by Ruby Steele
It’s painful for me to say, and I know it’s true. Which is why when she says, “I’ll consider your request,” I can only hope that luck and fate really do exist. Because if I lose Olivia, my luck will have truly run out.
21
Olivia
Becca hands me the bottle of champagne, and I turn it upside down, shaking it harder when nothing comes out.
“Ugh. We need more,” I say.
“No,” she says gently. “I really don’t think you need more, hon. Drinking yourself into a stupor isn’t going to fix anything.”
No. But it might make me forget about it for a while. We’ve been sitting in my dorm room for the past couple hours with that as my secret end goal.
I haven’t seen Aiden in three weeks. At my own insistence. I was pulled from his class by the dean as soon as my scholarship was suspended. And I haven’t even had the motivation to go to any of my other classes, afraid I’ll run into him in the building, or that someone who has heard about what happened will only make my misery worse.
I have the money to pay for the rest of the semester if I need to—thanks to my lucky streak in Vegas. Ironic that I won all of that money and may end up in an even worse position in the end. Because I have no idea how I’ll pay for school next semester if the review my scholarship is still under is denied.
But worse than that, worse than the fact that I may have to leave Stanford and go back home and start all over, is that I may not have Aiden either. That’s what hurts the most. I almost think I could handle losing my scholarship. I could get a job, save some money, go to a cheaper school. But without Aiden, I’d just be going through the motions, not really living.
That’s how it’s been for the last three weeks.
When it becomes clear that Becca isn’t going to get me any more champagne, I put on my shoes and stumble toward the door. Not because I’m drunk—though I’m getting there, slowly—but because walking doesn’t seem to be my forte.
“Careful there, Grace,” Becca calls out. “Where are you going?” she asks when she realizes I’m getting ready to leave.
“To get more champagne,” I say, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. I make my way out of the building and am walking down the front steps when I stop dead. Standing at the bottom, looking almost as surprised to see me as I am to see him, is Aiden, looking as devastating as ever.
“Hey,” I say cautiously, taking the last few steps down until we’re face-to-face.
“Hey.”
We stand there for a second, things starting to feel awkward, until he says, “Headed out?”
“Am I that obvious?” I joke.
He chuckles, and the tension eases somewhat.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I came to see you. Is it a bad time? Is there somewhere you have to be?”
He came to see me? My heart leaps, even though I tell it not to. We have no idea what’s going to happen with my scholarship. I can’t let my heart get any more invested in him if I have to turn around and move home.
I shake my head. “I was just headed out to get some champagne.”
He smiles. “I beat you to it.” He pulls a bag from behind his back that I hadn’t noticed before, and I peek inside to find a bottle of Moët.
“Show off,” I tease. “I was going out for the five-dollar kind.”
“Nasty stuff,” he says. “Don’t recommend it.”
I smile, but this banter starts to wear on me. I just want him to take me in his arms and tell me everything will be okay. But I know he can’t.
His face grows serious. “Come home with me, Olivia.”
I press my lips together. “You have no idea how much I want to,” I whisper.
“Then do it.”
I don’t say anything, a battle raging between my heart and mind.
He steps forward and brushes a knuckle across my cheek. My eyelids flutter shut. “I have something to tell you,” he says. “But you have to come with me.”
I purse my lips together to fight the small smile trying to tug them upwards. “You play dirty.”
He leans closer. “Just the way you like it, dirty girl.”
My breath hitches, and in that second, I don’t care anymore. I don’t care if my heart gets shredded into a million pieces if I have to leave him for good. I want to take everything I can get, for as long as I can get it.
“Okay,” I whisper.
That’s all he needs to hear. Before I know it, I’ve texted Becca that I won’t be back tonight, he’s whisked me away in his car, and we’re speeding toward his home on the bay.
22
Aiden
Her eyes are two giant green orbs as I tell her everything that happened at the meeting last week, then the call I got today from the scholarship chair.
She shakes her head. “I can’t believe it. Not just that they reinstated my scholarship, but that you went to all this trouble for me. And that you’re leaving your job!”
“Olivia,” I say, reaching for her and kissing her on the forehead, the nose, then sealing my lips to hers in a gentle kiss. “It’s the least I could do for you.”
“Right,” she says. “Because you feel guilty.”
I tilt her chin up so I can see her eyes, and she looks a little disappointed.
“No. Not because I feel guilty—even though I am more than willing to take the blame—but because I love you.”
I feel her go still, her breath barely even audible. “What did you say?”
“I regret not telling you sooner. I just wanted the moment to be perfect, baby.”
“No, really. Say it again.”
I chuckle, then take her face in my hands. “I love you, Olivia Morrow. I think I loved you from the moment I met you. You’re everything I could want, and definitely everything I need. I need you. I love you. And I’ll spend every day proving it to you if you’ll give me a chance.”
“But what about your career? I won’t let you give it up for me.”
