by N J Adel
I wasn’t going to drop it this easily. I’d been ignoring all the weird things happening in this town for my own sanity. But every day it only got crazier. Something was going on between the twins and Joshua. I knew it from day one. The feeling that it had something to do with me wasn’t an illusion. I had to get to the bottom of it. “Are you referring to Professor Asher?”
He rolled his eyes, his jaws tight.
I grunted. “So you only speak when you’re trying to get into my pants?”
He flounced like an angry trout, coffee powder falling off his arm and thankfully on the towel, not on the sofa bed. “I came here to talk to you. I wasn’t just saying things to get you into bed.” He held my gaze, his hand on my arm, rubbing it gently. “I want more. Much more. I want all of you, Belle.”
Damn. He was good at diversion. I was about to get lost in his eyes and melt with his lips again, letting go of what I wanted to know. A senior beating me at my own game?
Sorry, not anymore.
I, too, touched his arm. Holy fuck, he was made of rocks. My palm slid up to his shoulder and onto his chest. His heart skittered under my touch, and so did mine.
Not the best tactic, Belle.
It might be working on him; I could feel him dropping his guards, his body not tense anymore. But it was doing the same to me.
And when he held the back of my neck and whispered my name into my ear, his cheek to my cheek, I was giddy, my lashes fluttering, my pussy clenching.
Focus. Don’t look into his eyes. Or lips. Or the bulge growing bigger in his jeans. Fuck. Stop enjoying touching these unbelievable muscles and speak.
I gulped. “Does your feud with Professor Asher have anything to do with the woman he couldn’t protect?”
He froze. Even his heart skipped a beat.
I’d suspected it since that day at the coffeehouse with Kayden and Joshua. Now, Alec’s body gave me the answer I sought.
“What woman?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“The one who has my face.”
He drew back, the golden strikes aflame. “Asher told you about Rena?”
And now I had a name to the mystery woman.
“You both loved her,” I speculated. “Then something bad happened…to her?”
“What did he tell you, Belle?” His fists clenched, and his face turned crimson.
Even though I knew better, his anger didn’t scare me. It only pushed me to go further. “You think he hurt her, and now you’re trying to protect me from him, maybe even the same destiny she had to suffer?”
And Joshua was hoping for a second chance with me to correct whatever he had done.
Alec shook, his chest rising and falling with heaviness he kept unrevealed. “What did he tell you?” he whispered.
“Not much. But I hope you will.”
He closed his eyes. “He didn’t tell you anything, did he? I should have known when you touched me you were playing me.” A bitter chuckle burst out of him. “Well played, Professor.”
I started wiping off the coffee, evading his gaze. As I cleaned it all up, no more blood was coming out of the gashes. In fact, the wounds turned out to be a lot less deep than they had seemed. “Look at that. You might not need stitches after all.”
“I told you I’m a fast healer.”
I made sure all the openings are clean and bandaged half of his forearm. “You’re good to go.”
He gave me one last gaze, and then he put on his bloody shirt and got to his feet. “Thank you, Professor.”
Was it so wrong that I wanted to give him a hug? Even drive him to college on my way? I wanted to prolong our time together now that he was cutting it short so abruptly.
What was wrong with me?
“Do you need a ride?” I regretted the offer the second it fell out of my mouth.
“It’s best if we’re not seen together in public.” His voice dripped with blame and mockery. “I can see myself out.” The back of his head and his perfect ass said his goodbyes.
He opened the door and stepped outside. Then he twisted and leaned on the doorframe with a piercing look. “One day, you will know everything, and you will be smart enough to know that when you have to choose between us, you’ll choose me.”
CHAPTER 21
BELLE
I thought the department meeting was going fine, but when Pattison asked to have a word with me alone after, I became nervous.
“How are you doing, Isabella?” he asked.
Isabella? That’s new.
I smoothed my skirt and shifted in my seat. “I’m doing…great. Thank you for asking, Professor.”
“Please, when we’re alone, feel free to call me Damien.” He left the chair behind his desk and came to sit in front of me.
I pressed my thumbnail hard. I didn’t like whatever was happening here.
He smirked at my hand. “An anchoring technique?”
“Yes.” I smiled anxiously. “Wow. I didn’t know anyone noticed.”
“I like to be thorough and might notice things others seem to neglect, for professional purposes. They say the devil is in the detail.”
“I prefer the original saying.”
“Which is?”
“God is in the detail.”
His face tensed, and a red glare flickered in his eyes that vanished the second I blinked. Falsely spooked, I frowned. It must have been my imagination.
“Speaking of things I’ve noticed that may not be clear to others yet,” he said, “you and Joshua?”
Oh. So this is what the meeting is about.
“What about Professor Asher and I?” I played dumb, hoping across all hope this was all about Joshua and not a certain huge Beastly twin.
“You’re dating.”
“Not exactly. We bumped into each other once at a restaurant and—”
“Things evolved,” he interrupted, and irritation pulsed in my veins. I hated to be interrupted even if it was by my boss. “These details I do not need to know.” He leaned forward. “All I’m saying here is that if you are going to date, you should report it to HR so you won’t get into trouble. It’s protocol.”
I nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.”
A devilish smirk curved the corner of his mouth in the scariest yet most alluring way. “But if you decide to date someone like…let’s say, Alec Beastly…”
My heart tumbled in my chest and sank to my knees. I pressed my thumbnail so fiercely I thought I broke a knuckle. “Why would I date Alec Beastly?”
“Why wouldn’t you? Why would anybody remake a mistake?”
I felt that my heart was about to explode. How the fuck did my boss know I fucked Alec the night before I worked here? Did Alec tell him? Was he upset about this morning that he exposed us? How fucking naive was I to think Alec would keep our secret like he’d promised?
Or was it Kayden who did it? Or someone else entirely, someone who had saw us that night?
What was I going to do now?
“Professor Pattison, I…I…” I stammered, tears pricking my eyes.
“Relax, Isabella.” His index finger touched my knee. For attention? “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. You don’t know how much I like you. How much you mean to me.”
Is he coming on to me? Is he blackmailing me, thinking I’d spread my legs for him to avoid the scandal? “No, I don’t. Why would I mean anything to you?”
He leaned back. “Because of Katrina. She’s a very dear friend, and she asked me to look after you. This is me looking after you.”
I swam in a whirlpool of confusion and mixed emotions. I didn’t know what to think anymore. Was Damien making a pass at me or did he just like Katrina? Perhaps too much?
Why the hell did a jealousy blade stab me? Where was this coming from? Damien was a very attractive man, a silver fox without the silver, a blond fox. He had the body of a twenty-year-old, the wisdom of an intellectual and the prestige of a college professor. Yet not once had I felt attracted to him.
; Why now? When he practically posed a threat to me?
This side of me that kept shoving me into dangerous situations since I came here and got a kick out of it, when did I get it?
Professor Pattison rose and moved behind my seat. “Sometimes mistakes happen. Some other times, we like these mistakes so much we make them again and again.” His hands tightened around the back of my chair. “Because wrong is the only thing that makes us happy,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s not fair to stay unhappy all the time, is it?”
“No. It’s not,” I murmured as if hypnotized, my breathing shallow.
“A few mistakes wouldn’t hurt, Isabella.” His breaths tickled my ears, relaxing my senses, sending a strong throb between my legs. “Someone like you should be cut some slack. Someone like you deserves to be happy.”
“Someone like me?”
“An amazing person who has suffered much more than any of the snobs who made the rules standing between people’s happiness.”
His words seeped into my pores like a drug. I looked at him over my shoulder, his face more attractive up close. I’d never taken notice of the shape of his lips. Staring at them longer than usual was painful. I felt as if I was going to come just by looking at them, imagining the taste and texture and strength of their kisses.
“You want me to be happy, Damien?” Who was that woman speaking now? That was not what I called my boss. That was not my voice. I’d never speak that seductively or assertively not even to a stripper dancing on my lap.
“More than anything,” he murmured.
Dazed, I felt as if I was having an out of body experience, watching from afar my life turning into one of my favorite reverse harem books ever.
I’d fucked my co-teacher, my student and now I wanted to bend over for my boss.
Yeah, that will make me happy.
Oh, note to self: add Kayden to the harem. I’ll be sandwiched between the twins while Joshua and Damien take care of my holes.
My big, wet pussy agreed with a double clench.
Second note to self: keep a pair of fresh panties in your bag if your pussy is incapable of staying dry around any man in this damned school.
“A beautiful woman like you should feel nothing but happiness.” Damien’s breaths danced on my lips, getting too close to mine. “So take what’s yours, Isabella. No one needs to know. No one.”
The next thing I knew, our tongues were twirling together, and his hand was in my bra. The kiss tasted like sin concentrate. The perfect way he cupped my breast made me wet like I’d never been before.
He knew exactly how I wanted to be touched, how I wanted to be kissed, as though he’d been watching me my whole life, learning, taking notes, preparing for the moment when he would have his hands on me.
His free fingers dipped to my waist and found their way beneath my skirt. He slipped beneath the soaked lace of my panties and slid a finger over my clit, dipping down into my hot juices.
My heart pounded with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. “We’re in your office,” I said against his mouth, and then our tongues met again.
“I’m aware.”
“Anyone could come in and see us,” I reminded myself between kisses.
He entered me with his middle finger, then added another. He moved his thumb in small circles, but kept his fingers pressed deep, unmoving. “And you’re getting wetter by the second because of it.”
Once again, I was letting my pussy take my reason away, hide it in this dark corner where I couldn’t find it.
This was wrong on all levels, and my clit was already so protruded and engorged I felt I was going to come any second. I liked wrong. Loved it. Got off on it. And this man, Damien Pattison, who moved his fingers as if he knew where every nerve and fold of my pussy were by heart, was a force of energy I was unable to pull out of his orbit.
I couldn’t fathom how, in the span of a few minutes, I was afraid he would expose or fire me, and now I was letting him finger fuck me in his office and was fucking happy about it.
