by Haley Pierce
He nods and tugs on the sheet I have wrapped tightly and modestly over my breasts. “I have no objections.”
I tug back, crossing my arms tighter, and pout. “Maybe I don’t like to be used.”
He lets out a laugh. “Who’s using who? I thought you were using me for the education.”
Well, that is true, I suppose. I had schemed this whole thing in a rather businesslike way, telling him I only wanted his fucking services so I could finally lose my V-card. Still, Cain Hill doesn’t strike me as the type of person who ever gets used. “I’m too innocent to do that, as last night must have proven.”
He gives me an incredulous look. “It did no such thing.”
My mouth opens slightly. “Was I . . . good?”
He leans closer to me, as if he’s going to impart a great secret. “Only good sex inspires me, Addison,” he murmurs.
Good sex? So I’d been good? I knew he was good, making everything feel just right. No, that’s an understatement, he made me feel amazing, so much so that my entire body is still buzzing in places he’d awoken hours before. But I thought he was just helping me through my awkward first time, with hopes that I’d get better next time. Was it possible that for all my stumbling and nervousness, he’d still found me sexy?
Now he’s staring at me—well, mostly at the way I’m trying to cover my breasts as if they’re something he’s never seen before—and he’s looking wolfish and amused, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Change the subject, Addison, I warn myself before I can blush. I motion to the laptop. “Well, when do you think you’ll finish?”
He thinks. “If I do the rest of the book at the rate it took me to write the first sixteen chapters?” He shrugs. “Honestly, never.”
I tilt my head at him, not comprehending. “Writer’s block?”
His eyes lazily trace their way down my body. He reaches over and gives the sheet one easy pull, letting my breasts spill out, suggesting I never had any control in this situation whatsoever. He rubs the pad of his thumb over one nipple, and it pebbles instantly. I love it, the way he touches me, like he owns me. Maybe he does. Right now, it feels like he does, because I’d do anything he asks of me.
When he settles down next to me, his skin grazes mine, warm and welcoming, making me want him again. “You could say that. I wrote the first three chapters in college. Then I didn’t write again for ten years.”
My mouth drops. “Why not? Don’t tell me you had no good sex in all that time.”
We’re now facing each other on the bed, inches apart, our heads propped up on pillows. He’s still tracing the skin of my areola absently. “I wrote those three chapters when I was in college, dating a woman I’d known since high school. All that time, she’d known I wanted to be a writer. It was all I ever talked about, my passion.”
He takes a deep breath. “Fast forward to our senior year. I proposed. The second I did, she decided my being a writer wasn’t enough for her. She insisted I get a job as a stockbroker in New York City, where her father worked.”
My jaw drops. “You, a stockbroker?”
“I know. So there I was, making shitloads of money, and completely fucking dead inside. I did that for two years, until I couldn’t anymore and I quit. I told Layla I needed to pursue writing.” He shrugs. “At that point, she told me that there was no way it could work out. So we went our separate ways. I went to Stanford to pursue my MFA, and she moved to New York permanently and married one of her father’s stockbroker friends.”
He’s relaying all this so emotionlessly it’s easy to believe it could’ve happened to someone else. It was a long time ago, but there’s something that sticks in my mind. Something he’d said earlier. I’ve done the love thing, Addison, a long time ago, when I was your age. And trust me when I say, it’s brutal, and it fucks everything up.
As unconcerned as he seems now, he’d loved her. And she’d wounded him.
I knew he wasn’t made of ice. Maybe his heart is frozen over, but thaw it, and there’s a man under there that could love. That could love me.
I nudge away the thought and add, rather dumbly, “Well, you’ve got to pursue your passion. I learned that from Creative Writing 101.”
One corner of his mouth quirks up in a semi-smile. “That’s what she did. Hers, obviously, was money, and she was convinced I’d be a starving artist if I continued with writing.” He smirks. “She isn’t that far off. I’ll be honest with you. I’m poor as shit, Addison.”
