Yeah, he thought. It’s time for something real.
Chapter 4
They made it back to Miami with no casualties or new STDs. If possible, Kendra and Archie seemed even closer, while Samantha found an unexpected hookup of her own with a townie who lived only a few minutes away from her.
Ian dropped off his students Sunday evening and was back on campus Monday morning as usual. He had a test planned for his Harlem Renaissance class on Tuesday and wanted to be sure he was just as ready as his students were supposed to be. At a few minutes past one, he finished up his work and, after a brief internal debate, decided to leave early.
“See you tomorrow, Ian.” Ella, the secretary for the Humanities division, smiled up at him as he walked by where she was crouched at the filing cabinet.
He heard her soft hum of appreciation as his jeans-clad backside passed by. Ella was fourteen years happily married, but, as she’d commented to him several times, “It doesn’t hurt to appreciate the beauty around here, does it? Especially not if it gives me a little more bounce in the bedroom later on in the day with my husband.”
“Have a good one, Ella,” he called back. “Don’t give that husband of yours a heart attack this evening, you hear?”
Ian closed the door on her delighted laughter. Outside, he put some distance between himself and the sun with his shades and hitched the strap of his briefcase up on one shoulder. The notes of a Luther Vandross song came to him, then he was whistling them, feeling like the Florida springtime, as mild as it was, had invaded his blood.
Maybe I should go to the club tonight. The thought was a welcome surprise. He hadn’t felt like going out, especially by himself, in a long while.
His first class wasn’t until eleven the next morning, so he would have plenty of time to recover if he decided to stay out past his usual bedtime. Ian was pondering which club to seek out when he heard someone call his name.
“Hey, Jasmine,” he answered when he recognized his student.
The young girl stood near an electric blue MINI Cooper convertible idling quietly by the curb. When she straightened up from lifting her backpack out of the rear passenger seat, Ian saw that the person behind the wheel was her mother. He nodded a greeting.
“Good to see you again.” He turned to Jasmine. “I thought you were away in Berkeley for the conference this week.”
“It’s next week, Mr. Tate. That’s why I’m taking your midterm early, remember?”
“That’s right.” He nodded, clearing the cobwebs from his brain. “And speaking of the midterm, just go to the Lit Club office tomorrow at three, and it’ll be all set up for you.”
“No problem,” Jasmine said. “Thanks again for being so understanding.”
“Any time. It’s not every day I play a part in helping a genius accomplish her life goals.”
Jasmine smiled then ducked down to look into the car. “See, Mama? Isn’t he the nicest man?”
Her mother smiled benignly from the driver’s seat. “Of course he is, darling.”
The young girl rolled her eyes and then leaned in to kiss her mother. “See you later, Ma. I’ll get a ride from Kenyatta. Bye, Mr. Tate. See you in class.”
“See you.” Ian waved.
They both watched her walk off toward the classrooms, her small body held in a graceful scythe that cut through all the superficial beauty around her. She was a lot like her mother. He looked away from Jasmine only to collide his gaze with her mother’s.
Ian cleared his throat. “It was good to see you again, Mrs. Hannah,” he said, starting to walk away to his own car.
“It’s Miss.” She looked him over again, very much like that first time she saw him in her doorway. “That is if you must use my last name. You can call me Tam, though. Or Tamarind. Either way is much less formal, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely. Then please call me Ian.”
She still watched him with that loaded stare of hers. Then she reached over to the passenger side and opened the door. “Why don’t you come for a drive with me, Ian?” It wasn’t so much of a question as it was a demand.
Why not? Ian tossed his briefcase in the backseat and got into the car. She pulled carefully away from the curb. But once they were outside the campus, she took off for the highway, opening up the nimble little car and slipping quickly over into the far left lane. The wind and open convertible top allowed for little conversation, so Ian used the time to watch Tam and appreciate her pixie-like beauty. And to compare the reality of her to the insatiable creature of his wet dreams. How could this woman have a nineteen-year-old child?