I shake my head, smiling that she’s still thinking about me. “It’s been in my head for a while to start this foundation. This just gave me the motivation to make it a reality. It’s what I want to do with my life. Other than spend every night and every morning with you, that is. Because, in case you forgot, I love you.”
Her eyes gleam as she finally seems to realize that I’m serious. “Aiden,” she whispers, “I am so, so very in love with you too.”
My heart soars. I don’t think I can be any happier than I am at this moment. “We have to celebrate,” I exclaim. “Everything. We have so much to celebrate.” I reach for the champagne.
She stops me with one word. “After.”
Not one that needs to be told twice, I scoop her up in my arms and carry her up to my bed, laying her down and watching as her honey waves spread out around her head like a halo. She’s an angel. My angel. And as she licks her lips and runs a foot up my leg until it reaches my cock, rubbing it back and forth, I realize she’s also my wicked little devil.
“Come here,” I say, but then I climb on top of her before she even has a chance. Clothes fly off, and we’re desperate for each other. The misery of being apart, combined with the knowledge that we’ll never have to me again, fills us both with a fervent passion that won’t be sated until we have every last piece of each other.
As the last bit of fabric separating us comes off, she pushes me down onto my back, then lowers herself over me, her pussy wrapping so tightly around my cock as she sinks all the way down that we both groan in ecstasy. And then it’s a race to the finish as we kiss, claw, and fuck with abandon. As if we’ll never get enough.
And the best part? We may never get enough, but we have forever to try.
Epilogue
Olivia
One year later…
“How does it feel to be an official graduate?” Aiden asks me as the limo whisks us away from the airport to the bright lights of the Vegas Strip.
“Not as good as
it feels to graduate Summa Cum Laude,” I reply.
“I’m so proud of you,” he whispers, taking my mouth in a kiss that will quickly turn into more if he’s not careful.
“Better watch out, Dr. Hawthorne. Soon you won’t be the only one with a million letters after your name.” After I take the summer off, I’m going back to Stanford in their graduate mathematics program. What can I say? I’m a math nerd.
Aiden holds up his fingers, counting them off and scrunching up his face as if it’s an effort. I laugh and swat his arm. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll still have more letters in my name altogether,” he says, the lopsided grin I love so much spreading across his face.
I roll my eyes, then notice that we just passed the Bellagio. “Hey,” say, starting to roll down the limo partition to alert the driver, “he just passed our hotel.”
Aiden stops me and rolls the partition back up. “We have one little stop first.”
“What is it?” I ask, curious.
“What if I told you there was a way you could have more letters in your name than me, forever and always?”
I look at him like he’s crazy. “Okay, Aiden, I’ll humor you. Even though, for the record, I think you may have just rounded the bend for good this time. How might I accomplish that?”
He stares into my eyes for what feels like forever, love and desire and so much more shining in their steel-gray depths. Then he pulls something from his pocket. A tiny box.
“Marry me,” he says, dropping to one knee in the middle of the limo.
My hands fly to my mouth just as the limo pulls to a stop. I glance over, then my jaw really does drop. We’ve stopped in front of the Chapel O’ Love. Okay, it’s actually called something else, but Chapel O’ Love sounds a lot better.
I look back at him, almost afraid to believe this is really happening.
“Olivia, I love you. Will you do me the highest honor of becoming my wife?”
I grin, an evil idea taking shape in my mind. “I think we might have to bet on it.”
His eyes widen as if he’s completely shocked that I suggested it. Though why it should surprise him, I have no idea. It’s become almost a joke how much we make bets, even about the most trivial things like who does the dishes.
Then he smiles. “Deal.”
We pull out the ever-present and really worn out deck of cards that Aiden brought home from that first trip to Vegas, and he deals them out quickly. I smile triumphantly as I show my winning hand.
“You win again. But you didn’t set your stakes.”
“I thought it was obvious.”
He quirks a brow. “Apparently not.”
“You win, I marry you. I win, you marry me.”
The confusion in his eyes quickly changes to elation, and he captures my mouth in yet another kiss. “Come on,” he says as he breaks away. “Let’s go become Dr. and Mrs. Hawthorne.”
I follow him out of the car. “In a few years, we might have to change that to Dr. and Mr. Hawthorne,” I tease.
“Baby, whatever you want, as long as your mine.” He turns to me and wiggles his eyebrows. “And as long as you call me Professor when I make you come on my cock every night for the rest of our lives.”
“So dirty,” I murmur against his lips.
“You know you love it.”
He’s right. I do. But not nearly as much as I love him. So head inside the little white chapel and vow to love each other forever.
Thank you for reading Teacher’s Bet! I hope you loved it! I have tons more fun and frisky books coming your way very soon! If you’d like to be the first to hear about my next release, join my mailing list here:
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About the Author
Ruby loves coffee, kitties, and hot bad boys and lives in Washington State.
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