Misadventures with a Professor

by Sierra Simone

  Then I leave her among the books and the papers, and when I reach my bedroom, I pull out my cock with embarrassingly frantic hands and stroke myself, thinking of those tits under her camisole. And after I come all over my fist and clean up, I kick my slippers under my bed with a growl, crawl into bed, and lie awake for untold hours, Zandy Lynch haunting my thoughts like a spirit haunts a house.

  I barely sleep. And around five, when the sun is beginning to paint the sky on the other side of my little valley, I climb out of bed. Frustrated and hard, even after two more rounds with my fist. Quiet rounds, so that she wouldn’t hear, although I almost wanted her to. I wanted her to creep by the door and listen to what she did to me. I wanted her to push her way in as boldly as she pushed her way into my night three days ago and demand to be fucked.

  Beg to be fucked.

  Promise to be her professor’s good girl.

  Of course it didn’t happen, and I came into a T-shirt like a fucking adolescent, furious all the while. I’d done so well after Rosie—so well for years—and now here’s Zandy Lynch with her mouth just made for my cock, with her backside just begging to be spanked.

  Grumbling, I fish out my slippers from under the bed, yank some drawstring pants up over my hips, and pull on a clean T-shirt. If I can’t sleep, I may as well work.

  Beatrix joins me as I make a cup of tea and set out some of the latest texts I’ve been reading, along with my notebook and pen. She curls up on the table next to my notebook, oblivious to how many times I nudge at her to make writing room for my hand, and together we work until the kitchen slowly fills with light and the sun decides to peer directly into my house. I flip over the latest sheet of what I’ve been reading—a selection from a Victorian ladies’ magazine—and move it to the edge of my workspace, which happens to be a nearly perfect square of sunlight coming in through the window.

  “You really shouldn’t expose it to the light like that,” comes a voice from behind me, and it takes everything I have not to flinch at the sudden intrusion.

  Zandy appears at the edge of my vision, her body in some kind of knit dress that looks nearly pornographic on her curves, her hair woven into a long, messy braid—the kind of braid that makes a man think of pulling on it. Her mouth is curved into a small smile as she sits at the kitchen table, but there’s a flat sheen of defeat in her eyes.

  I look away from her and rub at my chest again. “I suppose next you’ll chide me for not using gloves.”

  “Actually, you shouldn’t use gloves with paper,” she says. “The fibers of the glove might catch on the document, and it’s also important to have a feel for the page itself as you handle it. It’s a delicate thing, handling something that rare, and you need every tiny, minute sensation to help you feel for whether it’s brittle or supple. Whether it might break or bend.”

  I’m hard.

  From her talking about paper.

  “Duly noted,” I say shortly, hoping she doesn’t see how she’s affected me. I tug the page out of the sunlight. A moment passes, when I pretend to go back to my reading and ignore her—as if I could ignore her. My body definitely can’t.

  She endures the silence for an admirably long time. And then, “Are you really going to send me home?”

  She asks it in a soft voice, and when I look up, I see that defeat in her gaze again. I can’t say why it bothers me, only that it does. Only that in the bizarre and short circumstances of our acquaintance, I’ve come to expect that blue gaze to bubble over with confidence and eager energy.

  I set my pen down and run a hand over my face. “You have to see why it’s impossible.”

  “But I don’t. I already told you I’d be good. I’d be better—”

  “Your father sent you to me with the tacit implication that I’d keep you reasonably safe during your stay. Do you honestly think he’d be comfortable with you staying in my house if he knew what happened in London?”

  “I’m twenty-two,” Zandy insists, leaning forward. “He knows I’m an adult. And besides, it was one time. One time. And we didn’t know who the other really was. It’s an outlier, not even a real data point, and it should be thrown out.”

  I scowl at her. I scowl because there’s a part of her argument that’s logical and because I don’t even care about the parts that aren’t. As much as I know she needs to go, as much as I want her to go—dammit, I do—my thoughts keep crowding with plans and ideas and all the moments we’d have together if she stayed.

