"I don't have a coat."
"What do you mean, you don't have a coat? Did you lose it?" Jack had seen her in her blue parka every day for the last several months.
"No, I mean, I didn't bring it. I don't have it here. It was warm when I left my dorm before dinner."
"How can you not have your coat, Annie?" Jack's voice rose in annoyance. Why didn't she take better care of herself? "For Christ's sake, it's still the middle of winter! What were you thinking?"
Annie flinched at the expletive. "Please don't swear at me," she whispered.
Jack just stared at her for a moment. He had just spanked her soundly, told her that she had to endure four more spankings, and what did she object to? His language? He lowered his voice and spoke to her gently, "Sorry, Annie. I shouldn't have yelled. And I'm sorry I swore at you. I'll try not to let that happen again."
She raised her eyes to him as he continued, "I just worry about you, Annie. It's flu season out there, and you can't let yourself get run down or you won't be able to fight off the germs that are everywhere. You need to take better care of yourself."
Jack opened one of the lockers that lined the back wall and took out his own parka. "Here, put this on. I have a lab coat in here that will keep me warm enough."
"No, no, really, I don't want to take your coat."
"Put it on, Annie." He held it out to her. She looked at it but made no move to take it.
"Put it on, Annie, or I'll give you another spanking." Annie looked up at him in shock, but he was smiling at her. "Just kidding, of course," he added lightly. "Come on, I'll drive you home."
Annie took the jacket and put it on. She wasn't totally sure he was kidding. "You go ahead. I'm just going to stay here for a little while before I go home," she said as she tried to push the sleeves of the parka up enough to get her hands out.
"Why?" Jack looked at her with concern.
"Well, um, well…" Annie bit her lip.
Jack moved close to her and brushed her face with the backs of his fingers. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" he asked quietly.
* * *
Annie felt her heart lurch when he called her sweetheart again. She could hardly breathe. All the arousal she'd felt when he'd held her and comforted her came rushing back full force. She tried to ignore it while she answered his question, "Well, it's just that the other girls in my dorm will be able to tell I was crying, and they'll ask a lot of questions. I'm a terrible liar. If I stay here for a little while, my eyes and face will go back to normal and no one will know."
Jack looked at her and knew she was right. Her pale skin and even paler eyelashes made the red-rimmed eyes stand out in stark contrast. He didn't want to leave her here alone, and he didn't want her walking home by herself, even with his coat. But if he stayed here alone with her, his desire for her would surely overwhelm his self-control. He thought quickly. "Let's go to the campus café across the street and get a cup of decaf. We can sit in the back where it's always dark, and by the time we're finished, you'll be fine and I'll drop you at your dorm."
"I don't drink coffee."
"Well, then order hot chocolate!" Jack said in an exasperated voice. "Are you trying to be difficult?"
"I do like hot chocolate..." Annie watched to see if he was going to get angry again.
Jack gave her his biggest smile. "Great!" he said. "It's a date."
* * *
Paulie Berglas was freezing, fucking freezing, to be precise. After he'd cut and run, his first thought was to get back to the warmth and safety of the frat house as quickly as possible, but then he remembered how furious the Prof had looked. What if he called the cops? He wasn't sure if that mousy little bitch Annie knew his last name, but at least one of the guys in the cafeteria with him had been wearing a jacket with the Tri-Kappa insignia. He had to assume that eventually they'd track him down.
At the house, he'd be a sitting duck, so he decided to return to the neuroscience building to see if the cops showed up. That way, he'd have some warning. He'd been crouched down behind some freezing snowy bushes for at least half an hour now. But no cop cars had come roaring up – in fact, no one had come and gone at all – and Paulie couldn't imagine what was taking so long. It didn't make sense that they'd gone out a different door; they had to still be inside. Unless, Paulie wondered slyly, the Prof wasn't quite the clean-cut gent he seemed, and he'd gone for a little of the hide the sausage of his own in exchange, for not turning Annie in. It was the only reason Paulie could fathom it was taking so long. He was getting madder at the two of them by the minute. Trampy little bitch, pretending to be all innocent, and now the Prof was probably banging her – getting what Paulie was supposed to have gotten...
The door opened, and Paulie froze. Out they walked together, and the Prof didn't look angry any more, at all. Paulie felt a moment of relief, as it sure seemed as if the authorities had not been called, then his eyes narrowed and his gaze followed the couple as they crossed the street and entered the cafe together. Now they were going out for coffee? Well, well, well. That was certainly cozy. Had the bitch narced on him? Is that why she didn't seem to be in trouble, because she ratted him out and blamed everything on him? Well, he'd be damned if he was going to take the fall on this! She was the one who unlocked the door and let them in. What the hell? The whole thing had practically been her idea.
Paulie slipped over to the other side of the street. There was a campus bus stop right in front of the cafe, and other students milling around, so it was easy to watch them through the window with no one paying him a second glance. He stood just a bit away from the lighted bus stand, so he knew they couldn't see him. The Prof was buying hot drinks and leading Annie to a table? What the fuck? Paulie watched Annie smile and duck her head shyly; she seemed almost like a different girl. There was a feeling of familiarity between the two of them that even someone out in the cold, yards away, couldn't miss seeing.