Ian looked back at the road as he felt the car slow. Tam slipped quickly from the left lane to the right and then off the highway.
“You like what you see?”
He glanced at her, guilty, until he noticed the teasing look in her eyes.
“Yes, I do.”
“Good.”
The MINI glided along the smooth pavement, its engine purring like the proverbial kitten. To the left of the car, the ribboning skyline of tall buildings reflecting back the sun. Biscayne Bay rippled under the light like a sleeping dragon.
“You’re not trying to take advantage of my daughter, are you?”
Ian looked at her in surprise. “Does it seem like I am?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Jasmine likes you.”
Tam shifted to second and guided the car down a narrow road leading toward the water. It wasn’t a path Ian was familiar with. “She thinks you’re a really good person, and I don’t want that goodness and niceness rising off you to be your way into her affections and her panties. She is secure about her lesbian sexuality, but she’s also naive about the world, especially about men.”
“Little girls aren’t my thing,” he said, watching the last of fellow car-bound travelers fade in the rearview mirror.
“So what exactly is your thing?”
Tam shifted into third, and they picked up speed, flying down the narrow road with wispy sea grass brushing against the car as they went. The wind stirred the folds of her dress, and the white cotton fluttered up, revealing her knee and a smooth length of thigh. Ian laughed.
Until that moment, he wasn’t sure what had been going on. Was Tam interrogating him? Was she trying to make him feel small for finding her, his student’s mother, attractive? Or did she just have the sudden urge for a stranger’s company in her sporty little car? But now he knew exactly where they were heading. She must have smelled the lust on him.
“My thing—,” he emphasized the last word with another soft laugh, “—is intriguing women. Like you.”
“Flatterer.”
The car slowed as it reached the beach. Sunlight made the stretch of beach even more beautiful, gilding the waving sea grass and the ocean that rippled iridescently under its bright rays. Except for a lone house nestled higher up in the rocks, the beach was deserted.
“You’re very beautiful, Ian,” she said and brought the car to a stop. “But I’m sure you’ve heard that before.”
“I have.”
Tam laughed. She dropped the car keys in the cup holder and got out. The hem of her long white dress brushed against her bare ankles and feet as she stepped on the sand. Ian had no choice but to follow.
“This is where I come to paint sometimes.” She gestured around them with a bangled hand. “A friend who lives up in Fort Lauderdale owns it. He doesn’t come out here very often, and he doesn’t mind me using it.” Then Tam turned to him as if he was more interesting scenery than the one she had just been looking at. “Along with other things.” She tilted her head to look at him, mischievous charm in the full curve of her mouth and her warm eyes.
“Ian.” She sighed his name and smoothed a small hand over his button-down shirt. She trailed the fingers over his and then up his muscled forearm, over the folded cuffs of his shirt, up to squeeze his biceps and then his shoulders. Tam parted the first two buttons on his shirt, and Ian watched, intrigued, and wonderin
g just how far she would go. She went all the way. He stood while she undid every button, leaving the subtly striped cotton to frame the bare, hairless plane of his chest, the gilled muscles along his ribs, and his flat, chiseled belly.
Tam walked backward, inviting him to follow with the gentle tug of her fingers until her ass gently connected with the tail of the car.
“Have you ever had an older woman before?”
He shook his head, mind still unable to work out that he was going to have this older woman, this woman who looked more like one of his students than anybody he’d ever thought of fucking. His mind was a little slow on the uptake, but his body was already there. The full almost-pain of his arousal pushed against the stiff material of his jeans. Then she reached for him and undid the zipper, allowing his dick to jut, full and hard, into the warm air. She wrapped her hands around him, and he had to steady himself against the car with a shuddering sigh. Her fingers felt so good, so right on him.