  “And,” she says, sensing my weakness and gaining momentum now, “you really do need someone to fix this mess of yours.”

  “It’s not a mess,” I say coldly, but we both know I’m lying. Mess is possibly the kindest word for it.

  “I can organize it, index it all, and store it safely. And you won’t even know I’m in the room.”

  I have the vision of Zandy brushing sweaty tendrils of hair off her forehead as she carries books around, bending over often. Scratching away at her desk like a good little girl.

  I have to swallow again.

  “Please, Professor?” she asks, leaning forward so much now that her breasts press against the table. But that’s not what I chiefly notice this time. No, it’s her eyes, sparkling like sunlight dancing off ocean waves, even as she braces herself for my rejection.

  I abruptly want that look out of her eyes. I want to see her eyes as they were that night we spent together, awed and worshipful and happy. That’s the only reason I can think of for why I say it.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine?” Her entire face lights up, a happy flush high on her cheeks and her eyes like blue fires. She looks like she wants to kiss me.

  I wonder how I look.

  “Yes. Fine. You can stay.”

  Chapter Seven

  Zandy

  Oliver stands up, the sunlight catching on the waves of his hair. He impatiently shakes it out of his eyes, just as he did earlier when I stood behind him and watched him work. He’d been too absorbed to hear me as I walked in, too absorbed to notice me staring at his long fingers as they gripped his pen and made notes in an endearingly untidy scrawl. His too-pale skin and disheveled hair make sense to me now, fitted into the context of his work. He’s an obsessed scholar, subsumed by his projects, and it’s easy to see how the everyday details of life have become unimportant. My father is the same way, and so are most of his friends. They’d forget to eat if someone didn’t remind them.

  “I’m going to change,” Oliver says in that short, clipped way of his, “and then I’ll be back downstairs and we can begin.” He still doesn’t sound pleased, but I’m so relieved I get to stay that I ignore his grouchiness.

  “Is there anything I can do while you get ready? Make you some coffee?” I think for a minute, remembering where I’m at. “Tea?”

  He narrows his eyes. “Just don’t touch anything while I’m not around.”

  “Whatever you say,” I reply, fast enough that it nearly sounds sarcastic. “Professor,” I add, hoping that will ameliorate any unintentional offense.

  His eyes darken at my last word, and he stalks from the room as if I’ve enraged him.

  I sigh the moment I think it’s safe. While I’m used to grumpy scholars, Oliver has to be the grumpiest I’ve ever encountered. Well, not grumpy, exactly. Cold is a better word. Glacial, even.

  Unfeeling.

  Stony.

  I stand up and stretch, deciding don’t touch anything surely doesn’t extend to coffee or tea and needing the familiar act to steady myself, because holy fuck, Oliver Markham is Professor Graeme.

  The man I’m spending the summer with is the man who ended my virginity, and if I was worried about my ability to be wise and sophisticated about this before, it’s nothing compared to now.

  Because even with as cool and distant as he is, I still yearn for his touch. Even with his gaze flashing displeasure, I crave the trace of it over my body. Even in its cruelty, his perfect mouth begs for my own mouth, my fingertips. And even covered with a T-s
hirt and loose pants, his leanly muscled body calls to mine, bringing me memories of how he looked moving between my legs, memories of how taut and rigid he went as he filled my pussy with his own ecstasy.

  I take a deep, steadying breath, trying to stop my body’s response to the visions of that night, to the presence of him in the house. I can’t work next to him like this, all wet and nipples hard, not when I need to prove to him how professional I can be. I’ll save it for bedtime, when I’m alone in the dark, one hand clapped over my own mouth so he can’t hear me come.

  Like I did last night.

  Oliver doesn’t have any coffee, so I decide to make a cup of tea. I find a mug, fill it with water, and pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. When it’s done, I carefully take it out, and I’m about to drop in the bag when Oliver says in a horrified voice, “What on earth are you doing?”

