The Quirin Stone Read online

  * * *

  New Concepts Publishing

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  Copyright ©2004 by Marie Morin

  First published by New Concepts Publishing, May 2004

  * * *

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  THE QUIRIN STONE

  by

  Marie Morin

  © copyright by Marie Morin, May 2004

  cover art by Jenny Dixon

  ISBN 1-58608-480-1

  New Concepts Publishing

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  Chapter One

  Cassandra Wallace rehearsed her speech as she followed the winding side walk, paying very little attention to her surroundings. From everything she'd heard about the professor, she knew her chances of being accepted as a student assistant were probably slim to none, but that wasn't an adequate excuse for not trying, particularly when she needed field experience so desperately.

  It was a vicious cycle and one that was next to impossible to break. A degree, no matter what the degree, usually boiled down to an attractive piece of paper you could frame and mount on your wall unless you could back it up with some experience—preferably a lot—but nobody wanted to hire you without experience.

  She'd been trying to rack up some experience since she'd started college, and here she was, nearing graduation and she still hadn't managed to worm her way into a single expeditionary dig.

  It was Sunday. In a small southern town, that meant the streets were virtually deserted at this time of day.

  She had it on good authority, however, that Professor Thor Severnson wasn't big on church and it seemed likely that she would find him at home. She knew the weekend wasn't really the best time to bother him, but she'd been trying to get an appointment to see him ever since she'd found out that he had a dig lined up for the summer semester. So far she hadn't managed to get one. There was only one position still available. She meant to have it if it could be had.

  It wasn't until she finally decided to glance around and get her bearings that she realized she'd walked right past the gate to his house. Feeling vaguely disoriented, she glanced around, checked the number on the house she'd stopped in front of and changed directions.

  It was a wealthy neighborhood. The houses were enormous, all vaguely Tudor in style, and the yards looked more like parks than yards. She figured she'd passed the professor's house about a mile back.

  Releasing an irritated noise, she turned and retraced her steps. This time, she kept glancing up to make sure she didn't miss it again. The closer she got, the tighter the knot in stomach. She wondered vaguely why people referred to it as butterflies. The sensation didn't feel light and airy enough to be butterflies. It felt more like she'd swallowed a rock and stinging ants had hatched out of it. A cold sweat broke out as she halted finally in front of his gate, looking up at his house.

  The man must be independently wealthy, she decided. She found it hard to believe he could afford such a mansion on a professor's salary, especially not in a ho-dunk little backwater like this.

  The thoughts did nothing to calm the frantic thumping of her heart against her ribcage.

  Swallowing with an effort against the lump of sheer terror in her throat, she looked down, checking her clothing.

  She'd borrowed the dress from a friend, her roommate, actually. She didn't own one, not of any description. She'd felt she should look as professional as possible, however. Linda swore it could seduce a priest.

  She didn't see it herself. It was short, but not indecently so. It was black and slinky and had a scooped neckline, but the neckline was fairly conservative. She wasn't wearing a bra, though, because she didn't own one, and her roommate had said she really needed one of those pushup deals to get the right cleavage.

  She'd decided wearing one would be a little too obvious, but she hoped her room mate was right.

  There'd been absolutely nothing to indicate that seduction was a possibility, but Cassie was really desperate. Nothing else she'd tried had worked and the professor was a man.

  Nobody seemed to have a very clear idea of how old he was, but she figured he must be pretty old to be a professor, and the truth was, anybody over thirty seemed pretty old to her.

  So here she was, never having seduced so much as a post, trying to seduce a man known to be absolutely professional with his students.

  Shaking the thoughts off, she opened the gate and marched to the door before she lost her nerve. She stood on the porch, counting the seconds in her head after she'd rung the bell. She didn't want to annoy him right off by ringing the damned thing over and over.

  She counted five minutes and leaned close to the door, but she couldn't hear approaching footsteps. She rang the bell again, leaving her finger on the button just a couple of seconds longer. Ten minutes and two buzzes later, it began to sink in that she might have miscalculated.

  It looked like he wasn't home.

  Feeling oddly deflated, she stood indecisively on the porch a little longer, trying to figure out what to do. Finally, she decided to walk around the house and see if she could see a car. Descending the steps, she followed the narrow paved walk that led to the paved drive way and started around the side of the house.

  She heard a splash as she neared the back. Relief flooded her. He must be home after all. She stopped, chewing her lip. Approach him at the pool? Or stand out front and wait until he went back in?

  She was scared nearly shitless now. She knew if she stood around out front waiting for him she was going to lose her nerve completely.

  Dragging in a deep breath, she began to creep stealthily toward the back. She'd just take a peek, make sure it was the professor and see if he looked receptive. If he looked completely unapproachable, she could always run back around to the front and sit on his doorstep until he came out and fell over her.

