by Blaire Drake
It’d been driving me crazy all morning. I swore I’d felt the whisper of his touch on the back of my neck more than once, but that was nothing more than a coincidental meeting of a breeze and my imagination. Still, it said a lot that it was so strong in my mind.
And the kiss.
That final kiss had been perhaps the most torturous. It hadn’t been hard by any means, but I’d felt the bruise of his touch for hours afterward. It was the distinct heat of having someone kiss you because they wanted to.
That was it, wasn’t it? What it ultimately came down to? My job, while filled with intimate touches and pleasure, was cold. I never meant it as I kissed the guy I was screwing on camera. I felt nothing as I slid my hands down his body and sucked his cock. I felt even less as we maneuvered into whatever position we needed to be in and fucked.
It was just cold. Emotionless. It was a rare day that I felt desired or wanted by any of the guys I had to get it on with. So rare that I could probably count the times on one of my hands and still have fingers left over. I liked it that way. I’d closed my emotions off after Griffin had died and I had known what it was to hurt so badly that it felt like living was impossible. I liked the coldness of my job, but that didn’t mean that, sometimes, it would be nice to be desired.
And yesterday, God help me, the man had made me feel wanted. Slow words in his deep voice, red-hot touch, a kiss that had burned…
The thought of it made me swallow. It was insanity. I knew it. I couldn’t honestly agree to what he wanted. He was my fucking professor.
Somehow, no matter how many times I told myself that, it didn’t matter. It didn’t change a thing. Maybe my want to be wanted was starting to cloud my judgment, because damn it, I wanted to agree.
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted—no, I needed—my letter. A full set would do me wonders. And six weeks wasn’t much. He couldn’t want that much from me, could he?
Jesus Christ, Darcy.
I was really considering it, wasn’t I? I was honestly thinking about having an affair with my professor. One that I knew could go one of two ways, but the catch was that both ways led to everything up in flames.
I jumped as three knocks sounded at my bedroom door. “Yeah?” I said, rolling my head to the side on the pillow.
The door opened, and Jenna appeared. “You ready to go?” Her eyes combed over me. “You look like shit.”
“I feel it,” I answered honestly. I sat up and swung my legs off my bed. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“Are you getting sick?” She wrinkled her face up. “I don’t need a ride to class that badly.”
I rolled my eyes. “No, I’m not getting sick. It was just one of those nights. I couldn’t get comfortable.”
“Must be your period,” she summed up. “Week off for you.”
I nodded in agreement as I grabbed my oversized Coach purse and followed her out, but she was wrong. Not only because I was dreaming about fucking someone all night, but because my contraception meant I didn’t have periods.
Nobody ever made money by having to take a week off work every month, did they?
I dug my keys out of my purse and unlocked my car. Jenna got in the passenger’s side, throwing her own purse on the backseat. I set mine down next to hers and started the engine.
“Did you get all of your letters?”
I shook my head. “Keaton is still left.”
“Hmm. You think he’ll give it to you?”
Yeah, but not in the way you’re thinking.
I settled for shrugging and turned the radio up. She got the message, thankfully, and didn’t ask me any more questions. Thank God for that. I was going to go insane if I had to answer any more of her questions, and she’d only asked me a handful of them.
What could I say? I was a grumpy motherfucker if I didn’t get sleep.
I pulled into the campus parking lot and got out. I grabbed my purse from the backseat and locked the car as soon as Jenna was out. I had approximately two hours to go until my class with Keaton, which meant I had three and a half to make my decision.
I was ninety percent sure I’d already made it, but that other ten percent was one hell of a little bastard.
My law class passed as though someone had pushed the slow-mo button. It seemed to last for twelve hours instead of the one and a half.
Now, I was walking to history, and I had zero expectations for my output this particular day. I knew that it was all going to go to shit the second Professor Keaton walked through the door. I was ready for him though. My loins were girded, and my attitude was switched onto “fuck yeah, fuck you” mode. It was the only way I’d get through the lesson with my sanity intact.
Whatever was left of it, that was.
I dropped into my seat and slumped forward. I buried my face in my arms and didn’t move until I felt Jake hit me over the back of the head.
“What?” I muttered.
“Someone up too late?”
“Fuck off.” I forced myself to sit up and wiped the hair from my face. “What is it with everyone today? I slept badly. I do that, you know.”
“Really? The queen of beauty sleep has nights where insomnia strikes?”
I glared at him, but the grin on his face had me giving in instantly. I was sure that, if I hadn’t turned to being a brokenhearted cam girl freshman year, I would have dated him the second he’d asked. I loved the hell out of him, but not in the blood-flaring way. In the hey-this-guy-was-an-ass-go-beat-him-up way.
The door slammed shut, and Jake dropped his ass to the chair as though he’d been shot at and was dodging the bullet. The chill in the air that accompanied Professor Keaton’s arrival was prevalent, and it took every ounce of strength I had in my body to look up and to the front of the room the way he demanded.
Except my eyes had a mind of their own. They didn’t look front. No siree. They looked right at him. At his well-fitting suit that stretched across his broad shoulders, at the electrifying, blue eyes currently behind his black-framed glasses, and the dark stubble that lined his sharp jaw.
