
"I know you will, and I don't want you to worry about it until your wounds heal."
"Yes, sir."
Her soft, sweet voice, saying those words, was my daily torture. They filled my head full of erotic fantasy. It had to stop, or else I was going to turn into a savage beast.
"Bella?" She looked up suddenly.
"Yes, sir?" Damn it, my head was flooded with forbidden images yet again.
"Stop calling me sir."
"Oh, uh, of course." Her cheeks coloured with embarrassment, and she looked down.
I tapped her on the chin and she looked up again, her eyes misty.
"It makes me feel ancient. Call me Professor if you must, but Prof or Edward is great, okay?"
She relaxed again, and so did I.
"Right, Professor."
I knew she wouldn't call me 'Edward'. She was extremely respectful of hierarchy.
"Come with me."
I took her to the coffee room, which thankfully was empty.
"Thank you, sir ... I mean, Professor. Thank you for taking care of me."
I sat down next to her and passed her a cup of coffee.
"No problem." We sat in silence for a moment, but then I found myself asking, "Bella, if he was bothering you, why didn't you tell me?"
"I thought I could handle it. He's always just been a pain, you know. He tries it on with all the girls. I didn't want to make a fuss over nothing."
"What I saw was not 'nothing,' Bella. What I saw was sexual harassment, and utterly unacceptable behaviour."
"I'm sorry," she murmured.
"You don't have anything to be sorry about. Look, as your supervisor, your welfare, as well as your education, is my responsibility. You can come to me with anything, anything, that's troubling you."
She turned to face me, and suddenly tears were running down her pink cheeks again.
"He scared me," she whispered. "When I realised he'd misunderstood my sarcasm and was lunging in, there was a moment when I thought he'd touch me, and kiss me, and possibly even more, and that nothing would stop him from taking what he wanted."
"Oh, Bella ..."
Without even thinking about it, I slipped my arm around her and she cried into my shoulder, her small hand pressed against my chest. I held her as she sobbed, her tears tearing up my heart. I thought that my feelings for her were just a passing crush on a pretty young thing, but I was wrong; she meant so much more.
After a few minutes, Bella calmed down and lifted her head. I reluctantly let go of her.
"I can't tell you how glad I was that you were there, Professor," she said after taking a gulp of her lukewarm coffee.
"Me too. I'm going to talk to Jasper now, about disciplinary action against Crowley."
She didn't say anything, but nodded.
I got up and fished out a packet of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from my secret stash, in a tin of Rooibos tea, which nobody liked.
"Here. Don't tell anyone where these are, okay? Especially Jasper, he'll eat them all!" She giggled enchantingly. "Now, I want you to take the rest of the week off and come back in on Monday, refreshed. Don't let him get to you."
"I won't, Professor." She stood up. Just before she left, she reached out to me with her bandaged hands and squeezed my thumb with the exposed tips of her fingers. The intense heat of her touch rippled through my skin.
I didn't want her to let go. "Thanks again."
And then, she was gone.
-cc-
A short chapter, but the next one will be longer. Same time next week.