  There was no fence, but a tall hedge surrounded what must have been the pool area and deck, following the curve of the drive. As she moved, she caught several glimpses of the back yard, luscious green grass, the sparkle of blue water, the stones paving the area around the pool.

  A splash near the end closest to her caught her attention and she stopped, peering between the two hedges in front of her.

  A head and shoulders appeared above the surface of the water. She moved a little closer, pushing back a branch that was obstructing her view just as he stood up and began climbing the steps at the shallow end of the pool. Her eyes widened as his upper torso came into view.

  He was built like a—like a—body builder! Massive arms, a chest that looked like it could've been on the cover of a bodybuilder's magazine. Long blond hair, dark now from the water, was slicked back from his brow and hung nearly to his shoulder blades.

  Maybe she had the wrong house?

  He looked way too young to be Professor Severnson.

  And way too muscular.

  He reached the next step and her heart seemed to stop dead in her chest.

  And way, way too naked!

  Chapter Two

  Cassandra wasn't entirely certain of just how it was that she fell through the hedge. One moment, she was staring at the blond god emerging from the swimming pool little more than twenty feet from where she was standing like a male ‘Venus rising from the Sea', and the next the sound of snapping branches and the rustle of leaves filled her ears and the ground was rushing up to greet her. She was stunned for
several moments. While she lay on the ground, trying to figure out whether she'd made enough noise to attract the Professor's attention, a dark shadow fell across her.

  Levering herself off the ground, she stared at the shadow for several moments, then the bare toes at the end of the shadow. They were very nice toes, surprisingly straight and well shaped, nicely pedicured, too. They were also very large toes. The longest, next to the big toe, was just about the length of her index finger, by her calculations. They were attached to some pretty impressive feet. Her ex-boyfriend had worn a size eleven. She figured these were somewhere around a fourteen or maybe sixteen. She wondered if they actually made shoes that big or if he had to have them custom made.

  Her gaze just seemed to climb upward without any conscious volition, past the damp hair plastered to long, muscular calves, past the knee caps and up the long, muscular thighs until it reached his phallus. Her gaze just seemed to snag there.

  His testicles were drawn up tightly to his body. Even flaccid, probably shrunken from the cold water in the pool, his cock was the biggest thing she'd ever seen in her life. Of course, she hadn't seen that many. She figured she'd seen enough to know this was really impressive, though.

  “Can I help you?"

  The voice was deep, melodious, and sent shivers down her spine, but she figured that probably had a lot to do with the chest it rumbled from. If it'd been the voice of God, she didn't think it would have succeeded any better in turning her spine to pure jelly. It managed to dislodge her gaze from his cock, however, jerking it upwards to the face turned down at her.

  He looked like a Norse god. His features were classical and sheer beauty of symmetry even examined one feature at the time: his cheekbones high and well defined, his nose an arrow straight ridge that ended in well formed, slightly flaring nostrils. His lips, neither full nor thin, but somewhere in between, were also finely etched, his jaw and chin just sharp enough to look commanding without looking belligerent.

  His eyes were a stunning shade of aquamarine.

  “Uh,” Cassandra said, stalling for time and trying to decide whether it would be best at this point to pretend she was selling something, or to admit that she'd come to try to interview for an assistant's position. While she was still trying to make up her mind, her gaze was caught by a rivulet of water that trickled down his throat, right down the center of his chest between those two marvelous pecs, following the slight channel down the center of his washboard stomach. She lost it as it disappeared into the thatch of dark, curling blond hair that surrounded his cock. Then it reappeared, tracing the slope of his cock and finally dripping off the tip as she stared at it open mouthed.

  “Are you all right?"

  “Uh,” Cassandra said, blinking finally and lifting her gaze to his once more.

  “Yes?"

  Was there a touch of impatience in his voice?

  “I was, uh...."

  “You were....?” he prompted when she stumbled to a halt again.

  “I might be lost,” she managed.

  A faint smile curled those beautiful lips. “Since you're in my back yard and I don't think you belong here, that would be my guess."

  “Huh?"

  Apparently, he was tired of standing over her. He squatted down in front of her, bringing his cock a lot closer. From this perspective, she realized she hadn't done it justice. It wasn't just really impressive. It was really very impressive. “You're lost?"

  She looked up at his face then.

  As her roommate was fond of saying, it was the sort of face that could make a girl cream her pants just looking at it. She realized she hadn't done it justice either. His long blond hair, almost dry now, fluttered tantalizingly around his face. His face made her mouth go dry and her heart beat its way into her larynx. She had to swallow several times to dislodge it before she could find her voice. “I was looking for Professor Severnson."

  She realized he'd been staring at her strangely for several moments, his beautiful aquamarine gaze wandering over her features as if he thought he was supposed to know her and was trying to put a name with her face.

  Movement drew her attention and she looked down instinctively just in time to see his cock go into transformation mode, inflating until it was roughly the size and circumference of a night stick—which was really a very appropriate metaphor she realized later—maybe a hair shorter and a little bigger around. Then again, it was only about a foot from her face.

