If someone’s in there, I’m here to talk about my thesis.
He’s my advisor. This is perfectly normal and acceptable.
There’s no answer. I wait, shuffling my feet. After a minute, I knock again, but I’m pretty sure he’s not there.
It’s five after five, and I have a sinking feeling in my stomach.
He’s just late, I tell myself. Things happen. People run late.
I stand in the hall and wait. With every passing moment, I’m more and more aware that I’m naked underneath my skirt — not just naked but naked and soaking wet. I got so turned on thinking about this that my upper thighs are slick, but now I just feel like an idiot.
A panty-less idiot. It seems like it shouldn’t make that much difference, but standing here, I feel totally vulnerable, like anyone who walks by can tell that I was excited to have sex with my professor who’s stood me up.
Still, I wait until 5:30 to leave. The only people who walk by are other undergraduates, probably leaving their final exam of the semester. Thankfully, none of them look at me twice.
It’s completely dark when I walk back toward central campus, fighting back tears.
I feel like an idiot. I just stood in a hallway, waiting for someone who wasn’t coming, like a sad lost puppy or something.
Of course he’s not interested, I tell myself. He’s handsome and smart and rich, and having a relationship with you is dangerous for him.
You shouldn’t be surprised he didn’t show up. Not at all.
I keep walking, my breath fogging up in the cold air. Campus is emptier than usual, since a lot of people leave town the second their last final is over.
I’m heading toward home, but I don’t feel like going back to my apartment. Erica is going to be able to tell I’m bummed about something, and I don’t feel like making up an excuse right now, and God knows I can’t tell her the truth.
The student union is still open, the lights glowing from inside.
Fuck it. I’m getting a cupcake from the bakery in the basement. Because if ever there was a time when I needed a damn cupcake, this is it.
Chapter 12
Professor Sharpe
I glance at my watch again, trying to hide my agony.
This meeting was supposed to be over by four-thirty. Instead, it’s almost six, and I’m still here, in this windowless room in one of the campus buildings, listening to a matronly woman with short hair drone on and on about ethics violations.
I know why I’m here. My past, combined with the fact that my chair saw a naked picture of a girl on my phone last time we met — well, it’s a recipe for this sort of thing.
And if there’s one thing that interests Greg, the chair of the Classics department, it’s covering his ass with stuff like this. I’ll make sure we don’t get caught, but if we do, this way he gets to disavow all knowledge and point to all these meetings he had me attend.
“Therefore,” the woman drones on. “If you have any business interest in a property which you yourself may be researching, it would be in your best ethical interest to appoint...”
I’m not even listening. I don’t even need to be here for this part, because it’s about scientific research and patents, and I teach history, for fuck’s sake. I wish I could text Melody and tell her why I’m not there, that I haven’t stood her up, that the taste of her honey was all I thought about this weekend.
But texting a student I intend to fuck, while in an ethics meeting, would be pretty stupid, so I don’t. Instead I check my watch every thirty seconds until we’re finally released.
The moment I’m outside the building I turn down a little-used path toward a dead garden, pull my phone out, and call Melody. I know it’s a little dangerous, but I can’t stand that I stood her up.
She answers on the fourth ring, her voice already staticky.
“Hello?” she says, sounding very formal, and also very nervous.
God, the things I want to do to her.
“Melody,” I say. “I got stuck in a meeting that went late. Where are you?”
A long, staticky pause.
“Wh ... aited ... —ve thirty,” she says, her voice coming in and out. “I’m at .... n gold ... afe. But—”
The line goes silent.
“Melody?” I ask, my fingers closing hard around the phone.
I’m answered with three beeps, meaning the line is dead. I turn and survey campus, quickly going over the map in my head, trying to figure out what n gold cafe might mean.
I could wait for her to call me back, but fuck waiting. I’ve waited a week for this, I’m not waiting more.
Finally, my brain alights on the answer: the Blue & Gold Cafe. It’s in the basement of the student union .
