by Tessa Bailey
He smirked at her, like she should be impressed by that. She wasn’t. “Cool,” she said politely.
“Ms. Perribow,” Ben’s smooth voice called from the front of the room. His eyes were no longer flat. They were on the Winker sitting next to her. Hard and analyzing. Honey suppressed a shiver and scooted out of her row, descending the seven steps toward Ben. He held out her paper, keeping his attention firmly on some unseen spot over her head. She took it from him, careful not to let their fingers brush, and turned away. But not before his gaze dropped to hers, just in the nick of time for her to catch it.
Breathing ceased to be a possibility under the heat she encountered there. Only a split second’s worth and not intended for her to see, she suspected, but there all the same. It singed her, that look. It made her aware of every curve of her body, how they shifted with each step on the way back to her seat. He couldn’t still be looking, could he? He’d called another name, but she could feel his awareness smothering her like the August heat in Kentucky.
She sat back down feeling as though no time had passed since he’d kissed her in the storage closet. Her nipples had formed hard peaks beneath her shirt, so she crossed her arms to hide them. When she chanced a glance at Ben, she saw him take notice of the action from beneath heavy eyelids. It was as if they were the only two people in the hall, but that couldn’t be right. After what he’d said to her, the justified things he’d said to her, this was supposed to stop. Maybe it couldn’t stop?
Did she want it to stop?
No. God, no, she didn’t. How could she have forgotten what it was like to merely be in the same room as him? Like every particle in the air around her was charged, electric. His voice, the passion he exhibited for teaching, had captured her. Initially. Then he’d focused it on her, and she’d seen that intensity was reserved for every area of his life. Possibly her. And now that she’d felt his touch, it almost felt like torture. She felt starved and miserable, while at the same time exultant that these kinds of feelings were even possible. When they were this close, she felt . . . like a woman.
Honey realized her thighs were clenched tight on the wooden seat to the point of shaking, and she forced them to relax. She had to get through the next hour without disgracing herself in a room full of her fellow students, and that meant not having a spontaneous orgasm in their midst. As Ben started his lecture, she wondered at her own mental state. She couldn’t be the only woman in this room attracted to the professor. Could she? Had she created a fantasy Ben that didn’t translate to real life? Nope. A chic brunette had taken her seat in the front row and looked seconds from creating a drool puddle. Honey had met the real Ben on Friday night, though, and proven he wasn’t some mirage sent to make her horny. He was a person with ambitions, just like herself. Ambitions she could jeopardize. She needed to stop feeling this way, stop wanting him. But her mind couldn’t come to a truce with her body.
Needing to look anywhere but at Ben, she turned over her graded paper. An A. He’d given her an A. She waited for the rush of relief, but it didn’t come. She must have known instinctively that he wouldn’t hurt her academically because of what had happened. She flipped to the final page and tried not to snatch up the document when she saw a note in his clear, crisp handwriting.
Flawless, Ms. Perribow. Except you didn’t list the items you carry. Professor Dawson.
Her heart rate turned erratic, the organ throwing itself against her ribs like it wanted to sprint down the aisle and slide into an imaginary home plate at Ben’s shiny wingtips. He was right. For the assignment, she’d written a comedic reflection of the book he’d assigned, an updated twist on the classic. While she’d listed the often absurd items her classmates carried in their backpacks and pockets, she hadn’t included herself. Why did he care? Had he written the note before their little closet rendezvous?
Knowing she shouldn’t but unable to help it, she reached into her purple JanSport backpack and withdrew her extra-credit assignment on Lolita. She turned to the last page and wrote:
The Things Honey Carries: A sealed letter my mother wrote for me the day I left home. My first-place blue ribbon for pig wrestling (2013 Kentucky State Fair). House keys (keys are a good thing . . . you never want to get locked in an enclosed space with a stranger, right? Heh . . .). Life Savers. Pepper spray. Index cards for jotting down recipes. A diagram of the human anatomy. Number two pencils. Clean socks. Thank you cards (when someone does something nice, you should send one right away or you’ll forget). A mixed CD my brother made me when I had appendicitis. Laffy Taffy.
