Limits. Part 1

Limits.

Steph Campbell.

Liz Reinhardt.

1.

ADAM.

"h.e.l.l hath no fury like a yeast sample scorned." I bang my head on the countertop and my lab a.s.sistant, Cody, pats my back and takes a sip of coffee so thick, it's practically syrup.

"Shakespeare? This s.h.i.+t is getting tragic quick." Cody looks over my shoulder and sucks his breath through his teeth. "Holy h.e.l.l."

"Yes." I knock my forehead on the cold, cruel laminate again and appreciate Cody's brutal honesty.

I need to hear this. I need to accept that my dreams of a PhD are slipping through my fingers fast. I can always go back to Israel and apply to school there.

I imagine the smug look on my father's face when I show up for dinner, still jet-lagged, my tail firmly between my legs. I imagine how he'll scoff at my failed attempts to be independent, to pursue my own dream while I "turn my back on my homeland."

"I'm so completely screwed," I mutter, staring into the petri dishes like just looking at them hard enough can make those d.a.m.n protein changes I need to see happen. Need so badly, it starts a monster headache deep in my skull.

Cody claps a hand on my shoulder and takes another long sip from his Dr. Who mug. "Dr. Gibson knows you worked your a.s.s off on these trays. She'll give you an extension," he a.s.sures me from behind the blue TARDIS.

And she will. I know that without having to ask. Dr. Gibson is all mile-long legs and s.h.i.+ny hair and way into open relations.h.i.+ps with younger men who work in her lab. I've managed to appease her interest with stories about my time in the Israeli army without actually sheet hopping, and it's always earned me a decent extension before. But even debasing my moral code and spending a long, sweaty night with my superior couldn't get me out of this mess.

"She's fine with giving me another extension. It's my visa."

Why? Why was I such a slacker when it came to keeping my paperwork up to date? Why did I try the patience of my foreign studies liaison so many times? Maybe because I was so sure I could get those d.a.m.n yeasts to work, to back up what I had hypothesized and help me do more than just complete my thesis.

I wanted my name in the journals.

I wanted to fly into my hometown and have my aunts carry around extra copies of a random science publication they'd never even known existed before, so they could hand it out to neighbors who would say, "Adam Abramowitz went to the USA with nothing and came back a famous scientist!"

I wanted to sit at the head of the table while my father scowled into his soup and feel a surge of c.o.c.ky pride I wouldn't quite be able to keep off my face.

"f.u.c.k," Cody says, pulling the word out with the same level of doom that's rioting in my brain. "You could always see if Dr. Cougar wants you to put a ring on it. Green card marriage to a brilliant, hot older woman?"

I shudder. "Even if I was that desperate, she's married. To Dr. Ellison in comparative lit."

"Comparative lit?" Cody scoffs. "No wonder she cheats on the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Is that seriously a major? Pathetic."

"I hear you," I agree, but for once, my heart isn't into mocking the liberal arts. And that's how I realize my depression is complete.

"Well, at least you can go back to Israel and work with your dad, right?" Cody's trying. I should appreciate it. He's way more of a friend than any other lab rat I've ever worked with before, and that could be because Cody actually has a grasp on things like social customs and empathy. He is the rare scientist with a fairly raging social life.

He's also the most brilliant slacker I've ever met, and his intense optimism boggles my mind daily.

"Sure." I get up and start to toss the petri dishes back in the fridge with much less care than I usually bother to take. "I think I'm gonna call it a day."

"Uh, dude. Did you forget?" Cody shakes his head and laughs. "I'll tell you what, man. I don't care if you're working on the cure for cancer: forgetting your Tuesday appointment is a crying f.u.c.king shame. I'm on the verge of revoking your man card." He holds up his hands quickly. "Unless girls don't do it for you. Which is totally cool."

I sigh. "Genevieve. d.a.m.n it," I mutter under my breath. "I'm into girls. I love them. But that one? She's cool, but she's such a pain in the a.s.s."

"A gorgeous pain the a.s.s." He raises his eyebrows and lets out a long, low whistle. "I can't believe that girl is as much trouble as you pretend. Did you see that little top she had on last week? Was it even a s.h.i.+rt? It was kind of a s.e.xy bra with some see-through cloth hanging off of it. d.a.m.n." He rubs his hands and smiles appreciatively. "How do you get to tutor s.e.xy Genevieve Rodriguez and I get nerdy Samuel McKenna?"

I'm really close to telling Cody we should switch, just to keep the banter up. And I know I should laugh along. He's trying to make me forget everything I've been worried about.

But I feel...kind of p.i.s.sed. Maybe even more than kind of p.i.s.sed.

"Maybe it's a good thing you're stuck with Sam," I growl. "Genevieve needs all the d.a.m.n help she can get. The girl refuses to focus on mastering differentials, and if I spent all my time ogling her t.i.ts, she'd never graduate."

When I'm done with my little tirade, there's a stretch of silence so deep, it leaves me embarra.s.sed. But Cody doesn't seem upset at all.

In fact, he's laughing.