  I whirl to see him looking unfairly sexy in a thin sweater and belted trousers that hang low on his narrow hips. He’s leaning against the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed and a frown on that sharp-edged mouth.

  “I’m making tea?” I say, the last part lifting up like a question because I’m feeling suddenly unsure. Maybe I grabbed his favorite mug, or maybe I’m using some precious store of teabags that visitors aren’t allowed to touch—or maybe visitors aren’t allowed to touch anything at all, and he’s provoked that I didn’t listen to his edict about touching things.

  “That’s not how you make tea,” he says. “You use the kettle for tea, not the microwave as barbarians do.”

  The disgust in his voice is so pronounced that I can’t help but giggle. This only deepens his frown.

  “We have work to do,” he bites out. “Follow me. Bring that cup of atrocity if you must.”

  I do bring my cup of atrocity, following him down the hall and trying very hard not to notice how his ass and hips look in his pants—tight and trim. Powerful in a subtle, spare way. Powerful in the kind of way that makes a girl think of how they’d feel under her hands. How they’d look bunching and flexing between her thighs.

  I give a little shiver. Down, girl.

  I’ve got to be good today. I’ve got to prove that he doesn’t need to send me home.

  The cat winds between our feet as we walk into the study, plopping down on the first pile of papers she sees, and I set my mug on my desk and wait for Oliver to give me instructions.

  He stands behind his own desk now, gazing at me with a haughty expression. “You’ll do as I say in here,” he says flatly. “That’s without question. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  His hands are flexing by his sides as he looks at me, and for a moment, all I can remember is the way they felt as he spanked me. One palm setting fire to my skin as the other hand held me steady over his lap.

  I have to press my legs together at the sudden throb my clit gives at the memory. Who would have thought I’d like being spanked so much? So much that not only had I become a wet, squirming mess at the time, but that I longed for it again?

  He swallows, and I realize that his beautiful eyes are no longer on my face but on my body. On the place where I’m pressing my thighs together.

  “Sit,” he commands hoarsely. “Get something to take notes with.”

  I sit, finding a notepad and a pen that have been shoved into one of the drawers. “Ready when you are, Professor,” I say, and he makes a noise, tearing his eyes away from where I sit with my legs crossed and pen poised in the air.

  He sits as well, keeping his gaze away from me. “I’m writing a book about Victorian courtship narratives,” he says to the William Holman Hunt painting on his wall. “Not necessarily the rituals themselves but the morality tales given to young people in order to illustrate how they should behave. As well as the satirical tales that illustrate how they did behave.”

  “And how did they behave?” I ask as I write.

  “As youth everywhere and in every time behaves,” he says grimly. “Improperly.”

  I look up at him with a smile. He doesn’t smile back, glancing away from me as soon as our eyes meet. “Surely that’s kind of heartwarming,” I say. “Kind of fun? To think even Victorians couldn’t help being naughty?”

  Oliver presses his eyes closed. “I think,” he says slowly, “it proves that we never learn from the mistakes of the past.”

  There’s a deep bitterness in his words that takes me by surprise; whatever he’s thinking of at the moment, it’s viciously unhappy. It has teeth, and it’s chewing at his mind—I can see it playing out across his beautiful face.

  And then he opens his eyes with a long inhale, speaking to the painting once more. “I’ve only been through a third of the things I’ve collected, perhaps less, and so as part of any organization scheme, we need to index if I’ve seen it before.”

  “Of course,” I say, jotting that down. “What else do you need? Digitization?”

  He makes a face—it’s very similar to the face he made at my cup of tea. “I prefer paper.”

  “Victorian paper is very cheap and very acidic,” I inform him. “Even in the best of conditions, which…” I trail off meaningfully, tilting my head at the room of decaying paper sitting in the sunlight.

  “And?” Oliver prompts testily.

  “And some of these paper works are not going to be around much longer. By the time you get to them, they may crumble in your hands. Digitizing what you can isn’t just helpful for your research, it’s the responsible thing to do as potentially the sole owner of some of these texts.”