It gets terrible cell reception.
And with that, I’m walking across campus as fast as I can.
Chapter 13
Melody
I look at my phone in my hand, the words CALL ENDED white on the black screen, and for a moment I just stare at it.
He didn’t stand you up, I think, and my heart does somersaults in my chest. He was in a meeting that went long. That’s all. It’s not you, he didn’t find someone better, it was just an accident.
I grin to myself, then bite down hard on one knuckle, trying to hide it.
“Hey,” says a voice behind me, and I turn. It’s a bored-looking girl with a nose ring and blue hair, a broom in one hand. “We’re closing in, like, five minutes, so...”
She trails off, looking at me, and I nod. I gather the half of a chocolate cupcake that’s in front of me, put my backpack on, and head out of the cafe and into the basement of the student union . The girl locks the door behind me.
I put a fingerful of frosting in my mouth, then start walking. I need to get out of the basement and call Professor Sharpe back, my heart already pounding with anticipation.
I’m up the stairs, through a lounge, and walking purposefully toward the big exit doors when I hear him, behind me, calling my name softly.
My heart leaps into my throat, and I turn.
Professor Sharpe is standing there, between study tables and ugly blue upholstered chairs, both his hands in the pockets on his peacoat. There’s no one else in the entire big room, and right then, I’m struck motionless.
“Melody,” he says again, and starts walking toward me.
Just the way he walks makes me feel funny inside. A classics professor — someone who can read and write ancient Greek — shouldn’t have this kind of self-assured, totally confident walk. He shouldn’t move toward me like he’s completely certain that I’ll be at his beck and call after he stood me up, but he does.
And I am.
“Professor Sharpe,” I say. I feel like the air around me is vibrating, I’m so nervous all of a sudden. Warmth is already flowing down through my body, and I’m incredibly aware that I’m not wearing panties all over again.
He closes in on me, standing a foot away, and just looks at me for a moment. I stand still, enthralled, not at all sure what to do or say. His face is unreadable but intense, and I’m totally certain of one thing: no one has ever looked at me like this before.
At last I look down, because we’re in public, and I’m a little afraid of what I might do if I don’t.
“I waited,” I say softly. “I wasn’t sure what to do, so I left.”
“I know,” his voice rumbles softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stand you up.”
Then he puts one finger under my chin and lifts my face until I’m looking at him. I swallow hard.
“But I’m going to make it up to you,” he says. His voice is still quiet, but there’s a self-assured smile, almost a smirk on his face, and it turns my insides into jelly.
I’m still holding a third of a cupcake, and Professor Sharpe glances down, then runs one finger through the frosting.
Then he lifts his hand to my lips, and I open my mouth before I can even think, slipping him inside.
I lick the frosting off his finger instantly and swallow, sucking at him before I run my tongue over the rough, slightly salty pad of his index finger one more time, just to make sure I get all the frosting off.
Professor Sharpe growls, the noise low and deep in his chest, and I look up at him.
Now I can read his face. It’s pure lust, just barely held back, and seeing it there in his eyes makes my pussy flood all over again.
I suck his finger into my mouth until my lips are at the first knuckle, and I swear he growls again as I lick him and suck him slowly, letting him draw his finger from between my lips.
As his finger leaves my lips, I reach my tongue out and give it one last long lick, relishing the feeling of his skin against my tongue, trembling for more.
Just as I do, I hear a door shut across the room.
I jump backward and turn away from Professor Sharpe. My face goes nuclear and I jam my hand into my coat pocket, bend my head, scratch my face, anything to make it seem like I wasn’t just sucking my professor’s finger.
Professor Sharpe casually puts his hands back into his pockets and glances toward the sound. A student — looks like an undergrad — walks across the big study room, heading for the door on the other side. He doesn’t even glance at us as we both watch him leave.
The moment he’s through the other door, Professor Sharpe turns.
“Follow me,” he says, and he doesn’t wait for an answer before he starts walking away.