Between the Stacks (Deep Desires)

by Liza Mitchell

  Table of Contents

  BETWEEN THE STACKS

  All Rights Reserved.

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  Also by Liza Mitchell

  About the Author

  BETWEEN THE STACKS

  DEEP DESIRES

  Liza Mitchell

  Published by Feather & Bleed Press, 2019.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for review purposes.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is intended for mature, adult audiences only. It contains extremely sexually explicit and graphic scenes and language that may be considered offensive by some readers. This book is strictly intended for those over the age of 18.

  All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older. All acts of a sexual nature are completely consensual. No one is related in this book.

  BETWEEN THE STACKS

  Copyright © 2019 Liza Mitchell

  Edited by Jennifer at Mistress Editing

  Proofread by Paula Grundy

  CHAPTER ONE

  ________________________

  BLAIR

  She bounced her foot impatiently against the desk as she read yet another paper, a carbon copy regurgitating her last six lectures, which was exactly the assignment she’d given Dr. Baker’s Lit 101 class, but it didn’t make reading 150 papers any easier.

  Want to know how to ruin a great book? Teach a class about it. Not just one class. The same class, three times a day, two semesters in a row. Then give the students the most inane writing assignment on the material.

  Last fall, when she’d received her assignment, as Dr. Baker’s teaching assistant, she’d been cautiously excited. He had a reputation. He was demanding, overbearing, a perfectionist, but he was also brilliant and took his position as an advisor seriously. He made everyone who left him a better writer. It seemed like the placement could be a dream come true.

  In many ways, it was. However, the monotony of being a TA had truly beaten her down. Was this really what she wanted to do with her life? It seemed so romantic to become a professor. Sitting in a circle with brilliant students, discussing literature and its intersectionality with politics and gender. That had not been her reality. Instead, she felt like a glorified babysitter. No one wanted to be in her class. It was just a requirement that her students buzzed through on autopilot. Meanwhile, she stood before them giving the same mind-numbing lectures and having zestless discussions three times a day.

  But the end was in sight. It was finals week. She was slogging her way through the very last stack of assignments. Stack? Pile. Tower. Then she was free. She wasn’t teaching over the summer. Fuck, she didn’t even have a job for the fall, but she couldn’t think about that right now. She just needed to grade another one hundred and forty…

  “Sit still.”

  Blair froze and slowly uncrossed her legs, setting her foot on the floor and tucking it behind her ankle. “I’m sorry, Dr. Baker.”

  “I don’t need apologies. I need you not to shake the whole damned desk,” he said without looking up from his own work.

  “Right.” She shifted her weight and tucked her skirt around her legs, sneaking a glance at the professor. She itched to bounce her leg again—maybe he’d raise his voice this time. Stop it. Grade the fucking papers.

  That was the other reason she needed this year to end. She couldn’t focus around him. During their office hours, she was constantly on edge, either waiting, silently willing him to look at her, touch her—something, anything—or was she intentionally drawing attention to herself by upsetting him, just to hear him scold her, bark at her to stop tapping her pen, to focus, to sit still. The days she kept her impulses under control, she was rewarded with a smile, an accidental graze across her side, something to keep her going until the next time she sat across the desk from him.

  This time, she’d genuinely been fidgeting absentmindedly, but just those two words made her ache and clench her thighs together. Sometimes she could get him to yell. Hit his desk. Glare at her as if the only thing stopping him from grabbing her throat and pinning her to the wall was the piece of particle board between them—and his tenure.

  She knew it was wrong. She knew that antagonizing her mentor was not the way to build a professional relationship. It didn’t fucking matter. She couldn’t help herself. Neither could he. This might have been a lie she’d started telling herself to justify her actions, but no one who erupted like that, or ruled with an iron fist like Dr. Baker did, and hated having that much authority.

  And whether or not he got off on it was not up for debate—she’d seen his cock straining against his pants more than once.

  “Why have you not accepted the position in the doctoral program next fall?”

  “Excuse me?” Blair looked across the desk. He was still bent over his work, eyes trained on his papers.

  “The position in the program, Miss Donovan,” he responded, still refusing to look at her.

  “I want to diversify my résumé. I think it’s best I move on from higher education.”

  He lifted his head. A single piece of hair fell against his temple, and he gruffly pushed it back into place and straightened his glasses.

  “Why? What are your plans?”

  “Journalism,” she answered confidently. Too confidently. She’d sent out plenty of pieces to news organizations all across the country, and there’d been only crickets in response.

  “Why apply to the doctoral program, then?” He fixed his gaze on her, pinning her to the chair. His mouth was drawn into a thin line as he narrowed his eyes, creating deep creases across his forehead.

  “Well, I wanted to, but now I don’t think I want this. I don’t want to be in college forever. Not just for the program but as a career. It just feels… surreal? People coming and going. Kids just passing through for a few years. I don’t think it could ever feel like home.”

