by C. M. Albert
“Grant,” she breathed out, leaning all the way back on his desk now so she was lying down, “I want to feel your mouth on me.”
Simon traced his fingers along her inner thigh, loving the shock of her body as it twitched with sensitivity. He rolled e.e. cummings lines from his tongue as easily as if they were his own. “‘I like my body when it is with your body…’”
Brooklyn’s legs trembled. He blew on her sex again, letting her feel the warmth of his breath as his fingers ran up and down both sides at an agonizingly slow pace. “‘It is so quite a new thing. Muscles better and nerves more.’”
His finger roamed lazily over the slick surface of her opening. “‘I like your body. I like what it does . . .’” He lowered his mouth and ran his tongue up and down her center, pulling in the smell of her sweetness with each breath. Honeysuckle.
“‘I like kissing this and that of you . . . ’” he said, pulling her outer lips into his mouth, sucking full-mouthed over her clit as he took in all of her. His tongue lashed out now, running in smooth circles around her sensitive nub. She was so wet against his mouth.
He pulled back, rising as he slowly inserted two fingers in his tongue’s place until she gasped out loud, her hips bucking to meet his hand.
She raised her head to look at him while he recited the last of the poem. Her breasts rose and fell in rhythm to the spasms of her smooth, flat abdomen. She licked her lips and kept her eyes locked on his as she unabashedly rode his hand toward climax.
“‘I like the thrill of under me, you so quite new,’” Simon whispered into her mouth as he kissed her, arching his fingers to hit her G-spot until she exploded against his hand. Her body tremored as they deepened their kiss and she rode the final waves of her orgasm.
When she was done, she let her head fall back and laughter escaped her mouth, her cheeks pink from exhilaration. Brooklyn scootched her butt so she was sitting more center on his desk now, watching as Simon stood, backing away from her. He slid his wet fingers into his mouth, sucking the fruits of her orgasm from each digit. “I love the feel of you under me,” he growled, reaching for the clasp of his own jeans.
“And I suspect I’ll love the feel of you under me,” she said, her eyes growing appreciatively in size as he freed himself.
“I want to smell you on my desk when you leave,” Simon said bluntly. “So that when I’m grading papers, I’ll get a whiff of your scent and be taken back to this moment.”
Brooklyn cocked an eyebrow, as if considering. But she smiled, twisting her legs around so she kneeled on his desk. Simon stroked himself as he watched her part her legs, her center sinking low until it was flush with the smooth wooden tabletop, as if she were fucking it. She rolled her hips in a slow circle and slid her wet opening back and forth, her hands massaging her round, taut breasts as he watched her.
“That’s enough,” he growled, his cock already straining from tasting her. Now all he could think about was that perky little ass grinding circles on his lap as she rode him like she had his desk.
“Your turn to sit, Professor Browning,” she instructed. He hoisted himself onto his desk, twisting to face her. She brought her mouth to his, licking around the outside before pulling in his lower lip. He groaned, his hand reaching out to grasp the back of her head. Their mouths danced, as if they’d done this a thousand times before, moving in perfect synchronicity.
She eased her leg over him, lowering herself down his thick shaft, gasping as he pushed himself in deeper, farther, until she was sitting all the way in his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts to his chest. Simon’s hands firmly gripped her hips, holding her down while grinding his pelvis upward, going deeper still. Brooklyn threw her head back, moaning as he helped to lift and lower her with each precisely timed thrust. She fit perfectly around his cock, her insides clenching tightly around him with every stroke. She may be young, but she certainly knew what she was doing.
He took her nipple in his mouth, biting it hard this time. She screamed his name in pleasure as the ripples of heat tore through her and sent her over the edge, causing her to orgasm for a second time. Hearing her cry out as she came was more than he could bear.
“May I?” he asked between gritted teeth, trying hard to hold on before spilling over.
“Oh God, yes,” she moaned as he thrust one final time deep inside her, her insides warming with his long release.
