by Teagan Kade
I clip in the lapel mic and start leafing through my notes. “Welcome back to Cultural Studies 101, kiddies, your 200-level LAX of everything contemporary culture.”
I place my notes down, finally composed, and look up to the class.
Such fresh faces.
My eyes come to the middle of the room and stop.
My mouth drops, my heart not far behind it, because seated bang smack in the middle of my class is the guy who had his hand down my pants last night.
Colton.
Mr. Bright Eyes.
Right there.
There’s no way around it.
I. Am. Screwed.
CHAPTER SIX
COLTON
It’s almost magical the moment she spots me. The surprise is mutual, but I’m careful not to let it show. She’s not the first teacher I’ve been with, and probably not the last, but I have to admit the way she came last night was memorable.
She never looks in my direction again during the lecture, as much as I’m eye-fucking her from above. The way she talks, the cadence of her voice… It’s turning me on something severe.
Giving her the hard pass last night was difficult, but it had to be done. Had I fucked her that would have been it, but now she knows what’s possible she’ll be begging me for more, the thrill of the chase making her all the wetter. And that build-up, that slow burn, is going to make finally sliding into her all the sweeter.
I wait until class finishes before approaching her.
She holds her laptop and notes in front of her protectively, making sure we’re completely alone before speaking. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’re a student here?”
“Why?” I smile. “So you can put me in after-school detention, teach me a lesson? Because I love being punished—the harder, the better.”
She breathes out, shaking her head. “Look,” she says, with more aggression than I expect, “we hooked up and that’s it, got it?”
I raise my hands. “Hey, I can keep a secret.”
“No,” she barks. “I need more than that. My career is at stake here. Do you know what would happen if someone found out?”
“You want me to sign an NDA? Because I will, but all I know is that we’re working on a deficit here.”
“A deficit?” she laughs. “Don’t know if you noticed, but this is Cultural Studies, not Economics.”
“The numbers don’t add up,” I continue, knowing I’m skating awfully close to the edge here. “I got you off, but you didn’t get me off.”
“Get you—” She’s flustered, red, maybe even a little embarrassed, which only makes me want to fuck her more.
“I can make your life here hell.”
“Likewise, but I’m not going to.” I pretend to zip my mouth. “Like I said…”
She doesn’t realize I’ll be back in her panties before long. There’s no going back. I’ve opened her eyes… and legs. She’s already craving my cock, practically salivating for it. They all do.
“I don’t want to know what was with the cold shoulder treatment last night. I don’t want to know why you’re here, or heck, even your last name. Just… go,” she says.
“Beckett,” I offer, adding a wink. “I’ll see you later.” I pick up my bag and head for the double doors.
A good five seconds go by before she calls. “There’s not going to be a ‘later.’”
How wrong she is.
I make it to practice just in time, gearing up as quick as I can to get out onto the ice. I need to burn off this sexual energy. Hell, the way Harper’s got me going I could float around the fucking ice.
I expected resistance from the team, maybe another beat-down, but no one says a word. Even slicky Ricky is silent. They’re biding their time. They’re going to fuck me up when we’re alone, but I’ll be ready. I’m nothing if not prepared.
We drill hard. I thought my coach back at Abbotsleigh was a bulldog, but this guy? He’s relishes inflicting pain. What next? I wonder. Rebecca Black on repeat? Water-boarded with bagged milk?
Even though I’m hurting, my mind’s split during practice. I can’t get Harper out of my head. The fact she’s a teacher here only intensifies the appeal.
She’s forbidden fruit, which only makes me want her ten times more.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HARPER
I close the bathroom stall and place a hand against it for support, breathing hard.
This is bad. This is very, very, very bad.
I’m sweating, feel like I’m stuck in my own personal greenhouse as I try to rein in the anxiety.
I go over it in my head, what’s at stake, but every time I do, my thoughts slip back to Colton’s fingers and touch, the expert way he made me come. The more I think about it, the more I wonder what his tongue — what other parts of him — could do.
Breathe, Harper.
I do, long and slow, pushing off the door and standing there nodding at myself, building back my composure brick by brick. Because I won’t let this disrupt my life. I have more control than that… or at least I thought I did.
I actually jump when my cell starts to buzz in my pocket.
“Yes,” I answer, my voice unsteady.
“Caffeine?”
It’s Mindy.
“Yes,” I reply, the desperation clear.
“Jesus,” she laughs. “It’s not an injectable, you know.”
“Mug, bowl, a puddle on the floor—I don’t care what it comes in, I just need it. Now.”
“Copy that.”
*
Mindy works as PA to the Dean at Branton College. I always thought the life of a PA was a constant stream of calls and poorly timed appointments in the middle of the night, but Dean Mayson is pretty chill. Mindy works nine to five and that’s it.
I arrive at Wired, a tiny café on the edge of the science block. It’s coming up to lunch and already bustling inside, but I spot Mindy holding a spot by the window.
I take off my coat and dump my stuff down. It’s an inferno in here—not unlike a certain student’s place of residence I may or may not have been at last night.