"So I guess you did notice her little top. Nice. I've seen the way she looks at you, man. I'm not about to horn in." Cody has a smug look on his face that p.r.i.c.ks at my usually level temper. "Much as I'd like to. d.a.m.n."

"The way she looks at me? Like I'm an annoying teacher who wants her to get her work done? Trust me, Genevieve doesn't mince words. She's told me what an uptight douche she thinks I am the very first day we met. Her words, by the way. Not mine."

And I'm glad she said them. Because-I can't lie-I was drooling the first day she walked in. I knew my chances were bad to start with: nerds like me do not score gorgeous chicks like Genevieve Rodriguez. But she set me straight right away and now we have a good thing going: I tutor her, she sometimes pays attention, we have a friendly-ish vibe, and it works.

Other than the times when I slip up and forget that it's never going to be more than platonic. Luckily, she's got a killer sense of humor on top of being drop-dead gorgeous, so I've never put my foot too far down my throat.

"How cute." Cody pats me on the back as he leaves the lab. "It's like when a girl pushes you off the swings on the playground, man. She thinks you're dreamy!"

"f.u.c.k off, Cody!" I call, shaking my head, as his snickers recede down the long hallway.

In a few minutes, Genevieve will be here, ten minutes late on the dot. It's so irritating. Why is she always exactly ten minutes late? Why not just come at the arranged time? When I mentioned this to her once, like a reasonable person, her answer was, "Why don't you just change the appointment time, Adam?"

Why doesn't she stop making my already s.h.i.+tty life s.h.i.+ttier?

Ten minutes after our scheduled appointment hour, I hear her heels clicking down the hall. She's holding a huge box in her arms, and I can see that she's about to trip over the FedEx package Cody and I both ignored all day. I jump over the counter, crash past some stools, and make it to the door just as her toe catches on the package.

I throw my arms around her tiny waist, but she bends one ankle at a funny angle, and the box crashes to the floor with a flop.

"s.h.i.+t! Are you okay?" I need to get her off her feet, so I scoop her in my arms and carry her to the rolling chair in the corner, my mind spinning, my heart trapped in my throat. "Let me see your ankle."

"It's fine," she winces as my hand travels down the smooth length of her calf to her tiny ankle.

She's got great legs. I have completely accepted that she's just a girl I tutor, but there's no way I can deny what amazing legs she has. And these ankles? The scientist in me knows that her bones and muscles are perfectly capable of supporting her body weight. But the man in me wonders how such tiny joints can support the weight of a full human.

Even if the human is probably a hundred twenty pounds drenched.

"Does this hurt?" I turn her ankle right, then left, gently.

"It just feels bruised," she says, her big gray eyes looking into mine. "You're kind of s.e.xy when you're playing the knight in s.h.i.+ning armor, Professor."

That voice, smoky and sweet at once, would put me under a spell if I let it. Luckily, she pulls some typical Genevieve c.r.a.p and jerks me out of my stupidity.

She lifts that long left leg and rolls her ankle back and forth, making her ridiculous glittery shoe catch the light and sparkle.

"I don't even care if I broke my ankle. These shoes are worth it." Her smile is bordering on vacant, and it snaps my patience.

Why does she do that? Why does she play dumb when she's anything but? I want so badly to tell her that she's not doing herself any favors with that act, but dammit, it's not my place.

"You could have broken your neck wearing those, Genevieve. You could have been seriously hurt. What the h.e.l.l were you thinking?"

I mean to give her a sensible lecture, to make sure she understands why her actions need to be rethought. But as usual, it all comes out in biting snaps, and I hate that. Why the h.e.l.l can't I keep my temper around this girl?

She rolls her head back and twirls in the chair, her s.h.i.+ny hair flying all around. "Unlike you, Professor, I know when to turn my brain off and stop thinking so I can have some fun once in a while." She points the toe of one ridiculous shoe my way. "You should try it sometime."

"How about we try getting you through differentials before you flunk?" I suggest, pointing to her backpack. "Did you get my outline? I emailed it after our last session and never heard back from you."

"Oh." She purses her lips. "School email?"

I nod, as she scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. "I'm sorry. You know I never check that one. Why can't you send it to my normal email address?" She flashes me a wide smile that she is confident will do the trick.

I count backwards from ten in Hebrew. "Because, as your tutor, emailing your school email is normal, Genevieve. And [email protected] doesn't cause me any pain to type. ? Brain cells die every time I even think about that username."

Genevieve tilts her head to one side, so all her long, dark hair hangs down in a curtain. "Do you try to be this boring all the time? Like, is it work, or does it just come to you organically?"

"This conversation is adorable, but can we get to work?" I tap my pen on her backpack and ignore the fact that, yes, I noticed how short and tight and totally hot her outfit is.

I need to change my thought process and fast.

She's just a student I tutor, like any other student I tutor. If Sammy McKenna were a.s.signed to me tomorrow instead of her, it wouldn't make any difference at all.

Sometimes, I tell myself bulls.h.i.+t just to see if my brain will buy it and believe. It almost never works, and this time is no exception.

"Aye, aye, cap'n!" she quips with a little salute, then looks back at the box she dropped. She runs over with these wobbly, mincing steps, nearly falling a second time because those idiotic heels are defying all basic laws of gravity. She should be falling on her a.s.s...hard.

