Chapter Seventeen
Zandy
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.
I blink at the screen next to me. Everything just looks like a swirl of static, except for the tiny spot at the middle. “Is that sound the heartbeat?” I whisper.
The ultrasound tech smiles at me. “It is. Baby’s doing just fine.”
I let out a long breath of relief. In the handful of days since Oliver’s phone call, I’ve had light, persistent cramping—nothing too scary, but my new nurse-midwife wanted to make sure everything was progressing well all the same.
I stare at the little bean on the ultrasound monitor, as if it will make the storming thoughts inside my head clearer. As if it will loosen the painful knot in my chest.
It doesn’t, but I still feel a spike of mind-boggling awe—as well as a spike of regret. Oliver should be here right now. Oliver should be here to see his child. Even if there’s no future for us, he deserves that much at least.
“I’m going to run these images over to your midwife and make sure she doesn’t want anything else,” the ultrasound tech says, snapping her gloves off and taking some printouts away from the machine. “Stay here.”
As if I’m going anywhere naked below the waist and still slicked up with the bluish lube they used for the ultrasound wand. I consider reaching for my phone as the door closes behind the tech, but I decide against it. I’ll only be crushed by how blank it is; Oliver hasn’t tried to call or contact me at all since we last spoke on the phone.
I close my eyes against the sudden burn, feeling stupid. This is what I wanted, right? Dignity, distance, all of the stuff that sounds so good in theory and Cosmo articles.
In real life, however, dignity sucks.
My eyes are still closed as the tech comes back in the room, and I take a deep breath, preparing to act the part of chipper young mom again. It’s been a little embarrassing, being here alone, knowing the front desk girls and the clucking, brusque nurses are all forming their own opinions about me, but it’s nothing I can’t handle, right?
Right.
But before I can open my eyes to greet the tech again, I feel a blunt finger tracing the narrow leather band of my wristwatch. “Always this watch,” a wry British voice says. “Even now.”
I open my eyes.
He’ll never stop being so fucking handsome, will he? The unkempt shadow of a beard on that square jaw matches his tousled hair perfectly, and even the sleepless smudges under his eyes only serve to set off the unfairly long eyelashes and the hypnotically colored eyes. That sensual mouth is currently twisted in a smile so aristocratically and perfectly Oliver Markham Graeme that I could cry.
“You’re here,” I say pointlessly.
He settles a hand over my lower stomach, but his eyes never leave my face. “I’m here,” he affirms.
“But…” I don’t have the rest of the words to finish my objection, although it’s not really an objection. Even with everything between us, seeing him is like swallowing down pure excitement. A hot flush of happiness starts to creep up my cheeks.
He notices, his smile becoming less dry and more tender. He brushes along my blush-stained cheeks with the back of a finger. “But nothing, darling. You were right. About everything.”
“Everything?” I ask, suddenly finding myself uncertain in the trance of his beautiful eyes.
“I wish you hadn’t left,” he admits. “I wish you would have told me about the baby the moment you found out…but I understand why you didn’t. It took you calling me absurd before the truth became clear to me.”
“I didn’t call you absurd,” I clarify quickly. “Just your weird self-loathing.”
He laughs, the act transforming his expression into that boyish, happy face I love so much. “Okay, fine then. It took you calling my self-loathing absurd for me to understand.” He sobers a little, his hand splaying so nice and warm on my belly. “And I think I do understand now. I never wanted you to feel like a duty, Zandy. I want you because I want you. And if you’ll have me the way I am”—his eyes meet mine—“then I’m all yours.”
I search his expression. “So you aren’t going to insist on marriage?”
“I want to marry you, but only if you’re willing.” The look on his face is fierce and loving. “And I’ll be there as long as it takes to make you willing.”
“And you’re not going to quit your writing and go take a teaching job you hate?”
“No.”
“And you’ll still be a spanky professor with me?”
