Daddy Duke

by Madison Faye

  And I didn’t know what to do about it.

  So, I started wearing baggy sweatshirts, and shapeless dresses and pants; anything to hide the curves that I wasn’t prepared for. So, add “dressing like a bum” to “math team”, “loner”, and “book nerd”, and we have a perfect recipe for escaping high school boyfriend-free and with virginity firmly in place.

  It was before I left for school that the urgings of my mother and my one friend Amy finally got through to me. Or maybe it was that I was starting something new in the fall; a fresh start in a new place where no one knew the old dorky me, and where me being a smarty-pants would actually be a good thing. In any case, I gave in, and let Amy take me shopping.

  So, the girl that walked onto that small-town, ivy-league campus in the fall was anything but the gawky nerd from high school. Okay, the glasses stayed, because contacts freaked me out, and I honestly liked my strawberry ginger hair too much to dye it. Styled, yes, but not changed.

  And I finally had clothes that fit my form instead of hiding it away. Add the whole thing up, and I was a brand new me.

  Right, so, that’s how I managed to start dating Ted, the football jock from one of the fraternities. I mean, this was me we’re talking about. Me, who’d never once been on a date, or really had much of anything to do with boys. Like for instance, cute and popular boys like Ted who waltz right up on the campus quad the second day of orientation and ask you out.

  Of course I said yes.

  Yeah, some of the other kids were there because of their parent’s money, but not me. I was there because worked for it. And if that meant I hadn’t had boyfriends, and subsequently sex, then…whatever. I was fine with it.

  Ted, however, had not been, and in hindsight, I think that was the entire reason he’d come strolling up and asked me out that day - to get in my pants.

  It made me furious when I thought about it, like he’d tried to cheat me out of something.

  We’d had fun on date one, and he’d been a gentleman through the whole dinner and even walked me back to the dorms after, where I gushed to my roommate Ally about everything like the silly nervous virgin I was.

  Date two, he’d gotten a little handsy, and I’d had to ask him twice to stop.

  It was date three when he’d pulled his penis out in the car, like I was just supposed to do something with it. I’d left the car, and stalked back to my dorm room furious with myself.

  And thus, he was breaking up with me.

  Nice, huh?

  “Fine, Ted,” I say, rolling my eyes and trying not to feel upset over an asshole like this guy.

  “I mean, if you ever wanted to have some casual,” he says, shrugging. “You know, just call me.”

  I don’t need this crap, I think to myself as I roll my eyes and walk away from him; my first failed attempt at the whole “boyfriend” thing.

  What I need is a coffee.

  Chapter 3

  Liam

  Damn, I think to myself, raising a brow appreciatively as I stare at the perfect ass in front of me in line at the coffee shop.

  She’s wearing frayed cut-off jean shorts, and ankle boots, and those creamy, shapely legs are impossible not to stare. She’s wearing a tank top that fits her upper body perfectly, her freckled shoulders bare and her long reddish-blonde hair streaming out from under under one of those beanie-type hats the kids are all wearing these days. Yeah, she looks young, but not that young. Plus, I’m far enough away from campus that I’m not that worried about her being a student or anything.

  Whatever, you’re allowed to look, man.

  Honestly, I’m not sure how I couldn’t look with the job I’ve got. Freshman literature at this school? Are you kidding me? Young women off on their own and expressing their sexuality out in the world by the dozens every year. This’ll be my third year at Hardham College, and every fall, it’s the same thing. Every fall, I’ve got a class full of absolute temptation, and at a sixty-forty female to male ratio, it takes the focus of a saint sometimes, I’ll tell you.

  I mean, I’m a younger teacher, I keep in great shape, and I’m single. Oh, right, and I guess most of these kids probably read my book in high school, so there’s that too. Anyways, I’m not vain or anything, but it’s not like college freshman girls are exactly known for their subtleness.

  Let’s put it this way: I get offers.

