Текст книги "Tempting"
Автор книги: Alex Lucian
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Chapter Four
Almost four years had passed like it was ten times that long. That’s the thing about death—you start measuring your days in a way you’d never done before. Like the fact that the first Tuesday of every October was when she and I would go to the farmer’s market and pick out pumpkins and those stupid fucking little gourds she liked to decorate the house with. But now, the first Tuesday of every October just made me want to punch something. I’d done it for three years when it came around, and I was slowly counting down the days until the fourth time it rolled past my calendar. Just one more day that got covered in a thick black x when it dragged to a close. The sluggish passing of time that never bothered me, because it was all I deserved.
Until last week. I’d kept myself out of trouble. I’d refrained from any sort of empty release for almost that long, because if my wife couldn’t be around to breathe the same oxygen as me, then I shouldn’t be able to indulge myself in anything that might make me happy. Might make me forget.
But walking down the hallway of a bar that I didn’t really want to be at, she’d ran into me, knocked into me with the subtlety of a rabid nuclear bomb, with her skintight black pants and fake black leather jacket and smirking lips made to drive a man down to his knees. The lips that I had no intention of ever seeing again. Because all I’d needed from her was the perfect moment of oblivion she’d given me; the way she’d let me use her and debase her and bruise her was exactly how I should have introduced my sorely neglected cock after so long of a celibacy.
Never, not in a million years, had I expected to look up and see her. Maybe she’d always been hiding in the rows of blank faces that pretended to pay attention to me. Oh, the female students paid attention to me, they always had. Even when I’d had the bright gold ring wrapped around the third finger on my left hand. That had never mattered to them. But I took it off about a year ago, and the attention hadn’t wavered in the slightest, like they hadn’t noticed it in the first place. And at no point had any of them tempted me.
Not when Ashley McInerney, the nitwit who could never manage to turn off her phone, had offered to blow me under my desk in order to get a passing grade; or when Bridgett whatever-her-name-was leaned over and shoved her admittedly excellent cleavage in my face under the guise of handing me her essay. It hadn’t been the cleavage that clued me in her to offer. It had been the handwritten note slipped between the second and third pages with her phone number and the days her daddy would be out of town on it.
None of them, not even the other four who’d practically laid themselves out on my desk, had given me even the slightest hesitation in kicking them out into the empty hallway. None of them had been worth losing my job over, or worse, desecrating the memory of Diana.
But she, Add, if that was even her real name, stared back at me in a room full of people who had no clue that I knew exactly how her pussy tasted and how it clamped down like a vice when she came. That she liked a touch of pain with her pleasure, just like I did. And the worst part was that I couldn’t break her stare, like she’d shackled my eyes to hers so that they couldn’t stay away from hers for more than a few moments.
The rest of class, I don’t even know what the hell I talked about, but nobody was giving me strange looks, so it must have made sense to them. When I told them to read a chapter from the King book and paraphrase it in a way that made sense with whatever work they had in progress, I went to my desk and sat, making sure my eyes stayed far, far away from that middle seat. But without lifting my gaze, I could see her foot swinging at an even tempo.
Her shoes looked like torture devices, starkly incongruous from the sedate clothing she wore, the bright red spiked heel making a slow arc in the air as she kicked her foot back and forth, never breaking rhythm. I opened the flap of my messenger and pulled out the folder for this class, Creative Writing 201—Fall Semester 2015, and flipped to the student roster, following my pointer finger down the large list.
What a fucking idiot, like she told you her real name.
I ignored that sly, mocking voice in my own head and filtered through the names. Only a few were close, Adriane Whitfield, Adele Morello and Addison Brooks, though I’d met Addison once before, so I could rule her out. Filtering out the sounds of pages turning, pens scratching on paper and the occasional cough or whisper, I ran my finger over both names like it would somehow answer the question for me. Like the black ink on the white paper gave any clues as to which one had the same clawing hands and silk-soft skin and perfect tits, the way the right one had a ruby barbell piercing on it that I flicked with my tongue until she was keening beneath me.