“I want to fuck you, Ian,” she said, moving her hand slowly from base to crown of his dick in an exquisite motion that threatened to buckle his knees. “This has nothing to do with my daughter. Or your school or anything else.” Her thumb stroked the head of his cock and he jerked, beyond shame, in her hand. “You’re beautiful. I want you inside me.”
Although he was never planning on getting laid at this very moment, Ian was prepared. He fumbled in his back pocket for one of the condoms he’d put in his wallet the week before. Once he had it out, Tam took the condom and tore open the packet before smoothing the rubber over his sensitized dick. She watched the emotions play across his face.
“I’m really going to enjoy you.”
“Believe me,” he said with a low groan, his body flushed hot from her nearness, “it’ll be mutual.”
Ian lifted her. He swept her skirt up and out of his way, and she helped him, moving aside her flimsy panties so he could slide deeply, finally, inside her melting hot pussy.
“Jes—! Oh, fuck…”
He’d never had a woman before. That was how it felt to be inside the weeping heat of her that surrounded him, clasped him, and invited him deeper. Nothing in his life had ever felt this good—God help him—not even Zoë.
Her eyes stared wide into his, steadily keeping him captive as he moved inside her. Tam blinked and licked her lips. Ian lifted her against him, moving her slight body in time with his thrusts. Her breath caressed his face, brushed him with the scent of anise as she rose against and then above him. The sweet glide and squeeze of her pussy on his dick, the burn in his thighs and arms as he held her up, her heated breath on his face, all moved him in a slow, magnificent ascent toward his peak.
“Ian.” Her heels locked behind his back, and he trembled. She moved harder against him but still slow, grinding her clit against him with each pass. Her eyelashes fluttered, but she still held him with her stare. “Ian.”
She hooked him with that stare, grabbed his balls, his dick, his desire in an unbreakable grip and, with a measured, deliberate torture, began to squeeze.
He gasped her name and staggered under the weight of their combined lust. She fell back against the car, and he followed, thrusting deep inside her, keeping that slow rhythm that made them shudder against each other, made his breath go deep and hard, made her latch on to his shoulders in desperate pleasure.
“Shit!” He bucked against her, lifting her up against the car, driving her into the small machine with each measured motion of his hips. So good. She felt so good. Tam gasped, a quick catch in the back of her throat, and threw her head back. She came around him like magic. Her cunt conjured his orgasm, threw him into a brilliant scatter of thoughts and sensations—his muscles hard and arching, pleasure bursting in his groin, in his head, the exotically spiced scent of their sex around him, milking another twitch from him, another groan, another shudder.
“Thank you.” Her wide eyes looked at him, wet with pleasure and amusement. “That was even better than I expected.”
Ian assumed that was his hint to get off her and her car. He eased up, groaning involuntarily at the singing ache in his thighs. Damn, it felt good. With another groan, he slipped off the condom and, after a few seconds’ hesitation about what to do with it, tossed it aside. His body felt good and tired, overcome with the deep lassitude that came after an intense, satisfying fuck. He hadn’t felt that in a long time, and, watching Tam, he realized how badly he wanted to feel it again. Her eyes smiled at him as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
She brushed down her skirt and moved toward the driver’s side of the car. “You ready?”
Chapter 5
“Can you believe I’m banging that ass?”
Ian looked up from his paper. Simon Taylor sat down at the table next to him, holding a photograph. Michael Spencer, the university’s philosophy professor, walked over with the coffeepot in hand, curious about whatever Simon had to show. The university’s posh interpretation of a faculty lounge was mostly quiet this time of day. Those who could go home did. Only instructors with later classes or with nothing else better to do sat around in the comfortably furnished but cold lounge. Ian had class in less than an hour.
He’d tried focusing on the upcoming lesson, but thoughts of Tam kept intruding. He remembered how she’d felt two days ago as she came around him, squeezing him, rubbing her clothed breasts against his chest. Even thoughts of their ambivalent parting in the school parking lot afterward, her distracted, almost puzzled smile as she’d left him alone to find his ride home, plagued him.