She shoved the assignment back into her backpack, already debating whether or not she should trash it and print out a new one. Without the note. It was early, anyway. He’d never know about the note. Yes, that’s what she would do. If he’d written his note and forgotten, he’d only be confused and exasperated by her subsequent note. Yes, he’d forgotten. That had to be it. He hadn’t been able to get away from her quick enough.
The lecture took years. At least, that’s how it felt. Every time he paused to take a sip of water, she’d grow rapt at his bobbing Adam’s apple. The way his brows would furrow as he swallowed, as if deciding which point to bring up next. He needed a haircut, the dark ends climbing down over the edges of his collar, so incongruous with the rest of him. When he started shoving his lesson plan into his leather bag and students around her began to disperse, it took her a moment to realize class was over.
Without looking, she stood and started to sidestep out of her row. Big mistake. Winker was still sitting there—why?—and her foot caught in the strap of his backpack, sending her flying down onto the hard floor, contents of her backpack scattering in every direction. For one long moment, she was in denial. Nope not happening to me. This is happening to someone in a romance novel or a Disney Channel movie. Time sped up again when Winker hunkered down beside her and began handing her papers, notebooks, pens, and other embarrassingly private items, such as the ones she’d listed for Ben.
“Oh God, kill me now,” she muttered, shoveling everything into her bag as fast as possible. “Thank you,” she managed to utter in Winker’s direction.
“Nah, it’s my bad. I was waiting for you to come out of your trance so I could ask you out to, uh . . .” He snatched up a flyer that had come from her backpack, scanning it with a frown. “This poetry reading. You’re going, right?” Once again, he consulted the paper. “It’s at Barnard Hall on Wednesday night.”
She had been planning on going. Never having been to a poetry reading before, it had sounded interesting. Plus, free lemonade and cookies if it stank to high heaven. But Winker, very obviously, had not been planning on attending. “Well, I—”
“Class is over.” Honey started at Ben’s voice striking out like a whip in between them where they still knelt down on the floor. Both she and Winker looked up at their professor, but he only seemed to be addressing one of them. And it wasn’t her. “You’re free to go.”
WITH AN UNCOMFORTABLE laugh, Johnny Jerk Off lumbered to his feet. “Right, uh . . .” He scratched the back of his neck with one hand, waving the flyer at Honey with the other. “I’ll see you at the reading. Looking forward to it.”
Ben checked the swelling urge to give the guy a dead leg as he strolled past, which would only make the situation infinitely better, wouldn’t it? Not exactly. He shouldn’t even be standing there. Should be halfway to the faculty lounge by now, but he’d been unable to watch the Neanderthal—who, by the way, hadn’t even spelled Hemingway’s name correctly in last week’s writing exercise—ogle and flirt with Honey.
No, not Honey. Ms. Perribow.
The guy had done it for a full hour. Every time Ben’s attention had been drawn toward her, which had happened with startling regularity, Johnny Jerk Off had been casting her an appreciative look. Nodding at her and smiling at his buddies—also abysmal spellers—as if passing on some sort of signal that he’d be making a move. And he had. He’d made a goddamn move on her. It appeared they were
both going to the poetry reading organized by Ben’s department. One he’d had no intention of attending. If he wanted to read poetry, he read it to himself. He certainly didn’t need someone reading it to him. But Honey would be there, and so would Johnny Jerk Off. He should be indifferent. Or, at the very least, relieved that she’d set her sights elsewhere. Yet he felt only sharp denial. Undeniable denial. Was that a thing? No no, he thought. She doesn’t date. She sits in my class and looks beautiful and writes papers that drag me under some velvet surface and waits for me to kiss her again, which I won’t. How absurd to think that way. Maybe he was as much of a Neanderthal as Johnny Jerk Off.
He really needed to learn his students’ names at some point.