He was so handsome that he had to be the devil incarnate.
The evidence pointed to it, after all.
“I have to express my disappointment at the overall grades of this class.” His words were sharp, and there was no doubting that he was telling the truth. Each syllable he spoke sliced through the air with the precision of sniper’s bullet. “B-minus. I expected more.” His eyes swept over every single of us. “Only four of you succeeded in securing a grade higher than an A-minus. Miss Dawson, Mr. Lawrence, Miss Erins, and Miss Hamilton.” His eyes lingered on me a second longer than everyone else. “And Miss Hamilton was the only person to score an A-plus.” He slammed the stack of papers down on his desk and flattened his hands on either side of them. His arms bulged against his jacket as he leaned forward, and I wanted to slap myself silly for having noticed something so trivial. “Anyone have an excuse as to what went wrong?”
No one spoke. No one was that stupid.
“I didn’t think so. I expect you all to take extra notes today, and everyone who scored below A-minus will have extra studying tonight to bring your grades back up.”
I was thankful for my bangs covering my forehead as my eyebrows shot up in disbelief.
Like no one had enough. Not that it was my problem, of course. I had it down. Highest grade.
I was ridiculously smug.
Jake, however, was groaning into the palm of his hand. He wasn’t doing a very good job of masking it. He knew he was one of those with extra studying.
I knew I’d get the Mayday text message later that night.
Professor Keaton steamrolled into the lesson. He barely gave a minute for his words to sink in before he’d shucked his jacket off and grabbed his whiteboard marker. He furiously underlined his words on the board, and I heard the whispered curses of students as they loaded laptops and opened notebooks.
The sound of clicking pens reigned supreme. I guessed they wa
nted to get a head start while their laptops loaded. That was exactly why mine was always on sleep mode during the day. I had no idea why these other idiots didn’t do the same.
The lesson moved surprisingly quickly. Maybe it was because half of my attention was on the man teaching rather than the actual lesson, but I didn’t want to bet on that. Mostly because admitting such a thing to myself seemed so fucking ridiculous that I could barely stand it.
By the time it was through, he’d worked us to the bone and I was ready to go home and collapse onto my bed. Of course, I was probably exaggerating because of my exhausted state, but hey. I knew hard work when I saw it, and he was the biggest slave driver I’d ever met.
“You coming?” Jake asked as he packed this things up.
“I’ll meet you there,” I said quietly. “I need to ask him about my letter.”
“Didn’t you do that yesterday?”
I jerked my head from side to side. “I chickened out.”
“All right. Call me when you’ve convinced him, yeah?”
“Sure,” I agreed. I felt like total shit for having lied to him, but what else could I have done? I couldn’t have been honest, could I?
Jake wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. I smiled weakly at his embrace then shoved him off. He laughed as he headed for the door.
He paused to mouth, “Good luck,” before he walked through it.
I gave him a thumbs-up and slowly walked down between the desks, waiting until everyone had left the room.
I felt his eyes on me before I’d gathered the courage to look up at him. His gaze was burning with its intensity, and my knees almost buckled beneath the weight of it. I’d never been looked at so intensely in my life.
It was in that moment that I understood how a look could change your life. I’d had no idea of the decision I was going to make until that very second his gaze touched mine.
“Can I help you, Miss Hamilton?” Professor Keaton drawled, amusement hinting at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes, sir. Do you have time before your next class?” My tongue flicked out and swept across my lips. They were so dry, just like the rest of my mouth. Nerves flittered through me as I approached his desk.
“Take a seat. I’m sure someone as slim as yourself could fit their backside on the edge of my desk.”
Did he just say that? Of course he did. Don’t be dumb, Darcy. “Okay.” I perched on the edge of his desk right after I’d set my purse down at my feet. My dress flared out as I bent one knee and propped myself up with the other. “I’d like to talk about your…your…proposition…yesterday.”
“The agreement, you mean.”
“Don’t complicate it with bullshit terms, sir.”
His eyes flared with heat. “Talk. Now.”
“You gave me two options,” I said softly, dropping my eyes. I played with a loose thread on the hem of my dress. “Is there any way for a third… One that perhaps ends with neither of us disclosing details about yesterday? Or you about what you know about me?”
“No.”
I smacked my lips together. There went plan A. Right down the fucking shitty toilet bowl. There was always plan B, right?
Right.
I stood and walked around the desk. His gaze followed me as I approached him. He was like a viper stalking his prey, ready to strike, and I was almost too afraid to get too close to him. The tightness coiled in his shoulders only strengthened my perception of him.
Professor Jordan Keaton was wound so tightly that he was liable to uncoil himself and strike at any time.
“I told you, Darcy. I want you. There isn’t an instance in this where we’ll come out of this where I don’t get you.”
His confidence was startling—but not unfounded. With that single expression of the word no, he’d bashed out every idea I’d had of getting out of this situation alive.