He rolls his eyes at the word spanky, but a smile tugs at his lips. “And I’ll still be a spanky professor with you.”
I finally allow myself to grin. “Then that’s all I can ask for.”
The tech opens the door, making a coo of surprise when she sees Oliver. “Is this Daddy?” she asks, bustling back to the machine.
“Yes,” Oliver and I say at the same time.
And we manage to sway the tech into showing us a few more minutes of the baby, even though technically she doesn’t need to, and I soak in every moment of Oliver’s reserved expression made open and awed with wonder as he watches his baby’s heart pulse on the screen.
It’s not until we’re leaving the office together, several glossy prints of our baby in hand, when I nudge his arm with my shoulder and say, “You’re Daddy now.”
His gorgeous mouth hooks up at the corner. “Sometimes I’ll be, Miss Lynch. But when we’re alone, I’m still Professor.”
I think I might float away with happiness. “Yes, sir,” I say, and I’m rewarded with a kiss that steals my breath right out of my mouth and promises all sorts of dirty, spanky things to come.
As long as I’m a very, very good girl.
Epilogue
Oliver
One Year Later…
Warm summer air blows through the study windows, ruffling my papers. I mumble a frustrated oath, clapping a hand over the pile and trying to ignore Zandy, who is finishing up her assignment using completely digitized materials and is visibly smug about it. Ever since she decided to go to library school in nearby Sheffield, we’ve been sharing my study, and she’s never stopped fussing about my affinity for paper. Or rather, the way the paper I work with tends to clump into piles and stacks and turn our neatly organized study into a warren of discarded books.
The breeze blows again, toying with her hair and fluttering the edges of her blouse, drawing my eyes down to her chest. The baby and nursing have blown out Zandy’s buxom shape, transforming her girlishly curvy body to something ripe and irresistible. Looking at her now makes me feel distinctly barbarian-like; I can’t catch sight of those lush, milk-heavy breasts or those suggestively wide hips without wanting to throw her over my shoulder and carry her off to some remote tower and mate with her until we both can’t move anymore.
I consider doing that right now—sans tower, of course—when a small squeak draws my attention. I look over to the small cot next to my desk, where two chubby waving fists and slowly kicking legs alert me that my little man is awake.
Zandy starts to stand, but I beat her to him, scooping up the squishy bug in my arms and kissing his thick, silky crown of hair. At three months old, Michael—named for her father—looks almost all my child: his eyes so blue at birth now changing into speckles of green and brown as well, his pointed chin, and even his little frowns and scowls. But the hair is all from his mother, and I find myself so fucking enamored sometimes with the idea that he’s been created uniquely and solely from me and the woman I love.
The woman who’s going to be my wife.
After our conversation and my botched attempt at marrying her the first time, I decided to take no risks with my second approach, and in a very Zandy-ish move, I made a plan. Part of the plan was establishing where we would live and where she would go to school, because I can live anywhere, really, and I knew she’d want to be close to her father. I let her choose every step of the way, reminding her that I’d love her and stay with her
no matter what.
She chose England and the cottage and the river and then began a campaign of emotional warfare to convince her father to find a job here near us. A campaign that was successful. He lives a mere ten minutes away from his grandson now.
The other part of the plan was to simply enjoy the process of having Michael. I didn’t want to rush her or pressure her when she seemed so happy and alight with his impending arrival, so I decided to wait until after his birth to settle this once and for all.
Zandy’s mine.
She’s been mine from the moment I covered my body with hers and slid inside her. Hell, she’s been mine since the moment she stumbled into me on a rainy London night.
And I have no intention of letting her go.
Zandy finishes up her work while I tend to Michael, and by the time she’s finished, he’s ready to nurse. I sit at the edge of my desk and watch as she props her feet up on a pile of books and cradles our son to her breast.