“I don’t care about money,” I blurt, then feel stupid. It’s not like he’s looking for a Layla replacement, Addison. He’s just out for a good fuck.
He continues on. “I tried to pick up the book again while I was in grad school but her lack of faith had fucked me in the head. In college you think anything is possible. In the real world you learn that’s a load of shit.”
He blinks, and I can see the moment it dawns on him that I’m one of those wide-eyed dreamy college students, because he clears his throat. But he doesn’t backpedal. He just presses his lips together, and I know what he’s thinking: You don’t know yet, but you will.
“Thank you, Obi Wan,” I finally say to him.
He rolls over me, pinning me to the mattress. His cock is hard against my abdomen, and instantly, that heat low in my belly ignites, and I’m wet again.
“Are you sore?” he asks me.
I shake my head. I’d expected so much pain, but there’d been hardly any. He’d made it all so easy, so natural. “What, do you need more inspiration?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll inspire you,” I tell him, a gleam in my eye. “On one condition.”
“And that is?”
“You let me read your book.”
He gives me an exasperated look for just a flash. Then he dips his head, and I feel the pressure of his hands on my knees. He spreads my legs apart, slides his torso into the open space there, and drives into me ruthlessly, making me gasp.
He pulls out, and before I can feel the emptiness, pushes deeper into me, groaning. But he doesn’t answer. Now, I do my best to tilt my hips off the bed, meeting his thrusts in a way that feels good, until we work up a rhythm and our skin is damp with sweat.
He grabs handfuls of my hair and kisses me deeply when he comes. I love it, that moment of weakness when he shatters apart, his every muscle trembling and pulsing. I think it might be my favorite part.
When he finishes, we stay still, locked in our tight embrace, for a long time. It’s not what I expect from a man like him, someone who fucks women as indiscriminately as he undoubtedly does, but it doesn’t matter. I like it. Even if this isn’t real, it feels like he’s putting in the effort to make this night special.
He peels himself away from me and looks out the window. The sky is lightening.
“I’ve got to go.”
I know he does. I have a breakfast with some Harvard med school professors and alumni at eight, and Hobson will be at my door at precisely seven to escort me there. If he happens to see Cain, leaving my penthouse room? My life would be over, plain and simple.
I sit up, watching him dress, pulling his starched white dress shirt on over his defined, muscular back, thinking it’s a sin to cover such beauty. As he’s tying his tie, he looks at me and says, “When can we do this again?”
Again. Yes, that’s what I want. An again. Though I told him I wouldn’t get attached and move on easily, I’m not ready for this to be the end.
My stomach lurches as I realize that the end is coming. Maybe not now, but it is coming. He doesn’t do love, or relationships. And don’t forget, you told him you didn’t want that, too, I remind myself.
Why did I tell him that?
Whatever it is, I tell myself, just enjoy it now. I steel myself and say, “Library again? Next Friday night?”
He leans over the bed and kisses me. “Fuck yes.”
That seems so far from now, though. I wonder how I’ll survive. Suddenly, everything from the real world intrudes and I remember just what i
s happening back home. My mother is angling for his job, and she doesn’t even know the half of what we’ve done. “Are you going to talk to the Dean?”
He nods. “I have a meeting with her Monday morning. I could tell from her email she isn’t happy with me.”
I swallow. “I’m sorry,” I say, because really, it’s my fault he’s in trouble. Even if he chose trouble for himself, it wasn’t this kind of trouble.
“Don’t be,” he breathes, staring into my eyes.
Then he pushes off the bed and grabs his briefcase off the chair. He deposits his laptop inside, then reaches in and pulls out a white packet of papers, which he tosses on the bed. There are only six words on the front page: THE OUTSIDE WORLD by Cain Hill.
His book.
I look up at him, heart in my throat.
He gives me an indifferent shrug. “Those are the first twelve chapters, anyway. Enjoy.” Then he throws his jacket over his arm and strides out the door, without hesitation, without another look.