Paulie was dumbfounded. His suspicion, which five minutes earlier had been mostly sour grapes, that the Prof had gotten a piece of what Paulie had been after, came back in force. The old dude had fucked the little bitch! Just like that!
But if the Prof had already banged her, why was he sticking around? Why were they hanging out? Then Paulie knew the answer: They were probably going to talk about him. Maybe Prof was still going to call the cops, now that he'd had his piece of puss. Shit! His old man would blow a gasket if he got in any more trouble at school. Paulie couldn't afford any more decreases in his spending money. A man of his tastes had expenses, you know. He was going to have to get hold of the bitch and make sure she didn't squeal on him.
Paulie stood in the darkness, watching the couple sip their hot drinks, growing colder and madder by the second.
Chapter 5
Annie was skipping her eight a.m. anthropology class. She stayed in the lab by herself after taking care of the rats for the early morning shift. This was the first time she had ever skipped class in almost two years of college. She needed the time to think about what was going to happen when Professor Davis arrived at the lab for their daily briefing at ten a.m. What had happened this weekend was so unreal that she could hardly remember it, without becoming overwhelmed with a barrage of conflicting emotions.
On Saturday night, she had let a boy who had kissed her talk her into letting him into the lab so they could be alone together. She had known she was violating university policy by allowing an unauthorized person into the highly secured animal lab, but she had let him talk her into it. Professor Davis walked in on them unexpectedly and had been furious with her.
Annie had been terrified the police would arrest her and the school would expel her for her actions, but instead of reporting her and firing her, Professor Davis had given her a very hard spanking. And because she had violated four different sets of rules and standards, she was going to have to submit to four more spankings, over the next four weeks. It was almost too much to think about, but she had to figure something out before their morning meetin
g.
What would Professor Davis say to her, when he arrived? Would he yell at her more for what she had done wrong? Would he talk about the spanking or act as if it never happened? If only she knew what he was thinking, she would be better able to prepare for this meeting with him.
After he spanked her on Saturday night, Annie had bawled like a baby. Professor Davis held her and comforted her until she was able to pull herself together, and the feelings that had aroused in Annie were almost as strong as those produced by the spanking itself. The intense experience left her shaken and uncertain.
On Sunday morning, she had come in to the lab early, to care for the rats as usual, despite the late night on Saturday. The first thing she did when she arrived was to clean up the mess that they'd left the night before. She carried all the things Paulie had brought with him, in his attempt to seduce her, out to the dumpster and tossed them in. If he wanted them back, he could just fish them out of the dumpster! She knew he would never dare to complain after he had run out on her when Professor Davis caught them. She put the chairs back at the desks and tried to make it look as though nothing out of the ordinary happened there, the night before.
Annie typically spent several hours at the lab every day, in addition to her assigned duties, because it was a much quieter place to study than her dorm was. However, this Sunday, she left the lab as soon as she finished feeding and caring for the rats and spent the rest of the day in the library. She was worried that if she spent any time in the lab, Professor Davis might stop in, and she wasn't ready to see him again yet. She knew she would have to see him on Monday morning for their daily briefing, and she needed all the time she had before then to come to terms with what happened on Saturday night.
Now, it was almost nine o'clock on Monday morning, and Annie still didn't know what she was going to say to her advisor when he showed up for their meeting in an hour. She needed to get out of the lab right now. She should be on her way to her biochem class; she couldn't afford to get behind in that class if she expected to go to med school. It was bad enough she had skipped anthropology to stay in the lab and worry about the upcoming meeting with Professor Davis. She walked across the lab to her locker to get her coat and books for class.
When she was less than halfway across the small room, Annie heard the clicking that signaled someone's key card sliding through the lock. Who could it be? The grad students all had statistics Monday morning, and the other undergraduate lab assistant didn't come in until afternoons. What if it was Professor Davis? But he never got here this early! Annie quickly rushed back to the rat room and tried to pull the door shut behind her before anyone could see that she was there.
Just before she was able to get the door closed, she caught a glimpse of Professor Davis coming through the entrance. Her heart started thumping wildly. What was he doing here? She thought she had a whole hour before she had to figure out what she was going to say to him! She tried to make sure the door shut quietly so he would not know she was there. She didn't think he saw her. He wouldn't be expecting her until ten because she usually came in for their meeting right after her biochemistry class.
Annie collapsed into the chair next to the door and put her face in her hands. She was trapped now. She could never get out without having to go past him. And what would she say if she did? She didn't want to explain why she wasn't in class like she was every other Monday at this time. She couldn't just stay in the rat room for an hour. Or could she? But wouldn't he be expecting her to come in the front door at ten, if she was coming from her class? Well, maybe sometime in the next hour, he would leave, and she could sneak out and then just come back at the right time. But how would she know if he left? The rat room she was in was soundproofed. She was trapped, unless she could think of something.
