Dating the Professor by Carly Keene

DARA:
I don’t have time to date.
No, like really, I don’t have time.
As a newscaster for WRTN Channel 10, I’m too busy working on my next news story to spend time weeding out the losers who are only attracted to me for my looks.
I’m worth dating for my brains. And my heart.
It’s just tough to find a guy who wants all of me, not just the outside of me.
When my mother pulls my guilt strings, I agree to attend a speed dating event, just to shut her up.
I’m fully expecting to meet only shallow men.
But then I meet Hugo, and the chemistry between us could light up the whole world.

HUGO:
Let’s be clear about one thing: nerds rule the world.
That said, it’s tough to get a date when you spend all your time either in a lab, or teaching undergraduates how to recognize esters.
Women tend to find me boring, anyway.
The third time I come into the lab with mismatched shoes, my research assistants gang up on me and insist that I go do this speed dating thing.
I know it’ll be a waste of time. And it is.
Until I sit down at Dara’s table and find a fierce intelligence behind her beautiful eyes—
—and an accelerated combustion reaction takes place between us.
We could burn the place down, just from looking at each other.
Imagine if we touched…