Selena Kitt - Baumgartner Generations - Henry

I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that every man should at some point in his young life be under the tutelage of an older woman, but I do know that if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t even consider changing what happened during my freshman year in college.

What did Mrs. Toni Franklin teach me that was so valuable? It wasn’t what you might think-it wasn’t the tips or tricks or techniques she taught me to use with a woman in bed, although I have to admit, those were undeniably helpful. It wasn’t really the sex at all, to tell you the truth.

Toni was a goddess, and she knew it. She taught me to worship her the way all women should be worshipped-not from afar, put on a pedestal like some untouchable, but in the flesh, as the sleek, voluptuous creature of the earth she was.

Women are amazing, amorphous, changeably delightful creatures, and I know most men spend their whole lives trying to figure them out. Toni made me realize that most men too often hit the tree, but miss the target. The lovely mystery of woman was meant to be experienced and enjoyed, not measured and controlled.

Toni taught me that women are the weather.

If you want to know what the weather is like, open the window. Can you predict the weather? Sometimes you can feel a storm rolling in, or see a gorgeous blue sky and know rain isn’t anywhere in the near future. But how much energy have we wasted trying to control or manipulate it, living in fear of storms? Men have created all sorts of instruments in an attempt to predict the path of the weather, and while we have advanced to some degree, there are always rainbows that go missed, tsunamis that could never have been foreseen.

It is an impossible and futile task, when a man makes a woman a problem or puzzle to be solved. They are and always will be unpredictable. I’d rather spend my time basking in the sunshine and walking in the rain than fiddling with instruments and planning a siege against the next onslaught. If you’re not living in the present, you’re not living at all.

I was nineteen when I met Toni. I would never deny or discount how much I learned, the invaluable gifts she gave as my tutor-and not just in the lessons of love and women. Toni opened my life, unlocking parts of me I hid from everyone, even myself. And when she discovered my deepest secret, she still didn’t falter.

Instead, she just taught me how to read.

Henry hated libraries. He couldn’t think of a place he felt more uncomfortable than standing in the shadows of thousands of books. He was in the basement of the UGLi-the University of Michigan Undergraduate Library-and he couldn’t have come up with a more apt name for the place than the one his fellow students had coined, the stacks looming, the florescent lights casting a dull, eerie glow.

“Four seventy-five.” His whisper was barely an exhale but it felt loud in the silence as he ran his finger along the spines of books, their plastic covers crinkling. He repeated his excuse for checking this particular book out in his head. It’s for my nephew. He’s in kindergarten.

Of course, he didn’t have a nephew. His older sister, as far as he knew, was far from hooked-up, let alone ready to get married and have a baby. But what were the odds he would run into anyone who knew his family here on campus? It’s for my little cousin. He changed his head-story, just to be safe. He’s having trouble.

Trouble. Yeah. He was in big trouble all right.

“Can I help you find something?”

Henry gave a strangled, smothered cry, taking a step back when a pretty redhead popped her head around the corner of the stacks.

“It’s okay, I work here.” The redhead stepped around to his side of the shelves, smiling, and he felt his heart pounding again, but for a different reason this time. “You sounded a little lost.”

“I need a book.”

Smooth, Henry.

He held out the paper scrap he’d copied the call number on to avoid any further talking and possible embarrassment.

She took it from him, studying it, and he studied her-gray skirt and black sweater, making her long red hair, straight and almost to the middle of her back, seem even more like fire, even in the dim light. She had to be a student, he thought, as she turned to the stacks, running her fingernail over spines the same way he had. She was young, about his age. He watched her fingers caressing the books, long and delicate compared to his big old paws, the nails neatly manicured.

“You’re in the right place,” she murmured, moving her finger up to the next shelf. “Would you get me that stool?”

He went to the end of the aisle where she pointed, dragging the rolling stool over toward her in response, not daring any more words. They’d just get him in trouble.

“Thanks.” She gave him a grateful smile, stepping up onto the stool and reaching for the top shelf. Her legs were long, too, her skin pale and creamy. He realized, watching her stretch, one of her feet slipping loose of her heels, that she wasn’t wearing any nylons. Seeing the intimate pink flesh of her instep as she went up onto her toes made his breath catch and he swallowed his immediate response, trying to look anywhere else.

She glanced down at him, still smiling. “Would you hold me?”

He gaped up at her, dumbfounded. Hold her? That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do to her-but hell, it was a start.

“Hold…you?” He faltered.

“I don’t want to fall,” she explained. “Just hold me. Here.” She reached for his hand, guiding, placing his palm flat against the curve of her hip. He matched the gesture on her other side, squeezing gently, feeling her skirt shift over her skin underneath as she stretched up again. He steadied her, his eyes level with her back, her hair tickling his nose. Not that he was complaining.

“Ah, got it!” she announced, triumphant, turning around on the stool so quickly it startled him and he grabbed her waist, finding himself eye-level now with the tiny buds of her breasts in her black v-neck sweater. He realized, too late, that he should have offered to retrieve the book, but he was too distracted by his current view to lament his lack of chivalry. “Oh. Wow. This is the book you wanted?”

He flushed, glad for the dark shadows now, his story all ready in his head. “It’s for my little cousin. He’s having trouble in kindergarten.”

He waited for the anticipated response. Hell, it might even earn him some points.

Oh how sweet you are to help him. You must like little kids.

The redhead was silent. She stepped off the stool, out of Henry’s arms, and held the book out to him. Glancing down at the cover, his eyes widened, mouth dropping. If he’d been red before, he was positively purple now.

“That’s-” He couldn’t get the words out, staring at the picture of the completely nude, entwined couple on the front. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra. “That’s not-”

“Not what?” She blinked at him, trying not to smile. “Not appropriate for kindergarteners?”

“No,” he croaked, desperate to correct the mistake. “That’s not the book I was looking for.”

“You sure?” She smirked. “It’s the number you wrote down.” She showed him the slip of paper, and sure enough, the Dewey decimal matched perfectly-375.4 W.

“But I looked it up on the computer!” He pointed desperately to the end of the aisle.

She hesitated, looking like she wasn’t sure she was ready to believe him.

“Come look!” He stalked down to the end of the stacks and around the corner. There was a row of computers near the elevators and he went straight to the one he’d used to look up the book. He turned to find her behind him, curious, and he pointed to the screen. No one had touched it since and it was still up there, plain as day. “See!”