I wouldn't want to see her hurt, but a little wipeout might remind her that there's way more to life than fancy shoes and get her to focus on making the most of her education. She turns around, holding the open box out to me.

"What the h.e.l.l are they?" I ask, looking at a box filled with crumbs and thick smears of icing.

"Cupcakes!" she cries, looking down into the box like she's confused that I don't see what she does. She shrugs. "Or, they were cupcakes. But the awesome thing about desserts is, even when they're completely smushed, they always taste delicious." She sticks one finger into the sugary mess and holds a glob of icing-coated cake out to me. "I baked!"

I'm suddenly facing a huge problem.

I've never thought about what I would do if I was staring down the prospect of licking icing off of Genevieve's fingers. But that problem morphs into a second, more pressing problem: now that the idea of licking icing off Genevieve's finger has popped into my brain, it's suddenly being crushed out by images of licking icing off...

Genevieve.

All of her.

Those mile-long legs, the t.i.ts pressed high in that corset of a top and jiggling with every step, her long, graceful neck, the dip of belly b.u.t.ton that shows whenever she stretches over to grab a pencil from my side of the table or get a notebook out of her bag.

I swallow hard and shake my head. "Not sanitary, Genevieve."

"I swear I washed my hands," she teases, her grin a challenge. Making me squirm is one of her favorite pastimes, and it's ridiculously easy for her to do. Something about her just gets under my skin, and it's like I'm in a constant state of unease around her.

And I'm so d.a.m.n sick of feeling like everything's falling apart, like everything I worked for is dissolving in front of my eyes, and this girl, this gorgeous, infuriating girl, just gets away with murder over and over again because she has those legs that any guy would want wrapped around his waist and those eyes, the clearest, hottest gray I've ever seen.

She's smiling ear to ear, her finger still held out, dragging this whole torment out longer. So I do exactly what she's asking for but not expecting, not for a single second. I lean over and watch her eyes go wide. She starts to pull her hand back, but I grab around her wrist, pull her hand toward mine, and suck her finger into my mouth.

There's enough tension against my hand that I know she would have run like mad if I hadn't held her. I appreciate the irony of this entire situation: Genevieve was so sure it would be me wanting to run away, shocked and appalled.

I'd smile about it, but my mouth is otherwise occupied with her finger.

Her hand is smaller than I'd noticed. Her finger feels delicate in my mouth, and I lick at it gently. Until she sucks her bottom lip in.

My brain feels fried, and the sight of her face in front of me blurs a little. I pull her closer and suck a little harder, just for a second, just to watch her pant a tiny bit. Then I let her finger slide out of my mouth and glance down at the notes in front of me-like my heart isn't about to kick out of my chest, and I'm not most of the way to a raging hard on.

She stands, the box shaky in her hands, her mouth opening and closing uncertainly.

I glance up at her. "Good cupcake. Baking is all math and science. If you can make a cupcake that good, you can handle differentials. We're doing this. Today."

She plops down on the stool across from me and takes out her paperwork, so meek I keep waiting for her to jump up and shout, "Gotcha!"

But she doesn't.

She just stares at the blank page until I slide a series of problems her way and say, "Solve, and if you get stuck, I'm going to teach you two different tactics for getting out of that situation, okay?"

She just nods, and my amus.e.m.e.nt over the whole finger-licking prank is waning. I shake my head, get off the stool and rummage in the drawers, finding two paper plates and two plastic forks. While she works, I scoop some of the crushed dessert on each plate, sliding one her way. She looks at me with her eyebrows low and questioning.

"You're weirdly quiet. I figure you need a sugar rush," I say, shrugging.

She looks down at her plate and the smile that unfolds on her face is real and bright. "Thank you. How did I do?" She pushes the paper over and takes a delicate bite of cupcake.

I make sure not to watch her mouth as she eats, and instead focus on the problem, worked out perfectly. I narrow my eyes at her. "You used the methods I emailed you. This is...so well done. Why did you tell me you didn't get the email?"

She bats lashes that, for no logical reason, make my mouth water and then turns the fork over, scooping up another small bite. "I wanted to say thank you. For the notes. I know they must have taken you forever. Then I came in and you had to ruin my totally sweet gesture by yelling at me like some bully."

I laugh, just a little. "Really? You don't think that fact that you almost broke your leg had anything to do with my yelling at you? And I'm not a very good bully if I spend all my time catching you before you fall, tutoring you, and feeding you cupcakes," I point out.

She blinks slowly. "Yeah. You kind of suck as a bully." She puts her fingers to her lips, and I remember how it felt to have one in my mouth. "You really do...suck, Adam."

Her attempt to flirt is so ridiculous, it pops the bubble of tension around us, and I can't help laughing at her. "Back to work, Rodriguez. You've got this week, then another in two weeks, and if you don't pa.s.s-"

"Don't," she pleads, her flirty face gone and replaced by a serious pout. "Just don't. I have parents to tell me what a loser I am nonstop."

"Hey." She looks up from the cupcake she's stabbing. "Are you kidding me? You're not a loser."