  Like an anaconda, it lifted its head, stared her straight in the eye while her heart pounded out two beats in her temple and then rose upward like a giant finger motioning ‘come hither'.

  His towel dropped over it like a curtain falling and she looked up at his face again.

  He was frowning. “Are you a student?"

  There was something very ominous about the way he said that. She finally levered herself up onto her knees. As she looked down at her dress, she discovered she had her knee on the hem. The breast on that side was in imminent danger of popping out. Self-consciously, she grasped the neck and pulled it up, then brushed the dirt and debris from the front of her roommate's dress.

  Janie was going to kill her if she'd snagged it.

  He tapped the bottom of her chin with his index finger. When she looked up at him, he gave her a questioning look. “Are you a student?” he asked, slowly, as if he thought he might be talking to someone from Special Ed—or maybe he thought she was deaf?

  She stuck out her hand. “I just transferred from Atlanta."

  He rose abruptly, swinging the towel he'd been holding in his hands around his waist and tucking it to form a sarong. “You'll have to make an appointment. I don't talk to students on the weekend. And I don't take appointments at my home."

  Cassandra scrambled to her feet. “But—"

  “Phone my office in the morning,” he called back to her as he strode toward the back verandah.

  She stared after him in dismay and finally got to her feet and followed him. “I've been trying to get an appointment!” she said, dancing around him to block his departure.

  He stopped, looking down at her, his dark blond brows drawn together in a frown.

  The man was massive. There just wasn't any getting around it. As she looked up at him, she felt like a midget.

  Of course she damn near was, being just a shade over five feet, but she was used to being short. She was used to being around tall people. It didn't usually intimidate her. This man was six foot four if he was an inch. He definitely intimidated her and she didn't think it had anything to do with him being a professor.

  It might have to do with that beautifully sculpted, naked chest with the dreamy sprinkling of blond hair shading his lovely pecs and forming an interesting, narrow trail that traveled straight down his chest like an arrow pointing to his really impressive cock like a sign board that said, ‘playground here'.

  Now she knew why everybody had just snickered when she'd asked what the professor was like. It was a big joke, and she'd been set up, led to expect to find a bent, wrinkly old man with gray hair and a nasty disposition.

  Now she knew why her roommate had suggested she needed to wear something ‘sexy'.

  As if she had a snowball's chance in hell of seducing a man that looked like this one!

  They were probably snickering right now just imagining what a complete fool she'd made out of herself when she got her first good look at him.

  “You've been trying to get an appointment?” he prompted, his patience obviously wearing thin.

  Cassandra's shoulders slumped. She let out a deep sigh of resignation. “I desperately need some experience, Professor Severnson."

  “I beg your pardon?"

  Cassandra looked up at him in surprise at the odd tone of his voice. “I don't have any experience,” she repeated, looking up at him hopefully now. “I was really hoping you'd be willing to ... take me on. Just for the summer."

  He stared at her strangely once more. Slowly, his gaze moved over her face, along he
r throat and down the short, slinky dress to her torn panty hose.

  “What sort of experience are you looking for?” he asked.

  Cassandra smiled at him. “Oh, anything! I'm wide open to suggestions. I'd be perfectly satisfied if you'd just let me handle your tools."

  His lips twitched faintly, then curled up at one corner. “So...” he said slowly. “You're looking for a position as my ... tool handler?"

  She licked her lips, but it disconcerted her so much when his gaze followed the movement of her tongue that she forgot what she'd been about to say. “I'd actually like a little more in depth experience than that, to be honest."

  His eyes gleamed. “How deep?"

  She blinked at him. “All the way. I mean, really that would be the best, don't you think? If I could really get in to it?"

  “Do you think you could?” he asked, sounding keenly interested now. “Get in to it?"

  “I do. I'm willing to give it all I've got, throw my whole heart into it."

  His brows rose. “Enthusiasm and dedication!"

  “I am. I really am. I'd love to learn the ins and outs from you. I'm particularly interested in your techniques ... the way you approach a subject, that sort thing."

  Chuckling, he shook his head. “Child, how old are you?"

  Cassandra's eyes widened in surprise. “Does my age matter?"

  “It could be critical,” he said seriously, although there was a gleam in his eyes that made her wonder if he was teasing her.

  “Oh. Twenty three. That's old enough, isn't it?"

  He sighed and flicked a careless index finger along her cheek. “Practically an infant.” Dropping his hand to her shoulder, he turned her around, pointing her in the direction of the house. “Come on in the house while I dress. I'll get my housekeeper to bring you some refreshment and then we can talk. No promises. We'll see after we've talked."

  Cassandra skipped along beside him, breathless both from the effort of matching his stride and from her excitement. “Thank you! I understand, but just let me say it would be an honor for me to be able to work under you."