I stifled a laugh. “Right?”
“What’s yours about?”
I waved my hand vaguely in the air – for all the notes I’d taken, I still had no idea what the adjunct professor was trying to convey. Not to mention, my thoughts were usually so distracted by Professor Marks in that class that I didn’t pay normally as much attention as I should.
Petra blinked at me. “Seriously? You’re like, one of the most conscientious people I know,” she said flatly. “You don’t even know what your seminar is about?”
“Me and science,” I said, waving my hands in the air and fumbling my words on purpose. “It’s like asking me to sit down and do calc for an hour – I just can’t do it.”
To my relief, Petra laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “Fair.”
We walked in silence for a moment, past a group of giggling students who were trying to make the most of the leftover snow on the ground. One of them pitched a dirty snowball at the others and the whole group exploded in laughter and shrieks. It made me remember back when I had been a freshman and it had seemed like I’d had so much time to spend fooling around on campus, so much time to get to know my new friends.
Now, they almost seemed like children to me despite the fact that there was only a four year gap in our ages.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
Petra cocked her head to the side and paused. “What?”
I bit my lip – I was a bit reluctant to get into the same conversation that we’d had a couple of days ago. And I couldn’t ignore the feeling that some very real distance was building between us, something that I’d never imagined would take place. My chest was filled with a sad ache.
Just the day before yesterday, I’d been so eager to grow up. And now, what?
“I had the weirdest class today,” I said suddenly.
“Your tech thing again?”
I shook my head. “No. Professor Marks. The senior English seminar.”
This got Petra’s attention, and she raised an eyebrow, suddenly looking far more interested than she had before.
“What happened?”
I blushed.
“Oh, god, Eden,” Petra groaned. “You can’t do this!”
“Do what?” I asked as innocently as I could. “What?”
“Come on,” Petra said. “Give me a little snippet like that and then act coy. What did he do?”
“I ...” I trailed off. The moment between Professor Marks and I had seemed so intimate, so cozy, that I’d cherished it. But now, I was starting to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing.
“Eden,” Petra said sternly. We started walking again and I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat.
“I think he hit on me,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“What?” Petra stopped again, dead in her tracks. “What on earth would make you think that?”
I sighed. “He singled me out,” I said. “I wrote some paper for him, like a couple of years ago, right? And he like, brought it up in class. Said that I made some great points that even seniors wouldn’t think of.”
Petra pressed her lips together.
“What?”
“Eden, he’s a professor,” she said. “That’s what they do.”
“It felt like more,” I insisted, feeling more childlike by the second and already wishing that I hadn’t told her.
“He’s not the type to hit on students,” she continued. “Just because he’s super-hot doesn’t mean he’s like, available, you know? He’s pretty cold to everyone.”
“Yeah, but not to me. I mean, he wasn’t then.”
“Eden,” Petra said, and I was starting to tire of hearing my name in that tone.
“What?” I asked wearily.
“You have to stop thinking this way,” she said. “It’s the beginning of the semester, and you’re going to make an ass out of yourself if you keep doing this.”
I blinked. I knew that I shouldn’t feel hurt, but her words stung.
“I mean, I don’t think I did,” I said slowly.
“Or worse, you’ll wind up getting hurt,” Petra said. She looked me in the eye and put both her hands on my shoulders. “And frankly, I don’t want to see that happen to you. You’re my best friend, kid.”
I knew she meant it – that was exactly how I felt about her, too.
“I know,” I said.
“So,” she said, looking into the sunlight and shielding her eyes with one hand. “Lunch?”
I nodded. “Lunch,” I said, trying to match her tone. “Sounds like a plan.”
As we walked on, I wasn’t sure how to feel. I had always been good at reading people – or so I thought. And I had been so positive, so very sure, that Professor Marks and I had had a moment together, something magic and amazing that he’d never shared with another student before.
But maybe I was being a dumb kid – what Petra had been suggesting, albeit far more tactfully.
Maybe I wasn’t all that different from those freshmen playing in the snow, after all.
4
Will – Friday
I shouldn’t have been so fucking stupid – I singled out a student, a very attractive student nonetheless. In the moment, I didn’t feel that I was doing anything wrong.
But I guess that’s how it starts. I guess that’s how all professors justify that kind of behavior to themselves, how they start to allow dumb schoolgirl crushes on them to get out of hand.
Or maybe I was just being paranoid. Still, I felt like a prize asshole. The look on Eden’s face when I’d mentioned her in class had been enough to make me cringe, right then and there, and make me wish that I’d never said a fucking word.
It had been terribly out of character for me, after all. Eden was a smart girl, and she knew it. Why I had insisted on gilding the lily and calling her out like that?
Fuck, I was dumb. I was falling into the very trap that I had hoped to avoid for so long. Before I’d started at Oakbrook, I’d done what every professor who hopes to make tenure does – traveled around the country and taught adjunct positions for shitty pay at shitty colleges. Sometimes, the pay had even been so low that I’d had to take a second job as a freelance editor or the like just to keep a roof over my head.