  Jesus, do I. Sometimes they’re more timid about, other times I get flat out asked. But either way, I can bet on at least two or three girls every fall trying to pull something. Two or three absolutely fucking stunning, totally tempting, and totally fucking off-limits offers; every damn fall.

  It’s a nightmare sometimes, I’ll tell you.

  When I was still riding high as the author of the moment with my bestseller and my books tours, it was a different ball game. I was up to my damn eyeballs in pussy back then, but it was the kind I was allowed to touch.

  This is different. These girls are decidedly off-limits. Yeah, they’re technically old enough, but there are rules. We’re a week into the semester, and I’m already feeling the drudgery of the new-semester schedule starting to sink in. The same courses, the same books to go over, the same sea of totally legal if not totally-untouchable temptation class after class. I’m not tenured, so I’m fully aware that acting on those temptations means my job.

  Plus even if I’m younger compared to most of the other teachers at Hardham, I’m still literally twice these girls’ age.

  But here, off campus in the cool of the trendy coffee shop, I can let my imagination run wild as I run my eyes appreciatively up and down the legs and over the ass of this girl in front of me. I mean, damn. I’m a fucking sucker for redheads, too, and between the hair, the ass, and that creamy skin on her thighs, my imagination is having no trouble getting away with itself.

  And for a second, I think of her. In a classroom full of temptation, she’s the damn apple of temptation. She’s the forbidden fruit; original fucking sin. The tight little red-head with the tits she doesn’t even know what to do with, the crystal blue eyes that watch me like a hawk, and the furious note-taking. And the fact that she’s such an obvious nerd and clearly totally unaware of her affect on men makes her that much more tempting.

  Yeah, so freshman girls are off limits, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t stroked my cock about a dozen times since the semester started fantasizing about my front-row, straight-A, strawberry-haired temptation.

  And she’s exactly who I’m thinking about as I let my eyes drink in the girl in the coffee shop. Hell, at least here I can be a bit more obvious. Here, it’s not like I’m staring at a student.

  I suddenly notice the copy of Finnegan’s Wake tucked under her arm, and my brows shoot up.

  Damn, great legs and she reads James Joyce? Now I definitely want to get to know this mystery coffee-shop girl.

  I definitely want to know that ass, too.

  But then the hipster barista is wisecracking with me and running all sorts of stupid vaguely Italian sounding drink names past me when all I want is a fucking coffee. And when I finally look back, she’s gone.

  Fuck.

  I snatch the coffee from the idiot that somehow got me to miss the girl walking out and mutter as I stalk out of the store. Great, so much for that idea. Back to grading papers, pontificating on Steinbeck, and—

  Bam.

  And I walk right into her, literally, as she comes around the corner of the building.

  She gasps as the big cup of iced coffee goes tumbling out of her hands as we crash into one another, and she shrieks a little as the icy liquid empties across her tank top and my shirt as she goes sprawling into my arms.

  Holy shit.

  It’s her; the girl reading Joyce from inside. The girl with the perfect ass and the long legs, and the red hair. My arms go around her instinctively, holding her tight as she trips, and I bring her tight against me as the icy drink spills across both of us.

  And I couldn’t give a fuck about the coffee. Because i
f she looked hot from behind, she’s a fucking knockout from the front; the front, I might add, that’s pressed right up against my chest.

  She gasps as she looks up at me, her eyes shaded by big black sunglass above lightly freckled cheeks and cute, soft pink lips open in surprise. And if that ass was one thing, her tits are a Goddamn works of art. They’re huge on her small frame, and the way they press right up against me through her soaking wet tank top and my soaking wet t-shirt has my cock throbbing in my pants.

  “Oh!” She gasps, her breath catching as she suddenly freezes in my arms as this cute little smile spreads across her lips. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”

  I swallow, feeling the blood rush from my head right into my dick with this utterly sexy, heart-stoppingly gorgeous girl pressing her body against mine. I’m suddenly remembering this is reality and not some fantasy as I quickly set her straight on her feet and begrudgingly let her go.