  He gives a put-upon sigh. “If you think it necessary…then I suppose.”

  “I’ll only mark the most at-risk items for photographing or scanning,” I promise. I make a few more notes and give the room an assessing look. “We’ll need to order some archival supplies—is there room in the budget for that?”

  “The budget,” he echoes, sounding puzzled.

  “Dad said you were working with grant money.”

  “Oh yes, the grant.” He gives a shrug that conveys something close to discomfort, and I watch curiously, as I’ve never seen him truly uncomfortable before—only annoyed. “Money is not a concern,” he says, and he actually looks embarrassed by this. Maybe it was an exceptionally large grant and he feels strange about accepting it? Who knows.

  “Okay, then,” I say, standing up. “Shall we get started?”

  An imperious look. “You shall get started. I shall work.”

  “Yes, Professor.” I say it perhaps too mockingly, earning myself a glare, and I scuttle over to the far corner of the room and get to work before he scolds me again.

  It becomes clear that Oliver’s system, if that word can even be used, has been to stack the most promising texts closest to his desk and the least promising in the corners and along the far wall. I work steadily through the morning, building up a light sweat as I shift through stacks of material, trying to get a handle on what I’ll need to know to build a comprehensive database for Oliver.

  Several times I peek up over my work to watch him at his desk, unable to stop myself from staring at the chiseled jaw flexing in concentration and the long eyelashes sweeping against his cheeks as he studies his papers and types on his laptop.

  It should be illegal for a man to be that handsome and English. It just isn’t fair.

  I suspect he doesn’t want to be bothered, so around lunchtime I wander into his kitchen and make us simple sandwiches, bringing his plate back and wordlessly setting it at the edge of his desk. He reaches for the food automatically, eyes pinned to his laptop screen, and it isn’t until he’s finished his sandwich that he seems to realize he’s eaten it at all.

  “Thank you,” he says after a minute, and I notice that his voice has thawed the tiniest bit. Not much. But a bit. I’m already back to work, and I look up to see him staring at me with an expression I can’t decipher.

  “You’re welcome, Professor,” I say, and he grunts in response. I take it as progress and fight a smile as I lean ba
ck down to my stacks of books.

  The day passes much the same as this. I finally get my laptop from my room and start on the database. Oliver sighs a lot at the frequent tapping of my keyboard, but when I offer to go work in the kitchen, he merely scowls and mutters, “Stay.”

  So I stay.

  Around six, I bring up the subject of dinner and ask if he’d like me to make it. He seems to fight some inner war with himself. “I’ll order takeaway,” he says, which is how we end up eating delicious Indian food at the kitchen table with his cat complaining loudly at our feet.

  “How did the writing go today?” I ask innocently enough, and he stabs at his butter chicken with a fierce frown.

  “You should know better than to ask any writer that question.”

  “So it went well?”

  He directs the frown at me. “You’re teasing me.” He says it incredulously, as if no one has ever dared do it before. In fact, I’m suddenly quite certain no one ever has dared to tease him before this. He’s very un-teasable, with that haughty face and icy gaze. But I’m feeling energetic and playful from my own productive day, and it’s so very hard not to provoke him when he makes such handsome provoked faces.

  “I won’t tease you any more if it hurts your feelings,” I poke.

  He glares at me. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings.”

  “You seem a little hurt.”

  “I’m not hurt.”

  “In fact, I think I need to make it up to you,” I banter back. “Maybe you can make me write an essay on my bad behavior.”

  His pupils dilate at the same instant that my own words filter back through my mind, along with their subtext. Which is punishment.

  Which of course makes me think of the night we were together, which of course makes me want to be bent over that strong knee again. And with the way Oliver’s fingers are clenched around his fork, I wonder if he’s wanting the same thing.

  “Excuse me,” he says abruptly, standing up and setting his dishes by the sink. He leaves to go to his study, and I hear the door close firmly behind him. The message is clear.