He seems . . . upset.
“What happened to you?” I say, and it comes out angrier than I intended. I tell myself not to feel bad. Not after what he said to me tonight.
He’s carrying grocery bags, I notice now. One filled with what appears to be a loaf of French bread and cheese, and another stuffed to the brim with wine. I pretend not to notice the soft clank of the bottles as he sets them on the porch and runs a hand through his hair, before he digs into his pocket for keys. “I shouldn’t have done any of the things I’ve done to you, Harper. I apologize. For all of it. It will end now.”
My throat clenches so tight I can’t reply at first. It doesn’t seem to matter, though, because he doesn’t wait for an answer. He hoists his groceries once more and brushes past me, heading for the door, unlocking a bolt.
“What do you mean?” I finally manage.
He pushes the door open and starts to step inside. “From now on, I’ll be in full control of myself. I will be your professor, you will be my student. Nothing more.”
That finally jars me into motion. I cross the porch and catch the door before it can swing shut behind him. “That’s not what I want.”
It’s even darker inside his house. He makes no move to turn on a light, though. Just hovers in the hall beyond the door, those dark eyes inscrutable, though I can feel his gaze burning into mine. “You don’t know me, Harper. You don’t know what I’m capable of doing to people.”
The fire that’s been burning in my blood since this morning—since the first night I met him, if I’m honest—sings in my veins. A shiver runs through me. “Oh, I think I know that by now,” I reply. After all, if I clench, I can still feel the sharp ache in my ass from his slaps, the throb in my pussy where he fucked me this morning.
He shakes his head. “I’m not good for you. For anyone.”
I step up into his house and let the door slam shut behind me, so we’re both closed inside the dark, silent hallway. “If I wanted good for me, do you think I’d be screwing my professor?”
He moves. I can’t see him do it, but I can sense the air around us contract. Suddenly his warmth is close enough to radiate on my skin, and his breath ghosts across my forehead. If I close my eyes I can almost feel his lips. “Is that all you want, Harper? A good fuck?”
No, says my brain. What I want is to stop screwing the wrong people, to stop messing up my social life, to stop complicating everything because of my damn hormonal urges. I want to fuck, yes, but I also want to fuck the right person. The trouble is, he’s standing right here, right now, and he feels a whole lot like the right person when it’s just the two of us and this raging desire that boils between us.
So I tell him what I know he wants to hear. “Preferably a lot of good fucks, not just one, but yeah. That’s all I’m looking for.”
Liar.
Except it gets me what I really want. His lips close over mine, and then our bodies meld together, his hard, solid chest pressed flush against my soft breasts, his thick, strong arms nearly crushing my waist as he picks me up, lifts me to his height. I wrap my legs around his waist, moving on pure instinct, and still we don’t break our kiss. His lips are at odds with his body—he kisses gently, almost sweetly. At the same time, I feel his cock dig into my crotch where my legs cling to his waist. I grind my hips against him, and he exhales a soft moan against my mouth as his cock twitches.
Next thing I know we’re moving—he’s stronger than I would have guessed, carrying me easily across the foyer and into another darkened room. We half-fall half-collapse onto a couch, angled so he’s lying along my body, and our lips finally separate from the kiss.
“Be careful what you ask for, Harper.”
His steel-hard erection digs into my stomach where he lies along me, and I can’t help the sudden shiver that passes through me, though whether it’s from what he just said or just from hearing him say my name again, I’m not sure.
Doesn’t matter.
We barely take another moment to breathe before we’re pulling at one another’s clothing. His shirt flies off first, though he wrests mine off shortly thereafter. My bra follows, then I manage to unsnap his jeans and kick those down to his ankles. Finally, he lies back down alongside me, both of us completely naked for the first time. It’s too dark to see him, but my fingers trace his chest and the outline of his hard abs. Then I reach lower, brush my fingers along the length of his cock, silk-smooth and yet so goddamn hard beneath, thick and powerful. He jumps in my hands as I close my fists around him.
“You drive me so fucking crazy,” he murmurs against my neck before he kisses his way down my throat to my chest. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Ever since the confessional, every night . . . ”