by Lucy Wild
Above the chin was his elegant nose, those broad cheekbones and then those eyes. I swooned just at the sight of them, I could dive in and drown in those eyes. Dark blue and sparkling.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice rich and deep. “How are we all today?”
Petrified, I thought, watching him dump his bag on the desk. He leaned back against it and folded his arms, his eyes scanning the room. It seemed to me as if he looked at everyone apart from me. Had I done something to offend him? Did he know what I had planned? He turned away, digging his file out of his bag, giving me time to look at his back, my eyes glued to his ass, wanting to run over and yank his trousers down, take a look and see if he was as toned naked as he looked dressed. I could reach around and find his…
“Let’s get started,” he said, turning back.
I wondered if my cheeks were as visibly red as they felt. The room was too hot. It was always too hot when he was there. I fanned myself slightly with my notebook, keeping my legs clamped together. I couldn’t do it. I was an idiot to think I could do it. Then I did.
Chapter Two
She was there on the front row just as she always was. This time she’d chosen to sit directly opposite me. It was so difficult not to look at her. I couldn’t look at her. I only had to glance in her direction to start getting hard.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
I was a professional. I’d been working there for nine years. In all that time, I’d never had a crush on a single one of the students. I’d had several of them throw themselves at me but I’d remained the consummate professional. There was no way I was going to risk my career over something like that.
The rules were simple. You did not have any kind of personal relationship with a student. It wasn’t illegal, they were all over eighteen after all, but it was professional misconduct just as if I turned up drunk as a skunk like Mr Kennedy did last year. He managed to slip away with early retirement. I doubt I could get away with that at thirty-nine. I’d be out the door and all my qualifications would be for nothing. Dole queue or supermarket shelf stacking while those I taught rose through the echelons of their careers around me.
So I avoided even thinking about it. To look at me, you’d think nothing had changed. The year Donna started, it was all going fine, I was even being marked for potential head of department in the not too distant future. Then I met her.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw her. It was Introduction to Study Methods, how I started all the first years off. One hour a week for six weeks before we got going on the proper stuff.
I’d prepped it all over the summer, tweaking what I’d learned from last year, the main thing to not be too dry, get some activities on the go, persuade them to start talking to each other and to me, break the ice before the hard work began.
I walked in, put my bag on the desk, turned around to look at them all and there she was. It was like the entire room was plunged into darkness and there was just a single spotlight shining on her. It was only for a few seconds but it felt a lot longer. The sentence I was halfway through fell out of my brain completely. All I could do was stare at her.
She had a nervous smile on her face and she was chewing on the end of her pen. In front of her was a pristine notepad, yellow highlighter parallel to it on the left, pencil on the right. It was a perfect freeze-frame of time that I only have to close my eyes to see whenever I want.
That smile, just a flick at the edges of those luscious red lips. Rounded cheeks and cute button nose and eyes that were fixed on me. As I looked at her, she looked away and she looked embarrassed, as if she’d been caught staring. Her hair perfectly framed her face and she was wearing a light summer dress, red and white, like something out of a fifties movie. Holy fuck, I wanted her at once.
So I did what I had to do. I looked away. I’ve been looking away ever since, taking only the slightest glances at her when I was sure I could get away with it.
I couldn’t help myself that first time. It was a mistake, not one I made again. When they were split into groups, talking to each other in their rows, I nonchalantly headed her way, trying to make it look as casual as I could. I was sure that once I spoke to her, the feeling would go away. She was just pretty, that was all. She’d be an idiot or up herself or something that would pour cold water on the churning feelings inside me.
I’d never felt like that about anyone, not when seeing them for the first time. Just my luck that it was someone almost twenty years younger than me. I listened as she talked to the others and her voice made me want to grab her, drag her out of there, take her to my office and lock the door and not let her out until I was finished with her.
Instead I made a vow, a vow I kept throughout the first and second year. I would avoid her. It was the only way. I could pretend she didn’t exist.
Which worked fine until the third year. In the first two, I was able to get someone else to take on the tutorials with her, making one excuse after another, making sure I was never alone with her. I knew I wouldn’t be able to trust myself otherwise.
But in the third year I ran out of excuses. We’d only been back a week when her name appeared on the schedule outside my office door.
I was glad of my desk during those sessions, the only way to keep her from seeing how hard I got, especially when she wore those short skirts of hers. I felt more like an undergrad myself than a bloody grown up. I shouldn’t have been feeling that way.
Then the spider came into the lecture hall. If it wasn’t for that spider, things might have gone very differently. But it did come. It walked right along the floor in front of my desk, an enormous great thing with big spindly legs. It scurried towards the front row and people began pointing.
“All right,” I called out over the noise. “It’s only a spider, don’t panic.”
I walked over and knelt down just as it ran towards her feet. She jolted backwards in her seat and let out a yelp of fear. As she did so, her knees separated. It was only for the briefest of seconds but it was long enough. I had my hands around the spider but I was looking up, unable to resist, being closer to her than I’d ever been before.