I watch appreciatively, happily, because she’s a vision like this—her hair in tumble-down waves over her shoulders and her beautiful face bent in tender care…and her perfect breast available to view. As if hearing my thoughts, my son puts a flexing hand over her breast as if to lay claim.
I smile, dropping a kiss on his head as I get up to prepare for this afternoon. Message received, little sir, I think with amusement. She’s all yours for now.
But after he nods off into his habitual milk coma and we lay him down in his nursery upstairs, I lead Zandy back to the study, because for the next hour, she’s all mine. And I intend on using that time very well.
The moment I sit back down at my desk and say, “Come here, Miss Lynch,” my cock swells against my trousers in Pavlovian response. And it swells even more as I see the rampant evidence of her desire stamped all over her body—nipples like hard little bullets, cheeks stained pink, and her even, white teeth biting into her lower lip.
“Yes, Professor,” she murmurs, coming toward me with a smile she can’t quite hide.
“I’m afraid you’ve been a bad girl,” I tell her sternly, “and the time has come to do something about it.”
“I haven’t been a bad girl,” she protests as she finally reaches me, and I hear the real umbrage in her voice—my Zandy is someone who always wants to be a good girl, the teacher’s pet, and even though she knows it’s a game, she still can’t stifle the eager schoolgirl inside her who wants to please me entirely. Her puzzled little frown is only half-faked. “I’m a good girl, I promise.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, giving her the steely teacher-ish glare that makes her melt every time. “We need to have a talk about your behavior, Miss Lynch. And about the consequences.”
I stand up, and her teeth sink back into her lip in a display of contrition. Heat pools at the base of my spine, and I have to consciously control my breathing and slow it down. Fuck, how I need this game. How I need her to play it with. Only her, for the rest of my life.
“Do you think I haven’t noticed what you’ve been doing to get my attention, Miss Lynch? The staying after class? The ‘extra studying’ in my office? And do you think I haven’t noticed how you shamelessly display your body to me?”
Deep blue eyes peer up at me through dark, fluttering lashes. “I wasn’t doing it on purpose,” she breathes. “I promise, sir.”
I slide my hand into the loose, silky hair at the nape of her neck. “I think it was on purpose,” I say coldly. “I think you are deliberately trying to provoke me. And I think you’re about to learn how far you can provoke a man before he acts.”
“Acts?” she asks, blinking up at me.
I yank her close enough that she can feel the hot column of my cock against her belly. “That’s right, Miss Lynch. It’s time for you to face the consequences of your misbehavior.”
And then I bend her over the desk.
I’m trembling. I’m almost always trembling by this point, the sheer fucking filthiness of it throbbing deep in my belly and shuddering heat all the way to the tip of my leaking cock. Something about this game rocks me to my core, makes me feel like every time is the first time, and the fact that I can play it with someone who loves it as much as I do is incredible. I’m humbled by it every single fucking time.
She looks up at me over her shoulder, delivering her most innocent pout. “But sir, I won’t be bad any longer. I’ll be good, I swear.”
I flip up her skirt, exposing a round behind and a sweet pussy that are completely bare. No underthings at all. “This doesn’t look like you have any plans to be good anytime soon,” I say darkly, giving her pussy a hard cup. “I think you’re lying. I think you can’t help yourself, and you’re going to keep this pussy wet and open for me whenever I’m around because you can’t stand not having me fuck you, hmm?”
She grinds down against my hand, chasing the pressure and rolling her head along her folded forearms.
“Answer me, girl. Are you going to start behaving now?” I time my question with the dirty, probing slide of one finger deep into her heat, and she mewls at me.
“No, Professor, I’m so sorry. I just can’t help it…”
“Then you’ll have to face the consequences of your behavior,” I say, injecting my voice with as much grimness as I can muster through all the lust currently pounding through my veins. “How do you stop me, Miss Lynch?”
“Red,” she moans, whimpering in protest as I remove my finger. “But please don’t ever stop.”
Thwack.
