Chapter 13

The conference food was as crappy as usual, the talks were boring, and Galen wished desperately to be home. He grabbed a soda out of the machine to take back up to his room at the end of the night, just because he was sick of iced tea and bad coffee. There was a candy machine next to the drink dispenser that made him think of Lydia and her request for a candy bar when he'd presented his open ended offer. Nobody could say she was in the relationship for his money. He'd have fetched champagne and caviar if she'd wanted it. She hadn't even asked for it to be king-sized.

He was crabby and out of sorts after two days away from her, three without sex. Since he'd gone more than three years before meeting Lydia, it made no sense at all to feel deprived after less than a week. But damn it, he did.

"Hey, Galen, how was that panel on the Crusades?"

Oh shit, it was his department chair. Rawlings was an American historian who wouldn't know medieval history if it bit him on the ass but he'd gotten i