by Mia Madison
Joshua cleared his throat before stepping away and bent down to gather my jeans and panties. After handing them to me, he slid his phone from his pants pocket and sighed at the time.
“I’ve got a meeting to get to. Will you lock the door behind you?”
“S-Sure,” I agreed, still trying to get my breathing back under control. Joshua slipped back into Professor mode—scrubbing my juices off his jaw with a frown. Desperate to clear the air somehow, I asked, “I’ll see you Wednesday?”
He paused by the door, hesitating for only a moment before he said, “Bright and early.”
The door clicked quietly closed behind him and I sank down into the chair, putting my face in my hands and trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
It wasn’t until after I was redressed and on my way to my next class that I remembered that I still had unanswered questions about the lesson that were going to make it difficult to complete the homework.
Two days. Two miserable days of waiting and fantasizing and desperation to talk to Finley for advice and knowing that I couldn’t. Not yet, anyways. Not until I had answers to what was going on between us.
Thankfully, Ben had taken Professor Baxter’s course the year before and seemed to be more than happy to tutor me. The three of us spent Tuesday evening eating dinner and going over what I was having problems with and it was exactly what I needed—both the information and the distraction.
Until I was alone in bed Tuesday night, mentally reliving the memory of Joshua’s face between my legs while I got myself off thinking about it.
So by the time Wednesday morning rolled around, I was a total bucket of nerves. I wasn’t even entirely sure he was going to pick me up after what happened between us, which made it all the more surprising to see the silver car already waiting when I first stepped out of the building.
As I made my way there, I wondered if he had been thinking about it as much as I had. If that was even possible.
“Good morning,” I said brightly, my good mood dimming when he only grunted in response.
Joshua didn’t even look at me before pulling away from the curb and I sighed when I realized that nothing had changed between us. If anything, things were even more tense than they’d been before.
We pulled to a stop at a red light and Joshua clipped out, “I need you to drop my class.”
I turned to look at him incredulously, but he was staring down at his speedometer with a frown.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he hissed as he finally turned to look at me, his expression softening. “I looked at your file—I know this is an elective for you. I’ll sign the paper to release you from the class. You don’t need the credit.”
What he was saying was true, but in the grand scheme of things, it made little sense. What good would dropping his class really do for either of us?
“So let me get this straight. You want me to drop your class because I sucked your dick.”
“No,” Joshua groaned, flashing me an annoyed look before turning his attention back to the road. “I want you to drop my class so I can take you out to dinner then go back to my place and fuck you all night.”
My breath hitched both at his words and the desperate tone of his voice. Even though I wanted that more than I could say—
“You know that even if I dropped your class, it’d still be against the rules for us to... do that,” I said, refusing to refer to what he proposed as a date without having him explicitly call it that first. “Relations with any faculty member is off-limits.”
The way he glared at me said that he was already well aware of that fact, he just didn’t care. Sleeping with his own student was apparently was a moral boundary he didn’t want to cross.
“Just think about it, yeah?”
“I will,” I agreed, wishing that he would say something else—give me a more thorough explanation of why he wanted this—but it was clear from his frosty behavior that the conversation was over.
Joshua pulled up to the curb and gave me yet another curt reminder not to be late. Irritated that he was giving me the Professor treatment now of all times, I scoffed and got out of the car, slamming the door shut without bothering to say goodbye.
I marched towards the school, smiling smugly when I got all the way to the doors and glanced back to see his car still sitting in the road.
Finley really is rubbing off on me.
5
Despite the way I behaved towards him on Wednesday, I did spend the rest of the day and pretty much all of Thursday thinking over Joshua’s request like he asked.
In fact, I had thought about it so much that I felt downright crazy when I realized that I was still thinking about it as I got dressed Friday morning.
Because the hard reality of the situation was that every time I thought I reached a decision—something else occurred to me and I was right back at square one.
As I pulled my snow boots over the legs of my skinny jeans and zipped them up, I recalled one of the more depressing thoughts I had while considering whether or not to drop his class. The snow had stopped falling as frequently and it was only a matter of time before the sidewalks would be in good enough condition for me to walk again.
Would Joshua stop giving me a ride then? If I didn’t make up my mind before that happened—would my shot be blown forever? The fact that I had no idea what my time frame was to decide made me panic.
When I said goodbye to Finley and asked if she wanted to grab dinner together later, she reminded me that she had a date with Ben. Knowing I’d be alone in the apartment when I got home with nothing to do except obsessively think about Joshua wasn’t pleasant in the slightest.
Downstairs, the Mercedes was waiting for me early like it had been on Wednesday. I was happy to know that my attitude hadn’t chased him away or made him rethink this, but at the same time, I was a little disappointed.
There had been a very small part of me hoping he wouldn’t show—hoping that I wouldn’t have to face this. Because I still didn’t have an answer.