It hadn’t always been glamorous. When I’d been in undergrad – and even grad school – I’d imagined my PhD would come with a library full of old books, a house full of antiques and dim lighting, all of the prestige and honor that came with the honor of being called “Doctor Marks”.
So, if I was being truly honest, this wasn’t the first time I’d been that stupid. Academia was a far harder road than I’d initially thought, and it was only my deep love for it that kept me moving on.
And now that I’d finally gotten what I’d always wanted, what I’d worked so fucking hard to get, I was at risk of blowing it up because of Eden fucking Cooper.
Goddamnit.
What a mess.
Oakbrook College was a traditional school, and on Fridays the last classes ended at two. I’d thought that was ridiculous when I’d first started but now I almost liked it. I only had one seminar on Fridays, a mid-level class for students who were learning towards majoring in English but weren’t officially declared, and it was a nice, low-key seminar. When it was over, my students shuffled out of the classroom and I went to my office where I sat behind my desk and started glancing over my schedule for the next week.
There was a soft knock on my door and I looked up to see none other than Eden herself standing there. She was wearing a jersey dress that clung to her obscene curves and I could see her nipples were stiff from the outdoor cold despite the very obvious presence of a heavy bra.
Immediately, my cock began to stiffen in my pants and I clenched my hands into fists beneath the desk. I didn’t know what it was about her curves that drove me so wild, but it was such a natural, such an animalistic reaction that I couldn’t even begin to question it.
“Ms. Cooper,” I said coolly. �
��What can I do for you?”
Eden gave me a shy, tentative smile and walked into my office. A gust of her perfume, soft and sweet, blew over me – so unlike the scent of cigarettes that clung to the kids who tried to be edgier and more adult. Maybe that was what I liked about Eden so much – she didn’t pretend to be anyone else other than who she really was.
“I just have a question about the assignment,” she said. “And I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t overstepping.”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
This should be good, I thought to myself.
“What is it?”
Eden cleared her throat with a soft little gasp and sat down in the chair opposite my desk.
“Well, I wanted to see if it was okay to reference other primary sources than what we’re covering in class,” she said.
I nodded for her to continue.
“Like ... um, I know we’re only doing Woolf and Faulkner, but I’ve read a lot of E.M. Forster and like, he and Woolf had such a different approach to modernism and like, I thought I could—”
“Compare and contrast?” I asked her.
Eden nodded. She flushed slightly and bit the inside of her cheek. Her plump, strawberry-pink lips were glistening with saliva and the sight made my balls ache with lust. I wanted her so bad just then – I wanted to pull her over my desk and spank that luscious, womanly ass of hers until she moaned. This is what you get for making me want you like this, I thought as I stared at her.
“Well, yes,” she said softly. “But of course, at the appropriate level. I don’t want this to be like, a book report,” she said, giggling at her own joke.
“I wouldn’t expect that,” I said.
Eden looked rebuffed at my words. “So, um, is it okay?”
I nodded. “For now, yes,” I told her. “But later on in the semester, I’d like you to draw your own conclusions.”
A strange look crossed her face and she smiled. “So, you want me to approach the text like the author doesn’t exist?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I told her. “That would be excellent.”
Eden nodded. She got to her feet, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief that she was done. I was grateful that she hadn’t tried to flirt with me but I couldn’t lie – I was still incredibly turned on, and all I wanted was to be alone so that I could assure myself I wouldn’t do anything stupid.
“Good,” she said. “Thank you, Professor Marks.”
I smiled tightly at her.
She didn’t tear her gaze away and I could feel the hot sparks flying between us, the chemistry building in the dense air of my office. In the dim light of my banking lamp, Eden looked soft and sexy and I longed to run my hands through her unruly brown curls and over her pale skin.
Fuck, stop it! I ordered myself. She’s a fucking student, for god’s sake!
“If that’s all, I have some things to do,” I said curtly.
Eden nodded quickly.
“Thanks again,” she said, then ducked her head in a quick, submissive gesture that sent hormones flying through my body anew. When she left, I leaned my head against the back of my chair and groaned.
She was driving me crazy. She was turning me from an intellectual man into someone who couldn’t control his basest urges, someone who wanted nothing more than to rip her clothes off and suck her clit until she shook and moaned.
God, she was fucking trouble with a capital ‘T’.
I was as breathless and hot as if we’d actually just fucked, and we’d done little more than talk about literary theory.
I wished then that I could fast forward to the end of the semester, that I could lean back and press ‘play’ and watch things unfold without actually having to interact with students or grade papers or do anything that would put me at risk.
Eden hadn’t actually even done anything – she’d just shown up and asked a question, like the smart, normal student that she was. And furthermore, she didn’t deserve for me to have these kinds of thoughts about her. She was a girl, practically young enough to be my daughter, and it was my job to foster and nurture her.
Not to fantasize about spanking and fucking and teasing her until she went red in the face with the lusty heat of it all.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.
I was going to make sure that I’d never have another inappropriate thought about Eden Cooper again.