  She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth as her brow furrows above her sunglasses. “Oh my God, I got it all over you! I am so freaking sorry!”

  There’s something so earnest in the way that she says it that I’m grinning as I hold my hands up. She’s so sweet, and not swearing or anything like any other girl I know would be in that moment. “No, no not at all. Totally my fault for plowing into you.”

  The sudden thought of plowing into her in an entirely different way comes to mind, but I quickly push that aside as I just take her in.

  Jesus Christ this girl sexy as all fucking sin. She is young, in this perky, glowing, fucking tempting off-limits way, and there’s a familiarness to her that I can’t place, but that I chalk up having just seen her a minute before inside. But whatever ideas I have about having seen her before suddenly go tumbling right out of my brain as my eyes land on the front of her tank top, and it’s all I can do not to growl.

  The iced coffee is soaking through the front of her white cotton tank top, and her nipples beneath are quickly reacting to it. I’m holding the groan as I see the hard little pebbles of her nipples poking through the thin cotton, and they’re so hard and the shirt is so soaked that I can practically make out the outline of her aureolas.

  And if I was checking her out before, now I’m just fucking devouring her with my eyes. She stands there with her brow furrowed as she looks worriedly at me, as if she’s totally oblivious of how fucking sexy she look with her finger against her lips. Totally oblivious that her nipples are all but completely visible through her soaked tank top. The juxtaposition of the nervous, almost shyly furtive way she carries herself with that smokin’ body is enough to get my cock raging as I just stand there staring at her and resisting the primal urge to grab her back into my arms again right then and there.

  “Oh, shit, I got some on you too,” she frowns, biting at her lip nervously again.

  “No, really, that’s all me, trust me,” I say, flashing a smile at her and grinning even wider when I see the flush bloom in her cheeks and a small smile of her own creep over those lips.

  “Honestly,” I say, smiling and forcing my eyes back to hers tucked behind those shades. “It was completely my fault.”

  “No, I-”

  “Seriously,” I say firmly, smiling at her and watching her lips part into a grin. “Listen, please let me pay for the dry cleaning at the very least.”

  “Oh- no, that’s-” She’s stammering as that adorably innocent looking blush creeps back into her cheeks. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “You could, and really, I insist.”

  She bites her lip again as she looks at me through those shades, and I hold that gaze, feeling the urge to mash my lips to hers right there; resisting the primal caveman urge to rip her clothes off and take her right there against the side of the building.

  She suddenly jerks her cellphone out of her pocket and gasp. “Oh, God, I need go, I’m late for something.”

  I glance at my own watch and swear under my breath. Fuck, I’ve got a lecture that starts in two minutes and I’m ten minutes from campus.

  “Sorry again about your shirt!” She says with a final cute little blush across those cheeks, before suddenly she’s turning to walk away.

  “Woah, hang on,” I say, suddenly reaching out and putting my hand on her arm. She turns back, that lip back between those teeth. “Let me get your number or something. If you won’t let me pay for the shirt, let me take you out to dinner or something instead.”

  Her face goes bright red as the little grin teases across her perfect, utterly kissable lips, as if this is the first time a guy has ever asked a girl who looks like her for a phone number.

  “I-” She’s stammering, and again, that cross between how nervous she is and how crazy hot that body is has my cock hard as stone. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she says finally, quickly looking down.

  “Look, I promise I won’t spill anything on you, honest.”

  She giggles and looks back up at me. “I…thank you, but…” She trails off.

  “C’mon, just say yes. Let me take you out.”

  She’s looking at me curiously, and slowly, this little grin starts to spread across her face. “I can’t,” she says finally, and she gives me one last smile. “See you soon, professor.”

  Oh FUCK.

  My jaw drops as she gives me one last shy smile before turning and walking towards a beat-up looking Jetta parked behind her.

  Well, so much for being far enough from campus, I groan to myself as my cock slowly deflates in my pants, before cursing and heading to my car.