Ben looked over his shoulder to watch Honey’s admirer saunter from the lecture hall, probably on his way to chug a Monster Energy drink. There was a shift in the air the second Ben and Honey were alone. Their positions—her on her knees, him towering above her—seemed to take on a new, dangerous meaning. A meaning that called his gaze to her parted mouth. Made his cock shift and harden in his pants. Since she was basically eye level with his lap, that definitely wouldn’t work.
He set his satchel down on the closest seat and stooped down to help her collect her things. Those golden eyes widened a little, as if she hadn’t expected him to help. Awesome. She thinks I’m a prick.
No, it was great. It helped his cause for her to think that. Not currently helping his cause? Her pointed nipples, straining against the thin, white material of her tank top. The way her tits swayed and bounced as she bent forward to retrieve what looked like a pair of clean socks. A hint of a smile tried to curve his mouth, but it disappeared with a quickness when they both grabbed for a pencil at the same time, the move bringing their faces close together. Too close. Way too close.
Think of why you have to stay away. “How old are you?” he murmured.
She didn’t seem surprised by the question. No, she seemed too focused on his mouth. I can’t kiss you, babe. I can’t. “I’ll be twenty in ten days,” she husked.
“Jesus.” He ran a hand down his face. “You couldn’t even order a drink in a restaurant.”
“Not legally, no.” She lifted her gaze to his, and he immediately wanted it back on his mouth. “I still do, though. Sometimes.”
“You’re a little rule breaker, aren’t you?”
“It’s been said.”
When she shifted a little, he noticed her blood on the floor beneath her knee. Without thinking, Ben circled her waist with his hands and lifted her onto one of the seats, trying not to growl over the feel of her. The ease with which he could handle her. He operated on instinct, outrage that she’d been injured because some dickhead had left his backpack on the ground. As soon as he realized what he’d done—made contact with her when he absolutely shouldn’t have—he retracted his touch like she’d burned his hands.
But she had to go and make this noise. The second her ass hit the seat, her mouth fell open, and she whimpered. It was the sexiest fucking thing he’d ever heard in his life, and her body matched it. She writhed on the seat, ever-so-slightly, as if his hands on her waist had set off a chain reaction. As if she felt even a fraction of what he experienced when they were this close. God, his cock ached. It pressed against the fly of his pants, begging him to do bad things. Bad things that would feel really damn good.
He took a deep breath and dragged his composure forward. A glance at her knee told him she only needed the scrape cleaned off, maybe a Band-Aid. Of which he had none. He reached into his bag, took out a napkin from the school cafeteria, and pressed it over the bleeding. Which presented a problem, because now his hand was technically on her leg. And her skirt was technically a little too deliciously short. Short enough that he could see most of the way up her toned thighs. If he ducked his head, he’d be able to see beneath the hem. See her panties. Fuck. He needed to get up and walk away. Needed to leave.
“I brought you my extra credit,” she said.
Ben’s brain had no idea what she meant. All he saw was her pretty, beaded nipples and naked legs. His ears only heard “extra credit” said in that aroused, feminine tone. Oh sweet hell, it was the beginning of every naughty porno video he’d forbidden himself to watch. He watched porn. He was a man, and the Internet made it too easy. But he never clicked on the teacher-student category. Uh-uh. Completely off limits. As a teacher himself, it would be unethical. Still, he knew how they started, because he had ears and two horndog friends. The gorgeous student shows up in a flimsy, plaid skirt and demurely asks her teacher for extra credit. In exchange for a ten-minute blow job, followed by sex. The dirty kind.
Is that what this was? Something foreign glowed hot in his chest. She didn’t need to do things like this. Maybe it was all for fun. He’d leveled accusations at her Friday night in the storage closet, all but calling her a bored princess. Had he been right on target? It pissed him off that she thought he was so easily seduced. And dammit if there wasn’t a challenge in her eyes. If she’d expected him to be outraged, she’d succeeded.
Yet there was another, rebellious part of him that wanted to call her bluff. Did she think the way she made him feel was funny? Very deliberately, he let his thumb brush the inside of her knee, the skin so smooth he had to swallow a groan. She jerked in reaction, her taunting nipples growing even more pronounced against the front of her shirt. For fuck sake.