If it was the last thing I ever did.
5
Eden – Saturday
I’d had so many plans for the first Saturday of the semester – I’d even written them down in a little planner that I’d bought over winter break. Petra had teased me about it. “Everyone just uses their phones now,” she’d said, rolling her eyes and laughing when I’d made a show of buying a brand-new pen to use. “Why not just use that?”
Because I sometimes wish that I didn’t live in the modern age, I’d thought. It was dumb, I knew, but sometimes I wished that I lived in an age with just notebooks and pens, before cell phones and texting and instant-messaging.
But I couldn’t have said any of that, of course, so I’d just told Petra that I’d bought it because I thought it was cute, and because I thought that it would help me stay focused and organized.
I had planned to get up early and go for a long run, something I’d never done before – on the day that I’d bought the planner, I’d bought leggings and a new t-shirt, noting with dismay that the largest size in the store was the only one that fit me, and even that was quite snug. I’d gained a lot of weight in college, no doubt thanks to the carb-heavy foods in the dining hall. While I’d always been a big girl, I could feel that my curves were getting out of control, and I wanted to rein them in. I wanted to be healthy.
And ... I wanted men to look at me and notice me.
Well, not just any men.
Professor Marks, to be specific.
I knew it was ridiculous, and I knew it was the kind of thing that Petra would rake me over the coals if she knew about it. So, I kept that to myself.
But my morning wasn’t off to the most promising start. I’d set my alarm for nine but somehow forgotten the night before to actually turn the sound on, and then I’d woken up for the first time at ten-thirty, groaned, then rolled back over and fallen back asleep.
Now, it was past noon and I felt sluggish and slow. To make matters worse, it was a grey, cloudy day outside – one of those days where the sky always looks like it’s threatening to rain. I groaned and rolled over on my belly, burying my face in the pillow and sighing.
I knew I should get up and run – I had a brand-new athleisure outfit waiting for me, sneakers and all – but all I wanted to do was stay in bed. I pulled the covers higher and snuggled deep into my sheets, lying there until I had to pee so bad that there was an ache in my crotch.
By the time I got out of the bathroom, it was one-thirty in the afternoon. Petra was in the kitchen, sitting at the island and eating carrots with ranch as she thumbed through a Vogue magazine.
“Required reading?” I teased.
Petra looked up and snorted. “What’s up, Miss Athletic,” she teased. “How was that run?”
I groaned. “It didn’t happen,” I told her. “Like I’m sure you can see.”
“If you want company, I could use some exercise,” she said, putting her magazine down and looking at me skeptically. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I told her. “Just lazy.”
Petra nodded. “How about we put off running until tomorrow,” she replied. “We can go to the grocery store and load up on snacks and popcorn and shit, and come back here and watch Netflix.”
I nodded. “That ... sounds a lot better than running,” I admitted.
My best friend smirked at me. “I thought it would,” she said. “Go get cleaned up and we’ll walk over there. At least that’ll give us some exercise.”
I went and showered, then changed into clean leggings and a snuggly, warm top that I loved because I did
n’t have to wear a bra with it. By the time we left, the sun was sinking low in the sky and I shivered. I loved winter, normally – loved the snow, loved the cold, loved the sheer peace of it – but right now, I found myself wishing for sunshine and hot weather and green grass.
It wasn’t that I was depressed – in fact, I felt the opposite. I felt restless, almost itchy under my skin, like I couldn’t wait for things to get moving. Besides, it was still a novelty – going to the grocery store and buying anything other than Cup Noodles and Easy Mac in those little Styrofoam cups. When Petra and I had moved in together, we’d promised that we’d do a lot of real cooking – I’d even bought cookbooks, as if to prove how serious I was. But the first week of classes had left me tired and busy, and right now I was in the mood for some serious junk food.
“God, I hate winter,” Petra said as she looked up at the sky and visibly shivered. “Can’t you wait for it to be over?”
“I like it,” I admitted. “I hate summer clothes, anyway.”
The ground wasn’t quite frozen – it was almost slimy from the melted snow and ice over the dead grass – and we slipped and slid, perilously close to falling on our asses, bursting into giggles and clutching at each other.
“See,” I said through a gasp of laughter. “It’s better that we didn’t go running today – I wouldn’t want my new shoes to get all muddy.”
Petra laughed. “Right?” She slid in the muck again and squealed, grabbing onto my arm with both hands and nearly dragging me down with her. When we found the sidewalk, we righted ourselves and our laughter died down. The grocery store was on the other side of campus and by the time we got there, my nose was icy-cold and dripping with snot. I wiped it on a tissue buried in the depths of my pocket, then took a deep breath and charged inside the grocery store.
The air inside was mercilessly hot, like the store hadn’t counted on the possibility of a single patron owning a coat. Petra and I shed layers and grabbed a shopping cart, throwing in our wet coats and prancing down the aisles like we’d never been there before.
The Temptation: A Professor Student Romance (Forbidden First Times Book 6) Page 3