In the meantime, what was she going to do, stuck in the rat room? She had better do something useful, just in case Professor Davis came in here and found her. She had already fed and weighed all the rats and prepared the samples for the assays. She could set up the feeding tubes for the next few days for the newborn rat pups and repair the frayed electrodes that measured the neural responses. That would make life easier for the next week. If she worked slowly enough, she should be able to keep busy for the next hour, in case she wasn't able to escape before then.
* * *
Jack stopped as he was letting himself into the lab when he saw Annie slip into the rat room. Obviously, she had heard him coming and was trying not be seen. This worried Jack; it was not a good sign if she was avoiding him. Damn! He had come to the lab on Sunday, hoping to find her, but she had not shown up all afternoon or evening, which was unusual for her.
Jack put his coat in his locker, sat down at the computer and tried to figure out what to do. Should he go into the rat room and try to talk to her? Why wasn't she in class? Should he just leave her alone and let her come to him on her own time? But what if she didn't? And what was she thinking? Did she hate him for spanking her?
She had certainly deserved the spanking he had given her on Saturday night, and she had even consented to it, but he was sure it had been a lot harder and more intense than she had expected. Maybe he had pushed her too far. And he certainly shouldn't have made her agree to four more spankings for breaking four sets of rules. What in the world had gotten into him to say such a thing? Damn, damn, damn! How upset was she? What was he going to do now?
The entire experience had profoundly affected Jack. He had fantasized, since his early teens, about spanking a naughty young woman, and living out his fantasy had been incredible. But Annie had moved him deeply. When he had fantasized about spanking someone, he had never realized just how much her responses would affect him. Annie's submissive vulnerability electrified him; it touched something deep in the core of his being.
Jack had known Annie since almost his first day as a new professor at the university. He had been impressed with her intelligence and dependability and he had hired her as his lab assistant when he was first setting up his lab, back in June. She had taken his undergraduate course, last semester, and received the highest grade in the class, and she almost always had something intelligent to say in his lab meetings. She had quickly become his favorite student, but Jack had never thought of her as anything but a talented protégé – until Saturday night. Now, he couldn't stop thinking of her, and not in a mentorly way, either. He had barely slept the last two nights and had spent all day yesterday in the lab, hoping to see her. Now, she was in the other room and seemed to be avoiding him, and that had Jack worried.
As Jack's eyes finally focused on the computer screen in front of him, he realized that almost an hour had past and he had spent it all worrying about what Annie was thinking. He had not analyzed any data, written any of his papers, or even answered his email while he was sitting here. He had hardly gotten any work done yesterday, and now Monday was starting the same way. He had to talk Annie soon so he could concentrate on work again. Getting tenure wasn't going to be easy at an Ivy League university. Publish or perish, remember? Maybe he should just go back to the rat room and talk to her. She couldn't avoid him there. Or maybe he should give her a few more minutes and see if she came out for their daily briefing at ten? Jack agonized over what to do until it was a few minutes after ten. Annie had never been late for one of their meetings before, even in a snowstorm, so Jack had just decided to go back into the rat room and confront her when the door slowly opened and Annie stepped hesitantly through.
Annie had waited until ten to go back to the outer room, but at ten o'clock exactly, when she put her hand on the doorknob, her nerve failed her. She just couldn't bring herself to turn the knob and walk through the door. What was he going to say? Was he still going to be mad at her? He had seemed so, well, tense or something at the café and driving her home on Saturday night, and he kept looking at her in such an odd way, that he must have still been really mad at her then. Would he still be mad today? Would he ask her why she wasn't in class? Would he yell at her for skip
ping class? As she thought about all the possibilities, her heart started beating wildly and she felt lightheaded. Her knees started to buckle and she sat down quickly in the chair next to the door. She put her head down and tried to take a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. When she felt like she could stand without falling over, she opened the door and stepped cautiously through.
When Jack saw Annie come through the door, relief flooded through him. He could see that she looked terrified – a little like a deer caught in the headlights, staring at him with wide eyes from across the room. She didn't let go of her tight grip on the doorknob; it looked like she was ready to bolt back into the rat room. Even from the other side of the room, he could see that she was breathing so fast and shallowly, she was almost panting.
Jack knew he had to take control of the situation quickly, but he had to be very careful not to scare her any further. He wanted to rush over to her, gather her in his arms, and reassure her until she felt better, but he forced himself to sit back down. A big smile of relief spread across his face and he said sincerely, "I'm so glad to see you this morning, Annie."
Annie seemed to relax a bit at his warm greeting. Her death grip on the doorknob lessened until she was able to let it go and close the door. She still stood with her back up against the wall, watching Jack with wide eyes, so he continued, "Why don't you come over here and sit down?"
Annie moved slowly and hesitantly over to the chair next to Jack's desk, where she usually sat during their daily meetings, keeping her eyes on Jack the whole way. Desperate to calm her down and relieve her fears of him, Jack tried to act as though this was just a normal daily meeting.
"So, tell me, how are the rats looking this morning? Did we get any newborn pups over the weekend?" Jack asked as nonchalantly as he could manage.
Submitting To Her Professor Page 5