Simon passed the photo to Ian. It was of a cute girl in a bikini. Or, at least, half of a bikini. The bottoms sat low on her curvaceous hips while the top was held tightly in her hands as she lunged toward the person holding the camera. The child was nothing remarkable, simply young and firm everywhere that sagging men like Simon liked to touch. Most of their colleagues knew that Simon used his intro poetry classes as his personal dating pool, not hesitating to take advantage of his young pupils’ naïveté and romantic notions.
“Don’t you wish you had a piece of this, Tate?”
Michael smirked. “Maybe he’s not into that kind of ass.”
“You’re right,” Ian said, barely giving the older man a glance. “I like my women out of training pants.”
“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of the university, Ian.” Heinrich, a biracial German with a thick accent and a bulldog’s face, said as he returned Simon’s photo. “You know better than any man here how far these girls go to get their instructors into bed.” Heinrich was happily married eight years now to another professor at the university. They had a notoriously open relationship and often had wild sex parties at their house not too far from campus.
“I agree, Rick. But the fruit here is not to my taste,” Ian said. “Too young. Too simple.”
“For shit’s sake, you’re going to fuck them not hire them to be your TA.” Simon tucked the picture back in his wallet.
“You could do both, now.”
Heinrich laughed at Michael’s exaggerated piggishness. “True, true.”
“I like a firm ass as much as the next man,” Ian said. “But the idea of fucking someone on this campus actually makes me feel a little queasy.”
“You must have a weak stomach then.” Heinrich turned back to his laptop. “Most of your colleagues don’t have that problem.”
Ian reluctantly chuckled. “Obviously.”
He walked into his classroom forty-five minutes later, ready to give out the exam. He wrote the instructions on the board and put test booklets on each desk before sitting down at his own. Then he waited for his students to come in and find their seats. They gradually filed in, already familiar with the routine. Most were quiet, already taking out pre-sharpened pencils and ink-filled pens, knowing the intensity of his essay exams. At one minute after the hour, he closed the classroom door and told them to begin. For a moment he watched their heads bow over their test papers and listened to the frantic scratch
of pencil and pen across paper, nervously cleared throats, and the occasional and unexpected curse word.
Then he looked down at his book and thought about her. There was nothing else for him to do. He would have liked to go about his day as if he got the best sex of his life against the back of a MINI Cooper every day, but he couldn’t. Now the siren had crossed over from the realm of dreams to reality. He knew what she tasted like. He knew how she felt. He knew the hint of sound she made when she came. In his dreams, she had been a screamer, loud and passionate in her praise of him and their sex. The reality of her was better. Hotter. He looked forward to making her scream his name.
Later that evening he left school with no particular destination in mind but wasn’t surprised when he ended up on Tam’s doorstep. Ian hesitated about ringing the doorbell. He couldn’t use Jasmine as an excuse to stop by. She was out of town at her conference. Which, truth be told, was why he was here in the first place.
“Sorry I didn’t call first,” he said when she opened the door.
Tam didn’t seem surprised to see him. In fact, she opened the door wider, a cat’s creamed smile on her face.
“This is a nice surprise, Ian,” she said.
She closed the door behind him and turned to walk back into the house. Like a puppet, he followed. Ian swore he could smell everything about her, the salty wet in her panties, the fragrance of mingled herbs that lay between her breasts, the anise on her breath.
“Would you like something to eat?”
“Yes.”
She wore a skirt today, a white, knee-length, linen thing draped over her perky bottom and a small tank top that showed off the small muscles in her arms and her wealth of soft skin. Tofu simmered in a pot on the stove. The sauce smelled of peanuts and coconut milk. Tam turned down the fire and walked to the kitchen’s center island where she had been slicing vegetables before Ian rang her bell. She reached into the drawers of the island and took out two plates and a couple of glasses.
Propositioning the Professor (Professional Lovers Series Book 2) Page 3