  Dr. Baker scoffed. “Any place can be a home.”

  “When you know it’s all temporary? Say I stay for my doctoral program. Leave to become an associate professor somewhere. Lose my job to budget cuts. Be forced to move again.”

  “Maybe you should change your idea of home.”

  It was her turn to scoff as she looked back down at her work.

  “I wasn’t done.”

  Her eyes traveled across the essay in front of her, waiting for him to continue. He wouldn’t like being ignored. Not at all.

  “Look at me.” His voice was low, slow, like a predator creeping toward its prey, calculated.

  Blair leaned forward in her seat, arousal swirling in her cunt. She raked her eyes up from his hands, tightly folded on the desk, knuckles white with stress, up to his Oxford shirt, straining against his broad chest, to his angular jaw covered by a meticulously groomed beard, until she came to his deep-brown eyes, like pools of darkness, boring into her.

  They stared at each other while a heavy silence settled over the room. She worried her bottom, a tingling buzzing between her thighs, her lungs refusing to fill with air.

  “Take that offer. Any place can be home. You belong here,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ________________________

  MATTHEW
>
  She needed to stop biting that damned lip. She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t anxious. She was testing him. She was always testing him.

  Every single one of his grad assistants fell right into line. It took once, just once, for them to learn that he expected the best, and only the best, from everyone who worked with him. They were a waste of his time otherwise. He knew his reputation, but students in the program fought tooth and nail to become his TA. He was damned proud of every student he’d mentored.

  But Blair—this year had been an absolute nightmare. She was an outstanding writer, insightful, and not the least bit pretentious. She worked hard. She made connections with her students. But she could not follow a single instruction. When she failed him, there wasn’t confusion or ignorance in her eyes—there was defiance. The angrier he grew, the more her eyes sparkled.

  She was always challenging him, testing him. And there was nothing he could fucking do about it. It made his cock ache while he fought to keep his face neutral, professional, communicate with his words, his mouth, what he wanted to deliver his message with absolutely any other part of his body.

  Even now she was rocking slightly in her chair, raking her teeth against her bottom lip. She was a bundle of energy, and he knew exactly what she wanted to do with it. What he wanted to do with it. They just had to make it through the end of the semester.

  He’d fought for her spot in the university’s doctoral program. Urged her to apply, written a letter a recommendation. No one wanted her in that program except him. The university rarely took people from their own master’s program. He wanted to keep her, and he didn’t know how else to do it. Blair clearly was ready to move on, but he wouldn’t let her go.

  “I don’t belong anywhere,” she snapped back. “I haven’t lived in the same place for more than nine months in the last eight years. My friends are scattered across the country. I’m sick of it.

  “You don’t know what’s best for me. I want to walk downtown and see the same eighty-year-old man reading his morning paper with a Danish, sitting by the window of the coffee shop, know the name of the barista’s children, and not have to dodge two-dozen kids who think they own the fucking sidewalk.

  “You don’t know where I belong, and I certainly don’t want to stay here.”

  He ground his teeth. She belonged with him. “So your answer is to leave this semester with no concrete plans, no stability, and just ‘figure it out.’ That’s absurd.”

  She straightened her back and narrowed her eyes, her spark replaced by a simmering flame. “Why do you care what I do?”

  Because here, in the doctoral program, she wouldn’t be his student anymore. He wouldn’t be her advisor. He might be able to do some of the things he’d spent the last nine months dreaming about. But he couldn’t say that. Not here, not yet, not now.

  Blair leaned her arms on the desktop, separating them. “Matthew, why do you care what I do?”

  His pulse skipped a beat when she said his name. He should be insulted. She was teasing him, testing him, challenging him. Instead, hearing his voice pass through her lips made him want to hear it again. Maybe she’d scream it breathlessly while he held her down and fucked her against his desk.

  “Drop it,” he bit back. “Finish your work.”

  She was not going to get the best of him. He may have carried himself like he had the power, like he was in control, but one word from Blair, and he was on edge,: electricity pumping through him, fantasies running through his mind. That was not entirely true. It was fucking fantastic when Blair did reward him with a sly smile as she backed down, shrinking into herself.

  “I know you spoke to the dean,” she pushed. “You wrote a letter, pulled some strings. You can do all that, but you can’t talk to me?”

  “I said, drop it.”

  “Fine,” she spat, standing up and gathering her stack of papers. “I’m going to get the texts you need from the library. I’ll return these papers before your last class.” She turned and left his office, her long, summer skirt and hair swaying in tandem as she stormed out the door.

  He scrubbed his hands over his face. A growl gathered in his chest, slowly erupting into a deep roar he used to expel all the air from his chest. In his peripheral, he saw a colleague pause outside his door, startled by the noise, but Matthew rested his forehead in his hands, refusing to acknowledge the nosy fucker.