They sat still for a few minutes, their slick frames molded perfectly together. As their breathing slowed, they pulled apart. Brooklyn blushed, lowering her gaze as she rose off Simon and sauntered to the bathroom to freshen up.
Simon waited for her, crashing into his leather chair on spent legs. A lascivious grin spread across his face as he thought about the feel of Brooklyn’s weight on his lap as she rode him. The supple curve of her bare ass as she strode confidently to the restroom. She was unlike any woman he had ever met. She had more poise than the youthful student she was portraying, and more intelligence, too. A perfect balance of fantasy and real life. He hated the fucking rules sometimes.
He glanced down his legs at the cubby hole under his desk. It had once seemed charming to ask a woman to etch her name under there. He positioned it as a badge of honor and way to remember their lovemaking; but for Simon, all it had been about was power—his sexual prowess. The Professor’s Club. Not one of his conquests had ever been appalled by his request; instead, many hoped to be remembered the most, as the best lover he’d ever had.
Charlotte. Portia. Monique. Elexandra. Camden. Alice. Francesca. Bella. Erin. Mary Elizabeth. Brandi (with an i). Chloe. Lacy. Laura Rae. Pallava. Breñe. Anastaysia. Ingrid. Elise. Marisol. Peni. Brandy (with a y). Gabriella. Charlie. Lucy. Helena. Rosalia. Jean-Luc. Jasmine.
Simon knew them all by heart. Could remember each birthmark, each ticklish spot, each kink. Jasmine had been his last conquest, another woman he’d met in the White Room. He was certain Jasmine was her identity and not her real name. And Jean-Luc was his one and only dip into a curiosity he’d been intrigued by. Their night together in the White Room had been heated and passionate, in a primal way. But Simon’s heart belonged to the women he seduced.
Glancing at the names, and remembering all of the beautiful diversity he’d encountered over his twenty-plus years as a professor, he couldn’t help but wonder why Brooklyn was so different. Why he suddenly wasn’t as interested in etching her name under his desk with all the others.
She opened the bathroom door and strolled over, stopping first for a bottle of wine. She kneeled down in front of him and gently washed her scent from his cock with a warm washcloth. She looked up at him through hooded eyes. “I’m sure you’ve had many students on their knees under your desk before, Professor Browning,” she teased, running her confident fingers along his inner thigh and causing him to harden.
Simon nodded, taking himself in his hand as he stroked up and down. “There may have been a few.”
“How many is a few?” she asked, taking a sip of the burgundy-colored wine straight from the bottle. Before Simon could answer, she bent over and took the tip of his penis in her mouth. She began to suck, letting some of the wine dribble down the length of him. She swallowed the liquid in her mouth and lapped the wine from around his shaft. She looked up at him again as she licked along his sac, running her finger beneath the delicate and sensitive flesh. “How many, Grant?”
“Why don’t you look for yourself, Brooklyn?” he said, grabbing her hair in a ponytail and pulling her head away. She sat up straighter, rubbing her firm breasts around his manhood, her nipples tight and pebbling.
“Ooh, I like that,” she murmured. She turned in his grasp so she could face the desk, his hands still gripping her hair and tugging gently, sending tingles over her scalp and down her spine. She arched her back and poked out her rear end. “Tug it again,” she whispered.
He gave her hair a firmer tug this time, wrapping his other hand around her torso and massaging her breast. Her nipple was
so fucking hard beneath his touch. He squeezed it, pinching it between two fingers as he rolled the delicate nub with precision.
Brooklyn groaned. She ran her hand along several of the names, as Simon grew harder by the moment. Was she angry? Did it turn her on? He didn’t know. The suspense killed him. He’d never worried about what one of his women thought before.
“Tell me about Portia,” Brooklyn moaned, rising to her feet. She leaned over the desk, her ass in the air toward Simon. “Touch me, and tell me about how you fucked her,” she said. “Did you take her on this desk, too?”
It wasn’t what Simon was expecting. He rolled his chair forward, running his hands over the smooth flesh of her ass. Her skin was so clear and beautiful. He noticed, for the first time, a tattoo across the small of her back. It was in cursive and was capped on each end by the crest of a wave.