Mindy has three coffees ready.
I nod down to the first. “Mayson’s?”
She nods back, picking it up. “Tall, non-fat latte with caramel drizzle. I don’t know if we have a Dean sometimes or a SoCal hipster.”
I sit and swipe up my coffee—black, strong, as boring as I am. “Branton could do worse. Besides, I think this place benefits from a woman’s touch.”
“Speaking of speaking,” says Mindy, “you never did detail what happened last night.”
Oh, you mean the hook-up I had with one of my students, unware or not? I swallow and divert my eyes. “Can we let that one go?”
“See,” enthuses Mindy, fist-bumping me on the shoulder, “11am and he’s already forgotten. Just what you needed, right?”
His breath on the side of my neck, his fingers inside me… I’m losing it. “Yes,” I reply simply, “right.”
I may as well be a plane glass window given the way Mindy sees through me. “What is it? Did he have a ten-foot cock or something?”
“Ssshh,” I whisper, looking around with concern. “No, though I think he is kind of… big.”
Mindy leans in. “You think?”
“I didn’t actually see it.”
I shouldn’t be telling her any of this, but Mindy’s the one person who gets me around here. Still, her position means I have to tread carefully. If word got to the Dean… Not to mention she’s the only one who knows about James, my affair with a tenured colleague. I don’t know which one is worse, frankly. It only increases the intensity of the poop-storm I’m happily walking into.
Mindy’s cell vibrates across the bench. She picks it up, eyebrows knotting. “Duty calls,” she says, standing and collecting her things, a coffee under each arm, “but we are not done here, missy. Not. At. All.”
I salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
I watch her head outside into the snow
, walking until she fades into the white.
I stare down at my coffee, but all I’m seeing is him, Colton. I close my eyes and repeat my mantra.
Block it out.
Block it out.
Cock it out.
Cocky pout.
Cock in mouth.
Damn it!
And there he is again with that smug look of satisfaction on his face.
What is going on with me? I was sane yesterday—sad, yes, but at least my faculties were in order, synapses firing in perfect sequence. Now? My head may as well be filled with fireworks.
I hustle outside heading nowhere in particular.
I’m halfway across the quad when I hear a familiar voice.
“There you are.”
I spin and find James there with his satchel by his side, his glasses on. He’s smiling. “James, what are you doing?”
He continues to smile like everything is completely normal between us. “How’s your thesis coming along?”
“My thesis?” I reply, dumbfounded. “You didn’t give a damn about my thesis when we were together.”
“I’m simply asking out of interest, one professional to another.”
“Professional?” I scoff. I step up to him. “If you think we can somehow go back to ‘professional,’ especially given what you said, you’re wrong.”
He keeps smiling, damn him. I want to wipe it off with the back of my heel, Wonder Woman style. “Harper, Harper,” he starts, “why are you acting like this?”
“Why am I acting like this?”
“I mean, you were such an exciting fuck.”
He’s mocking me. This prick is actually mocking me. “You did not just say that.”
“And I’m sure the thesis is coming along swimmingly given you’ve been working on it for, how long has it been again?”
“Fuck you and your stupid whalebone glasses.” Not exactly the saltiest of insults, but enough to allow me to walk away.
He grabs my arm from behind, but I pull away. “We are done, James. Don’t speak to me again. I’m serious.”
He slides a hand into his pocket, holding the shoulder strap of his satchel with the other. “It was nice to see you, Harper.”
I walk quickly, my heart pumping.
I look around, but no one has noticed the exchange.
His snide, snarky manner has my blood boiling. How did I not see what this guy was from the start?
Without thinking, I find myself at the ice rink. I come out high in the stands overlooking the rink, taking a seat and observing the players below.
It takes a while, but I manage to find Colton amongst the players swooping left and right, easily shuttling the puck towards the other end of the rink.
I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t think I know anything anymore only that I wanted to see him for some bizarre reason.
He stops and looks up, right at me.
Fishsticks.
I stand, crouching, and slip back around the top entrance, my back against the wall, breathing like I’ve got a chainsaw in my chest.
CHAPTER EIGHT
COLTON
THREE WEEKS LATER
I wake up sore from head to toe. Practice has been brutal. I had mistakenly assumed everything was pretty chill this side of the border, all Crispy Crunch and manners, but Coach has been fucking us all on the ice.
Too much being fucked and not enough fucking, I muse, reaching down to check my cock’s still functional.
I come up into a sitting positon, note the mild bruising around my ribs from where I’ve been shuttled against the glass. The retaliation for what I did to Ricky hasn’t come to haunt me yet, but these guys aren’t taking prisoners out there. I’m a target, and not for the first time in my life.
There’s a half-full beer beside my bed. I pick it up and down what’s left, but it’s warm. I may as well be drinking my own piss.
I notice the clock on the wall—quarter to nine.
Fuck.
I hunt for the nearest shirt, throwing it on with the closest pair of jeans, foregoing socks to slip into my sneakers and blast out the door.