She wasn’t wearing any underwear. I thought for a moment that I’d imagined it but as I carried the spider over to the window and dropped it through onto the hedge outside, I knew I was right. I replayed the last few seconds in my head.
I’d glanced up. She’d jolted backwards, her knees separated as she scrambled to her feet. I caught the slightest glimpse of the most perfect sight I’d ever seen in my life, then she slumped back down, her knees clamped together, her face bright red with embarrassment. Did she know that I knew? There was only one way to find out.
I was a professional. Note the past tense. Because from the moment I got that flash of her, any hint of professionalism went out of the window. I was lost.
End of Sample. If you want to read on, you can pick up Study Hard here. Or read on for a sample of Wild Quickie 2, Jacked.
JACKED
When Carrie hikes up into the mountains where I work, she’s walking into trouble. I’m going to make sure she finds it.
It’s peaceful and quiet now but by tonight the air will be filled with her uncontrolled moans.
I know exactly what’s going to happen. She’s about to be pinned under me, screaming my name. She just doesn’t know it yet.
This red hot read is crammed with insta-love, insta-lust and an alpha hero who knows just what Carrie needs from her rugged mountain man.
Chapter One - Carrie
The first thing I notice is the peace. I smile and then let out a little sigh of happiness. My smile fades almost at once as the ratcheting ear-splitting screech of a chainsaw echoes down the hillside towards me. Why today? I haven’t been here in six years and the one time I want to head up the mountain, someone is out to ruin it for me.
If I hadn’t driven for two hours, I might not have minded so much. If this wasn’t my last chance in God alone knows how long, I could have
just turned around and gone back. I could have tried again another day.
But if I don’t get the house today, I’ll be homeless. Then I’ll have to sell the car and then I might never get a chance to come back this way. The noise dies then builds again. How dare they!
Given an eviction notice on the anniversary of my mother’s death. There was someone out there with a sense of humour about such things but it was all at my expense.
I had been given one month to find somewhere new and time was running out. There aren’t many places that’ll take an unemployed project manager and her cat. No provable income and a pet. So while already job hunting like mad, I had to house hunt at the same time. Yesterday I got rejected for a flat with peeling wallpaper, mould in the kitchen and no window in the bedroom-cum-living room. I’d laugh if it weren’t so tragic.
Today is my last shot before I’m homeless. Evicted with nowhere to store my possessions. Sell the car and I might be able to pay for storage for at least a couple of weeks but what then?
So with the stress weighing heavy on me, I took one last trip, a pilgrimage of sorts. I had an excuse. The place I’m going to look at is just the other side of the mountain, edge of the village where I grew up. An old house that’s falling down with two liveable rooms inside. It’ll do. It’s that or the streets.
I had the paperwork on the passenger seat, the eviction notice, the viewing details, the bank statements they’d want to see. I left it all there and got out at the car park, wanting just an hour of peace and solitude, a chance to remember Mum on the mountain where we used to walk together.
Was that too much to ask?
Apparently so as the noise of the chainsaw grew overwhelming. I set off up the path, the last of the autumn sun on my legs. It was warm enough to wear a skirt and strappy top, the heat on my skin the only pleasant thing about the stroll. I wanted birdsong and leaves rustling in trees. I got the roar of machinery and it was driving me mad.
Around another corner and I saw him, chopping branches off a dying tree. “Can’t you give it a rest!” I shout.
He doesn’t hear me of course. He’s got a helmet with ear defenders. He’s probably quite happy, can’t hear a thing.
I can’t help myself. I storm over to him just as a chunk of tree thuds to the ground next to him. “Oi!” I say, waving my arms in his direction.
At last he looks up, sees me, then puts the chainsaw down. He lifts the helmet from his face as I scowl at him. “Do you have to do that now? It’s spoiling my walk.”
The scowl is already falling from my face. I find it hard to be cross with him glaring back at me. I cower almost at once. He runs his hand over his brow before standing up straight and stretching his back. He narrows his eyes as he looks me up and down, pulling off his gloves at the same time.
I wince, ready for him to patronise me. It’s happened many times before. Still he doesn’t talk and I’m weakening further. He’s tall, muscles that threaten to burst out of the arms of his shirt. Beard that doesn’t hide the rugged face behind it. His trousers are slung low, a hint of skin visible when he stretches upwards again. As he does so, my eyes are drawn down to a flash of black hair, just a glimpse but enough to make me wonder what else is lurking down there.
“Got to be done,” he says at last and I realise I’m still staring down at his crotch. I look up and blush. “You know you’re in the wrong clothes for a climb, right?”
I scowl again, hoping to make him wither. He just looks amused. We talk for no more than a minute and he makes no attempt to apologise for the noise. In the end I give up and walk away with a muttered curse, marching up the hill as he continues to try and talk to me.
“Watch out for the weather,” he calls after me. “Fog’s coming in.” I ignore him, too angry to think about anything but getting as far away from him and that chainsaw as I can.
Within a minute, the noise starts up and it only fades when I’m in sight of the top summit.
