Forbidden First Times: A Contemporary Romance Collection

by Sofia T Summers

  I’d never felt that way before – beautiful, like the way that adult women were supposed to feel. But Will’s kisses, his touches, his insanely huge dick had inspired something new and radical inside of me. It was addictive, almost as addictive as the hot sex had been, and I realized that I never wanted it to end.

  Something had changed between us – something else, I should have realized. Every single moment of our relationship up until this point had been a series of changes, like a row of dominos toppling over and knocking each other over. This never would have happened if we hadn’t kissed in his car that night after the brewpub. And that never would have happened without flirtatious glances and emails.

  Most of all, his very identity had changed. He wasn’t just Professor Marks anymore.

  He was Will. He was my lover, the man who had taken my virginity.

  And I was his.

  I shivered, suddenly cold. Will coughed slightly as he pulled away from me and reached for a chenille throw that felt both heavy and luxurious. He covered me with it, pulling it up over my naked breasts and then climbing off me and reaching for his clothes.

  We didn’t talk as Will got dressed. I lay there, under that beautiful blanket, and tried to imagine him at somewhere like Pottery Barn or West Elm – somewhere far too expensive for me to shop – paying like, seventy-five dollars for a blanket ... and not even a blanket that would go on his bed, but a blanket that was merely meant to be ornamental on the couch.

  I blushed.

  “What?” Will asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, still flushing hotly. “It’s just, I bet you were never thinking of this happening when you bought this,” I added, holding the tasseled edge of the chenille blanket and waving it in the air.

  Will raised an eyebrow. “That’s true,” he admitted. “I was never thinking of this happening.”

  I swallowed. My heart began to thud faster again and I realized that this was my chance, my moment to say something.

  “That’s bullshit,” I said softly. “You’ve been thinking about this happening for weeks. I can tell.”

  Will didn’t answer me. He handed me my clothes and I felt the air noticeably cool between us. As I fumbled with the pile of soft clothing, Will’s eyes were glued to my curvy frame beneath the blanket.

  Now I knew exactly what I had been doing when I’d left Petra behind in Golden Wok.

  I’d set out with a clear purpose in my mind – finding Will and submitting to him, letting him take me the way that we had both desperately wanted. And now that I was still lying on his couch, naked and cooling down from the intense sex, I knew that I’d gotten what I had wanted.

  Maybe it had been a naïve assumption, but I’d guessed before that finally going all the way with Will would make me want him less. It was like spending a whole class with a desperate, hot itch on the bottom of my foot when I was wearing a boot or a sneaker. As soon as class was over, I could hop into the bathroom and yank my shoe off, digging my nails into the soft flesh of my sole and scratch to my heart’s content.

  That had always cured the itch.

  Having sex with Will clearly wasn’t like having a terrible itch on the bottom of my foot, though.

  Having sex with Will had done nothing but make me want him again.

  Will was fully dressed now and I felt a keen imbalance of power between us: I was still nude, under the blanket, and my sweaty skin was sticking to the leather couch. I sat up and reluctantly pulled me clothes on, then got to my feet.

  “So, uh, you want to grab a drink somewhere?” I asked, feeling lamer than lame.

  Will pressed his lips together.

  “Eden,” he said, sitting down on the couch but not close enough to touch me.

  “I know,” I said quickly. I held up a hand in the air. “I know, I know – we can’t tell anyone, or go anywhere together, or be seen.”

  Will nodded. He looked almost relieved, and I hated myself for feeling hurt by that.

  “And furthermore, it cannot happen again,” Will said in a low voice.

  I bit my lip and nodded. There was nothing left for me to do but leave, which I knew I should be doing, like right now.

  I felt frozen to the spot, though. I wanted to take Will by the hand and ask if there was any possibility we could hit ‘pause’ – or better yet, ‘fast forward’ – until I’d graduated.

  My stomach was churning as I got to my feet.

  “I know it can’t happen again,” I said finally.

  Will nodded. His face was a mask – impassive and impossible to read. I forced myself to tear my eyes from his, then walked to the door and let myself out into the cold, dark night where snow had begun to fall.

  16

  Will – Friday

  The night before, I had barely slept. I was tormented as I lay in my bed. Thoughts of Eden had consumed my entire brain. Even with my eyes open, I still saw her flushed and sweaty, naked and innocent, pink and delicious and even better in real life than she had been in my fantasies.

  I’d done it. I’d finally fucked up beyond repair. If anyone at Oakbrook found out, my career was ruined. Even though Eden was a legal adult, twenty-one years old (I had confirmed this thanks to a sneak peek at her license that day at the brewpub), in the world of academia I knew it didn’t matter. She could have been twenty-five, for fuck’s sake, and the school would still try to paint her as innocent as the Lolita to my Humbert. I was the lecherous old man, the professor who had taken advantage of her, and I knew it would haunt me for the rest of my days.

  Worse still, I still desired her. When I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, thoughts of litigious hell flew out the window and thoughts of Eden on her knees, sucking my cock, invaded my mind like a toxic poison. I wished I could get rid of her – I wished that she didn’t occupy such valuable space in my brain, that should have been dedicated towards coursework for my other seminars or even that blasted conference that Gina had mentioned.