I’m halfway down the road before I realize I left my coat back at the apartment, but it’s too late now. I’m in such a rush I barely see a patch of ice, half-slipping, half-sliding through the gates of Branton College already five minutes late to class.
Thank heavenly fuck it’s warm inside the lecture hall. A few more minutes of exposure and I’d be an ice sculpture.
Harper’s busy addressing the class when I enter.
She pauses, looking up at me. “Thank you for joining us.”
I sit down breathing hard.
In truth, I don’t even know why I took this elective. I literally picked the first thing I saw. I might even be into it if the woman teaching it wasn’t so scorchingly hot. I don’t know how anyone with a dick can concentrate in this class when she turns to face the screen. She’s a bigger distraction than the perma-blonde sitting three seats down, so much cleavage on show you could shack up there for the winter. No, Harper is far above the usual college groupie. She’s something special and I do intend to go there again. Question is, how? My earlier play might be backfiring. She’s made it pretty clear she wants nothing to do with me. That’s why I’m surprised when she asks me to stay after class, once again waiting until everyone has left before speaking, her sing-song voice turning my cock to concrete.
She’s wearing tight black dress pants and a white blouse, an azure blazer providing a perfect pop of color. The latter matches her eyes, an amber-sided city caught within them.
“Changed your mind?” I start. Her perfume, her scent, whatever the fuck it is it’s driving me insane.
I can see she’s biting her tongue. Pity it’s not because my hand is down her pants again.
“Actually,” she says, the picture of academic professionalism, “it’s about your grade.”
“My grade?” I laugh, admittedly surprised. “You don’t think that was an A-plus-worthy performance back at my place?”
She sighs. “Look, be an ass if you want; your cocky attitude may have working for you in the US, but here, at Branton, you are going to fail this class. Am I making myself clear? Keep this up and the only letter you’ll be seeing is a F.”
For ‘fucked,’ my head fills.
I’m thinking of a way to turn this around, use it to my advantage, but once again I’m distracted by the heavenly creature in front of me, the way her chocolate hair falls softly on her shoulders, the delicate composition of her skin and neck.
It hits me.
“So,” I begin, “how about some private tutelage then?”
The words hit her like a locomotive. “Personal tutoring? Are you serious?”
I play it cool. “I don’t see what’s so wrong about that.”
She takes a step closer to me, starting to seethe. “No, I don’t suppose you do, but mark my words, I am dead serious. I will fail your ass.”
I study her carefully. I could threaten to reveal the hook-up, use my trump card, but it wouldn’t play well. It wouldn’t get me any closer to slipping inside her fine pussy.
As if reading my mind, she adds, “If you’re thinking of saying anything about what happened between us, think again. Be smart.”
I act offended. “Do you really think I’d stoop that low? You don’t give me enough credit.”
“Oh, I’m giving you plenty, trust me.”
I let my eyes run down her body, scanning her curves. Even this teacher camouflage can’t hide them. “I don’t need to resort to threats to get what I want.”
“Is that so?”
Dial it down, smartass. “Tutor me, help me lift my grades. I’m asking nicely.”
I see that big ol’ ice wall she’s put up starting to crack. She’s considering it, chewing on her cheek.
“If you want me to do better, you at least owe me the opportunity to prove I can.”
She exhales and I know I’m over the line.
> “Fine,” she snaps, shifting behind the lectern, “but don’t think it’s going to be anything more.”
I raise my hands up in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She nods to the door. “I’ll arrange the details and let you know.”
“Looking forward to it,” I smile, collecting my things and heading for the door.
I keep smiling as I walk, even if my balls are becoming ice cubes. Cold or not, nothing’s going to stop me enjoying this win.
Do I have ulterior motives?
Of course I fucking do.
I’m a Beckett.
CHAPTER NINE
HARPER
Grading—endless, vexatious grading and it’s only the start of the semester. It doesn’t help I’ve got a constant peep show going on inside my head starring one particular student and his ‘sex me, beautiful’ smile. If this was Sex Studies, he’d be getting an Insta-A.
But it’s not now, is it?
I press my thighs tightly together to ward off the growing tension and heat there, all that sensation waiting to be stirred and summoned.
I place the paper I’m grading down and lean back, attempting to breathe and clear my head. Mindy’s big on meditation, but the only universe-altering discovery I’ve made while attempting it is how freakin’ hungry I get sitting on my ass doing nothing.
There’s no chocolate around here save for the horrifically overpriced vending machine in the hall that basically requires a bank loan, and my emergency drawer rations are depleted, so coffee it is.
I stand and walk down to the break room. I’m about to enter when I hear James’s voice.
“Honestly, I think we have to be a bit more careful who we take on here,” he says, slurring away like he’s Sherlock Holmes here to solve the many mysteries of the world.
There’s muted agreement from the others in the room, all male from what I can gather.
I remain out of sight.
“She’s simply not up to the task,” James continues, that casual, nonchalant tone I fell for in full swing, that façade of greater academia. “She’s far too young and, frankly, a little naïve. The cultural studies deserve someone who has seen actual culture.”
I bring my hand to my chest. Holy shit, I realize. He’s talking about me.