Damn it, damn it, damn it. I rubbed my forehead, banishing those memories to the far recesses of my mind.
She didn’t seem like an Adriane Whitfield; that sounded too preppy, like a girl who was highly unlikely to sleep with her teacher. Giving the paper one last glance, I snapped my eyes up and she was looking straight at me, those moss green eyes lasered onto me in a way that tightened the skin on my scalp and damn it all to hell, made my cock twitch. Breaking her stare, I looked around to make sure nobody else was looking, and they weren’t, thank God.
“Okay, class. Anyone want to tell me what they can apply to their work in progress from the chapter you just read?”
A few hands shot up, the same four that always did when I asked for volunteers, and I nodded my chin at the guy to my left, nodding when he mentioned something fairly insightful. With my mind only half paying attention to what a couple other people said, I looked down at my watch. Only five minutes left, and with her eyes burning through the skin on the side of my face, I dismissed the class.
In my peripheral vision, I saw her slowly stand, making precisely drawn out movements to put her notebook back into a black leather messenger bag.
“Miss Morello?” I said, holding my breath while I waited to see if I’d guessed correctly. She turned toward me, all polite expression on her face, but her eyes glowed with visible triumph. Then she pulled my glasses from where they hung on her shirt, biting one end so that the brown arm disappeared between her bee-stung lips, and walked toward me.
When she approached my desk, I leaned back in my chair, and gave a pointed look at the glasses. Slowly pulling the tip from her mouth, Adele smirked when she tossed them onto a stack of papers. “Yes, Professor Easton?”
Her voice. It was different today than it had been last weekend when she moaned and gasped into my ear.
“Do you have a few moments after this to speak with me in my office?”
“Why? Have I been a bad girl?” she whispered, then slicked her tongue over her bottom lip.
“Knock it off,” I said just loud enough for her to hear me, keeping my face perfectly pleasant in case anyone was looking in my direction. It didn’t really matter, the room had all but emptied out. Nobody stayed late unless they needed to talk to me.
Adele leaned a hip against the corner of my desk and rolled her eyes at me. “I’m just kidding, Nathan. And yes, I have time after this. I have a free hour after your class before my next one.”
“You call me that again in this classroom, and I will kick your ass out without a second thought. Is that something I’m going to need to do?”
Surprisingly she straightened, shaking her head. “No. That won’t be necessary.”
“Good. Meet me in my office in ten minutes. Do you know where it is?”
The smile that curved her lips made something sink in my stomach.
“Of course I do.”
Of course she did. I stood, all but dismissing her with the completely unamused look I gave her. It just made her smile grow.
“Ten minutes, Miss Morello.”
“Yes, Professor Easton,” she whispered and gave me a mock salute with two black polish-covered fingers. Adele sauntered away from my desk. Such a cliché word, such a trite description for the way she moved, loose-limbed and long-legged, her hips pivoting to the side with each movement.
Well shit. Now what the fuck was I going to do?
Chapter Five
The walk from the classroom building to my office was short, but the fact that I was keeping my eyes peeled for Adele the entire time made it feel eight times longer. September was the busiest time on campus, all the students still high on the social aspect of starting a new semester, none of the pressures of midterms or finals having started yet. I dodged someone on a scooter, and glared at him when he just shrugged his shoulder at me.
Occasionally, there were days when I wondered why I put up with the bullshit at a state university when we were close enough to many of the Ivy League schools on the east coast. The true intellectuals went there, for looming, greenery-covered brick buildings and history so deeply embedded that you could fairly smell it just walking on the grounds.
But Eastons were just as embedded in Northern University, my father still serving on the board after retiring as a professor in the business program, so it wasn’t as if I really had a choice. He already thought I was a fuck-up, majoring and teaching in the arts, rather than something that garnered respect. And then Diana, well … that had only served as more ammunition.
When your son basically kills his own wife, he isn’t much to brag about.
“You’re late.”