I crave a love so deep the ocean would be jealous.
Simon ran his hand over the surprising words. He wouldn’t have pegged Brooklyn for a hopeless romantic. Despite his many conquests, he was one too. He just never found what he was looking for.
Simon pulled her to a stand until they were nearly back to chest. Her firm bottom pressed against his hard-on, making it difficult to speak. Her hair was still wrapped around his hand, and he trailed the other down the side of her face, along her neckline, until he stopped and cupped her chin. He turned her face to make her look at him.
“Brooklyn,” he whispered, “you don’t really want to hear about the other women I’ve fucked. What do you really want? Let’s drop the charade.” Simon turned her so they faced each other, Brooklyn’s bottom pushed against the desk.
She jutted her chin out defiantly, pushing her pelvis against his own. He grabbed onto her hips, grinding himself into her center. Man, she was making this hard. He knew they were never supposed to share real information, and he never had. Why, all of a sudden, was he curious if Brooklyn was her real name. Or how old she was. And whether or not she got those insanely sexy legs from surfing.
“I want you, Grant. We only have a little bit of time left. I want to feel you all over me. I want to quiver beneath your fingers again. I want to hear you recite more poetry to me. I—” She paused. “I’m curious about your past. How many students you’ve slept with. I’m not your real student, but I can’t help but want to be special. To be more than just another conquest. Even if it is just for a couple of hours.”
Just for a couple of hours. The words punched him in the gut, a visceral reminder that this wasn’t real. That she wasn’t his.
She ran her hands along his chest toward the hard V at the base of his stomach. Her fingers tickled his flesh as they made their way to his hips, digging in as she gripped them. She looked up then, her rich brown eyes searching his so deeply he felt as if he were staring straight into her soul. Then she broke him with one simple line. “I want more than I know we can have.”
Brooklyn held her head high, her eye contact never wavering. “But if I can’t have it,” she said, “then I want to give all of myself to you now, in this room. Leave my heart on your desk so you carry a part of me with you every day.”
She turned and opened his desk drawer, grabbing the pointed envelope opener. “Guess it’s time to add my name.”
“Brooklyn,” he said, grabbing her wrist as she bent to scrawl her name beneath the desk with the others, “not there.”
He pulled her up, angling her chin so she met his eyes again. “You are different. I wish this could be more.”
He ran his hand through his wavy brown hair, then pointed to the front center of the desk. “Write your name there, across the top, so I see it every goddamn day. I will smell you on my desk. I will think of you every time I read a poem aloud. I’ll remember the way you wrapped yourself around my heart in just a couple of hours the way no other woman has ever been able to do.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if collecting herself. When she opened them, she bent over and began to scratch the desk with the letter opener.
“Fuck!” he hissed under his breath when he saw that she’d etched Eden into the dark mahogany.
“Why did you write that?” he whispered. “Because of the poem?”
She shook her head. “Because it’s my real name. And even if dawn goes down today—a very natural cycle of life, you said so yourself—well then . . . you’ll always have this as a reminder of our paradisiacal pleasure.”
“Fuck the rules!” Simon said angrily. He cradled the nape of her neck and growled, “I want you, Eden. I’m forty-eight years old, and I’ve never wanted any one more.” His mouth found hers—searching, questioning, demanding. “Is my age a problem for you?”
“Not at all. Though I’m not as young as you think,” she admitted. “Is that a problem for you?” She reached down and took the length of him in her hand, stroking him back to life. “Outside of the White Room, I’m not really the young co-ed you asked for.”
“I don’t give a fuck how old you are, Eden. I just want you.”
“Good, because I’m really thirty-four. I’m an English professor at the University of Wilmington,” she said and grinned. “I’ve never had a long-distance relationship before, but I’m willing to try.”
“What about the White Room?” Simon asked, growling at the slow, torturous pace she was setting with her hand. “And, my name is Simon Ellison. Not Grant. Not Professor Browning. I’m a tenured professor, though, in real life. English lit,” he said, grinning back with a cocky half-smile.