The first stinging slap across her ass makes her jolt against the desk, one of her bare little feet kicking up reflexively. I move my own feet around hers, enjoying the picture we make very much—the trouser fabric against bare legs and the rumpled plaid waves of her skirt, the expensive leather of my shoes against the adorable red-painted toes and pale skin of her feet. I give her another quick slap and then sit back down in my chair.
“Over my knee, Miss Lynch. I need to make sure you’re not getting too comfortable.”
The look she cuts me is a prism of all the things I love about our game, about our life. It’s fear and arousal and the distinct slice of rueful affection, and it hardens my cock at the same time it softens my heart. I love her, and I love the way we fit together as I pull her over my lap, as she drops a soft kiss on my forearm, and as I give her thigh a quick, reassuring squeeze before we disappear back into the game.
I pull her skirt up to her waist and spank her until she squirms. I spank her until her legs start kicking up and I have to trap them under my leg to keep punishing her. I keep it nice today, my palm working over a liberal area and striking just hard enough to burn but not hard enough to truly hurt. And then once she’s nice and pink, I part her legs to inspect her pussy.
“Wet,” I declare harshly. “Shamefully wet. I don’t think you’ve learned your lesson at all.”
“Maybe not,” she gasps as my inspecting hand starts rubbing at her cunt. “I might need more punishment.”
“A shame,” I say, picking her up and bending her back over the desk. With one hand, I keep her bent over the desk while my other hand fumbles with my trousers to release my aching erection. “I had such hopes I could turn you back into a good girl.”
“I can be a good girl starting right now,” she begs, lifting up on her tiptoes and bringing her wet, flushed opening level with my cock. I rub my tip against it, enjoying the heat and the slick kiss of her flesh against mine, enjoying her needy moans even more. And finally, finally, after shoving the turgid head into the small seam and lodging myself there, I thrust home.
She’s so tight, so hot, that static fuzzes at the edges of my vision. “I’ve changed my mind,” I say breathlessly. “You are a very good girl. Utterly perfect.”
She tosses her hair over her shoulder as she sends me the kind of saucy look no actual good girl could ever muster. “I like it when you fuck me, Professor,” she says, and she pushes back against me to prove her point. “You make me feel so good.”
&
nbsp; I give her a stinging spank and then reach in front of her to add my fingers to her pleasure, knowing how she likes the pressure of my touch on her clit as I fuck her tight opening from behind. And it doesn’t take her long like this, with me riding her against the desk and my touch on her intimate secrets, and she comes with a surprised wail, clenching so hard around my cock that I very nearly lose it.
But I cling on, by fingernails and teeth, desperate to execute my plan. Because one thing’s become clear to me over the past year, and it’s how much we need each other like this and how afraid Zandy was of losing this part of me. So I need to prove to her now that she’ll never lose it, that it’s part of our love now and forever.
After her peak subsides, I reach over and slide a piece of notebook paper in front of her. “I forgot to mention this very important assignment,” I say, and I see her glance at it briefly and then back to me, as if she expects it only to have the usual red means stop scrawled across, since that’s usually how I check in with her during our games.
But this time it says something different.
I see the moment she realizes this, the moment her head dips back to read the paper again, and she freezes underneath my now-leisurely stroking hips.
I love you, the paper says. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife and let me be your professor?
“Oliver,” she says, and her voice is filled with tears.
I pull out enough that I can turn her around and guide her back onto the desk, on her back this time, and I crawl over her, entering her with a wet, welcome shove.
“I love you. And I want you as you are,” I murmur into her mouth, punctuating my words with deep, stroking kisses. “Will you have me? Just as I am?”
“Yes,” she says, her tears running off her smiling cheeks. “Yes, I want you. Yes, I’ll have you.”
“So it’s settled, then,” I say, feeling like I’ve swallowed sunshine and grinning like an idiot. “You’re mine.”
Misadventures with a Professor Page 15