My head snapped up as I rounded the corner to my office. Adele was leaning up against the wall just next to my office door, only her back touching the surface behind her. The way her lower body stuck out a bit looked horribly uncomfortable, but I knew exactly why she was doing it, jutting her hips out like that. Because it’s how I’d almost fucked her up against the wall in the alley outside the bar.
I flicked a glance at my watch and raised an eyebrow at her while I pulled my keys out of my pocket.
“Actually, I’m not. You’re early, which is an entirely different issue. When I said ten minutes, I meant it.”
Pulling the key from the doorknob, I pushed open the door and gestured Adele ahead of me. For a second, she just stared at me, her eyes roaming my face.
“You’re now cutting into the ten minutes, Miss Morello, and I don’t do well with people wasting my time.”
With a sigh, she pushed off the wall and brushed past me, much closer than was necessary. I managed to hold my breath, so as not to inhale any of her scent. I’d done enough of that the other night, when I’d licked up the side of her neck.
Walking into my small, cramped office, I didn’t give her another look until I’d made my way to the other side of my massive desk. She hadn’t sat in either of the chairs opposite from me, instead she kept her hands braced on the back of the one closest to the door. In no way was that particular position an accident, because it made her white shirt gap in a way that I could see straight into her cleavage. Far enough down, in fact, that with one quick glance I could see the black lace edges.
Same bra.
Of course she was wearing the same bra.
“Miss Morello, please take a seat,” I said, sounding exactly as annoyed as I felt. The sharp curve of her chin lifted a fraction, and she narrowed her green eyes in a way that I’m sure she thought was playful. All it did was ratchet my annoyance into surging anger at the fact that I was even in this fucking mess to begin with. All because I got into the wrong woman’s pants.
“I think I’m more comfortable standing, actually.”
“Suit yourself, I’ll make sure this doesn’t take too long.”
“Well, that’s a change from the other night.”
Bracing my folded hands on my desk, I leaned forward and met her gaze. “I’m not sure if you thought I was joking earlier about kicking you out of my class. I assure you that I’m not.”
Adele lifted both hands in mock surrender, then made a motion across her lips like she was locking a key. It was almost humorous, because we both knew—myself with startling, vivid memories—that Adele was not quiet.
“Thank you,” I said with a nod and settled back in my chair again. “Obviously I had no idea who you were last week. I don’t make a habit of frequenting that bar, or any other for that matter, and I certainly don’t make a habit of…” she lifted an eyebrow when I cleared my throat, “fraternizing with students. My point is that I’ll give you my word that one night will in no way affect my ability to treat you fairly as a student. I’ll forget it ever happened if you can do the same.”
What her reaction would be to that, I hadn’t really given much thought to, because it wasn’t a speech I was making for her benefit. I meant it. Adele Morello was one blip during the course of the last few years. I wasn’t willing to let her, and the few explosive hours we shared together, hold any level of importance over my life. She was young, probably twenty or twenty-one, and she’d find another diversion quickly enough.
Suffice it to say, I was mildly surprised when her reaction wasn’t to smile and nod, or make some cheeky comment. Oh no, she stared at me like she was trying to siphon my soul out of my body, and then turned in a smooth circle to quietly close and lock my office door.
Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.
She was one of those girls, one that any sort of challenge would be as good as waving the proverbial scarlet flag in front of the bull. And the look in her eyes when she turned back to face me?
I was fucked. Literally, if it was up to her, judging by the way she raked her gaze over my upper body.
“Unlock the door, Miss Morello.”
She hummed, drawing the tip of one finger around the top button of her shirt.
“Unlock the door,” I said quietly, keeping my eyes trained on her face. “Now.”
“No,” she said simply, unhooking the button and using her finger to pull aside the white cotton and trace circles on the newly exposed skin.
I rubbed at my forehead, the only sign of weariness I would allow her to see, then dragged the hand down my face, holding it over my mouth for a moment while I looked at her. “This isn’t a game.”
