“Where is that?”
“Up in the foothills. On county land near Ashby.”
“How long does it take you to get home from here?” I ask, suddenly concerned she’s driving on her own, even though she didn’t drink much.
“It’s only a half hour, as long as there’s no fog.”
“Coffee might have helped,” I say with a flick of my wrist in the general direction of The Bean. “Sorry that didn’t work out.”
“Next time,” she says with a smile.
Without realizing I’m doing it, I find I’m leaning toward her. I catch myself and stop. But before I can pull back, she closes the rest of the distance and presses her lips hard against mine.
Any thought that I shouldn’t be doing this evaporates like fog in a stiff breeze at the taste of her mouth, moving hungrily on mine. She’s scotch and fire on my tongue as she devours me. Right or wrong, I’m powerless to stop her.
Her fingers run down my face to my chest as she opens her mouth wider, inviting me deeper inside. I take the invitation, tasting as much of her as she’ll give me. Her hands tug at the hem of my shirt and my breath catches when cold fingers meet my warm abs.
I press harder against her, drawing her closer, and fire rips through my veins as our tongues and hands explore the new landscapes of each other’s mouths and bodies.
But a shard of coherent thought finally manages to pierce the bubble I’ve constructed to justify what I’m doing. “You’re a student,” I say against her mouth.
Her lips skim to my ear. “I like you, Caiden,” she whispers, and her saying my name with that hot breath, that wet mouth, is nearly enough to break my resolve. “I like you a lot.”
I take her by the shoulders and gently peel her away, my heart hammering out African drumbeats against my ribcage. “You’re so damn incredible, but I can’t do this. It’s totally against university rules. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not my professor,” she says, her expression wounded. “If we like each other, I don’t see why it should matter.”
“I’m Dr. Duncan’s graduate assistant. My boss is your professor. It’s a conflict of interest, since I do most of his grading.”
“So you are conflicted.” It’s clear from the predatory shift her expression takes that she hears that I’m trying to convince myself as much as her.
I drop my head against the headrest. “I am.”
She leans closer again, her breast pressing against my arm through the thin cotton of her top. “I’ll never say anything. No one needs to know,” she whispers, her breath feathering over my neck and stiffening my cock.
My breaths are shallow pants, and I force my lungs to expand with my next inhalation. If I stay in this car with her, so close, I’m going to give in.
“Tonight was really amazing, but I need to get home,” I say, cranking the ignition and gluing my palm to the stick shift.
There’s a long minute that she doesn’t move. Finally, she leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek, then opens her door.
I watch her cross to her car, and when she pulls out, I crank a U-turn and head home. Where I jerk off to Arctic Monkeys with the vivid image of getting dirty with Blaire playing on a loop behind my eyelids.
Chapter 3
Blaire
“We finally did it yesterday,” my best friend Zoey tells me when she slips into the passenger seat of the Mini.
Her mom waves from the front door as we pull away from the curb.
“Who did what?” I ask and really try to pay attention to the answer.
I was off in space all weekend, putting the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the fridge. My mind won’t turn off, reliving kissing Caiden, planning all the other things I want to do to him.
Once I realized he’s as nervous about me as I am about him, the nerves melted away and things somehow became easy between us. We’ve got so much in common, from our love of literature, to our taste in music, to how he gets my poetry, to things I can’t even put my finger on, but feel enormous. Things having to do with how his touch makes my very DNA hum, and the way his glance causes poetry to leak from my soul.
But he’s got rules.
Zoey’s gaze blazes exasperation into mine as I turn the corner at the end of her block. I feel it like a deathbeam, breaking through my deflector shields. “We had sex, Blaire! I finally let Kevin fuck me.”
“About damn time. That boy’s had blue balls for months.”
She shoves my shoulder hard, causing me to jerk the steering wheel and veer us across the oncoming lane, which is thankfully empty, sideswiping the trashcans on the opposite curb. “You are such a bitch!”