“Good morning, Brooke,” Joshua said as I sank into the passenger seat. He eyed my outfit for a moment before sliding his eyes back up to my face. “Did you sleep well?”
This is... weird, I thought as my eyebrows furrowed together. I was usually the one to greet him in the mornings and this was the first time he had ever asked me something right out of the gate.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said slowly, darting my eyes around the car while I waited for him to pull away. There was a tense silence in the car that I was desperate to break and the only thing that came to mind was— “Did you?”
The two words seemed to spur him into action and he threw the gearshift into drive, letting out a grunt before he admitted, “No.”
“I’m sorry. Do you—”
“Would you like to know why I didn’t sleep well?”
Definitely weird. Before I even had a chance to respond, he began to rant.
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about this,” he growled, pulling one hand off the wheel to gesture between us. “Wednesday night—I couldn’t stop thinking about your lips on my cock. Last night—I couldn’t stop thinking about this fucking conversation.”
His confession hung in the air between us, the silence that followed even thicker than our normal amount of tension. I could admit to being in total shock that he had come right out and said such a thing and I knew I owed him a bit of honesty in return.
“I... I might have lost some sleep over it as well.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see his shoulders slump with relief and I could relate to it far better that he realized. It was nice to know that this wasn’t one-sided after all.
“So did you think about what I asked?”
“I did.”
The corner of his eye twitched and his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as he expectantly asked, “And?”
“And...” I trailed off, unable to say that I hadn’t been able to
reach a decision. Not after what he had admitted to me.
All I could do now was follow my intuition and let the words spill out.
“I don’t want to drop your class.”
It was the truth. I really didn’t want to. I checked everywhere I could think to look Wednesday afternoon and I’d been right when I said that even if I wasn’t officially his student, a relationship between us could put his job and my degree at risk. There couldn’t be any public dating—or whatever we’d be doing—without potentially devastating consequences. Not until after I graduated.
“Why the fuck not?”
“You know why.”
“I don’t care about—”
“I wasn’t finished,” I blurted out, interrupting him mid-sentence. “We can’t do anything together before graduation without breaking the rules either way. I actually like your class, so no, I don’t want to drop it. But I...”
The words hung in my throat and Joshua’s patience was obviously gone. “You what?”
“I’d like to have dinner with you.”
I could see his eyes narrowing at the road, his eyebrows drawing together with confusion. I quietly cleared my throat and took a deep breath for courage.
“At your house,” I finished, biting down on my bottom lip and looking at him with nervous eyes as I waited for a reaction.
For a good while, there wasn’t one. He kept his facial expression completely neutral as he stared ahead, but I could spot the tension around his eyes as he mulled over my proposal.
When we were nearing campus and he still hadn’t responded, I had convinced myself that it was a horrible idea and the reason he was taking so long to reply was because he was going to shoot me down as soon as we arrived.
In an effort to spare myself the embarrassment, I tried to immediately hop out of the car once it stopped moving. But Joshua reached out for my wrist before I opened the door, drawing my gaze back to him.
“Tonight,” he said before softening his grip on my wrist and bringing my hand to his lips, where he placed a kiss to my knuckles. “Be ready and waiting at seven.”
“I-I will.”
“Go now.”
With a considerable amount of effort, I swallowed around the lump in my throat and tore my eyes away from his. I got out of the car and walked towards the building in a daze, barely registering the sounds of students rushing by me.
I had a date with Professor Baxter. With Joshua.
At his house, where he intended to fuck me all night.
And in the interest of following my intuition—consequences be damned—I was going to let him.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I mumbled over and over to myself as I practically sprinted through my apartment later that evening.
Getting ready for a date was usually a fun experience. Finley and I liked to make it into something akin to a makeover party—complete with a lot of laughs and wine and anticipation.
But getting ready for a date like this and without Finley’s aide... I was just lost.
Appropriate didn’t matter. I knew that much at least. We weren’t going to leave his house and we were both aware that sex was definitely on the menu. Showering, shaving, and sexy lingerie had been a given considering the circumstances—but what the hell was I supposed to wear on top of it?
I must have tried on nine different outfits by the time my phone chimed with the alarm I had set to remind me that I needed to get downstairs soon. I still had no idea what kind of impression I wanted to make—or whether Joshua even thought of this as an actual date—and the urge to call Finley and beg for advice was strong.
Instead of giving in to that urge, I opted to take a different route. I barged into her room and opened her closet, thankful for what felt like the thousandth time that we were close to the same size. I spotted something red in the back and grabbed it, recalling which dress it was the moment my fingers touched the fabric.
I took the dress off the hanger and rushed to the bathroom, slipping it on and glancing at my reflection. I knew that if I wore that dress, there was no way I’d be leaving Joshua’s place without being thoroughly fucked first.