“Why didn’t you sit in the front row today?” He brought his other hand up and placed it on the opposite knee, began drawing slow circles on the insides of both knees with his thumbs. “You could have been one hell of a distraction for me. Seems like a missed opportunity.”
Honey’s breath shuddered out. “Did you want me there?”
No way was he answering that. He’d either have to lie and say no or tell the truth, which was absolutely fucking yes, I want to look at you every chance I get. Instead of saying those damning words, he damned himself another way. He’d let himself feel her skin now. It had taken away his inhibitions. Blocked the rules written in stone on his memory. She felt too perfect, and he needed to feel more.
He locked gazes with her and slowly, gently eased her thighs open.
And she made that sound again, only this time it sounded more like a sob. Her knees trembled in his hands, and it splintered something inside him. Should she be reacting like this, when her plan had been to seduce him? It seemed so inconsistent. None of those thoughts, however, registered past his initial flash of concern, because his hands were moving by themselves, inching her legs wider until he could see her panties. Lacy, white panties that made her pussy look delicate and innocent, while being the epitome of temptation at the same time. With her thighs spread, round tits rising and falling with choppy breaths, eyes half closed, she was the epitome of temptation.
“Did you think of me when you put those good girl panties on this morning?” He coasted his hands up the tops of her spread legs, letting his thumbs drag up the sensitive insides of her thighs, taking her skirt higher as he went. “Did you think they’d make my dick hard if I got a peek at them?”
“Yes.” The answer burst out of her in a desperate whisper, as if she’d been holding it in. “I thought of you when I chose them.”
Her honesty only served to make him hotter. So goddamn hot. A voice in his head screamed at him to stop, reminding him they were in his classroom. She was a student. Anyone could walk in at any time. Yet none of it mattered. All that mattered was reaching that sweet spot between her thighs, covered in white. Waiting for him. Just one touch to see if those panties were damp so he could go home and work his own cock to the memory.
“If we hadn’t been interrupted Friday night, I would have stripped off that little green thong and fucked you, Lolita.” His hands slipped higher and higher to the softest part of her legs, which were completely exposed now. “You were so warm and wet. Is that because you wanted to be fucked, babe?”
A hoarse cry greeted his ears. “Yes.” Her answer tol
d him where she wanted his hands, but when he brushed a thumb over her mound, she grabbed his wrist, bringing him slightly out of his lust-induced haze, but not completely. Her gaze implored him for something. What? He thought he was giving it to her. “Don’t touch me there,” she panted. “Last time you touched me there, you walked away and it . . . it hurt, Ben. I still hurt. You can’t follow through here, not here, so please don’t tease me.”
Her words made total sense. They couldn’t do this here. Of course not. Except biting at the heels of that realization was a surge of denial that he’d left her unsatisfied and hurting. He’d had no idea she’d been so affected by one single touch, didn’t think it possible that she’d been left feeling as needy as he’d been from their encounter in the storage closet. When presented with the fact that this girl who drove him crazy with need hadn’t gotten what she craved from him, he didn’t give a shit about their surroundings. He only wanted to make it right. Satisfy her body. Please let me. . .
Ben rose up on his knees and leaned over her. She let her head fall back. Surrendering. Possessiveness heated his blood as he lowered his mouth to hers, let it hover. He felt himself being pulled under, her beautiful eyes luring him to somewhere unknown. It was that threat of the unknown that reminded him who she was and what she’d come here to do. Seduce him. Turning him inside out was part of her game. His plan had been to call her bluff. He needed to stick to the plan, or she’d drown him.
“You want me to stop?” He brushed their lips together. “What about your extra credit?”
Her body went rigid beneath him. Just like that moment in the closet when their eyes had met for the first time, everything went still around him. This time, though, instead of panic and regret in her eyes, he saw fury. It grabbed him in a choke hold and strangled the breath from his lungs. Dread crept in . . . then it poured in, sealing all the cracks inside him. Something was wrong. This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. Especially a moment later, when she reached between them with frantic hands and tugged her skirt back into place before shoving him off her.