I perched on the desk on his side, making sure my dress rode up my thigh as I sat down. His eyes flickered down to my lap, but they returned to mine soon enough. They blazed at me still, but I centered myself as I remembered that, at this point, I had a crazy kind of control over everything.
“What if I say yes?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. I reached back and swept my hair behind my ear. “Then what? Do you have terms, sir?”
He leaned forward, still not touching me. His smirk grew though. It grew evilly. “Yes. No more shows unless they’re for me—public or private. I’ll supplement your lost income.”
“You’re fucking kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m joking, Miss Hamilton?”
“Miss Hamilton? Darcy? You’re giving me multiple fucking personality disorder, Professor. Who am I?”
“You’re making me very annoyed, Darcy.”
“Oh, now, I’m Darcy again?” I arched an eyebrow.
He grasped my wrist and tugged me toward him. I fell forward, but he somehow managed to control my body as it launched at him. I found myself sitting on his lap, straddling him, with my toes brushing the floor. He wound his arms around my body, holding me in place. It took all of three seconds for me to feel his erection pushing against my inner thigh.
And fuck. He had one hell of a cock—the kind that made me want to skate my body right up against his and rub myself against his evidently long length.
“No more private shows. No more public shows. You want your letter, you belong to me, sweet thing. Like I said—I’ll supplement your income. You’ll do every show for me, however I ask.”
“What if I have a show with another guy? You know I can earn over five hundred dollars in an hour when that happens, right?” I pushed away from him until I was standing. “What makes you think you can supplement my income?”
He slid his chair back and opened a drawer. He pulled a few stapled sheets of paper out and slammed them down on his desk. “This.”
My heart stopped. Legit stopped. Like a fucking car at a red light.
“Is that…”
“Your letter of recommendation? Yes.”
I took a deep breath. It was there. Right there. Right in fucking front of me.
“It’s yours. If you agree.”
This was so fucked. So fucking fucked.
“Can I read it?” I asked.
He set two fingers on the paper and pushed it across his desk.
I sucked my lower lip into my mouth as I picked it up and dropped my gaze to it. I read the first few sentences, and my stomach dropped—but only so it could make way for the butterflies of hope and determination.
I knew why he was doing it. He was showing me exactly what was at stake. This letter—this fucking glowing letter of recommendation. Possibly one of the best any of my professors had written.
I knew without a doubt that, if I looked hard enough, I’d be able to draw a key to Harvard Law in the spaces of the words.
“Is this true?” I asked, my voice cracking on the final word.
“Yes.”
I set the papers back down on his desk and took a step back. “If I’m that worthy of a student, why would you do this? Why would you force me into this?”
“Because I want you.”
“You say it like it’s so simple.”
He stood. The movement was so simple, but I didn’t register it until he touched his hand to the side of my face.
“It is, isn’t it? You agree. I get you. You get your letter. It’s real simple to me.”
“But I belong to you, essentially,” I told him. My heart pounded in my chest as the reality of what was happening really hit home.
I’d figured I could charm my way outta it all. I’d figured I could be a real sweetheart and get him to give in.
I’d figured so fucking wrong.
God. This was it. This was the end for me. I was going to give in because it was the only choice I had.
“How much?” I whispered. “How much do you want me? How many times?”
His hand snaked across my cheek. His fingers teased my hair, and my
lips couldn’t help but part at the thrill of his touch.
“Every night,” he breathed. “Every night, you belong to me.”
I took a deep breath. I would have been fucking crazy to agree. I’d told myself that a million times, but maybe, if I finally screamed it inwardly, I’d agree and believe it. I couldn’t believe what he was proposing… Not really.
I’d be signing over ownership of my body. But was that letter—that fucking letter—worth it?
Yes.
“And what would that mean?” I lifted my chin and looked him straight in the eye. “If I agree. What would it mean?”
He dropped his hand, and a slow, easy smirk trailed across his face. He removed his glasses and set them on his desk before he responded.
“Anything I want,” he said simply. “I want you to fuck yourself with your fingers on camera for me, you do it. I want it in front of me, you do it. I want you to fuck some asshole in front of me? You do that shit, too, Darcy. But rest assured—if you agree, and you will, and you fuck another man in front of me, I’ll be the only man who’ll make you come.”
Lust burned through my veins. “What if I don’t want that?”
He took one step closer to me and grasped my hand. His light tug had me stepping into him. Our bodies slammed together, and he rested his mouth by my ear.
“Then your dirty little secret isn’t a secret. I told you that.”
“Okay,” I exhaled. The word left me on a rush as panic filled my body.
The thought of someone finding out had ultimately been too much. Too scary. I knew that it had been an answer on impulse, but I had done it anyway. I’d agreed anyway.
All he was asking for were things I did for a living.
Hell, he could have asked me to fuck a girl and I would have agreed. It wasn’t like that hadn’t happened before. Not every girl can say that they know what their best friend’s pussy tastes like, after all.
“Okay?” Keaton asked me. The shock in his voice showed in his eyes.
“Okay,” I repeated softly. “Six weeks of being yours. Then you’ll give me that letter. But I want it signed on. I want to make sure that the letter I get is the one I just read.”