Finley was a few inches shorter than I was, so the dress rode up high enough on my thighs to make wearing it in public very inappropriate. She was also a little smaller in the bust and the cleavage coming over the top of the strapless dress was almost obscene.
My brain told me I looked ridiculous, but my gut said it was the perfect choice for Joshua.
Ultimately, time was the deciding factor. My phone alarm went off again—6:55—and I knew I didn’t have time to fuss over the outfit any longer.
I slid on a pair of knee high boots—wishing that I could wear the stiletto pumps I owned that actually matched the dress—then went back to Finley’s closet to borrow her leather trench coat.
Satisfied that I was covered well enough for my walk to and from the car, I tossed my phone into my purse and made my way downstairs where Joshua was already waiting.
The walk to his car felt longer than normal and I began to panic that I’d open the door and find him wearing jeans and a t-shirt, whereas my outfit made me look like a desperate tramp. My hand shook as I opened the door and slid in, waiting until I had the door closed behind me before I dared to even glance at him.
He looked a lot more composed than I felt, but I could sense that he was also nervous. He had changed out of his earlier clothes and into a white button-down shirt that was so clean, I was sure it was fresh out of the package. The black slacks he wore matched the suit coat that he left open, giving him just the slightest air of casualness.
The biggest giveaway that he’d put an effort into getting ready was his clean-shaven jaw. Even though I loved the stubble on him, the lack of it made him look younger.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said after completing his own visual appraisal. I still had the coat firmly closed over my choice of dress though, so I imagined his was finished long before mine was. The cocky smile on his face told me that he had just been enjoying the fact that I was blatantly checking him out.
“Hi,” I said as I nervously returned his smile. “How was your day?”
It was too bad that the college didn’t offer a dating course. I would have signed up for that shit in a heartbeat.
But in my defense—making conversation usually wasn’t so hard for me. It seemed to be a Joshua-specific problem.
“Incredibly slow,” he drawled, grinning at me before he added, “But it’s better now.”
That was something I could definitely understand considering my day had gone by the exact same way. Some of the nervousness I felt started to fade and I relaxed into the seat as he started the drive to his place.
The ride was mostly quiet and I was grateful for it. I studied his body language closely as we rode, and the further we went, the clearer it became that I was far more nervous than he was. Despite the obvious amount of effort he’d put in for the date, he seemed totally at ease whereas I was trying hard not to fidget.
That all changed when we finally arrived at a house on the outskirts of town and he pulled into the driveway. He ordered me to wait before he stepped out and rushed around to my side to open the door.
“I would’ve done this at your place...” he said, trailing off and leaving the ‘but I didn’t want anyone to see us’ part unsaid.
“Thank you,” I told him with a small smile, slipping my hand in the crook of his offered elbow. “You have a nice house.”
“It serves its purpose,” he said with a shrug. “But you should probably save your opinion until you see the inside.”
I laughed as we walked, though inwardly I was panicking again. Was it just that Joshua was a total slob? Or was I going to find something far more insidious inside?
God, what if there’s a kid in there? Or worse—what if he has a wife? What if this whole thing is some weird mistress scenario and—
My insane thoughts were cut short when he opened the front door and gestured for me to
step inside. I reluctantly went in, preparing for the worst as he closed the door behind us and flicked on the lights.
“Oh!” I gasped in surprise, stepping further into the living room and frowning as I looked around. “It’s...”
“Lifeless?”
“I was going to say ‘empty’ but...” I trailed off, the corner of my mouth twisting up wryly as I took a good look around.
He really couldn’t have phrased it better—lifeless summed it up perfectly. The room we were standing was obviously a living room, but it reminded me of the staged photographs posted on real estate websites. The walls were barren and the room itself looked largely unused, though there were a few matching pieces of furniture strewn about.
“The whole house isn’t this bad,” Joshua chimed in, running a hand through his hair and offering me a shrug. “I just don’t have much of a flair for decorating.”
“Show me the rest?”
He nodded and stepped behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders as he said, “Let me take your coat and I’ll give you the tour.”
Right. My coat. Well, my borrowed coat which was currently covering up my borrowed slutty dress.
Damn it. The nervousness that had been expelled returned full-force, causing my fingers to shake lightly as I undid the buttons. Joshua slipped it down my shoulders and paused—leaving me to finish pulling my arms from the sleeves myself.
Joshua didn’t move, so I glanced back over my shoulder. He shuffled the coat to one arm, his eyes never straying from the skin that the strapless dress revealed.
“Christ,” he whispered as he trailed his fingertips across my shoulder, sweeping my hair to the side. “Are you trying to make me fucking crazy?”
“Maybe,” I coyly said, smiling as he stepped in front of me even though my heart felt like it was liable to beat right out of my chest. “Is it working?”
Joshua’s eyes met mine and he let out a bark of forced laughter, the sound making me frown with confusion. When he saw my questioning look, he stepped closer and slowly guided my hand to the front of his slacks.