  Blair was genuinely pissed. Hurt? How could he know? He hadn’t fucking talked to her about it. That conversation—or lack thereof—may have just sealed his fate. His arrogance had just done him in.

  Was it worth it? Winning that one battle and letting her walk away. He could have a lifetime with her biting tongue and sharp eyes. Could. He’d never know now. He’d let the perfect opportunity just slip away.

  She probably didn’t want him. He was an old man. She was just playing games. Flirting. She loved his discipline, but she probably just took all the buzz from their time together and fucked some other lucky bastard.

  He wanted to be that lucky bastard.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ________________________

  BLAIR

  Music pumped from her earbuds as she entered the library, quieting all the racing thoughts vying for space in her mind. She climbed the open staircase to the fourth floor one laborious step at a time. It didn’t matter her mood, the climb to the fourth floor always felt like the climb to the top of Everest. Whatever dumbass designed the steps made them too wide to take two at a time and too low to feel like you were actually going anywhere. He deserved a Promethean punishment, climbing these flights forever in hell.

  The first floor was packed with students, but the farther she climbed, the emptier the library became. For the most part, the fourth floor was a ghost town. There were a few students studying at tables, but few people in their right minds would put that much effort into finding a quiet space. Plus, most of the books on this floor were obsolete since the college had introduced ebook lending.

  Of course, Dr. Baker didn’t use ebooks.

  She strode to the farthest corner of the floor, already knowing exactly where to find her texts. She passed by shelf after shelf until she came to the very last one. The sun shone in through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the library and illuminated the secluded corner as she plucked her books off the shelves.

  She leaned against the window and slid down to the floor, resting her back against the corner where the shelves met the wall. It truly wasn’t worth the trip up here just to turn back around, and this was as quiet and peaceful a place as any to finish her grading for Dr. Baker.

  Dr. Baker.

  Matthew.

  Why the hell had she pressed him? He’d taken her daydreams and fantasies and dragged them into reality. He’d started it, pushing her about the program. And she’d gone and spewed her feelings about college towns and home? Fuck.

  They’d never talked about anything outside of work. His classes. Her writing. But he brought it up. He wanted her to stay. Matthew wanted her to stay.

  He’d looked furious when she walked away.

  She’d expected to feel his fingers close around her wrist, dragging her back into his office. Throwing her against the wall and trapping her there with a viselike grip on her arms. His fingers digging into her skin, leaving bruises, sending the tremors through her body. Their secret.

  Her head swam, and she drew her knees to her chest, clenching her thighs together. The song changed to a slow steady guitar picking with a subtle snapping of a snare drum. The singer’s low voice echoed in her ears. The timbre matched Matthew’s. The dark melody sent shivers down her spine. You’re mine to take. You’re mine to mark.

  She closed her eyes. Matthew held her, a thigh pinning her in place. How dare you turn your back to me? he said before spinning her around, shoving her against the wall. You leave when I tell you to. He gathered her skirt in one hand while the other one slid around her stomach. His breath was hot against her ear. You’re mine to
take.

  Shit. Her heart raced, and warm pricks danced in her cunt as damp heat gathered inside her. She pulled out a single earbud and rolled her head to the side, looking through the bookshelf. There was no one in sight, though she knew a few scattered students were just around the corner by the stairs.

  She slid her hand down the front of her skirt, the music still rolling through her body. Fuck it. Her fingers slipped between her lips and found a pool of warmth waiting for her.

  She scanned the library through hooded eyes as she worked her fingers over her clit. Her nipples hardened against her bra. You’re mine to mark.

  Matthew was between her legs licking, sucking. His hand held on to her ass. Dragging her closer and closer. Her own fingers skated in circles faster and faster. She rocked her hips against his face. He tightened his grip. Sit still. She couldn’t help herself. He nipped her clit, quick and harsh.

  She moaned loudly as she pinched herself with her nails as hard as she could. Her moan echoed off the high ceilings in the open room, seeming to amplify as it rolled away from her.

  Her eyes flew open. When had she closed them? Her cheek rested against the glass wall inches from the row of books. She exhaled and turned her fingers slowly, keeping her eyes open, refusing to make the same mistake again.

  She shifted her legs, trying to get comfortable again. Relax. Slip away. Back to her dreams. Back to Matthew. Back to his hands holding her wrists down, bones grinding against each other as he…

  “Sit still.”

  She tore her hand from her skirt and shot to her feet, looking to her right. To Matthew. She backed herself farther into her corner, unable to speak. Her heart was pounding. Her headphone had fallen from her ear, and all she could hear was blood rushing by her ear drums.

  “I didn’t tell you to stop,” he said, coming toward her.

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.