Chapter 4

Faith shook her head. She didn't really want to say; it always ended up badly. So, shrugging her shoulders she responded "Didn't. Doesn't really matter."

Eliot looked into Faith's eye's feeling her shoulders sag as she shook head; and he saw the… It wasn't sadness, it wasn't regret… It was resignation. Resignation? But, she was what thirty-five? And an intelligent math teacher; what fate did she have to be resigned to?

The hitter reached for his little librarian, who he supposed he should now call Sexy Teacher Lady! "Mama always told me that math was sexy." He rasped out reaching in to kiss his way across her collar bone and up her neck.

"Not, my math." Faith shook her head sadly, resigned to Eliot leaving now that he'd figured out she was an uber-geek.

"Babe; intelligent women are sexy."

"Mmm… Hmmm…" Faith pulled away. "I've got a bottle of wine, that growler of beer, and some cheese in the fridge if you're hungry."

She scrambled off the bed as Eliot was reaching for her, and he took the minute to look around the bedroom. There were books everywhere, even in the closet. He could tell she'd been trying to figure out what to wear on her trip to Geneva. Geneva… That rang a bell. Hardison had been talking about it; something about some weird-ass geeky stuff and a paper he wanted explained.

Not bothering to pull any clothes on the hitter strode out into the living room which was connected to both the hallway and the kitchen where he could hear the little librarian rustling around. There was a desk stacked with books and a laptop where most people would put a television. Some really nice paintings, bright colors, and Sophie would say done with good technique hanging on the walls. Someone named Mimi Little had done them; he didn't recognize her work. On an end table next to the couch was same red book that Hardison had been waving around in the bar. Curiosity got the best of him, and Eliot picked it up to look at it; just as Faith came in with a tray of food and the growler of beer.

"Oh…" Faith's shoulders drooped, and se set the tray down on a steamer trunk which was her coffee table.

"Hmmm?" Eliot asked as he flipped open the back flyleaf to see what the fuss Hardison had been making about this book and was shocked to see Faith staring back at him. Practical Applications Of Advanced Adaptive Algorithms. It all started clicking together; the conference in Geneva was a math conference, the stacks of books everywhere and Cora's reaction to Faith claiming to be a math teacher. Well, she was a math teacher; she was just the youngest full professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at MIT. He read the fly leaf and saw that this was the third in a series. And there was long list of awards and some other stuff that meant nothing to him.

"I know." Faith wrung her hands together. "You can go if you want."

Eliot looked up startled. "Honey, why would I want to leave?"

The expression on Faith's face broke his heart.

She waved her hand at the stupid biography printed there. "Everyone sees that, or finds out where I teach and they usually leave. I tried to have them leave the picture off."

Eliot took the two steps that he needed to be right in front of her and dropped the book onto the table. "I don't care that you're a math teacher. I think you are a beautiful sexy lady who is going to finish her beer and then we're going back into your bedroom." He ran his hand up the small of her back and wondered where she'd grabbed the large MIT t-shirt from; probably from the pile of clothes on the end table on the other side of the couch.

He picked up the two glasses of amber beer and handed one to Faith, taking a whiff of it. A pretty good nose.

Faith grabbed onto the change of topic like a life line. "I like their beer; they go a little heavy on the hops. But, that seems to be a trend. The back-notes on this particular brew are really nice."

The hitter closed his eyes and took a swallow, as Faith watched his expressions and inwardly drooled over his long eyelashes. He rolled the amber ale across his tongue feeling the carbonation caress his palate. "Yeah, a little too hoppy; it kind of overwhelms it. But, not too shabby."

Faith took a gulp of beer listening to Eliot explain the beer. She felt a little like the beverage – overwhelmed. She watched the hitter savor the beer with his eyes closed and wanted to jump his bones again. Grabbing a cube of the cheese she rescued from the last stupid faculty mixer she'd been forced to attend, she watched and waited for Eliot to leave. Everyone said that her work didn't matter, didn't make a difference; but, in the end – it did matter. It mattered too much, and they left. And Holy Jesus! He was naked. And six kinds of beautiful!

A/N: Well first off: Check out the rest of my totally awesome fics! Find MastrStoryTeller on Literotica, and then go and read! Reading is the best cure for just about everything; well… either that or a cup of tea.

Mimi Little is an awesome Maryland based painter. I have one of her smaller paintings and would love a couple of her big barn ones; but, they are out of our price range. And we don't have the wall space. Sigh…

The book that Faith wrote is all my creation. However, some of the content is based off the text Adaptive Algorithms and Stochastic Approximations by Albert Benveniste, Michel Metivier, and Pierre Priouret. I'm really noticing as I write this PWP (with plot!) that first not a lot of women work in this field; and second most of the authors who publish in English need editors that speak English natively. The grammar and word usage is quite hilarious in some of them.