Neesa Hart - Her Passionate Pirate

Karen O’Neil, one of Cora’s brightest students, laughed out loud. “And smelly,” she added. “If they’re really into the pirate persona, they’d have to smell like they’d been at sea for eighteen months.”

Ah, irony, Cora thought as she suppressed the urge to gloat. No way would she let the opportunity to goad Adriano slip through her fingers, not when he’d been a thorn in her flesh for the past several weeks. “That’s why it’s a fantasy, Ms. O’Neil.” She swiveled her laser pointer between her fingers. “Pirates have been romanticized to the point that there are some men who cultivate the look—and there are, undoubtedly, some women who find it attractive.”

“Sexy,” muttered a student. “They find it sexy.”

Cora looked at Adriano. His firm mouth appeared to be twitching at the corner. Deliberately she held his gaze. “They believe it makes them irresistible to women.”

“Doesn’t it?” Cathleen asked. “I mean, look at that guy who’s all over the news lately. What’s his name? That archeologist from the Underwater Archeology Unit at the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.”

With a loud sigh, another student supplied, “Rafael Adriano. He’s unbelievable.”

He certainly was. Cora saw a sparkle enter the jet-black of his eye. She could almost feel the temperature in the room rising.

Her students lapsed into a casual discussion of his appeal while she watched him. Adriano’s name had become almost a household word since his recent discovery of a site believed to be the underwater remains of the Argo—the ship of Greek myth. At first only the scientific community had paid much attention to the find.

It hadn’t taken long, however, for a few enterprising reporters to look at him and see the most marketable scientist the world had known since Einstein. Like Einstein, he was brilliant, eccentric and groundbreaking. Adriano, however, practically defined sex appeal. He looked more like a pirate than a researcher and almost overnight, he’d become a hot-ticket item. When his picture appeared on the cover of a magazine, it was a guaranteed sellout. Women everywhere seemed to adore his slight accent, his cultured manners and the edge of barbarism that said all the attention had merely tamed him for a moment. Every talk show, newsmagazine and network in America was clamoring for a piece of him.

But like most scientists she knew, now that the discovery was made, he was ready to move on to a new hunt.

Unfortunately at the moment he was fixated on a project that had reportedly haunted him for much of his accomplished career. He wanted to find the remains of the Isabela, a Civil War period clipper that was captained by the successful privateer, Juan Rodriguez del Flores.

And Cora was smack in the middle of his way. She’d hoped her last correspondence with him had been enough to deter him. Obviously she’d been wrong.

His only reaction to the somewhat ribald course of her students’ comments was a slight lift of his eyebrows. Cora sensed that the conversation was about to spin dangerously out of her control. Pressing her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose, she dragged her concentration back to her class. Dr. Rafael Adriano had a formidable reputation. And he loved it. If she knew one thing about him, she knew he adored being the center of attention. If he’d thought to disconcert her by arriving unannounced in her classroom, he was about to be sorely disappointed.

“I hear,” one of her students was saying, “that Adriano is on the track of some new discovery. Something bigger than the Argo.”

“Did you see that picture of him in Time magazine? He is too hot, girlfriend.” The student fanned herself with her spiral notebook.

The other girls laughed.

“I have a friend who saw him give a seminar,” one added. “She said he’s, like, drop-dead gorgeous. All you have to do is listen to him to get turned on.”

“That voice!” Cathleen interjected.

“And the accent,” said another girl.

“Can you imagine—” another student leaned over the edge of her desk and dropped her voice “—the sound of that man whispering in your ear?”

“Oh, Lord.”

Cora was having trouble containing her amusement as her students chased Adriano’s rabbit. “Ladies…” she said, trying to wrest control of the conversation.

They blissfully ignored her. “Gawd. I saw him on CNN the other night. He was talking about some new ship he’s looking for. When he started explaining the ‘thrill of discovery…”’ The student rolled her eyes in mock ecstasy and flopped back in her chair.

Cathleen chuckled. “I’ll bet I could think of a few things for him to discover.”

Cora used the distraction of the students’ ensuing laughter to recapture her advantage. “Okay, ladies.” She waved a hand to gain their attention. “Enough. This isn’t getting us anywhere with our discussion of pre-Renaissance romantic literature.”

“No,” one of the girls drawled, “but it’s doing a lot for my visualization skills.”

“Really?” Cora slanted Rafael a dry look.

“Oh, definitely. I mean, with that eye patch and all…Jeez, Dr. Prescott, you can’t say you haven’t noticed. The guy is, like, practically the sexiest man alive.”

Cora tasted victory. She didn’t doubt for a minute that he’d planned to disrupt her class—to catch her off guard with his sudden arrival. It seemed only fair that he should pay the price. “So you think Dr. Adriano is the perfect romantic hero?”

Cathleen rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah.”

“Well, then—” Cora tossed her lecture notes and laser pointer into her open briefcase and shut it with a decisive snap, “—perhaps you’d like to hear him tell you exactly why he chooses to parade about dressed like Long John Silver.” She indicated the back of the room.

With a collective murmur of confusion, her students turned to face him. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn the color she saw in his face was a blush. “Dr. Adriano,” she said, “I’m glad you could make it today. I was half afraid you wouldn’t show.”

He gave her a knowing look. She’d trapped him like a rat, and he knew it. With thirty students watching him with rapt attention, he had two choices. He could follow her lead and complete her session for the afternoon, or he could look like a fool by turning to leave. Cora waited patiently while he weighed his options.

No surprise, he rose to the occasion. With what she could only define as a look of admiration, he strode toward the front of the room. “You’ll have to forgive my tardiness, Dr. Prescott. I was delayed.”

“I see. Well—” she indicated her class with a sweep of her arm “—I’m sure you’ll have no trouble convincing them to stay a little later. Even if it is Friday afternoon.”

From the looks on the girls’ faces, he’d have to toss them out of the room before they let him leave. He studied Cora with a lazy insolence that said he knew exactly what she’d done and there’d be hell to pay later. She picked up her briefcase and headed for the door. “You’re leaving?” he asked. His voice slid over her nerves like melted butter. In the interviews she’d seen him conduct, she’d noted that he could turn anything, even something simple like standing in the back of her lecture hall, into an erotic exercise.

She refused to be flustered. “Yep. You know how summer school is. Papers to grade. Exams to write.”

“I see.” He glanced quickly at her class, then back to her. “When can I see you again?”

Damn him. The question was deliberately provocative, and he knew it. By evening, the campus would be abuzz with the news that the reserved Dr. Cora Prescott was somehow involved with Rafael Adriano—America’s favorite pirate. “I’m not sure. My schedule is heavy between now and the end of the week.”