“This is my first and last time in the White Room,” she answered truthfully. She leaned forward and ran a trail of kisses over the firm muscles in his chest, playfully biting a nipple. “I should ask you the same. Can you really give all of this up? All those names under your desk?”
Simon’s hands found her hair again as he brought his mouth to hers, demanding all she had and more. “Consider them gone,” he growled.
“Will you recite another poem for me before we go,” she asked sweetly, dropping to her knees.
She took him in her mouth and teased the tip of his penis. Simon groaned, closing his eyes. “‘Whatever happens with us,’” he recited as she dropped her mouth over him completely, drawing him deeper into her throat, “‘your body will haunt mine.’”
Eden moaned against his shaft as she sucked him. She came up for air, locking eyes with his. “‘Tender, delicate your lovemaking . . .’” she said.
Simon grabbed her under the arms and pulled her up as he sank back against his office chair. He pulled her onto his lap. “‘The live, insatiate dance of your nipples in my mouth—’” He leaned over and drew her nipple in deep, sucking hard till she moaned his name.
“God, yes, Simon. More,” she panted, sliding herself down his shaft again. This was becoming their thing, and he quite liked it.
She pushed her bottom down slowly, inch by inch, as he recited, “‘Your strong tongue and slender fingers . . .’”
Adrienne Rich would surely approve, he thought as Eden took his mouth in hers, kissing him, her hands holding his scruffy jaw on both sides of his face. Her thick blond hair fell around them like a cocoon, protecting them in this moment.
“‘I had been waiting years for you,’” Simon said, finishing a line of the poem and taking a plunge, deep into his future.
“Eden isn’t grief,” he whispered to her. “Eden is everything.”
5
Emmeline
EMMELINE PACED THE waiting room, unsettled. It had been weeks since her last encounter, and even longer since her only visit with Dom. What troubled her was that she’d never tried to remember anyone’s name outside of the fantasy world that was created in the White Room. But Dom had stuck with her in a way no man had since she’d met her husband after college.
Emmeline was not her real name, of course, but it was close. Avaline Bellarose, wife of Henri Basile Bellarose, founder of the White Room. Because of his failing condition, he was no longer acting CEO. That had long since
been passed on. With his time quickly fading, Avaline was spending less and less time in the White Room, her itch no longer as important as spending her husband’s last days with him.
He’d been encouraging her, though, to spend more time here in the actual White Room and not just overseeing day-to-day operations. But every time she stepped through those doors, her breath hitched when she remembered Dom sitting in one of the white leather chairs in his expensive suit, his tie loosened around his neck. She remembered the way he whispered her name as he slid that silk tie around her eyes, his fingers brushing the soft skin of her inner thighs. She couldn’t shake him, but she was going to try.
Today she would lose herself in pure hedonistic pleasure. One with tenderness and seduction. One to completely take her mind off of a man she could never have.
When Avaline opened the wide double doors, she saw it was staged exactly as she’d requested. The lights were dimmed, and white candles danced around the space. White roses and her favorite moonflowers overflowed silver vases on nearly every surface, filling the room with a heady, sensual scent. The fire cast a warm glow over her naked body as she walked silently to the sound system. She picked up the glass of white wine she requested and took a long sip, searching for the music her body craved.
Camila’s haunting “De Mí” quietly filled the space around them as she followed the sensual notes into the bedroom. Though she knew her time with someone else would never erase the feeling of Dom from her skin, her lips, her thighs, she knew he wasn’t hers to have, and the feeling gutted her. She was determined to leave him at the door today. This was the best way she knew how.
A woman her age lay naked on the expansive white bed in the sleeping quarters of the room. Her beautiful tan skin glistened against the soft white sheets and candlelight. The white silk cloth around her eyes and binding her hands and ankles to the bed contrasted with her skin in the most erotic way. Avaline loved all ethnicities, and the world was her playground. The woman on the bed today was everything Avaline was not.