  No. It was like plunging my cock inside of Eden and making her come had suddenly warped me. I was no longer an adult with a PhD, capable of changing the academic world. I had been reinvented as coarse teenage boy with acne and hormones flooding his body – someone who could hardly go two seconds without thinking of sex. It was ridiculous and disgusting, especially considering I hadn’t even behaved that way as an actual teenager.

  Eden had broken me, and I should have hated her for it. I shouldn’t have ever let her inside of my house – I should have put both hands on those rounded, sloping shoulders of hers pushed her into the cold.

  I’d been too shocked, too nice, too kind, though.

  And now I had a feeling that I would wind up paying for it for the rest of my life.

  I cursed time and ages. If only Eden were a grad student, this kind of thing would be far more acceptable. It still wouldn’t be smiled on by the faculty and staff of Oakbrook, no, but it wasn’t something that could tank my career and possible even send me to prison or have me register as a sex offender. If only she were just a few short years older and no longer an undergrad, I could have dealt with this.

  But as it stood, I couldn’t handle. Eden was young and innocent – I couldn’t be positive, but I had surely felt a twinge of resistance when my cock had driven inside of her. Had she been a virgin?

  She hadn’t acted like a virgin – she’d been closer to a porn star, blushing and moaning and writhing around like my dick was the best thing she’d ever had. I’d never (knowingly) deflowered a woman before, but my impression of virgins was just that: fumbling and inexperienced and awkward.

  Maybe my expectations were out of date, or something. Eden was so much younger (young enough to be my daughter, I thought while wincing) than I was. She was of a different generation entirely. Maybe she’d grown up on porn from a young age.

  That didn’t seem very Eden-like, though. She did have her naïve moments, and although she was very smart I hesitated to put her maturity and her intelligence on the same level. I knew from personal expe
rience that those two things didn’t always align.

  Jesus, I had to stop thinking about her. I had to get over her – I’d fucked her, I’d taken her, and now I had to let her go and live her life. I was positive that if I gave Eden the chance to really be with me, to date me and have me as her lover possibly even more, she’d tired of me within a week. She didn’t know me, that much was clear. She was worshipping me as a false idol, as a professor who knew everything while she was nothing more than a student. If she got to know the real me – truly got to know me – I knew that she’d be bored. I was old and tired. I didn’t like going out to parties or things after it got dark. I liked eating by myself in expensive restaurants and taking an hour to finish a single glass of wine, not pound as much tequila as humanly possibly within ten minutes.

  There were simply too many differences between us to make it work.

  And I shouldn’t even be thinking about this, considering how taboo it all is, I told myself firmly. This is over, and that is non-negotiable.

  Friday morning, I taught my usual seminar and then had a long lunch at my desk with the door firmly closed. It had snowed again overnight – I was starting to wonder if spring would ever arrive – but Friday morning had dawned cold and clear. Now, it was sunny and bright, with warm rays streaming in through my office window and making me wish that I hadn’t chosen such a heavy ragg wool sweater.

  That afternoon, there was a department faculty meeting in the upstairs conference room of the Liberal Arts building. I had been hoping that it would be short, but when I got the agenda in my email several hours beforehand, I groaned. There were several topics listed and I knew it would take at least two hours to go over everything. So much for my Friday afternoon freedom, I thought.

  It shouldn’t have mattered – it wasn’t like I had something to do, or anything like that. I realized that I’d been looking forward to getting off campus because now, Oakbrook was a location I had begun to associate with Eden Cooper.

  And of course, thinking about Eden made me think of all the terrible things we’d done just a few short hours before. It hadn’t even been a full day since I’d fucked her, and I was already so conflicted and racked with anger that I felt sick. I vacillated between hating myself and hating temptation.

  Would this kind of thing only get worse as I grew older? Would I have to deal with students like Eden for the rest of my years as a professor, until I could fade into retirement and relative obscurity?

  I hated that thought. I almost hated it enough to resign my coveted tenure-track position on the spot and go overseas, teach at some stuffy boys’ school and deal only with men.

  That would be cowardly. I had already proven my cowardice by succumbing to the temptation I felt for Eden. I wasn’t a strong man. I’d been thinking with my cock and now, I needed to think with my brain.

  There was a knock at my door and before I could answer, it swung open. Gina was standing there, wearing a short dress with a white sweater underneath. It was snug and fitting and showed her figure – she looked almost more like a grad student than a professor – and she cocked her head to the side and smiled at me.

  “Ready for the meeting?”

  I shrugged. “I was going to skip it,” I said, not even realizing until that moment that I’d been leaning so heavily in that direction. Skipping a meeting like that was hugely unprofessional – especially since I’d need the approval of the department head when it came to my vote for tenure – but I was so wrung out.

  I didn’t just need to skip the damned meeting.

  I needed a vacation.

  “Really?” Gina asked. She stepped closer and chuckled. “Are you still sick? I could cover for you,” she offered, like we were teens planning to skip school.

  “No,” I said firmly. “Thanks, though.”

  She smiled. “Good,” Gina said. “Because I’d go crazy if my best buddy wasn’t there with me,” she added. “I can’t get through one of those things without like, wanting to doze off.”

  “Yes,” I said tersely. “They can be boring.”

  Gina’s smile faded slowly. “Well, we should get a move on,” she said. “I want to get there before the last of the catering disappears. I remember when I told the admin that I didn’t eat meat so she started ordering three vegetarian sandwiches, and then I’d have to fight with the guys from IT just to make sure I got one.”

  I didn’t say anything, just rose to my feet and took my portfolio from my desk. After locking up my office door, Gina and I strolled down the hall and went into the stairwell where we climbed to the third floor.

  “So, notice anything different?” Gina asked as we made our way into the conference room. When I didn’t answer, she tilted her face from one side to the other.

  “I got my hair cut,” she said after a few seconds of silence, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t picked up on it.

  “Oh,” I told her. “It looks nice.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Gina said, beaming once again. She fluffed the ends of her hair with both hands and cocked her head to the side. “I never thought that curly hair looked good on me, but I did so much damage with heat styling, and ...”

  She kept talking, but I tuned her out as the other members of the English and Communication Arts department filtered into the room and took their seats. Gina didn’t even stop talking when the department head came into the room – she just lowered her voice and kept monologuing until I nudged her.

  “Hey,” I hissed. “Be quiet.”

  Gina gave me a stony look. I ignored her and turned my attention to the department head as he opened the meeting with a dad joke about the budget for the following fiscal year.

  It was strange – most of the time, these meetings were so boring that I felt like putting a gun to my head and playing Russian roulette if only to get out of them. But today I found myself strangely focused. Numbers had never been so interesting, and it didn’t occur to me until the meeting was mostly over that I was only so invested because it was a topic that had nothing to do with Eden.

  At the end of the meeting, Gina cleared her throat.

  “I was thinking,” she said. “The Wagner Annual Conference is coming up – it’s in Miami this year,” she added, throwing me a look. “Will and I might like to go.”

  The department head nodded. “That sounds fine to me,” he said. “Just plan to submit your receipts for reimbursement and copy me on all the booking details. I can have the department admin take care of it.”

  It took me a moment to realize that everyone in the room was staring at me. Damnit, -- I loathed Gina for putting me on the spot like that!

  “We’ll have to see,” I said, clearing my throat. “I have a particularly busy semester and a lot of demanding seniors at the moment.”

  A collective chuckle rippled through the room as the other faculty members began moaning and groaning about their students. Relieved, I turned my attention to the window, where the last of the daylight was fading.

  The sun was sinking low in the sky by the time the department head released us. Gina turned to me, having clearly gotten over her earlier annoyance.

  “So,” Gina said, turning to me. “You wanna grab a drink or something, talk about plans for that Wagner conference?”

  “I’m not sure I can make it,” I said.

  “Will, come on,” she said. “If you’re shy about spending university money because of your pending tenure, don’t be. They want you to go places and spread the reputation of Oakbrook,” she said. “And Miami! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

  Maybe, I thought. But not with you. In that moment, I couldn’t help but picture Eden – frolicking around on the beach in a bikini three sizes too small, her tits bouncing and shimmying and popping straight out of her top. We’d travel together – well, on separate flights as not to arouse suspicion – and I’d make sure that Eden took an Uber with tinted windows to the hotel, wore sunglasses and her hair tucked up in a little hat to conceal her identity.

  The idea of
sneaking around with my favorite student was getting me so hot that my cock was hard, and I shifted my portfolio to the front of my body.

  “No,” I told Gina.

  “What? Why not,” she pouted. “You like, totally need a vacation.”

  I like, totally need to get away from you right now, I thought.

  “I have a migraine,” I lied. “I’m going to go home and lie down.”

  Turning away, I walked out of the building and ignored Gina’s frustrated calls.

  17

  Eden – Saturday

  As much as I was almost enjoying torturing myself with thoughts of Professor Will Marks and the intense, passionate sex that we’d shared, I knew it was time for a break. I still felt a pang of guilt at ditching Petra at Golden Wok the other night – especially because it wasn’t like I could be real with her and tell her what I’d done afterward, other than wander around in the cold.

  Weekends were the perfect time to catch up with friends, I reasoned that morning as I woke up. Even though I felt like staying in bed for several more hours, I got up and got dressed in pajama pants and my fluffy robe that I only used in cold weather. Petra was in the kitchen, making coffee.

  She didn’t look up when I walked in.

  “I owe you an apology,” I told her. “I’m really sorry about the other night.”

  Petra turned to me and frowned. “It was kind of shitty to ditch me like that,” she said. “You’d be having a canippy if I did the same thing to you.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “I really am sorry. It was shitty.”

  Petra nodded. “I’m not mad,” she said. “I was probably being really hard to be around.”

  “You were fine,” I told her. “I just had to get some fresh air. Sometimes the smell of fried food makes me so sick, you know?”