I stared at his arm, his dress shirt peeking out from his suit jacket, and could feel him watching every single breath I took, every gasp and every time I bit my lip to keep from making a sound.
His knowing touch built a heavy ache in my belly, and I pushed into him, wanting more.
Footsteps echoed behind the closed door, but Damien moaning my name eclipsed the sound. I moved my head to the side, watching the shadows of people passing by the office behind the tainted glass.
“Look at you,” Damien said, leaning to kiss my neck just below my ear. His breath was warm on my skin, and I was torn between focusing on his touch and fretting about the people walking right outside. The combination of his touch and the fear of being caught almost made me fall to pieces.
As if he knew this, Damien murmured, “No one out there knows you’re about to come all over my hand.”
He pressed his thumb hard into my clit. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. “That’s it,” he whispered, rocking his palm against me as he slipped a third finger inside. With this, he stretched me to the blissful edge of pain.
He watched me fall apart at the indecency, the thrill of doing something irrevocably filthy. “Oh, fuck, Isabella. That’s it.”
My nails dug into the leather cushion below me, and he pumped his fingers in me, his shoulders rocking. My head fell back against him, letting out loud moans matching the pleasure he’d had unleashed in me, unbothered by who might hear me.
I groaned as he prolonged the orgasm with his fingers pushing even deeper. He slowed, and stilled, before kissing my temple, and then pulled his fingers out. Lifting his hand from under my skirt, he pressed his fingers to his mouth, and then he licked them, watching me. “Your tongue tastes like candy, but your pussy tastes way better.” He leaned in and kissed me deeply. “I want it to be my cock inside you next time.”
Yes, please.
Jesus, who was this woman possessing my brain? I wanted his cock, too. Even after what he’d just given me, I wanted to climb onto his lap and take all of him inside. “Oh God.”
His face stiffened all of a sudden. I blinked, and he was no longer standing behind me, licking my cum. He was sitting before me, staring at me with that red glare again.
My eyes widened. “What the hell?”
A small smile eased his expression. “Are you all right, Professor? I think you broke your nail. Your finger is bleeding.”
My stare examined my thump, confirming what he’d just said. My head whipped up at him. “How did you get to this chair so fast? You were standing right behind me.”
He shook his head in confusion. “I was sitting here all the time, Professor. I was talking to you about colleague dating protocol, and you zoned out,” he pointed to my hand, “and broke your nail.”
What sick game was that? “No. You were standing behind me, and you were…”
“I was what?”
Did I imagine all that? Not possible. The scalding gushes hadn’t even cooled yet.
He was looking at me like I was a crazy person now. A case to analyze. Oh my God. What if I blacked out again, had a wet dream in front of my boss…that featured my boss?
No. No! It felt so real, so good to be a dream. Or was that too good to be true? “When you blackout, you do not dream. Something is wrong. Is this a trick?”
“Isabella, you don’t seem so well. Why don’t you go treat that nail and take the rest of the day off?” He was already on his feet, gesturing at the door. “Do you need me to show you where the infirmary is?”
“No. I can find it on my own.” I barely had the strength to stand without fainting. “Thank you, Professor.”
A devilish smirk found his lips. “Any time.”
CHAPTER 22
BELLE
I need to have sex.
I’d been denied real pleasure for years, only used to please a sick monster. Then this portal of hot, satisfying sex opened, and my body and mentality craved it so much the
y behaved sickly in its absence.
Add what had happened with Alec this morning to the equation, and I got a huge conflict between what I wanted to do and what I shouldn’t be doing, one I’d been suppressing for days. My subconscious was under too much pressure and needed a release.
The day dream.
What I’d experienced was a typical ID-Superego clash that resulted in a day dream not a blackout.
Cold water ran down my thumb in the staff bathroom as I psychoanalyzed what had happened between Damien and me. The dry blood under my nail was hard to remove. Maybe I should have let Joshua suck it.
I laughed at myself and headed back to my office—Joshua’s office we shared.
“Are you all right?” he asked the second I entered, his deep wince already on his face.
“Yeah.” I nodded reluctantly as I sat at my desk.
He took off his glasses and came over to me. “What happened with Pattison?” His eyes landed on my hand. “And your thumb?”
“It’s nothing. The nail broke in the middle. Worst case scenario, they will remove it, and it will grow back.”
He glared at me. “What disturbed you so much that you had to press your nail hard enough to break it like that?
“What? How did you know I did that?” Fuck me. First Damien and now him. “Don’t tell me you noticed, too?”
“You do it all the time. It’s hard not to notice,” he said quickly. “What happened, Isabella?”
Should I tell him? Confide in him until I finally went to therapy? I did need to tell someone, and I felt Joshua could be the one person I told such things.
“Did he touch you?” he asked under his breath.
The way he asked took me by surprise more than the question itself. “What? Why would you say that?”
“Just answer me.” He banged the desk surface with his fist. “Did he touch you?”
“No! I…I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean you don’t think so? It’s either he touched you or not.”
“I don’t know, Joshua. One minute he was… The next he was sitting in front of me, his hands far away.” I shrugged, staring back at him, agitated. “I had a fucking day dream. That’s it.”
