This might not have been the first time they’d ever spoken, but Deja was certain that this was the first time they’d ever touched. She decided she’d have to have her glass of wine in an ice-cold bath tonight, and then she squeaked out a reply that wasn’t much more than a high-pitched suggestion of a word, but it didn’t sound like anything intelligible to her own ears. She had no idea what it must have sounded like to him, but he didn’t seem deterred, and that gorgeous curve of a smile didn’t budge.

He tightened his grip on her slightly and steered her toward the green expanse of the North Oval, leading her across the lawn to their building.

“Are you going home now, or do you have more work to do?” he asked her once they’d separated from the crowd.

Deja had to take a deep breath before she could answer. The word “home” fell from her lips in another squeak. She cleared her throat and continued in a slightly stronger voice. “I mean I have more work to do, but I just want to get off campus. You? Are you heading home?” Those were more words than she’d ever said to him at one time, and her eyes widened in shock.

“I wish,” he said. “I’ve got some grading to do before my graduate class tonight. I’ll be here for a while.”

“Oh, okay. Sucks,” she said, cringing that her PhD hadn’t prepared her for more intelligent conversation.

But Alejandro laughed, a deep sultry rumble Deja felt in her bones and the hardening tips of her nipples. “It absolutely sucks.”

She turned to look at him, wanting to see the way his laughter changed his face even if only in profile, but he was looking at her full-on, and his laughter kind of brightened his features as if he was lit from within. Or maybe that was her overactive imagination again. Either way, she sucked in a breath as he looked at her. She watched as his crow’s feet and laugh lines deepened, and the flash of his pink tongue peeked from behind his teeth.

And then Deja realized that his hand was still at her elbow.

“Ay yo, Professor Mendoza, push back tomorrow’s quiz,” someone yelled from the East lawn, breaking the moment between them.

Alejandro turned, and Deja sucked in a deep, nervous breath before she looked around him to see a group of boys huddled around a soccer ball.

Alejandro yelled back in Spanish, and they all threw their hands up, laughing and shaking their heads before resuming their game.

“What’d you say?” Deja asked.

“I told them the chances of me pushing back the quiz are as high as the chances of a communist revolution in Argentina.”

Deja rolled her eyes and quirked one eyebrow up. “Historians.”