Still, she didn’t move from her perch in front of the door. Her face softened a touch when I said that, but the resolve in her eyes never wavered. Finally I stood, praying to anyone that would listen that I wouldn’t have to physically remove her from my office. But no matter how well I knew my hands fit on her body—on some really excellent parts, too—she was not worth my job.
I came to a stop just in front of her, motioning for her to step aside. She moved all right, stepping up against me and smoothing her hands up my chest. I grabbed her wrists to halt their movement, stupidly not taking them off me altogether.
“I don’t think it’s a game either,” she whispered, lifting up onto the balls of her feet so her mouth angled toward mine. I moved my head back when she came close enough that I could feel her breath on my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted and tightened at her proximity, and I felt horribly powerless at the memories that assaulted me from the last time we’d been this close, the way she’d clutched at my skin with her hands. “In fact, I’m being perfectly serious when I tell you that I couldn’t forget that night even if I wanted to. The way you felt inside me, the bruises that you left me with.”
I closed my eyes, tightening the grip on her fragile wrists, wishing I could shove bricks in my ears just so I wouldn’t have to hear those words, feel what they did to me. Adele felt my hesitation and tipped her face forward so she could brush her lips against the corner of my jaw.
The soft touch of her lips snapped me into the present and I shoved her far enough away from me so that I could unlock the door and open it. Thank God the hallway was quiet. She was staring down at the front of my pants with a sly smile on her face.
Come on, any man would be hard after that.
With a careless shrug, Adele slipped her bag over her shoulder and then closed up the button she’d undone earlier.
“See you in class, Professor Easton.”
And then she was gone.
Chapter Six
I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t let me kiss him.
Three days later and I was still hung up on the fact that he’d all but shoved me out of his office and slammed the door in my face.
I knew I hadn’t misread his clear attraction to me the Friday night before, and even as he told me to leave his office on Monday, there was no mistaking the bulge in his pants.
I plopped into my favorite seat of the campus coffee shop I worked at: in the back corner, away from the number of fuckwads who decided the shop was the perfect place to show off their pathetic attempts at flirting. In the back I was almost completely obscured by the napkin dispensers and therefore often left alone.
After I popped in earbuds and cranked up my study music, I settled into my seat, pen on paper. Loud, pulsing beats vibrated my cartilage and I paused every once in a while to absently thump my pen onto the paper, catching myself tapping my feet too.
I worked for maybe ten minutes before my thoughts strayed to Nathan. Which was how my entire week had been; intense concentration broken by a thought of him. I was particularly thrilled to find how focused and assertive he was as a professor, much like how he’d been in my bed, throwing me down, flipping me over; making what I expected to be a quick romp in the sheets more of an Olympic affair.
And as far as my sexual history went, he most definitely won the gold medal in orgasms. And a world record in taking them from me in quick succession.
My table shifted and a bag fell onto it, interrupting me from my thoughts. I looked up into Leo’s face as he shrugged off his jacket and set it on the back of the chair opposite me. I tugged on an earbud.
Pointing a finger at me, he asked, “Want a pumpkin latte?”
I made a face. “Gross. No.”
Grinning, he walked around to the counter. I heard the distinct giggles of one of the baristas, having fallen victim to Leo’s flirting. That was his power: his charisma. He used his charms to smoothly talk his way through any sticky situation. It was why we got along strictly as friends, because I possessed the same power, but I wielded mine with my tongue and not just with words, but with action, too.
My phone vibrated across the table and I picked it up.
Celeste: Mom would like you to come home for Dad’s birthday.
I took in a deep breath, willing my mother’s nagging voice away from my head.
Me: Well, I’m not. I have school work to catch up on.
Celeste: Already falling behind?
I imagined her saying that, her blonde hair delicately curled to rest upon her shoulders, her green eyes, echoes of mine, narrowed on me with a snide smile spreading her paper thin lips. And the visual was so close to reality that I shook it from my head and turned my phone on silent.