  * * *

  I’ve managed to convince myself that I didn’t say anything too inappropriate when I roar into the faculty parking lot. And I’ve already decided it was just a random run in, and that even on a campus this small, the chances of running into one hot girl from one chance encounter are pretty slim as I storm into the lecture hall, tugging a new t-shirt on.

  I growl an apology to the assembled bored freshman as I crack open my lecture notes and take a breath.

  Relax. So you asked a girl out, it’s not that bad.

  I clear my throat and look up, prepared to launch right into Jane Eyre, when the floor drops out from under me

  See you soon, professor.

  I’ve been wondering what she meant the whole drive back to campus, but the whole thing clicks into place the second I look and I’m looking right at her.

  She’s wearing this much less form-fitting button-up plaid shirt now, but I can still see the coffee stain across the tight white tank-top beneath it. She’s lost the hat too, and her long strawberry blonde hair cascades wildly down around her face. Her shades are off now, and those bright, sparkling innocent blue eyes that I recognize now are looking right at me from behind those thick black-rimmed glasses that I also know. And there’s a creeping blush across her cheeks as I lock eyes with her, and right then, I get it.

  Holy shit, the girl from the coffee shop is her.

  Her being Ellie Thompson, the shy, quiet, clearly miles ahead of the rest of the class after one week, always sitting front and center like she is now, student.

  My barely legal, utterly and totally off-limits student.

  I was freaked out before, about possibly having hit on a student, but right now, I’m way past that. Fuck it, I’m the opposite of freaked right now. Because looking at her, and thinking about those soft lip opening in shock, those big, pillowy tits heaving under her soaked-through tank top, and those hard little nipples poking through the cotton, has me rock fucking hard.

  She was cute before, sitting there front and center taking pages of notes and turning in papers that floored me. But it’s like the veil’s been lifted, and suddenly, I’m not seeing her as the cute little bookworm college freshman anymore.

  I’m seeing the hottest girl I’ve ever laid eyes on; this wildly sexy angel-creature, wrapped up in the quiet, unassuming shroud of bashful shyness.

  And I want to tear that shroud off her, along with every other piece of clothing, I might add. Right ther
e, standing in front of my damn lecture hall with Jane Eyre in my hand, my words failing me, and my cock hard as a fucking stone in my pants, I know one thing: I’m going to make this girl mine.

  And I don’t give a shit about the consequences.

  Chapter 4

  Ellie

  He doesn’t know.

  It’s actually the first thought that flashes through my head the second I look up from the iced coffee drenching the front of my shirt into the dark, piercing eyes of Liam Martin. Liam Martin the best-selling novelist whose book I devoured before I even came to Hardham. Professor Martin, I should say.

  Except there’s nothing “professor” about Liam Martin; nothing dry or stuffy or old like the title usually implies. Professor Martin with the sexy black glasses, the thick beard, and the sleeve of tattoos running up his arm. Professor Martin who barely adheres to any sort of professional dress code, wearing t-shirts and jeans to lectures most of the time - not that any member of the female student body or faculty objects, I’m sure.

  Professor Martin who’s gorgeous, in that dark, brooding writer way. Professor Martin who probably doesn’t even know who I am, even though I sit at the front of his lecture three times a week, because he’s got every girl on campus gaga over him.

  Except right then, he’s staring at me like he’s hungry, his eyes devouring me in a way that sends a shiver down my back as I catch my breath and lose myself in those eyes, completely ignoring the iced coffee drenching the front of my shirt.

  But he’s not.

  I blush as I look down and realize how soaked my tank top is, suddenly very much regretting leaving my button-up shirt in the car. And I want to cover up, or die from embarrassment, but it’s then that I see his eyes and that hungry look on his face, and I feel something warm start to burn inside of me.

  Because God, I like how he looks at me.

  I notice the splashes of coffee on his own shirt and wince. “Oh my God, I got it all over you! I am so freaking sorry!”