Professing Desire: The Proposal: Professing Desire, #1

By Vivian Eastwood

Cassie White's visit with her boyfriend isn't going as planned. Kevin is uncomfortable in New York City and uninterested in doing anything but watching TV. Cassie must confront that they have reached the end of the road.

But just as one relationship ends, another begins. Cassie's art history professor, sexy Eric Stone, makes a proposal that surprises her.

LENGTH: 13,500 words. This is part 1 of a new erotic romance serial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victoria Eastlake
• Release date: Feb 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507096253

Book preview

Professing Desire 1: The Proposal

I was walking across the quad, on my way to my morning art history class, when my phone rang. It was my boyfriend, Kevin.

Hey, babe, I said, shifting my coffee to the other hand. Are you excited about coming to see me?

Kevin was coming to New York for a few days from Nebraska. We hadn’t seen each other in three months because he had been working as a volunteer fire fighter in Utah when I had been home for the summer. He now was living with his parents and trying to find a job.

Kevin didn’t respond immediately to my question, which was weird. Usually, he was an enthusiastic talker on the phone, with plenty of opinions.

Yeah... he said. About that.

About what? I had actually done all of the research for the flight and had bought the ticket for him a week ago. There was nothing else for him to do but to get on the plane.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it out there to New York to see you.

These words stopped me dead in my tracks. Fortunately, the campus was completely abandoned at 8:00 am or otherwise plenty of people would have seen a crazy woman with her mouth hanging open.

What do you mean, Kevin? My voice was shaky. I have this all planned out. You’ll fly out on Wednesday and we’ll have the rest of the week and the weekend to be together. I’ve begged my roommate to spend a few days with a friend so we can have the apartment to ourselves. He didn’t say anything. I wanted to see you before coming out to school, I said. But you were...busy.

It’s just—I’m not feeling good, he said quickly.

Have you been to a doctor? I asked. I think you’re really just tired.

I wanted to scream! He could not back out on me!

Why don’t you rest, I said. Just take the rest of today and have a nap. Then we’ll talk later.

Yeah, okay, he said.

I sighed. Just get out here!

Love you.

But he didn’t say anything; instead, the line went dead.

Oh my God! I groaned, exasperated. I picked up my pace. My first class was Introduction to Modern Art, which was starting any moment now, though I couldn’t remember exactly where. I pulled out the piece of paper with my class schedule and found the location: the auditorium at Langley Hall. Good, that was nearby. I glanced down at the professor’s name: E. Stone.

Hm. Although I was a sophomore, I had never had Professor Stone before. I hoped he wasn’t one of those professors who would drone on and on and put us to sleep. Not this early in the morning. My cup of coffee wasn’t nearly big enough.

Racing into Langley Hall and then into the lecture hall, I saw that the place was almost entirely empty.

Well, at least I’m not late.

I walked down toward the front of the stadium and found a seat near the corner, where I would have easy access to the door at the front of the classroom.  This was my preferred spot and I always sat near a door if I could.

I looked around. There were a couple of women seated in the far back, flipping through our text book, and a tech guy, at the front of the room, setting up a slide projector.

I sat muttering to myself, still pissed that my boyfriend was being so difficult. I had had to beg and wheedle to get Kevin to come fly out and visit me. He had come up with a surprising number of excuses: no money, he needed to look for a job, etc. We had been dating for three years, through my last two years of high school and then my freshman year of college.

I sat scrolling through the messages on my phone.

Oh, and here was an email he sent: