by R. S. Elliot
“Anyway,” I continue, trembling despite pacing myself. I must look ridiculous pleading a case so desperately without any real foundation in his eyes. “Without assistance, she is unable to fully drag herself out of the problem she’s been led into by circumstance. If she took any time off of work to handle funeral arrangements, that takes away from vacation days or sick pay. She can take off of work with systems like bereavement leave, but that won’t solve the problem of her bills getting paid.”
“And why should anyone care about this?”
The words hit my chest like a sledgehammer. The cold brush of blood fleeing my arteries seizes me, and I stare blankly at the man sitting across from me.
Why should anyone care? What he’s really asking is why should he care. Perhaps I had him all wrong. Perhaps, the man I thought he was, or could be, is someone entirely different. The knotting sensation in my stomach twists tighter, tense and coiling like a wind-up toy ready to snap.
“Why should they…” I stammer.
I am losing the ability to remain calm, to keep from leaping across the desk and throttling my professor. But then that certainly wouldn’t get me my apprenticeship. And if I can’t even convince him of the merits behind this study, then how can I expect to convince anyone else? “Notwithstanding the humane aspect of it all, this could happen to anyone. Not just those below the poverty level. I mean, the majority of the middle class could potentially be just one tragedy away from being in this same situation.”
A glint flickers in his gaze.
Almost as if he’s amused by the sudden heat in my words. He quickly tapers it down, looking at some unknown distraction on the floor. “Where do you suppose the funding for all of this will come from? Not to mention the number of volunteers needed to orchestrate a movement like this?”
Where? The never-ending question. Something I have asked myself a dozen times before, without results. Yet I refuse to give in when I have already come this far. “I will find a way,” I say, determination flaring in my words like sparks of electricity. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”
His eyes dart upward to meet mine.
For a brief moment, the lightness I am accustomed to resurfaces, the tender gaze that offered sympathy and understanding when I spoke about my father the previous night. He quickly replaces it with a solid veneer of indifference. “And you are set on this proposal? No way to convince you otherwise?”
I set my jaw. “No. I am set on this.”
The twinkle in his eyes returns, and he smiles despite the tension between us. “I’m glad to hear it. This proposal is quite good, in fact. We will just need to work on your funding and the volunteer aspect, but otherwise acceptable.”
Did I hear him correctly? Is he contradicting all the horrible things he just said about my proposal? He’s saying my research was actually acceptable, and that I am not insane for pursuing this?
He remains motionless, watching me, allowing for the levity in his words to speak for themselves before adding anything else to the conversation. A weight lifts from my lungs, allowing them to breathe once again. The relieving sensation is short-lived, however, as the extent of his cruel game finally sinks in.
Heat flares to my cheeks. So, he’s not the heartless monster I had imagined. But he is far from innocent.
“So...so what was all that, then?” I ask. “You were just toying with me?”
“I’m preparing you,” he says flatly. “You’re going to face some opposition in this matter. There are going to be people who question why they should care, why they should help you, why they should bother giving money to this instead of something else. They would rather feed the homeless for a day than to get them back on their feet. It seems like a no-brainer, but people are more concerned with the easy solution, the patch-up job, rather than the long-term plan.”
It’s all beginning to make sense. Slowly, but painful nonetheless. The man is rumored to be ruthless with his teaching techniques. He wants to nearly break his students, weed out the weak ones. Well, I am not going to play these games. No matter what effect he had hoped for, or what fire he planned to spark in me, he’s gone too far.
I stand.
The sudden need to flee takes hold of me. Maybe soon. But first, this man will get a piece of my mind. “So, you’re telling me, you made me think my proposal was a joke just so you could get a rise out of me?”
“So you would fight for it,” he explains, as if launching someone into a fight was the most natural solution in the world. “You’re going to have to if you want to beat out Jackson’s ideas. He’s playing to his audience. He knows exactly what the board is looking for so they’ll listen. You have to play a different angle.”
The only thing I am able to do at this point is blink. I’m not even sure I’m breathing at the moment. Is he telling me Jackson has already won this thing? Should I even bother trying when he has the whole faculty in his pocket?
“Let me get this straight, Professor Hawthorne.” I position my hands on his desk, leaning forward to stare him down directly. “I’m already starting out behind Jackson in this little race of ours, and the only way to come out even is by baring my soul like some bleeding heart activist?”
No one will take me seriously if I just start spouting out sentimental nonsense!
Professor Hawthorne stands, mirroring my stance and inclining closer toward me. I have to remind myself I’m angry with him, that he just upset me on purpose to prove my loyalty to this cause. Yet all I can seem to focus on is how close his lips are to mine, how warm my skin feels standing this close to him, and the erratic spike of my pulse. An irrational thought of pulling him across the table by his shirt sleeves and kissing him seizes me.
Well, that definitely won’t get your point across.
“You’re not starting out behind by any merit of yours,” he says calmly. “Your paper is significantly superior, and what you’re working toward is that much more important. But you are going to have to play the game a little bit more if you want anyone to care.”
“So brown-nose my way into the good graces of the board?”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant. But if we can get the financial backing behind this proposal, if we can get people interested in what you are working for, then that’s everything you need to get ahead of the competition.”
“Is there a reason you didn’t just come out and say this? Rather than letting me believe you were… That you thought...” That he thought, what? That my proposal and everything I had worked for was ridiculous? Or was it the fact that I truly had thought him to be some snobbish playboy with no soul? The man who only paid his way into charities without giving people like me a second thought. The way I had the first day we met.
Why does it even matter?
A stupid question. I know why it matters.
“I need to go,” I say, then hurry toward the door. My fingers reach the knob and pull, just as a sudden force slams it shut again.
There’s no need to look at what is holding me here, what’s kept me from my hasty retreat. The heat of his body strokes my back, and all at once my skin prickles at the thought of his touch. His hand, just above my head, holds the door in place. I should feel trapped, frightened. Something other than the surge of longing pulsing through every part of my body.
“Aly, wait.” His whisper flutters across my hair. A cold shiver weaves its way down my spine, tantalizing my fevered flesh with promises of intimate caresses and mistakes I can never take back. Mistakes I could not possibly mean to make with this man.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “That didn’t play out the way I had intended. It’s just something I do to make sure my students are serious about what they’re researching and ready to defend it at all costs. But I should have realized, with our interactions in the past, it wasn’t the best plan of action.”
My pulse leaps into my throat, strangling me. He should have realized this wouldn’t work? Because he still thinks I see him as some rich p
retender who cares nothing for the less fortunate? Or because he knows seeing him act like that again is the closest to breaking my heart he can get?
There you go again, Aly. Being dramatic. There’s no way this man has your heart yet.
I had just grown accustomed to the idea of wanting him, of potentially being wanted by him in return. Only to have that fantasy ripped from my mind with one brief revelation. It would have been easier to think he was an arrogant jerk.
“Hey.” His hand gently closes around my forearm and turns me to face him.
The swirling haze encircling my throat rises to my cheeks at the sight of him. The coldness in his stone eyes flees behind a gaze that reminds me of sunshine streaming through a canopy of trees. He searches my face, the dimple in his worried brow the only indication of his concern.
“It’s alright,” I say, trying to soothe my own emotions as well as his. “Professor Hawthorne, I think-”
“Please, don’t call me that.” He winces.
A moment of silence passes between us. He clears his throat and casts his eyes briefly to the floor. “I mean, it’s not necessary. You can use my first name. Plenty of students refer to their professors that way, and we will be spending a lot of time together.”
“I don’t call any of my professors by their first name.”
“Yes, but…” He hesitates, seemingly distracted by a wisp of hair falling around my face. He gently brushes it aside, his fingertips lingering at my temple. “We knew each other before. So...it’s different.”
I tremble as his fingertips slide down my cheek, feathering along my jawline until they reach my lips. The lump in my throat tightens. It’s taking every ounce of self-control I have not to wrap my arms around him and demand he sex me up right here. “Is it?”
I barely recognize my own voice. My breaths escape in small bursts of air. I’m practically panting at this point.
“Say it, Aly,” he whispers.
His thumb grazes my lower lip. My mouth parts beneath his touch, willing and ready despite the warning bells going off in my mind. “Say my name.”
“Zach.” His name spills from my mouth in a plea, but he knows exactly what I want.
His lips press against mine, and instantly my legs buckle beneath me. This is nothing like my dreams, nothing like anything I could have ever imagined. I reach for his shirt, gripping fistfuls of it between my palms just to keep myself from crumbling. One arm curls around my waist, holding my body tight against his. The frantic thudding of his heart beats into my breast. I want to taste him, to feel him.
His tongue glides past the entrance of my lips, searching, hungry. I meet his playful strokes with my own ravenous desires. Each thrust sends a shudder of delirium between my thighs. I want him there, touching me, kissing me. Inside me.
A moan escapes my throat, prompted by my wicked thoughts. His hands glide down my hips and pin me back against the door. The hard length of his arousal presses into my lower abdomen. He’s so close to the place I need him, it’s almost painful.
I raise myself up onto my toes, shifting until the thrumming core between my legs meets the bulge in his jeans.
Another gasp tears from my lips.
This man will be the death of you, I warn myself.
But what a way to go.
Chapter Nine
Zach
This woman is playing with fire, and I am damn near ready to let her.
She tastes every bit as sweet as I had imagined, like cinnamon and sugar rolled up into one fiery casing. Warmth radiates from every inch of her body, encouraging my touch and welcoming my kiss. The rush of blood pounds in my ear.
A warning.
I’m going too far beyond the realm of our relationship, the new one that dictates I keep my hands to myself. But our past demands otherwise. All the pent-up hunger I’ve felt for her these past few days insists I feed the fire between us. She is so receptive to every stroke of my tongue, every caress of my hands. As if my touch had been made for her.
I am already rock-hard when she brushes her sweet pussy against my erection. A bolt of fire and ice slices through my body, cutting off all remaining rational thoughts from my brain. I groan and tug her tighter against me, wanting to give her everything she desires and more. Her body writhes beneath mine. She’s ready. She wants this as badly as I do, and yet something holds me back.
Like it or not, we will be spending more time together. A time that can’t be spent hoisting her onto my desk and fucking her into oblivion. And I don’t want to make things awkward between us. Not when it could jeopardize her chances at the apprenticeship and everything she’s worked so hard to earn.
Fuck. I stiffen. What am I doing?
I pull away.
My hands fall to my side, instantly regretting the loss of her touch beneath them. She is still clinging to my shirt, her lips swollen and parted as if awaiting the return of my kiss. She is beautiful, eyes bright with arousal and stray strands of red hair tumbling along the curve of her face. Her hands tremble against my chest as she struggles to grasp the last shreds of breath from the dissolving air between us. I’m surprised to find myself winded and shaken. Though not so surprised by the throbbing ache in my cock. A reminder that this feeling is not going to go away on its own.
I groan and run a hand through my hair.
Her hands slide down my chest, the remaining tethers of her touch leaving me for good. She knows what’s coming perhaps. It can’t be any surprise to her that this cannot continue.
Not now, at least.
“I think it’s best we-”
“Stop,” she says hastily. Her hand flies out to silence whatever weak excuse I planned to issue. The same hand shifts and grooms the errant strands of her hair back into place. She regains composure quickly, shrugging off our passion as effortlessly as stepping off of a roller coaster. “It’s fine. I-I don’t know what came over me.”
“This was not you, Aly.”
Hell, it wasn’t her, at all. I’m the idiot who couldn’t stand the thought of her placing any distance between us. What does it matter what she calls me? It doesn’t change who we are. It doesn’t change the shitty hand we’ve been dealt.
Her phone dings. She removes it from her pocket and lifts it up between us. Both our eyes fall to the slim device separating us in more ways than one. She is visibly trembling as her fingers rapidly respond to whatever message she received.
When her soft blue eyes meet mine, the hint of desire lingering within them shoots straight through my chest. God, I want this woman. This incredibly passionate woman inches from my touch and yet so far out of my reach.
“Our next meeting is in one week?” she asks softly. The subtle break in her voice is enough to make me forget every shred of good sense I have left.
Instead, I nod. My body tenses, restraining the urge to yank her back into my arms and finish what we started. But that would lead us nowhere. Only toward more heartache.
“You have my number in the docket I gave you,” I say, no longer recognizing my own voice. “Call me if there is a problem. Or if you have problems resolving the issues I’ve laid out in the notes.”
She straightens, inhaling one long draw of breath before turning on her heel and opening the door. I let her leave this time. I don’t even know what possessed me to stop her in the first place. I just couldn’t bear the thought of her angry with me. Again.
A lot of good that did me.
We can’t carry on like this, I remind myself. No one comes out ahead in the end.
No, it’s easier when I don’t lose sight of reality. Relationships are for business mergers. They are not about passion or love. Isn’t that what my parents taught me?
It’s been a few months since I’ve been with a woman. Perhaps that’s where all this is coming from. I need to get a good fuck out of my system. Anything to get the redhead with soft curves and lips like molten honey out of my mind.
I stare back at my laptop. I don’t have another class until Wednes
day afternoon. I can spare time for a quick trip into the city by the bay. How lucky can a man get on a Monday evening?
I guess it’s time to find out.
Fifteen minutes in San Francisco and already I remember why I’ve stayed away.
Too many people recognize me. A tall brunette approaches me outside the club, looping her arm in mine as if we’ve known each other all our lives. She seems to know me, but I can’t for the life of me remember her. It wouldn’t be the first time. The women in my family’s circle of friends have so many cosmetic surgeries in a season, it’s like meeting a whole new person from one year to the next.
I pry her perfectly manicured talons from my coat sleeve, failing at convincing her she has me confused with someone else. She pivots on her heel, dissatisfied and clearly annoyed.
She wouldn’t even be the first woman I’ve disappointed tonight. She probably won’t be the last.
The club owner refers to me as “Winston Hawthorne’s son” when I finally make it past the entrance. I shudder but force a smile all the same.
That’s me. Heir to a fortune I don’t want. The son of a man who doesn’t want me. Or at least anything I represent. He might accept me more if I acted like him: cold, selfish, ruthless. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and take another sip of bourbon. This is not how I imagined the night going.
Another brunette from across the room catches my attention. She pins me with a stare that would have even a priest’s blood running cold. Her lips tease the rim of her glass, and my body stiffens. Though not in the way I had hoped. I should be feeling something. I can’t say I have a type. I don’t prefer blondes to brunettes or long legs to luscious curves. But the woman in front of me, all but making love to me with her eyes, sparks no encouragement from the shameless part of my body that’s sent me on this journey to begin with.