Cain
Monday morning, I walk into work feeling fucking phenomenal, despite having logged less than an hour of sleep the night before. I hadn’t been upset by the traffic jam on the interstate that had made my drive back to Marysville a six-hour ordeal, because my mind was alight in ideas. I’d gotten home and immediately set back to work, ironing out the entire plot for my novel and knowing exactly what I needed to get done. I’d written into the night, my fingers moving so fast that I’m surprised I didn’t set the keyboard on fire.
Then I step into Dean Armstrong’s office.
Her face is grave. She removes her glasses and lets them hang on the chain around her neck, then lifts her tiny body up from behind the enormous desk and studies the array of old leather-bound books on the shelf behind her. Then she turns to me. “What do you think you’re playing at, Hill?”
I cross my arms and look at crest on the wall across from her. The words embossed on the ribbon underneath the seal say Diligentia, Fidelitas, Integritas. Diligence, Loyalty, Integrity. “If the administration of this school takes issue with my grading system,” I say, pointing at the crest, “At least one of those is definitely lacking here.”
She doesn’t take her cold steel eyes from mine. “Don’t,” she warns, pressing her knuckles against the desk and leaning over the blotter. “Hill, you were given every opportunity to diffuse this situation. And yet you decided to escalate.”
I notice she’s dropped the “Doctor” from my address, a slight but obvious threat. “It was not my choice to escalate. I simply refuse to lie,” I explain calmly. “There is a difference, one that most places of employment would appreciate.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not lying,” she sighs. “If you gave her another chance to complete the assignment—“
“These are young adults, Dean Armstrong,” I counter. “They’re not children. I don’t hand-hold in my class, and I pride myself on grading my students as fairly as possible.”
She clamps her mouth shut. Then she writes something on the pad in front of her. “All right, so be it,” she mutters, not looking up at me. “We’ll be scheduling a meeting with all parties involved sometime in the near future.”
I nod. “I welcome it.”
I throw my jacket over my arm, grab my briefcase, and stride out of the room. It’s only when I’m back at Miller Hall that I’ve fully processed the situation. By then, I’m full of rage and indignation. It’s not that I care so much about the job. No, what I want to do is punish this woman, Addison’s mother, and clearly, fucking her daughter wasn’t enough. Because Addison’s right. Someone needs to stand up to her, to punish her for thinking she can raise a hand to her daughter.
Addison is particularly gorgeous this afternoon, wearing a short flowered skirt despite the crisp fall weather that fell in our laps, seemingly overnight. She crosses her bare legs seductively as I discuss the particulars of the short story we’re dissecting. All the while I lecture, I imagine my tongue working its way up those milky thighs, parting her legs and delving between her wet folds, eliciting sweet little cries of pleasure from her.
When class ends, she – thank God—takes her time packing her books into her backpack. Then she sidles up to my desk and drops something in front of me.
My book.
“It’s amazing,” she breathes. “The best thing I’ve ever read.”
I stiffen. I hold up a hand. “Don’t.”
“I mean it!” she says with a smile.
She thinks I’m being humble, demurring on the compliments, but no. This isn’t about that. This is not what I wanted from her. I shove the pile of papers into my bag.
“Is something wrong?” she asks, finally catching on.
“No.” Layla was the only one I trusted to read and critique my books, back when she still had faith in me. At first, she encouraged me, giving me the idea that maybe my work was worth something. I don’t need a fucking confidante, and I don’t need a muse. I refuse to let any woman mean that much to me, ever again.
Your opinion means nothing to me. I almost say that. But something about her big blue eyes stops me before I can be a total dick. “It’s my editor’s opinion that matters, not yours.”
She blinks. “Oh. Well. I mean, I’m only a C student in creative writing,” she teases.
“Not currently.” I pull out her latest work. I’d asked the students to write page 183 from their autobiographies as an exercise.
Her eyes travel to it and widen. “An eighty-nine? You mean, I’m getting better?”