Rolling my eyes, I moved my eyes back to the paper, wholly uninspired. My eyes caught on the doodle I’d drawn during class. It was just a small sketch on the upper corner of my paper; a loose white blouse with taut lines from the weight of the eyeglasses that hung from the opening. I may or may not have embellished with the cleavage above it, not that I needed to.
Leo returned and unceremoniously deposited a cup in front of me, sending droplets spilling out of the mouth opening and over my notebook.
“What’s that?” I asked, eyes flicking from the cup to him as I rubbed the mess on my papers.
Leo leaned back in his seat, shrugged. “Try it.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth as I mulled it over before taking a tentative sip. Instantly, a spoonful of liquid sugar hit my tongue and I made a face. “What the fuck, Leo?”
“Salted caramel hot chocolate.” He shook his head. “Girls like that stuff!” he exclaimed, pulling the offending beverage from my hand.
“Not this girl.” I turned my face back to my paper and found myself tapping along again to the beat that came from the lone earbud still in my other ear.
“True that.” He drank from the cup he’d given me. “You’re right, this is sickly sweet.”
Teasing him, I said, “Like your girlfriend … what’s her name? Darlene?” I waved a hand at the cup. “I bet she’d like that liquid poison.”
“Darcy,” he corrected. “And she’s not my girlfriend, remember? We’re on a break.”
I snorted, flipped a page in my textbook. “Oh, that’s right. Who’s the tits-with-legs I saw you with Friday night? Darcy two-point-oh?”
“She’s no one,” Leo said flippantly. I gave him a look, the don’t-treat-women-like-they’re-a-drive-thru look. In and out, that was the Leo way. It was another reason we worked as just friends: because I would never take him seriously. He sighed, losing some of the gloat he’d come in with. “She didn’t give me her number,” he said. I resisted laughing, just barely. Leo seemed actually hurt by it. “She rubbed her body on me for hours, went to the bathroom and never came back. And I sat there like a little bitch, nursing my beers thinking she was coming back.”
“Aw.” I reached a hand across the table and rubbed his arm. “Cheer up, pumpkin. There are other fish in the sea, or whatever that nonsense is.” I flipped another page in the textbook, knowing studying was futile but giving it a shot anyways.
“What about you? Who was that guy you left with?”
My eyes didn’t lift from the page, but my body stilled. “Some guy.” Not lying. “I didn’t get his number, either.” It still stung a bit, knowing he’d left me without making plans to see me again. Which I knew was the reason I wasn’t letting him off the hook easily. That and the fact that I liked to watch him squirm.
“You were practically eating his face.” Leo pulled a textbook from his bag and dropped it on the table. My pen rolled off the table and Leo bent down to get it. “Are you going to the party this weekend?” he asked flopping the pen on my notebook, splattering ink everywhere.
“Damn it, Leo. Can you do anything gently?” I looked at my ink splattered paper, noting with swift disappointment the droplet that had smeared across my sketch. “What party?” I asked with little interest. I thought of my father’s birthday and felt like celebrating at a party, even when he wasn’t in attendance, was decidedly something I did not want to do.
“Delta Whatever-Their-Name-Is. The place where you puked in the refrigerator.”
“Ah,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m sure they’re eager for me to be in attendance.” I turned back to the ink-splattered page in front of me and frowned. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Come on, Add. Let’s go out. We haven’t gone out in forever.”
Roughly, I flipped to a clean page in my notebook. “Forever as in six days ago?”
Leo placed a large, tanned hand on my own, halting me from further movement. “That doesn’t count; we danced with other people and only saw each other for five minutes.”
“I’ll think about it,” I conceded, shaking his hand off of mine. “But if—and I mean if—I go, you’re not letting me do Jell-O shots again.”
“Come on, babe. You’re a wild animal; ain’t no taming you when your heart is set on something.”
Why did that thought make me think of Nathan? Certainly, I couldn’t deny my thoughts for him weren’t primal in a way that was alarming. I didn’t jump from man to man, I left them when I was done with them, when they were worn out and still wanting. That was what women wanted, right? To leave a man wanting more?
So why hadn’t Nathan wanted more?