I sit on a rock and look at the view, the distant hills fading as cloud begins to descend. I hate the fact he might be right, the weather could be getting worse. Already I’m cold, a breeze that wasn’t there at the foot of the mountain is growing fast. I shiver, wrapping my arms around my shoulders as I think about Mum and me. We would sit here together after a climb that took forever, my feet aching, my head swimming. Then she’d feed me from the picnic in her rucksack and I’d be bursting with energy again.
All our troubles fell away up here. I missed her. All of a sudden, the wound of losing her was fresh and raw.
It had been four years since she’d died, two since my step-father had thrown me out of the family home, leaving me on the mercy of my contracts. Project managing was good work, until the recession hit and building stopped up and down the country.
My savings were long gone. All I had was the car and the cat and my memories.
I shiver again as the clouds roll in closer. The view is disappearing into grey, black in places as rain looks like it might start at any minute. I’ll go back down soon. I just want a little longer in our place. If I don’t get the house, I might never get to come back. This will be my last memory of the place.
Chapter Two - Jack
When she walked away up the track, two thoughts struck me at once. The first was that I’d love to lift that skirt of hers, yank down those panties and spank her little ass for speaking to me like that. The other was that she was going to freeze if she didn’t turn around and head back down soon.
She looked furious with me as if it was my fault that the tree had been struck by lightning. She’d have been the first to complain if her darling Jocasta or Sebastian got hit by a falling branch. I knew her sort all right. They visit at the weekends usually, leaving their rubbish all over my beautiful mountain, they complain about getting lost but never thought to bring a map, they grumble about the mud and suggest without humour that we should tarmac a path up to the summit. I knew all about women like her.
It didn’t used to be this way. I inherited this land from my father and back in his day all we did was farm. Now I’m more of a park ranger than a worker, pointing people in the right direction, getting the brambles cleared away from the picnic areas, all the stuff I never thought I’d need to do.
Chopping down a dead tree is just part of the job. What I didn’t need was her coming yelling at me like she owned the damned place.
I liked the look of her though. Standing there with that pout on her lips, expecting me to grovel before her. She’d be waiting a long time before that happened.
I leaned back against my Land Rover and watched her heading up the hill, tempted to call her back just to see if she’d come. She had nice legs and I could stare at them all I wanted, picturing myself shoving them apart, plunging my fingers into her so I could taste her sweetness, burying myself inside her, rolling around on the damp grass, taking away that temper of hers.
“Do you have to make so much noise?” she asked, like I was doing it just to irritate her.
“Got a better way?” I ask and she just glares at me. “I mean, if you want to do it, be my guest.” I hold the chainsaw out towards her but she still doesn’t answer. “What’s your name?”
“Huh?”
“Your name. You have a name, right?”
“Carrie, not that I see why-”
“I’m Jack and I’ve got a job to do. So, Carrie, why don’t you head on up that hill and think about maybe being a bit more polite to people on your way down.”
She looks hurt and I think I’ve gone too far. Then she just turns and walks away. She seems on the verge of tears. I fight the urge to run after her and instead get back to work. By the time I’m done she’s vanished from sight and my phone is ringing in the car.
I walk over to pick it up, my mind filled with thoughts of Carrie, of how she’d look bent over the bonnet with me grabbing hold of her hips as I thrust into her, taking away all her tension.
I shake the thought and hit the answer button. It’s Alison an
d she’s got news.
“You haven’t forgotten about this afternoon, have you?”
She’s a great assistant. I had forgotten, not that I admit it.
“Of course not.”
“You wanted to run through the plans before they go for final submission. We’ve only got until four if they’re going to be get back to us today.”
We had submitted proposals for a clump of holiday cabins up in the woods on the mountain. It had gone back and forth for months but today was the last chance to get permission secured before the deadline expired and we’d have to start again from scratch. I had the best people working for me but I had final say on what was sent over to the planning guys. I look at the time. Should be easy enough.
“And don’t forget we’re going to need a spec putting out if we get a yes.”
“I’ll work on it tonight for you. You think we’ll get it?”
“I’ve got a good feeling about this, Jack. No one’s put more work in than you.”
“Bullshit. It was a team effort as you know.”
“Well, this team member is going for a drink if it goes through. Care to join me?”
“I’ll think about it.”
She’s a great assistant but she’s not my type. Plus I knew for a fact she was part of the pool that was seeing who could get me into bed. They were all going to lose their money. I don’t mix work and pleasure. Or so I thought.
“When do you think you’ll be here, I’ll get them all in ready?”
“Give me a couple of hours.”
I ended the call and then began piling my stuff into the back of the car. As I pick up the chainsaw, I hear a rumble in the sky. Looking up I see the black clouds already coming in. The weather was due to turn. I’d just miss the storm if I headed downhill then.
But as the first spots of rain hit my face, I think about Carrie. She was up on the summit and if it was spitting where I was, it would be hammering it down on her. She hadn’t a rucksack or a jacket. She’d freeze up there.