I nod as if I’d been generous. Frankly, she probably deserved a higher grade. She’d shocked me. I’d read the page, something about when she visited her father’s grave for the first time, and my first thought was: I want to read the rest. I want to know all about her. But then I reminded myself that she was no one to me, just a girl I’d schooled in the ways of sex.
She claps her hands excitedly. “That’s almost like an A, since you don’t give A’s.”
“You have to really work hard for that,” I mutter.
“I wish you would work me hard right now,” she says with a soft lilt in her voice, and leans in so that I can smell those strawberries. “How was the meeting with the dean?”
“Your mother’s out for my balls,” I answer, handing the paper to her. “I just have to wait for the meeting to find out when the ax will fall.”
She gnaws on her lip. “You look tense. I feel bad. It’s all my fault.” She glances over her shoulder at the door. Then she reaches for my hand and guides it under her skirt. She’s not wearing panties. Instantly, I’m hard.
“Not here. My office,” I murmur, guiding her out the door, with my hand a steady presence at her back. We climb down the stairs to the basement, passing students and professors on the way. All the while I’m blathering about mythic structure, repeating almost verbatim my earlier lecture, just to give everyone in the hallway the impression that we’re not lovers.
But the moment we step inside the cramped office and the door clicks closed, I press her up against the door and crush my mouth onto hers. I lift her sweater to her chin and stroke my hands over her ribcage, molding her tits as she works my belt and zipper.
It’s a frenzy of fumbling, too many clothes in the way, the need too intense. Breath and heartbeat and urgency. In seconds my cock springs free, and she wraps her legs tight around my hips, tilting her pelvis in to me urging me closer. I push inside her, knocking her back against the door, and then I finally have what I need, my cock buried deep inside her. But I need more. I start to thrust as she claws my back.
The door is shaking so much that I can only imagine what anyone who passes by must think. “Hold on,” I tell her, lifting her and guiding her to the desk. She goes along with me, ever the eager student, as I instruct her to bend forward, pinning my thighs against hers. I lift her skirt and sink my cock deep into her.
“Oh,” she murmurs, grabbing onto the desk for dear life as I pull out and thrust again. “Harder Cai
n. As hard as you can.”
She’s fucked a handful of times, and she’s already commanding me. I give her what she wants, yanking on her schoolgirl ponytail, my thighs hitting the desk with each movement, until it is flush against the cinderblock wall opposite. She moans my name and I can feel her come, feel her insides constrict and shudder, so I finally let myself go and come into her, my body spasming as she gasps.
I pull slowly out of her, returning her skirt to the proper position, and rolling her over and helping clean her up. She’s sitting on the edge of my desk, legs spread, blouse askew, her breasts still visible through the open buttons, a post-fucking pink glow on her cheeks. Finally, this sorry excuse for an office looks good.
“So you’re not just going soft because of my mother?” she asks unsurely. “You really thought my paper was good?”
“Passable,” I say as I tuck my shirt into my trousers. I eye her bare breasts lasciviously. “And how could I possibly go soft on you?”
She wrinkles her nose. “I thought I might do better at the fiction part of it,” she explains. “My father was a novelist, after all.”
In the heat of the moment, I’d dropped my briefcase on the ground, spilling its contents. I lean over to scoop the assignments up and start stuffing them back. “You said he was a writer. So he wrote books?”
She nods solemnly. “One, actually, before he died. But it was literary. Small press. It won an award, though.”
“Oh yeah? I happen to travel in literary circles from time to time,” I say with a smirk. “What award?”
“The Steinbeck Prize,” she says, like it’s nothing. When I look up at her to see if she’s joking, she says, “The book was called Times of the Tides. Have you heard of it?”
I sit back so fast that I fall onto my ass with a thud. The book hadn’t made bestseller lists, but I’d read it in college, and I can still remember the way it’d changed me. It was the first book that made me see that writing was more than words on the paper—it was transformative, the model for everything I wrote. “Wait.” I stop, then open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
